BW32: Unrelatable, Unlikable, Unreliable Characters, and/or Unnamed

 

Happy Sunday! I've read many books with unrelatable, unlikable,  or unreliable characters as well as narrators that were unnamed. They are books I love to hate. Books that make me mad at the characters, their actions, or their storyline in general.  But, unable to put them down, because I want to know how they end. Do the characters redeem themselves in the end? Yes, no, maybe.  Do I want to throw the book across the room? Yes, no, maybe.  Reading is an experience! 

When it comes to the unreliable narrator, the first rule of reading is to not read anything more about it than a brief description. All the charm in this genre is surprise so you must be diligent in avoiding spoilers.   

Jessica Strawser's The Last Caretaker  started out with good intentions then went down the wrong path in dealing with domestic violence, vigilante justice and solving problems without the authorities.  

Leslie Wolfe's The Surgeon when a cardiac patient died under mysterious circumstances and the lead characters were involved in abuse, adultery, blackmail, and decided vigilante justice without the police was the best solution. 

The unrelatable character you may or may not grow to love such as Lisbet in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or MacKayla or Jericho in the Dark Fever Series.  

Then you have the unnamed characters which really don't make any difference when the story pulls at your heartstrings or haunts you until the end such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road  or Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. 

Reading Flawed Protagonists: Relatability Versus Likeability

Unlikeable Characters Books

Love to Hate Them: Books with Unlikable Main Characters

30 Books With Unreliable Narrators

10 Books With Unnamed Narrators

Have fun! 

BW31: Authors of the Month Julie Caplin and Truman Capote

 

Happy August! This will be a busy month for us as August is full of birthday and anniversary celebrations within our extended family.  This week, my nephew shares his birthday with Herman Melville, My son shares his birthday with Guy De Maupassant, another relative with Alfred Lord Tennyson.  Though I doubt I could get any of them to read the respective author they share birthdays with. LOL!

Our contemporary author for this month is Julie Caplin who write international gastronomic cozy romantic fiction all over the world and her books, of which I've read several are absolutely delightful and wonderful palate clearers. 

Our Literary Legend is Truman Capote aka Truman Streckfus Persons who wrote In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany's as well as other novels and novellas.  I have Breakfast at Tiffany's in my stacks to read. 

Our letter of the week is V which stands for Vampires, Victorian, Vegetarianism, Victuals, Video Games, Vikings, and Virtual Reality. 

Happy Reading! 

BW30: Whatever

 

Happy Sunday! Yesterday was National Tequila day which means we did our part and made frozen Margaritas. Taste test wise, I prefer Dwayne Johnson's Teremana over Sieta Leguas whereas Hubby liked the latter.  He always did have more expensive taste. LOL! 

This week we celebrate All or Nothing Day, National Love is Kind day which  brings to the forefront the issue of domestic abuse and putting a stop to it, National Milk chocolate day, International Tiger Day, International Day of Friendship, as well as Paperback book day, and National Avocado Day. 

Hmm, the challenge will be seeing if you can find a story with a theme that encompasses all those factors.

Happy Birthday to George Bernard Shaw, Laurence Watt Evans , Andre Maurois, Aldous Huxley, poet Anwar Chairil, and Ana Maria Matute

The most anticipated book releases July 2026

Happy Reading! 

BW29: X marks the Spot

Courtesy of Trvst World 

 

Happy Sunday! Apropos of nothing, I am looking forward to having a frozen margarita. One of our Mexican customers told me about Siete Leguas (named after Pancho Villa's horse) Tequila and gave me the recipe for a Palamo which is akin to a margarita. I need to go shopping.  I don't know why Tequila reminds me of treasure which is what prompted X, our letter of the week. 

X marks the spot can be pirates, treasure, archaeology, kidnapping, a word that starts with X, an X on the cover of a book, or the title.  

Title that begin with X 

The Pirate History Podcast Recommended Reading

Robbin's Library Novels with a Treasure Hunt

You’ll Dig These 9 Action-Packed Books About Archaeologists

Cheers and happy hunting! 

BW28: Y is for Yacht

 

Happy Sunday!  I'm always fascinated by stories that take place on a body of water, or a sailboat, a yacht, a cruise ship.  Which is how I ended up reading Rebecca Yarros Renegade trilogy about students at sea 9th month voyage filled with college aged characters and a whole boat load of angst. It's sort of amusing as I remember the trials and tribulations of my college years. 

Sail away with these 17 books set on a boat   I have The Narrow Boat Summer as well as Into the Drowning Deep, the Migrations, and The Terror in my stacks which will keep me busy for a while. 

Top-5 books set in boats  The Life of Pi and The Little Paris Bookshop were exceptionally good which is why I added The Book Binder of Jericho to my stacks. 

Sailing Into Suspense: 10 Irresistible Yacht-Set Thrillers.  I have Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 in my stacks currently and have read Death on the Nile so look forward to explore this list. 

Happy Sailing! 

BW27: Happy 250th Birthday, America

 

Happy Sunday and Happy 250th Birthday to America. In our family we celebrate for a week rather than a day. So let the celebration continue by reading current and historical books about independence, freedom, liberty, and good ole American patriotism. 

Patriotic Books to Read on Independence Day

6 books to read this Independence Day that explore the meaning of freedom

8 Books 4 Your Independence Day Reading List

10 books perfect to celebrate the fourth of July

Nonfiction books about American Founding

America250 Reading List: A Journey Through Stories that Shaped a Nation

Happy reading! 

