Reading Challenges and Etc

I seldom sign up for them.  I always plan to, especially over at Wendy, Super Librarian.  But as soon as I do, I start to feel the pressure.  I'm very much of a mood reader and say the challenge is to read a Western, though I adore the genre, as soon as I know I'm supposed to read one, any urge to completely disappears. 

This is the same with any romance genre there might be.  But the one challenge I do enter every year is the one on GoodReads.  I like this one because the only parameter is the number of books to read a year and the reader gets to set the number.  I've been taking part 3 or 4 year now and every year I've made my target and then some.  So the next year I up it again.

But this year I've been slow to record and up until today had only added ONE book even though I challenged myself to read 120.  By April 8 I was way, way, way behind.  But working on a Sunday evening when there is nothing to do to keep my busy, I've decided I have to try and get caught up.  Thankfully I've been recording the books I've read so far and have written a number of reviews so it's just a matter of copying and pasting.  Thank goodness for copy/paste.  I'm hoping that before I go home tonight, unless work gets busy, I should have all of January's books in.  Then it won't look such a sad and lonely number - One is the loneliest number or so the song goes.

~~~~~~~

While not an author,  I couldn't help but think of the importance of grabbing the reader right out of the gate.  I just finished writing a review for a book for The Good, The Bad, The Unread where I do reviews (even in my darkest days and not blogging here I still kept my food in the water).  The book in review started off with a bang!

"There was a pause. Then the man’s voice came again, dark and cold. Look, Evie Bates, I realize this is probably bad news, but I’m about to go beat your boyfriend to a pulp.
For a second, the words didn’t compute. “Who is this?” I nearly shouted, standing up in the dark in my old pajama top.
“It’s going to be bloody. I just thought I should warn you first.”
……
“Yeah”, the man said. “I thought so. Bring bandages, a towel, maybe a mop.” Then he hung up."

 

Right from that paragraph on, the book had me.  I couldn't not keep reading and the book turned out to be a real keeper of a romance.

Now contrast that to the book I'm currently reading.  The heroine accepts a marriage proposal but no one than her mother thinks she and the fiancé are a good match.  The hero - NOT the fiancé - has been thinking of heroine off and on for a while but has done nothing.  Heroine and her sisters go to try on engagement party dresses.  At the engagement party the heroine introduces hero and finance and then goes off.  And so on and so on and so on.  Now the books has some good reviews so I'm going to keep reading, at least for a while, but I couldn't help comparing the two different openings and I can tell right away which one will be getting the highest grades.

Well, that's all the brain has for right now so I'm headed back to GoodReads.

Oh, and one more things.  I'm trying to wean myself off CNN.  I even had it on the radio to listen to when out driving but now I've changed the station back to Pulse FM.  And I've started car dancing again when I pull up to a light and a good tune is one.  It's been ever so long since I did a good car dance.

'til later