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2024 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (Hosted by Yours Truly)

My Progress:


30 / 30 books. 100% done!

2024 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama (1)
- Alaska (1)
- Arizona (1)
- Arkansas (1)
- California (11)
- Colorado (1)
- Connecticut (2)
- Delaware (1)
- Florida (3)
- Georgia (4)
- Hawaii (1)
- Idaho (2)
- Illinois (4)
- Indiana (4)
- Iowa (1)
- Kansas (1)
- Kentucky (1)
- Louisiana (1)
- Maine (1)
- Maryland (1)
- Massachusetts (4)
- Michigan (1)
- Minnesota (2)
- Mississippi (1)
- Missouri (1)
- Montana (1)
- Nebraska (1)
- Nevada (2)
- New Hampshire (1)
- New Jersey (1)
- New Mexico (1)
- New York (9)
- North Carolina (4)
- North Dakota (1)
- Ohio (3)
- Oklahoma (2)
- Oregon (2)
- Pennsylvania (2)
- Rhode Island (1)
- South Carolina (1)
- South Dakota (1)
- Tennessee (1)
- Texas (4)
- Utah (4)
- Vermont (2)
- Virginia (2)
- Washington (3)
- West Virginia (1)
- Wisconsin (1)
- Wyoming (2)
- Washington, D.C.* (2)

International:
- Argentina (1)
- Australia (5)
- Austria (1)
- Bolivia (1)
- Canada (3)
- China (2)
- England (25)
- France (1)
- Ghana (1)
- India (1)
- Indonesia (1)
- Ireland (4)
- Italy (1)
- Poland (2)
- Russia (2)
- Scotland (3)
- The Netherlands (1)

My Progress:


51 / 51 states. 100% done!

2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 50 books. 104% done!

2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge


36 / 50 books. 72% done!

Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

2024 52 Club Reading Challenge

My Progress:


51 / 52 books. 98% done!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

My Progress:


37 / 40 books. 93% done!

2024 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge


18 / 40 books. 45% done!

2024 Craving for Cozies Reading Challenge

My Progress:


25 / 25 cozies. 100% done!

2024 Medical Examiner's Mystery Reading Challenge

2024 Mystery Marathon Reading Challenge

My Progress


5 / 26.2 miles (4th lap). 19% done!

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

My Progress


48 / 50 books. 96% done!

2024 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

My Progress:


98 / 109 books. 90% done!

Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge

My Progress


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge

My Progress


137 / 165 books. 83% done!

The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge

My Progress:


88 / 100 names. 88% done!

The Life Skills Reading Challenge

My Progress:


32 / 80 skills. 40% done!
Friday, October 30, 2020

LOST Meets Stranger Things? Does YA sci-fi/horror novel deliver?

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Tasia "Sia" Gianopoulos has spent so much time in the water over the last 17 years of her life that it seems she was born with gills.  These days, she's diving not just for fun but because, with her dad in prison, she and her mom desperately need the money.  Their charter scuba diving business allows them to do what they love and pay the bills.  

Leading diving expeditions to shipwrecks in the Florida Keys is second nature to Sia, but she has an odd, unsettling feeling about visiting the U.S.S. Andrew.  Something about the trip just feels off.  When one of the divers die, the whole group desperately tries to get back to land.  An attack by a horrifying sea monster leaves divers dead, the Gianopoulos' boats in ruins, and four kids stranded on a remote island.  With a thick jungle at their backs and a sea of deadly water in front, there is no escape route.  As the days wear on with no rescue in sight, Sia, her younger brother, and two kids who are virtually strangers to them must learn how to survive on an island where nothing is as it seems.  Can they learn its strange ways?  Can they defeat the sea monster that guards the terrifying secret that may be their only way home?  

When a book is described as LOST meets Stranger Things, it leads the reader to expect a certain level of greatness.  Did Fractured Tide, a debut YA sci fi/horror novel by Leslie Lutz, deliver?  I'm not sure it's possible to totally meet the expectations of such an illustrious billing, but the book offers a story that is tense, tightly-plotted, and exciting.  Told through letters Sia writes to her father, the tale has an intimate feel that just adds to the plot's intensity.  With the urgency of LOST and the eeriness of Stranger Things, it uses classic sci fi/horror elements to keep the reader on the edge of their seat while they burn through the pages to see what happens next.  Entertaining and satisfying, Fractured Tide is simply a good read.  Despite some violence and gore, it's also a mostly clean read that I can hand to my 15-year-old LOST lover without reservation.  I love that.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of When We Were Lost by Kevin Wignall)

Grade:


If this were a movie, it would be rated:

  

(possibly PG-13—for violence, blood/gore, and scenes of peril)

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

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Reading

<i>Reading</i>
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

Listening

<i>Listening</i>
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth



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