Reading for the rest of the year

You may recall that at the beginning of the year I set a handful of reading challenges for myself. I had two friends pick a list of books for me to read, and then I committed to reading all of Janssen's favorites from last year. Well it suddenly occurred to me that we're looking at about 10 weeks til the end of the year and I have quite a few books left on those lists!

Here's where I am on the personal challenge-
From Shawna's list:

• A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson- I own a copy, but have not read it.
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn- gonna have to ILL this one
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum- I have read this
• 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult- I've checked this out several times, but haven't opened it.
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood- I currently have the book and the ebook but am only a couple chapters in.

From Lisa's list:

• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
• Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
• Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer- I have read part of this, and it is really really not my style. I'll try again.
• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham
• Whiskey Sour by J.A. Konrath- I've read this one.

And from Janssen's Top 12 (I'm doing much better on this list!)-

• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt - Read and reviewed, bits of this one keep coming back to me
• What Alice Forgot by Liana Moriarty- Read for BlogHer
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor- Read and reviewed
• Falling For Hamlet by Michelle Ray- read and reviewed
• Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese- read and reviewed (kinda)
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - downloaded to my Nook
• Room by Emma Donoghue- this one still scares me
• Split by Swati Avasthi- read and reviewed, can't stop thinking about this one
• After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick
• Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vandenpool
• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Ok, so that's only 14 books to finish up, I can do that if I try, right?

Oh, but wait. There's a few books on my Nook from Net Galley. I should read those before they expire too.

• Just a Wish Away by Barbara Freethy
• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Erebos by Ursula Poznanski 

And I promised to write a review for The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman. (I started it, I swear, but the very first page is a stillbirth and I didn't get past that.)

And I hate to leave a book unfinished over the new year, so I should finish the ones I have half read too.

• Death Masks by Jim Butcher
• Sullivan's Woman by Nora Roberts
• Married by Mistake by Abby Gaines 
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie - Finished this up last night

That's only 22  21 books. I have 10 weeks. That's two books a week. If I up my pace just a tiny bit I should make it, right? Plus, those last four are almost done (if you define almost as "has already started") and half of Janssen's list are young adult (of course, those are the ones I've already read, but who's counting?) (oh, wait, I'm counting.) Still. I can do this. (If I don't do anything else, maybe. Anything else like sew. Or cook. Or clean or eat or breathe.)

What's that? I can't hear you. You'll have to speak up. Oh. That. Yeah. That one might push me over the edge. And speaking of chunksters, there's this one too. So 23 books total. Once I read them all I"ll have read about twice the number of books I read last year.  I don't see any reason why this won't happen.

Nah, I got all the time in the world to sit around and read.


PS. At the time of writing this post I had 21 library books checked out. Books that do not appear anywhere on this list.  I carefully wrote them all down and returned them. Oh, well, except for one or two. And I can't very well not read the two ILL books I just requested last week, I can't renew those.

If you need me, I'll be over there with my nose in a book.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

You may recall that this is the year that I'm reading all of Janssen's favorite books from last year. I'm doing pretty  good with her list on my own, but when BlogHer book club offered me a chance to review one of them for you I couldn't pass it up. I don't know that I've ever read an amnesia story before (despite my love of romance novels, tyvm), but since Janssen loved it, I had to try.

So, Alice falls off a bike at the gym, hits her head, and wakes up ten years in her past. She doesn't remember her children (oh this killed me to imagine, but Moriarty does a good job of balancing being sad at not remembering and not really being affected, cause DUH, she can't remember them!), she doesn't remember why she's on the outs with her sister, she doesn't have a clue why she's divorcing the husband she's madly in love with, and she's shocked at her 39 year old self. What Alice Forgot is both funny and heartbreaking, often on the same page. It really makes you (made me, anyway) think about what your choices do to you. Little things add up until you become a person you can't imagine being and might not even like, if you weren't her.  At the same time, it's chick lit- it's not heavy and slow and full of tremendous imagery.  It's a serious situation but still manages to be fun and romantic. (When is Janssen gonna start replyin to my posts with "I told you so" is the only question I have now.)

This post is a sponsored review from BlogHer Book Club. To see more opinions and discussions please click here. All opinions in this review are my own.

Bookish committments

The last couple of months have  been full of tempting book commitments. I'm not usually one to follow challenges, and I don't commit to reading a lot of books that friends recommend. I'm much more likely to add a book to my endless list and eventually pick it up. I did promise (myself) that I would read all the books on Janssen's best of 2011 list, and I'm doing the personal challenge, but I'm not usually much of a read-a-long joiner. However, I find myself suddenly committed (or really interested in committing to) reading several books with or for my friends. It's been a while since I have you a bookish list, so how about one now?