BW26: Half full/half empty

Happy Sunday! Can you believe we are halfway through the year already. Are you a half glass full or half glass empty type of person? Me, my glass is half full which means although I have shelves full of books I have yet to read, I keep finding new shiny stories to fill my glass back up. Are you ready for our July authors of the month?

Our Literary Legend this month is John Kennedy Toole and I have The Confederacy of Dunces waiting in the wings as well as our Author Bookology contemporary author William Gibson and the second book in his Sprawl series, Count Zero.  

Plus we have our next Bingo Quest to celebrate 52 Books/L.E.S.T.E.R's eighteenth Blogoversary which is drum roll, please: 18

Read a book with an 18 year old character

Read the 18th book in the series

Read a book with 18 in the title

Read a book published in the 1800's, 1918, or 2018.

I just so happen to have James Rollins 18th book Arkangel in his Sigma Force series which has been calling my name. Now would be a perfect time to read it. But maybe I'll decide to read the 18th book in Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series, The Atlas Maneuver or Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, Never Go Back or even J.D. Robb's Divided in Death. Decisions, decisions.



Happy reading!

BW25: The word of the day is Yes!

 Happy Summer!!!  Instead of a no button, I want a Yes button.  It's Summer. Why not?  My son and I went to the book store to shop for Father's day presents.  He has a habit of picking out books based on their covers which in actuality always turn out to be very good.  So I always say Yes.  Which is how I ended up with This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. 

"When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her husband waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. Mainly because Joe died five months ago…

The gift is simple – twelve carefully-chosen books from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him.

Tilly sets out on a series of reading-inspired adventures that take her around the world. But as she begins to vlog her journey, her story becomes more than her own. With help from Alfie, the bookshop owner, her budding new following and her friends and family, can Tilly’s year of books show her how to love again?"

And note that it has a Y word on the cover which coincides with the letter of the week!  

Happy Father's day to all the dads!

BW24: Xplore Creative Sparks

 

Happy Sunday! I'm not feeling particularly creative today.  Are you feeling creative today? Sometimes we all need a little something to light a spark.  

5 Favourite Books To Reignite Your Creative Spark

Revealed! 7 Brilliant Books About the Nature of Creativity.

Spark Your Creativity: 16 Titles to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

The 10 Best Books on Creativity (To enrich your mind)

20 of the best books on journaling

13 Books I Love To Use For Junk Journaling

Have fun! 

BW23: Bingo Quest - Prince

 

Happy Sunday! Our next bingo quest is Prince.  Read about Prince, born June 7, 1958 and who sadly passed away April 21st, 2016 at the age of 57.  For those who don't want to read about Prince or find a story with the words in the titles of any of his songs,  we can go in a different direction, reading stories with Prince or royal in the title, or a character in the story.  

Must-Read Books About the British Royal Family

Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: 15 Books About Royal Life

Pick a book Chosen by Her Majesty

13 Novels Starring Fictional Royals

Have fun! 

BW22: Choices: Literary Legend or Author Bookology

 

Happy Sunday!  Which direction should we go with our reading this month?   Left is our Literary Legend Laurence Sterne with his satirical story Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.

"Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations."

Right is our Author Bookology with Sonali Dev and her Bollywood style contemporary romances.  I thoroughly enjoyed There's Something About Mira. 

"Mira Salvi has the perfect life. A job she loves, a fiancé everyone adores, and the secure future she's always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn't a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone. 

While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira does: journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story.

As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason? Right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn't been written yet either."

Or straight ahead with your mental safety blanket, the all encompassing comfort read or reread, depending on your mood. 

I'm 0 for 5 in our Literary Legend conquests as I have started to read each author and parted ways soon thereafter as I have immersed myself in Robin Hobb's worlds with her Farseer Trilogy as well as the Live Ship traders trilogy. I have had better luck with our author bookology although I have yet to read Abraham Verghese but I'm hoping to make it 6 out of 6 soon. But only after I dive into Sonali Dev's Recipe for Persuasion.  And of course, continue what has turned into a year long quest of reading Robin Hobb with the first book in her next series Rain Wild Chronicles:  Dragon Keeper. 

But first I must finish my comfort read with author Nora Roberts and her newest stand alone book - The Final Target.  I thought she gave it all away in the synopsis, but as usual her interesting characters have drawn me in. 

Oh! And I've finally fallen into the world of Dungeon Crawler Carl. We'll see for how far I get. 

Happy Reading!

BW21: Memorial Day

 

Memorial Day

By

Clara Ann Thompson

Go;—for ’tis Memorial morning—

Go with hearts of peace and love;

Deck the graves of fallen soldiers;

Go, your gratitude to prove.

Gather flow’rs and take them thither,

Emblem of a nation’s tears;

Grateful hearts cannot forget them,

In the rush of passing years.

Strew the flow’rs above their couches;

Let thy heart’s affection blend,

With the dewy buds and blossoms,

That in fragrant showers descend.

Strew the flow’rs above the heroes,

Slain for loving friends and thee;

Canst thou find a better off’ring,

For those sons of liberty?

While the buds and blooms are falling,

Earnest hearts are asking,—Why—

In a tone, though low and gentle,

Yet, as ardent as a cry,—

‘Why must precious lives be given,

That our country may be free?

Is there not a nobler pathway

To the throne of liberty?

‘Can we choose no nobler watch-word,

Than the ringing battle-cry,

Harbinger of strife and bloodshed,

Must we sin, that sin may die?

‘Long ago, to far Judea,

Came the blessed Prince of Peace:

Shall we ever heed His teaching,

That these wars and feuds may cease?’