Read Around the World Challenge: Europe - May Update

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Today, I'm sharing my fifth update and mini reviews for the Read Around the World Challenge.  Of the 46 books for the 46 European countries on my original tbr, I managed to complete 9 in May for a total of 26 completed so far.  You can check out my profile here on the challenge website here.  Keep reading to see my thoughts on the books I read this month:

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Blindness by Jose Saramago has quite a hook and is pretty unsettling, especially for me as a big reader. As interesting as this was though, I wasn't a fan of the writing style. I get what the author's trying to do with the style for the story, but it got old quick. The distance it creates between the reader and the text/ world/ characters works for the story, but after awhile it got off-putting and became a chore more than anything. I know there was a movie adapted from this story starring Mark Ruffalo. Maybe I'll check it out sometime to see how it was adapted to the big screen.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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It took me longer than I expected to get into Athenian Blues (Stratos Gazis #1) by Pol Koutsakis and I had no clue what was going to happen in the end right up until the end. I wish I knew more about Athens going into this story - that probably would have helped me appreciate it more.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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I'm not particularly religious so it's tough for me to rate The Church of Mercy by Pope Francis, but this was interesting. I did appreciate that the Pope's overall message her seems to be along the lines of take care of each other. Anyway, while reading this I couldn't help but think of those like Joel Osteen that preach the prosperity gospel and Trump who's White House the other day released the AI image of him dressed as the Pope.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Memory of Water by Emmi Itaranta is a solid dystopia with an intriguing story, but I wish the pacing could have been better.  It's a quick read, but there were some elements i wish would have gone down differently.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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The Cat King of Havana by Tom Crosshill wasn't what I was expecting it to be. Honestly, I was in it for the cats and it definitely didn't deliver in that regard. The dance competition and Cuba itself wasn't bad, but I wasn't really fond of any of the characters and the story definitely hinges on that that given the romantic element of this coming of age story (though I wouldn't consider this a romance). For me the book was also much too long and felt like it dragged, but maybe that's just me getting bored and a bit annoyed with how the outdated the internet stuff sounded.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Catherine the Great and Small by Olja Knezevic isn't a bad read at all, but I realized pretty early on that I'm not the target audience and it wasn't for me. I am glad that it gave a context and pronunciation guide at the back of the book.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret #1) by Georges Simenon is the first in a long running series. This is the first book of them I've read but I going in I was somewhat familiar since I've watched the Rowan Atkinson tv series adaptation. Obviously, this is a bit different but I still enjoyed it getting the original intro to the classic detective. I'll definitely be reading book two in the future.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Night (The Night Trilogy #1) by Elie Wiesel should be required reading. It wasn't until I was about 20% of the way through that I realized I had read pieces of it in the past. It's absolutely brutal and sickening but the world can't forget these stories.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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It was interesting reading in the introduction of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk that Mother Teresa herself didn't want these letters published. I was expecting that with the letters there would be a little more connective pieces between them from the the author.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

Have you read any of these books?  Are you participated in this challenge?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!