For this semester’s book challenge, please leave each book you finish in the comment section of this post.
Include title, author, genre and one or two sentences about the book and whether you liked it.
You may also link the book to your student blog!
I am currently reading the Chicken Keeper’s Problem Solver by Chris Graham. It is about 100 problems a flock in your backyard or you might face. For everybody interested in chicken it is a great book, it doesn’t only help to solve the problem but also calms you down. How would you feel if you watched your hen just catch a mouse?! Of course I prefer reading fantasy books, but as I have to read a non-fiction book it also is great lecture.
I just finished reading “Wishful Drinking” by Carrie Fisher. It’s her biography and I love the way how simple and funny she describes her deepest problems. She writes about being an alcoholic and addict but keeps being sarcastic,funny and totally honest. I think this book was the best choice I could make:)
I just finished ” Red Queen” which has been written by Victoria Aveyard and it’s a novel. Personally I don’t get the hype , it’s not that bad but I didn’t enjoy reading it at all.So after I’ve read the first book of the volume , I won’t buy the secound and third one , maybe I’ll finish the volume in the summer holidays. 😇
I am currently reading “Therapy”, written by Sebastian Fitzek. It is a Thriller and I really like it. It is about a therapist whose daughter disappears without any trace and he tries to find her.
In my opinion the writing style is not easy to read, sometimes I have to reread a sentence before going on, but as the Story is so thrilling I love this book. I hope to finish the book this weekend:)
I am curently reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis which is a Thriller. It is written from the murderer perspective and it is really scary. I would not recommend it to people who are very sensitive because the killing scenes are written in detail. But it is really thrilling and interesting. Sometimes i felt like a Psycho myself just reading it…I hope that I am finally able to finish till next week.
I am currently reading Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. I have to admit that I already read that book, but after reading the second part, Glass Sword, I had such a book-hangover, that I couldn’t wait until Feburary when the third book, will be on market, so I decided to reread it. It is still great, no gorgerous, but the funny thing about reading it the second time is, that you already know what’s coming next, and what Mare, the main protagonist, expects. These always are two different worlds colliding. Except for maybe Glass Sword the best read I ever had!!!
I just finished reading Stargirl by Jerri Spinelli. It is a very cute book about an unusual girl that comes to quiet Mica High School. She is completely different and is very unpopular at the beginning. But with the time the other students like to have her around. Until Leo tries to make her more normal… I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. Not because it was very thrilling or tragic. I just wanted to know more about this mysterious girl and her story.
So I´ve just finished reading WarHorse by Michael Morpurgo, and I really like the approach he takes to visualise the cruelties of WW1. In the book you see all the cruelties, but not from the view of a human but the view of a horse. I really liked it and recommend it to anyone how wants to see war from a different perspective.
For our reading challenge I add the novel “Push” by Sapphire [realistic fiction] as well as “The Reapers are the Angels” by Alden Bell [fantasy; post-apocalypse] and I’ll finish my graphic novel this week. So far I enjoyed all three texts for different reasons.
I have just finished reading “Love letters to the dead” written by Ava Dellaria. The whole book is written in letters, which a 15 year old girl, whose sister died, writes to dead people. Those dead people are for example Amy Whinehouse, Kurt Cobain or Elizabeth Bishop.
I really liked the book though I have to say that in my opinion it was too sustaining. The one thing which the reader wants to know stretches over the whole story and in the end I was disappointed, because it was not as interesting and tragic as I thought it to be. Nevertheless I could not stop reading and stayed up late in the evening yesterday, to finish the book.
I am finally (the book had about 45 pages, where half them were always illustrated) done with Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, which were great fun reading, but still meant to be for children. Roald Dahl wrote a new version of the most well known fairy tales (such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cindarella or The Three Little Pigs) and had some great ideas. In Cindarella for example the prince leaves Cindarella’s shoe for a moment unattended, whilst one of the ugly sisters exchanges it for hers and flushes Cindarellas down the toilette.
The next book I just finished was Queen Song by Victoria Aveyard. It is an additional book to the Red Queen series and describes the life of Queen Coriane. The first ten pages are a little hard to read (they are about Coriane’s books and a funeral), but then the lovestory between her and the crown prince beginns. The whole book is generally sad, for you actually acompany Coriane to her death, still it is worth reading, to understand the whole series a little better.
