Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Less than 2,000

Created by The Broke and The Bookish in June 2010 and moved to The Artsy Reader Girl in Jan 2018

Books I Loved with Fewer than 
2,000 Ratings on Goodreads

This is such an interesting topic. I hope I have at least 10.


 
 
 
 


I had more than I thought I would! I was surprised by some, but not so much by others. I do read some obscure things now and then. The comic books and graphic novels need more love on Goodreads!

Pioneer Book Reading Challenge

One of my local independent book stores is doing a reading challenge this year. My friends and I are participating, and I'm really excited to talk about the books we check off our challenge.

2019 Reading Challenge:

First book in a series

Man Booker Prize Winner or Nominee

Book by a Female Author

Book Recommended by a Friend or Family

Newbery Award Winner or Honor

Pioneer Book Employee Pick

Book by an African-American Author

Book from the Self-Help Section

Book by an Author You've Never Heard Of

Oprah's Book Club Selection

Publisher's Weekly Bestseller from 1960s

Book by a Nobel Prize Winning Author

Book with a Red Cover

Play or Screenplay

Book from the Poetry Section

Collection of Short Stories

National Book Award Winner or Nominee

Book from the Nature/Ecology Section

Book from the New Arrivals Display

Book You've Never Heard Of

Book Set in or Written About Your Home State

Publisher's Weekly Bestseller from the 1970s

Pioneer Book Customer Pick

Pulitzer Prize Winner or Nominee

Book from the Biography Section

Book by an Author Born Over 100 Years Ago

Book from the US History Section

Book from the Sports Section

Book with a Strong Female Lead

Book Published the Year You Were Born

Book Involving the Ocean

Nonfiction Book You Probably Disagree With

Publisher's Weekly Bestseller from the 1980s

Book Translated to English

Hugo or Nebula Winner or Nominee

Book from the Westerns Section

Book from the True Crime Section

Christmas or Holiday Book

History of a Foreign Country

Book with 500+ Pages

Book from the Science Section

Book from the Bestsellers Display

Book Set in or Written about Utah

Publisher's Weekly Bestseller from the 1990s

Some of these are going to be real challenge to read. If you notice, they want the people doing the challenge to come into the store a lot. They probably want us to buy all these books, but I'm just going to get books from the library.

If you complete the challenge, you get a $50 gift card to the store.

How I Became a Spy

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

From Goodreads:    From the award-winning author of The Great Trouble comes a story of espionage, survival, and friendship during World War II. 

Bertie Bradshaw never set out to become a spy. He never imagined traipsing around war-torn London, solving ciphers, practicing surveillance, and searching for a traitor to the Allied forces. He certainly never expected that a strong-willed American girl named Eleanor would play Watson to his Holmes (or Holmes to his Watson, depending on who you ask).

But when a young woman goes missing, leaving behind a coded notebook, Bertie is determined to solve the mystery. With the help of Eleanor and his friend David, a Jewish refugee--and, of course, his trusty pup, Little Roo--Bertie must decipher the notebook in time to stop a double agent from spilling the biggest secret of all to the Nazis.

From the author of The Great Trouble, this suspenseful WWII adventure reminds us that times of war call for bravery, brains and teamwork from even the most unlikely heroes.

My Thoughts:

-    This was a fun story, but I don't have much to say about it.

-    I liked that the book was a mystery and historical fiction. It was fun to see WWII from a younger perspective.

-    I really liked learning about different codes and how to decipher them.

-    The relationship between Bertie and his dog is really cute. 

-    The story starts out slow, but it gathers interest along the way.

-    I think this was a fun and cute story, and I think the target audience will have a lot of fun with it. 

Glass Sword

Goodreads Synopsis:    If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

My Thoughts:

-    I thought the momentum from the first book would carry on throughout the second book, especially with how things ended in Red Queen. Sadly, this one moved slower. The urgency and thrill wasn't there.

-    Most of the book is about Mare searching for more new bloods like her. It was interesting, but there wasn't a lot to move the story along. 

-    Mare was a jerk for most of the story. I didn't like the way she treated Cal, Kilorn, her family, and everyone else. There wasn't a lot of character growth from anyone. 

-    The repetition got really annoying. Mare's monologues in her head were long winded, and sometimes I just wanted to smack her! You are the lighting girl! I get it! You don't have to say it ALL the time!

-    Despite my complaints, I'm still enjoying the story a lot. There were still a lot of great scenes, and I'm excited to continue the series.

January Stats

Books Read:  7

  

  

DNF:  1

Pages Read:  1,598

1 Star:  0

2 Stars:  0

3 Stars:  2

4 Stars:  2

5 Stars:  3

I didn't read as much as I wanted to this month. My friends got me hooked on knitting, so that has taken up a lot of my free time. I'm trying to do audiobooks while knitting, but Netflix is so darn tempting.

I read some good books in January. I've never read an Agatha Christie book before, and I really liked it. I'm hoping to read more soon.

Goal Progress:

Goodreads says I'm 6 books behind schedule. I'm not too worried. I have time to catch up.

4 of the 7 books came from the stack of books on my night stand, so that is a big win!

I didn't read any Newbery books, whoops!

Elliot and the Pixie Plot is a re-read, but I'm not counting it since I read it with and for Gnome.