Hi all! I hope you all had wonderful holidays (whether you celebrate Christmas or not) and made it to the new year healthy and happy!
For my first post of 2017, I am checking in for the Semi-Charmed Winter 2016 Reading Challenge, which I completed yesterday, managing to finish my final book while waiting for a delayed flight. Here’s what I read since the last time I checked in:
20 points: Read a modern retelling of a classic.
I read Splintered by A. G. Howard, with the classic being Alice in Wonderland. This book is kind of a mixture of sequel to Alice in Wonderland (the main character is a descendant of Alice who goes back to Wonderland) and a retelling of the original (the story discusses the original book as if it were real and C.S. Lewis had just misunderstood/got things wrong, and so retells the story as it “really” happened in this particular world). I thought this book was just okay. The discussion of mental illness was awful – for a supposedly modern-day story the treatment seemed very old-fashioned and harsh. The love triangle was unnecessary, Morpheus was such a caricature of “bad guy” that I couldn’t take him seriously most of the time and Jeb annoyed me from the very start. But the actual writing was good and the reinterpretation of Wonderland was imaginative and interesting. I gave this one 3 stars.
30 points: Read a book with a character that shares your first or last name.
Thanks to fellow blogger Jamie I was actually able to find something for this! I read Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen. Interestingly, the character named “Beverly” (not my spelling, but oh well) is actually male in this book, which Beverley was before someone, somewhere decided it sounded more feminine. This was a quick read and nothing particularly special. I liked the descriptions of the scenery on the island and the changing relationships between the four main characters. The storyline with the two husbands annoyed me though – both couples had been having problems, but the minute the husbands appeared on the island all the wives wanted to do was have sex and forget anything else had ever happened. Uhh, no! Apparently this is a modern retelling of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin (which I had never heard of!) so I may give that one a go. Enchanted August gets 3 stars from me.
30 points: Read two books: a nonfiction book and a fiction book with which it connects.
I had started reading The Once and Future King for this, but I realised that will be one I need to pick up and put down a lot over a longer period of time so I changed my mind. Instead I read The Asylum by John Harwood (fiction) and Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catharine Arnold (non-fiction). The connection is asylums, or mental illness, or treatment of mental illness in Victorian times. You pick!
I really enjoyed The Asylum. It’s a little sensationalist maybe and there are a lot of events crammed in at the end with lots of complicated links between characters and weird coincidences. But while reading it I had no problem with suspending my belief and taking all the action at face value. Despite the subject matter (person incorrectly imprisoned in an asylum), it’s a surprisingly fun read and I got through it pretty quickly. 4 stars.
Bedlam had some interesting information and provides a starting point for people who want to know about Victorian treatment of mental illness and the history of asylums, but overall I felt like the author had tried to fit too much subject matter into a short book. Just as I started to get interested in something that topic was finished with and it was on to the next one. Particularly the final case studies and discussion of madness in literature section felt rushed and incomplete. 3 stars.
And that’s it. Done! Erin’s latest book challenge started on 1 January so I will be moving on to that now, starting with The Secret by the Lake by Louise Douglas.
Oh, and speaking of reading challenges, I’ve set my Goodreads goal for this year as 78.
What reading goals have you set yourself for 2017? Will you be taking part in any challenges?
Confuzzledom 
Congrats on finishing the challenge! I haven’t set myself any goals this year, I just set my GR challenge to 1, so I could keep track of the books I read in the year, but nothing else. Maybe I’ll change it later to a different number but I don’t mind.
All I have is a shelf of books that I’d like to get to this year, I think it’s about 40 books, so I will be nice and busy!
That is a lot of books! You’ll definitely be occupied for a while 🙂
Happy new year!
I love the idea of a book challenge like this one, it’s a really interesting concept. However, on my last birthday I promised myself I’d read all the unread books on my shelves before my next birthday. I have 29 to read in the next 8 months, which doesn’t sound a lot but when you consider I only read 17 books in the whole of last year, it’s going to be a challenge for me!
Happy reading 🙂
I try to fit books I already have on my bookcase into the categories, but usually end up buying more anyway 😉
I failed my Goodreads challenge spectacularly! I will check the latest challenge out now though!
I like to take my time reading so I set my target for 30 on Goodreads. I also don’t read as much as I would like to. I’m doing the Popsugar challenge.
This is my first time that I’ve participated in Megan’s challenge and just failed. I started strong with 5 books read in the first month. Then, I had other books checked out from the library, but just never picked them up to read. They are books I want to read, but I just found myself grabbing something else. Oh well. I’m always one that says that I participate in books challenges to encourage my love of books. If I find it becoming a chore, then I just need to let it go. So, I’m letting this challenge go this time around!
Well done, you, for kicking ass, as usual.