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Finished Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz. While a YA "love story" would not normally be my thing, the story and setting sounded interesting. Early 1800s Edinburgh, with grave-robbers, mad scientists, a plague. I teach anatomy myself, so a story about anatomy students from a couple of centuries ago intrigued me. And there was the classic "underdog" story of someone struggling to succeed in an area that no one wants them to (in this case, a young woman wanting to be a doctor in an era where that was certainly not encouraged).

And it did do many things that I enjoyed. Though this felt like a book that really needed another 100-150 pages. After slowly building up the characters and the world, the actually story seemed to rush by at the end. The romance part really suffered from the rushed pacing: "I just met you, but I'm madly in love with you!" Ugh. But then again, I'm probably the opposite of the target audience. I was hoping was more gothic period piece sci-fi/horror, and less Pride and Prejudice-like romantic shenanigans.

Stephen King - The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower book 1. I think the last time I read it was the original version. King revised the book after he finished writing the series. The last portion of this book was accurate prophesy of events in future volumes.

One line made me laugh: "Will I reach the Tower?" "Don't ask me that. If I told you, you'd want to kill me." Just like all those readers who metaphorically wanted to kill Stephen King after reading the ending of the last book.

I did enjoy the first 80% of the book, up until they got to the railroad tracks inside the mountain.

The Gunslinger has one of the all-time great opening lines in literature:

”The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

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I tried this when it first came out +/-
Don't know if I even finished it. I hear the series is engrossing. Might have to give it another shot.

I tried the Dark Tower a couple of years ago. Stephen King is probably my favorite author so I just went ahead an bought the whole set, made it halfway through book 3 and realized I wasnt enjoying it at all and put it down. Kills me to DNF a book, but since the consensus is that the first part of the series is better than the latter parts, I figured if it wasnt doing anything for me after 1000+ pages, then I should move on.

Ive tried a few other fantasy series afterwards, and had the same issues, so I have determined its just not the genre for me.

I did really like Fairy Tale though.

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The Gunslinger is not my favorite book of the series. I think that books 2, 3, and 4 are great. If you got stuck in book 1, try to soldier on. If you got stuck in book 3, then they aren't for you.

Being a "mash up" of several short stories, the first Dark Tower book has a different feel than the others. I agree that the next few were my favorites. Though FU Stephen King for ending 3 on a cliffhanger when the next book didn't come out for another 6 years Of course, not an issue for those reading it now. And those last 3 books, released in a flurry in 2003 and 2004, I didn't particularly care for (but read just because I wanted to see how the story ended).

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The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse. I had heard mixed things about this ... and that's pretty much how I felt after reading. I wish this was more the gothic thriller/horror that the cover suggested, instead of another standard-seeming mystery in "Woman in a Window/Cabin/Train" mold. Mysteries, for me at least, have a lot riding on a satisfying ending, and this really screws the pooch there (with a ridiculous villain monologue and heavy-handed "action").

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Reading Night Shift by Stephen King. A book of early short stories, it's not working for me. I think I'll read one more short story before I give up.

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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Certainly outside my normal comfort zone for leisure reading. But I really enjoyed his Cloud Cuckoo Land and by many accounts this is his masterpiece (even winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction). I do like Doerr's writing style ... very evocative and poetic, but not hard to read (and extremely short chapters help with the readability too). The subject matter makes it sound like it could get maudlin and schmaltzy: a blind girl who loves reading and science struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied France, a kind German boy with a talent for radio work thrown into the other side, an obsessed Nazi officer dying of cancer trying to track a mystical diamond that leads him to the girl. But I think the writing style avoided the trap falls of the story that lesser writers probably would've fallen into.