Reading Challenge November Wrap Up

This post is a little later than normal, mostly because I completely forgot about it! Things have been so busy between Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up that even though I’ve still been reading, I have completely forgotten about this blog.

First this month, I completed Penelope, which started off terrible, got a little better, and then ended with a whimper. I honestly didn’t really get the humor. Maybe it was supposed to be satire. I’m not sure, either way – it wasn’t successful in its attempts at whatever it was. The bright pink cover caught my eye when I was following Ruby through Barnes & Noble. I’m also always somewhat drawn to things about Harvard for some reason (maybe due to Legally Blonde?) so the Harvard crest on the front was also eye-catching. I think I was expecting some light romantic comedy type stuff, and the book didn’t really deliver. Ok, let’s be real. I was expecting some form of Legally Blonde and got something completely different.

My next book was the November book club selection for my newest book club that I am not running. We read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I hadn’t read any of her books before, but now I think I will run out and read a bunch of them. It was really, really good. And as a bonus, it took place in Paris! I decided at the very beginning of the year that Paris would be my “place I’ve always wanted to visit” box, in order to avoid just reading a book with a lovely setting and thinking, oh I’ve always wanted to visit here, since five minutes ago. And Paris is kind of my thing – I’ve always wanted to go there. I’ve made it as far as Nice. Someday!!

For the play on the challenge list, I started with a play that I love – Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. I used WhatShouldIReadNext to figure out similar plays to that one. It spit out a whole bunch of them and a lot of them seemed really interesting, but I didn’t want to buy anything and the only one of the list that was at the library was Equus. Which I’d heard of, since Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) was in a recent staging of it. It was a short read, so I guess it had that going for it.

The last book I read in November was The Girl on The Train for my upcoming book club. I really enjoyed this book. I tried really hard to give nothing away in my review because I think that it’s most effective if you know nothing. One of the many podcasts that I enjoy, NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, recommended this book a few months ago and so I thought I would suggest it to the book club. I think the reactions were mixed, but I definitely feel positive about the book. Of course, it’s being made into a movie.

2 more boxes left!

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