Last week I finished two books and now I want to add them to the 222 books challenge list.
The two books are both thrillers and both written by the same author, Sebastian Fitzek.
The first one, “Therapy” is in my opinion not really a thriller, because of a lack of suspense. The ending is also very unsatisfying. Besides that I liked the story and idea of the book, though I thought it would be more trembling.
The second one “The Eye Collector”, is as it says in the title a very gruesome book, which I have to say really liked.
The story is so enthralling I could not resist but finishing the book in one day. I would recommend it to anyone who loves thrillers and has strong nerves! 🙂
I just ended the book And Tango Makes Three written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It is a very short story you would tell three year old children before going to sleep, but despite our age it still is somehow cute. It is about a gay penguin cupple who want to get a baby penguin. I would recommend the book to anyone needing books for the 222-book-challenge, but also to those who simply want to enjoy a short escape from reality.
Having read the very last page I am sure you got that this is not escapism, but reality: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/08/usa.gayrights
Furthermore I believe you finished the book. The narration was “ended” by another – namely, the author.
I have finally finished American Psycho and I am relieved that I did not turn into a total crazy person. Although it made me kind of sick reading all the detailed homicides and gross torments I kind of think that the the book was interesting to read. Not because of the content itslef but because you get an idea how such a person is. It gives you the chance to have a little peak into the everyday-life of a Psycho and it kind of scared me that acually some humans are really like this. It dirsturbes me a little bit but anyways. I would not have read this book if it was not for the 222 Book challange but now that I am finished I woulld recommend it to everybody who likes thrillers and does not have a problem with horror scenes…
And I would like to add Snapshots of a girl by Beldan Sezan and Railhead by Philip Reeve. The first one is a graphic novel by a German writer of Turkish descent. It wasn’t what I had expected and some of the fonts were a bother. The second was a fantasy YA novel, in which the author actually bothered to create something original: a multiverse full of different life forms and rules, futuristic although connected by a great net of railways, who were designed by the gods. The writing style was as intruiging as the general conception. Some chapters, however, seemed to drag on a bit.
“The Great Network is a place of drones and androids, maintenance spiders and Station Angels. The place of the thousand gates, where sentient trains criss-cross the galaxy in a heartbeat.
Zen Starling is a petty thief, a street urchin from Thunder City.
So when mysterious stranger Raven sends Zen and his new friend Nova on a mission to infiltrate the Emperor’s train, he jumps at the chance to traverse the Great Network, to cross the galaxy in a heartbeat, to meet interesting people – and to steal their stuff. But the Great Network is a dangerous place, and Zen has no idea where his journey will take him.”
I would like to add two books to the list.
“Thirteen Reasons why” by Jay Asher and “The Cake book” by Jamie Oliver.
The book Thriteen reasons why is about a girl, who comitted suicide. Before her death she recorded 13 audiocasettes, which describe people, who are at the same time a reason, why she killed herself. Those casettes are passed on from person number one to person number thriteen. Nobody than those people knows about these cassettes.
The only suspense in the book is, that the narrator, who is a person on the cassettes, wants to know which number he is. Till then I was really intersted in knowing, but after I knew it the book was in my opinion not interesting anymore.
The Cake bookby Jamie Oliver, has more than 50 recipes for cupcakes and cakes in it and I think all of themare delicious. I tried one of them, namely the “Raspberry & coconut cupcakes”, which came out quite well, though I did not make the buttercream icing. I have to say, that I did jot know some of the ingredient names such as “currants” which ae Johannisbeeren or “ground cloves” which are gemahlene Nelken. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to make cupcakes, but also wants to try out some new ingredients.
I just finished “reading” Snow White by Matt Phelan. There wasn’t much to read because there were mainly pictures without any text so I didn’t like the book so much. The content was easy and the drawings a bit confusing. All in all I think graphic novels in this style aren’t my cup of tea:)
I want to add three books to the list, which I finished to read this week.
