Lately, I've been finding myself giving up on a book halfway through. One of the main reasons is that I keep thinking I will be able to guess what will happen next--and I do most of the time. And that kind of wanes my enthusiasm a bit. Ok, by a lot.

Then I realized that maybe I need to change genres. I've been reading contemporary romance novels for the last 2 months and I think I'm getting a little critical of the way the characters act. Talk about taking things too seriously. Hello.

Let's see...according to my Goodreads track, here's what I have been reading lately:

• Can't Stand The Heat (Recipe for Love #1) by Louisa Edwards
• Love Unscripted (Love, #1) by Tina Reber
• The Alien King and I by Lizzie Lynn Lee
• Scot on the Rocks by Brenda Janowitz
• Sex Snob by Elizabeth Hayley
• His Brother's Bride (Banks Brothers Bride, #4) by Rose Gordon
• Her Best Friend's Brother by T.J. Dell
• Propositioning Her Brother’s Best Friend by Sam Crescent

Now, I'm reading another romance novel, Falling For the Ghost of You by Nicole Christie. Where my mystery, adventure, Indiana-Jones-type novels? I need to get some James Rollins into my system again. Or Maybe an Andy McDermott. Or a Matthew Reilly. Anything, just not another love story.

I've been on a book slump for about a month now, so I'm already 1 book behind my Goodreads Book Challenge of 40 books for 2013. This is still after reading 2 books in a row: James Rollins' Black Order and Nyrae Dawn's Charade. At this rate, I think I'll go blind before reaching my goal. Sheesh. Makes me want to give awards to those who challenged themselves to reading at least 80 books in a year. I think I even saw one with 100.

To try to catch up, I breezed through The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. It was a short read, though a bit slow for my taste. There were pages and pages about art techniques, artists, and materials used for painting that had me going "huh?" every few paragraphs. And the "love story", if you can even call it that, sounded forced. There wasn't substantial scenes or even thoughts from the characters before getting together that would make the love story believable. It just sorta happened. WTH? Oh well, it was my way of diversifying my reading genre list. Can't say I'll read another one just like it. Maybe if it was something like The Thomas Crown Affair...now that would be interesting to me.


I've also just finished, barely, Crash by Nicole Williams. What can I say? It was a so-so book. I had a few cringe moments and many times I've questioned the heroine's logic (or the lack thereof) and even sanity. Oh, to be 17...I don't think I'll even try to read the 2nd book of the series, Clash. Or maybe after a year? Hehe.

So, now I'm back to reading what I love most, adventure-suspense-action stories. And I'm picking up on the 4th installment of James Rollins' Sigma Force series, The Judas Strain. It's already gripping and I'm only in the first chapter! Ah...this is more like it.


With this, Goodreads said, I'm a book ahead of my 40-book challenge! Weee-hooo!