50 Book Challenge

Aww, wee Noodles. Bless. <3

Well, this is embarrassing. My last (and first for the year) 50 Book Challenge update was in May! I think it's safe to say I will not be hitting my goal this year. I don't know what went wrong - I think it might be too much choice making me paralysed with indecision. I have picked up dozens and read 10 or so pages and then thought, "Nah", and put it aside. It's so much easier to watch television. Every weekend I resolve to spend an entire afternoon reading but every time I start I end up dozing off within a few pages. I'm not getting much reading done but I am getting a lot of naps!

8. Fever of the Bone - Val McDermid
Um, I don't even remember what this was about. Tony Hill being weird. Some creepy serial killer. Tony's fraught relationship with chick cop whose name escapes me right now. I want to say Hermione something but I think that's the name of the actress who plays her in the TV show. Anyway, as with all Val McDermid books I probably devoured it in a night and was disappointed by the ending.

9. Apartment 16 - Adam Nevill
American small town girl inherits swish London flat from eccentric great aunt. Creepy goings on in the building all pointing to a long empty flat that used to be occupied by some Aleister Crowley like weirdo. This book dragged a lot. The bones of a good story was there but it was way too long and huge chunks of it were really boring. The ending was annoying too. Where have all the good book editors gone? I get that Stephen King can ramble on as long as he likes now because he's rich and famous and can call the shots, but this is a first novel and somebody should have been well ruthless with it.

10. Tampa - Alissa Nutting
Did you ever have a book that you wished you could unread? Well, this is that book for me. I read it because I dismissed it as kiddie porn for the 50 Shades crowd and Clementine Ford (I think) told me I was being unfair. Okay, gave it a go. Guess what - it's kiddie porn for the 50 Shades crowd. Gross and creepy and not in a fun way. And yes, I get that it's meant to be some kind of social satire, but it's really not a very good one.

11. Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
Um. I cannot for the life of me recall what any of the stories were in this book. Oh, wait - there was one about a housewife who finds out her husband is a serial killer, and another about a writer who gets revenge after being raped and left for dead on the side of a deserted road. I think all of the stories were readable and okay, but obviously nothing really jumped out at me like the ones in, say, Different Seasons or Four Past Midnight.

12. Miss Minimalist: Inspiration to Downsize, Declutter and Simplify - Francine Jay
It's a blog in book form. This is a trend that has gone way beyond tedious. It's commonsense stuff about decluttering and not collecting useless things and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but that's okay. It cost me $1, I think. I can live with that.