The first one is the biography of Malala “I am Malala”. The book won a number of prices and tells the story of the 19-year old girl Malala Yousfazai, who stood up for women’s rights in her homeland Pakistan. I had many expectations in this book, as it won many awards and I have not heard a bad word about the biography. Therefore, I was enthusiastic to start and read it, but even after the first ten pages, I knew that I did not like the book. She started by telling the story of her life, where she was born and has lived for the most of her life and goes on by describing the biography of her father and her mother, which I have to say does not bother me. Furthermore, she includes many historical features of Pakistan, which would be fine if it was relevant. However, in my opinion, there were too many of them and some, like when the country was founded, are irrelevant for her story. I got bored when reading and really had to push myself to go on with the book. In the end, I have only read 150 pages of the 300 pages, so half of the book. However, as Fr. Professor Waldhauser agreed with this, I now can nevertheless count it as one read book.
The second book is “Deep Dark Fears”, which is a comic book of around 100 pages. I choose this book, as I hate reading books with pictures inside and this one is really easy and quick to read, so I do not have to spend so much time on reading something I do not like, but can focus on my other books. The comic describes irrational fears, which people have sent to the author. He then drew pictures of the fears and put them together in this book. There is not much to say about it, because there is not really a story behind it, but I got amused by some of the funny fears people had.
The last book is “Selection”, the first book, by Kiera Cass. I have already read all the five books in German, but as many friends of mine recommended me to read it in English, I decided to do so. I loved it as much as I love all the other ones! It was easy to read and I finished it within two days.
With these three books, I am now finished with my part of the 222 books challenge! Anyway I have other books at home, which I, if I may, add to the list in the near future.
I just finished the graphic novel “Dr. Horrible and other horrible stories” by Zack Whedon. It is some sort of a combination of several short stories forming one main content. It is about a city with many villains, such as Dr. Horrible, and super heros, such as Captain Hammer, trying to defend each other. I’m no great fan of comics, graohic novels,…, but reading through this book was no pain as such. I have to admit it made me smile at some points.
Last lesion I have begun and finished “slothlove”, a touching book about sloths that give the protaganist a meaning in life, after her father had died. It has loads of pictures in it and besides the plot you get useful information about sloths in general. I really loves it and would recommend it to everybody who loves cute animals:)
I would like to add the book “Sharp Objects” by Flyy Gillian to our 222 book challenge. I have finished it the second time about one month and loved it. It is a thriller with the protagonist as a journalist who is researching in a murder. Therefore she visits her hometown and is confronted with her past and there she gets involved into the crime. This book is very thrilling and I would recommend it to everybody with steady nerves.
I finished my part of the challenge today by ending The Crown by Kiera Cass. I absolutely love this book and must say I couldn’t help but cry at some points.
Congratulations on finishing: Great job! Glad you liked the book so much. Would you recommend the Selection series as a whole? The author seems to be quite popular in our class 😉
I just finished rereading Glass Sword,the sequel to the fantasy novel Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. After Mare finds out that she is not the only so called “Newblood” (a person with red blood, but having an ability like silverblooded people) she tries to find more people like herself. As king Maven wants to detect and kill all Newbloods, too, Mare has to hurry and besides that hide wherever she can. She is the most wanted person in the whole kingdom! The book is great, probably the best I’ve ever read, but still my least favorite. I guess this is because of the last two words: “I kneel” and as a reader you know exactly what that means…
I have just finished the graphic novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The plot revolves mainly around a guy named Guy Montag who is a fireman in the future and he does the actual opposite of firemen today-he sets fire to burn books. Books are strictly prohibited. Montag begins to question society. This book is a literally great for everybody. Few pages but a huge content…
One week ago I was finally able to finish Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk. It was a hard and long path for me to go, because for me his book was so tiring, confusing and gross at the same time. I was told that it is a classic but I am just not able to understand how people can spend their time reading something like that. However I finished it anyways.
Some weeks ago I managed to finish the graphic novel “poor old uncle scrooge” which I definitely recommend reading when you are bored due to its unique way of entertainment. Futhermore it is ideal for short trips. Moreover is the collection of short stories an easy read for everyone who also doesn’t like heavy lectures.
About a week ago I finished “The Tarantula In My Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets” by Jean Craighead George. She writes about the experiences her family and she have been through. The book is divided into many short chapters each telling the story of a (or more) specific “pet”. I didn’t find the book very interesting, of course most of the stories are nice and funny, but for me there is not enough action (nearly none) involved.