Hi! I decided to join this challenge for many reasons and 50 books is as good as anywhere to start :)

Why I am doing this:
I don't seem to have the time to touch books anymore, and I really want to get back into it.

What books? Currently on the list (if I can get them here!) are:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Hood by Stephen Lawhead
The Prophecy by Chris Kuzneski
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (a re-reading)
Eldest by Christopher Paolini (a re-reading)
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
Magician by Raymond E. Feist
Plum Wine by Angela Davis-Gardner
The 8th Confession by James Patterson
Run for Your Life by James Patterson
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Will add more!

Message edited by its author, Nov 7, 2009, 9:35am.

Good choices - and good luck! Some of these are sitting on my TBR pile too, so I'll stop by and see how you're getting on!

Welcome, anivyl, and good luck with your challenge! Happy reading :)

You've got a great list going! Welcome to the group, good luck and have fun!!

thanks for the support guys :) I will definitely update this once weekly or so just so you can see how slowly I am trawling through them ^_^

update1: Completed: Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I really enjoyed this book, one of the first on my new kindle (yay!). To start with, the book was written in a rather unexpectedly tranquil way, even when it's touching on extremely sensitive issues. Even when i sort of know the ending, i still felt compelled to read to the end, to be sure that the end was DEFINITELY as tragic as i thought it might be.

love it!

currently multi-reading on the side: The Canal by Daniel Morris, Xenolith by A. Sparrow - both books from members giveaway

update 2: Completed: Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa

Ah, where do I begin? I got this book from the members' giveaway, I think. Was quite fascinated with the summary. I wasn't disappointed with the book, I quite like it really. However, I was looking for one major climatic moment within it and couldn't seem to find/feel it.

this is a story of a young girl living in the slums and her coming of age story that would have fitted what society expects from someone of her "class and status".

The story ends with many unanswered questions, the unhappy atmosphere of danger and sadness at the ugly loss of trust and innocence.

Update 3: Completed The Canal and Xenolith for Members' giveaway. While The Canal was somewhat intriguing towards the end, it's just a little too heavy at the beginning and feels like a poor price to pay for the ending that was given. Granted, though, it was a good twist.

Xenolith, though, is awesome. feels like 2 stories in one, a fantasy yet not a fantasy and kept me hungering for more. get it from smashwords! definitely worth your $2 and more! (although, for those who are just a little pedantic, there does appear to be quite a few spelling and grammatical errors.

Currently: Just finished Xenolith, still have about 20 books on the kindle to be plowed through ahhahaha I am enjoying this!

Just so folks know, another friendly Library Thing Early Reviewer provided me with 3 pages of detailed copy edit suggestions that I've since applied to Xenolith. The version that is now available on Smashwords should be much cleaner, and anyone who's downloaded Xenolith already can download the update for no charge.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now finished. Firstly, I know I am not quite following the list I put above, I just thought I should put them down so I know what I wanted to read. but, dear god, the number of books and titles I now want to read is increasing exponentially. it's crazy.

For people who like mysteries and good scares, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is it. I won't go into too much details because alot of it has to be experienced. On the good side, I love it. there's mini cliffhangers throughout the whole book, both mini and big twists and enough questions (raised by you as the reader) to push you along the whole book. It's heart pounding because of the cliffhangers, and plenty of jaw dropping thoughts lined throughout the book.

I absolutely fell in love with it. of course, there are very few books that I have chosen based on their summaries and recommendations that I would dislike, with the massive exception of Ian Irvine whom I still loathe - but I digress.

On the minus side, which isn't a big issue for me, it seems that they have found those books unpublished and just go "woah i see something good in it" and threw it into the publishing without too much editing. Granted that because it is a 3 book series, there should be plenty of descriptives involve so everything is easily fleshed out. At one point though, it did feel like it was information overload. There's also plenty of Apple vs PC references (main characters uses Macs while villians were stupid pc users HAHAHAAH) which I laughed to death about, and adore (as you can see, I am an Apple fangirl). There are many people who did complain about it though and the descriptions, much less the branding, was completely unnecessary.

