Mique Reads

Format: Hardcover Category: A book in the backlist of a favorite author- #mmdchallenge ( Modern Mrs Darcy ) "I once had a book on the stars but now I don't. My memory serves but not stellar, ha. So I made up constellations. I made a Bear and a Goat but maybe not where they are supposed to be, I made some for the animals that once were, the ones I know about."       I read Peter Heller's newest novel, The River, for the #mmdchallenge (a book by an author who is new to you), and it was so good that I named Heller a new favorite author of mine. I had great expectations for The Dog Stars, and it did not disappoint. This is a post-apocalyptic novel with an elegeic tone. The reading experience, for me, was much like swimming in an ocean. The terse writing style with it's fragmented sentences and lack of quotation marks threw me off at first, but I quickly adjusted, and began to appreciate these choppy waves and how they are indicative of the broken and ...

http://shonnaslayton.com/grimm-read-2019-challenge/ I had to skip my blog post last week due to illness and then travel. This week's stories don't have much in common with each other, unlike last week's stories, but they each contain examples of wish-fulfillment. Requests/wishes, whether of a magical nature, or not, are unpredictable things which are fulfilled with varying results. The Gold-Children- A very poor fisherman catches a golden fish. The Golden fish makes a request of the fisherman. If he let's him go, he will grant the fisherman a castle with a magical food cabinet. The fisherman agrees. They both benefit from the Golden fish's wish. The fish gains his freedom, and the fisherman is no longer poor, but the fisherman is forbidden to tell anyone the secret of his success. If he does, he will lose everything. Well, his wife harasses him about it, and he finally tells her his secret, and he loses everything. This happens a second time. Upon being caught...

Format: eBook Category: A book by an author who is new to you- #mmdchallenge ( Modern Mrs Darcy) "On this side were only low hisses, a ticking and chirping, a simmering crackle like a million crickets, hellfire crickets, singing of apocalypse and char." Wow! I could not put this book down. It's a short novel, but it's intense! I expected to book to be a man vs nature story, but it's so much more than that. There is literary quality to this book that I did not expect. The character development, setting, and themes are incredibly well done. I don't want to give anything away. This novel had some twists that I did not expect, which is saying something, because I tend to figure out how these kinds of stories play out fairly quickly. I cried too, which was unexpected. I loved the descriptions, but I could have done with less description of the camping gear. I particularly loved the complex character development and how the friendship between Jack and Wynn ...

Format: eBook Category: a book outside of your (genre) comfort zone #mmdchallenge 2019 "Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape. "      I never would have picked up this book on my own. I do enjoy some sci-fi, but the kind that is more fantasy-based, and I won't turn down a good space opera. Star Wars , anyone? The Martian is outside of my comfort zone for two reasons. Firstly, it's about space travel, and not the fantasy kind. I tend to get bored with this subject because of how lifeless space is. I mean, I think it's interesting, but I don't want to spend hours reading about it. I remember, when I was a kid, I was the only person I knew that was bored with the movie, Apollo 13 . I did like Gravity , though. Secondly, it's heavily based on physics/chemistry, which are just different names for math. Don't give me beef on this, it's math. I was good at mat...

https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/2018/12/back-to-classics-2019_9.html?m=1

http://shonnaslayton.com/grimm-read-2019-challenge/ Clever Grethel- For once clever is not used ironically to describe a character in the Grimm's stories. In this story, Grethel, a cook, is very clever. She is also a glutton and a lush, and I was waiting for her to get her comeuppance, but I was quite surprised when her efforts ultimately succeeded. I kind of felt bad for the master and his guest, but Grethel's tricks had me laughing as well. Still, I think Grethel needs to learn a lesson. Just a thought: What if Clever Grethel is the same Grethel from Hansel and Grethel? The Old Man and his Grandson- Out of the mouths of babes...An old man is terribly neglected by his son and daughter-in-law. He's put in a corner and given little to eat, etc, while they feast in front of him. One day the little grandson is playing by making a trough for his parents to eat out of when they get older. This is a wake up call for his parents, who then begin to treat the old man with d...