Go love the book with me!

completed: Book 6!! (I am more tempted to call it book 1/5th of 6 really) Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris.

I picked up this book because I really enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse series, no matter how crazy/YA or whatever some people think it is. In a sense, I was both disappointed and not so disappointed.

Girl got hit by lightning, girl can now find corpses and feel the soul's last moments sans a few information. Goes around the country finding corpses for police/families and earns money like that with her brother.

In comes a case where a teen is shot and his girlfriend is missing. They found the body of the girlfriend too... and that should be the end right? I mean, Girl isn't even a police or detective by any stretch of imagination. but things kept happening to prevent them from leaving....

Pros: Fast paced book with an interesting idea. I mean, a character that have a 6th sense from lightning striking? ability to crazily defend herself, yet is dependent on her brother and is scared on lightning? I haven't quite decided if I like Harper as much as I like Sookie, especially harper's fear of lightning and her constant neediness pisses me off... I definitely do like the twist at the end with the story.

Yes I was half expecting the twist, but it didn't happen quite as I expected.

Cons: Like Sookie's universe, the language used here is very colloquial. there's nothing wrong with that but if you're looking for an in depth novel, this is definitely not it - although it stretches across a few books and therefore might pick up in that department.

Some of the story just wasn't "logical". She can sense a spirit, a soul, but she can't talk to them and neither would the spirits release more info on who killed them. Of course, if we follow along that "logical" line, then the story would have ended earlier and there would be nearly nothing to tell.

while it's technically a fantasy story, complete with the 6th sense, there's very few supernatural feel in the book. There's alot more about the complexities of relationships, failed relationships than there is about the other world.

Overall, I wasn't execting too much from the book much like I wasn't expecting much from Sookie series - but I love it for it's simplicity and just for the sheer joy of dipping my toes into a world that isn't my own.

Book 7 Completed: My Sister's Keeper

Life has many forms of unfairness, that sometimes when you look at baby's face, you wonder what have they done to deserved to be put down here. This book, fairly down to earth, tells the story of that from 6 people's point of views with one problem, no possible good ending - and an extra tragic one.

I was intrigued by the trailer of the movie, but I know movies can never be as good as the book itself - so I ended up getting the book instead. When I first started, I really hated the book. I hated it, not because of it's style or endless description that might not seem relevant (of constellations, of running away), but because the mother reminded me of someone that I wish I can deck.

And then the mother did something that changed my opinion in the last quarter of the book, not to mention things started happening in a direction that, while I knew of it, reading it set off an avalanche of emotions.

So I cried and cried through the last quarter and that is more than enough for me. This book evoked so much emotions by not saying too much directly, and that in itself is it's most beautiful quality.

book 8: Completed Her Fearful Symmetry

Well, I bought this book with high expectations due to the amount of publicity the local bookstores was giving it, not to mention that it was listed quite high in "books to read" and good reviews etc. I wasn't sure quite what I was expecting, except that there's meant to be some form of deep dark secret and it felt all creepy crawley.

The book started out slow with some portions of descriptives glossed over. It started out with the descriptions of the twins and their aunt, the main characters of the book, and setting the scene for the feeling of mystery. Firstly, with the weird will, secondly with the twins' physical differences and then with Elspeth (the aunt's) necessary haunting.

When the "deep dark secret" was revealed, I was disappointed. by about 30 pages before hand, it was starting to be apparent what it could be. yet, throughout the book, because there was no real closeness mentioned between the characters involved, the twist wasn't as shocking and surprising as it could be.

When the twist in the book happen (which is different from the secret), there was a horror of what happened but because it was so simplistically set out, the horror didn't last for more than a few pages.

and then, the ending of it all happened so quickly it was dissatisfying. or rather, it wasn't because it was quick as much as it was a huge anti-climax.

all in all, I wasn't happy with the book but... maybe it's someone else's cup of tea :)