• First, the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. A local friend lent me the entire series, and I really enjoyed the first three. I should review them, hm?
• Andi Can. Not. Stop. Talking. About Outlander . I read the first 200 pages, apparently I'm just at the point where it takes off. I promised her I'd pick it back up.
• My next commitment for the BlogHer Book Club launches on May 31st. I haven't started the book yet, but thankfully it's not a chunkster.
• Last, everyone's favorite rock star, Trish is hosting The Standalong, a group reading of Stephen King's The Stand to take place over two months in June and July.

If I just read those books and nothing else, that'll take me right through the end of the summer! Have you see how thick some of those are?? Tell me, did Andi or Trish convince YOU to read one of their pet projects? Have you read The Black Dagger Brotherhood? What do you have on tap for the next couple of months?

Split by Swati Avashti (and personal thoughts on abuse)

Wow, guys. This one is a hard one. I've been staring at this screen for way too long trying to explain, so I'm going to cheat and use the summary from the flap.

Sixteen-Year-Old Jace Witherspoon arrives at the doorstep of his estranged brother Christian with a re-landscaped face (courtesy of his father’s fist), $3.84, and a secret.

He tries to move on, going for new friends, a new school, and a new job, but all his changes can’t make him forget what he left behind—his mother, who is still trapped with his dad, and his ex-girlfriend, who is keeping his secret.

At least so far.

Worst of all, Jace realizes that if he really wants to move forward, he may first have to do what scares him most: He may have to go back. First-time novelist Swati Avasthi has created a riveting and remarkably nuanced portrait of what happens after. After you’ve said enough, after you’ve run, after you’ve made the split—how do you begin to live again?

Sounds heavy, right? And it is.  I'm not even going to try and write a review of the book itself, for a terrific review go read Janssen's.

I do want to address the issue of physical and verbal abuse. I grew up in a situation that involved verbal abuse and alcoholism. By some luck of the draw, I was spared 99% of the time but the rest of my family was not so fortunate. Verbal abuse isn't as immediately life threatening as physical abuse, but it leaves definite scars, even to those who aren't the direct target. To those who are the target, you can see the effects 10 years later in their significant relationships and life choices. It is impossible to be taught you are worthless as a child and teen and still grow into a strong adult without a lot of work and effort.   I had no problems at all identifying with Jace's fear that he would turn into his father.  I could completely believe that his dad didn't see anything at all wrong with what he was doing, that they were out to get him.  I can remember hiding in the closet so that I couldn't hear what was happening and I remember the first time I felt smart enough and bold enough to put myself in the line of fire, and take the heat. My situation was different from Jace's though, because for whatever reason it usually worked when I did it.

Fortunately, in my case, none of us are in the situation any longer. This doesn't mean there aren't long term issues of self-worth and horrible patterns of behavior when we feel attacked. It takes a lifetime to undo something like this, and it's certain that we could have all used some kind of therapy. Given the chance, the guilty party will still belittle and criticize his targets.  This is why we have no relationship to speak of.  I am a bit hesitant to post this at all, it took me all day to write those two paragraphs. I feel like I'm divulging someone else's personal history, but I feel that it's relavant to my reaction to the book.

Bravo to Avasthi for getting it right, as awful as it is. I will be thinking about Jace and Christian and their mom for a long, long time.


Split by Swati Avasthi

Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Doug Swieteck and his family have just moved to a stupid new town for his father's stupid new job. His new house is A Dump and his older brother is a wanna be thug.  His mom is doing her best, but is no match for the force of his father, who drinks and keeps bad company. His oldest brother Lucas is serving his country in Vietnam. Doug is starting junior high in a new school where it is already assumed he will follow in his brother's footsteps. Even with all this stacked against him, Doug manages to find a Saturday job delivering groceries, makes friends with the grocer's daughter, and discovers a talent for drawing that allows him to see more than what is on the surface.

I picked up because it's on Janssen's list of best books in 2012. Chances are I'd have eventually gotten around to reading it anyway, as I read The Wednesday Wars a couple years ago and absolutely loved it. Okay for Now is a companion book, in that Doug is also in TWW, but it's not a sequel so you don't have to have read one to read the other. I read the first half of the book over a period of about two weeks and then on Saturday afternoon I sat down and read through to the end.

Schmidt has a very informal way of writing, the book is written in first person and Doug speaks directly to the reader throughout. Despite this, he also has a way of quietly layering details that make the book really terrific. For example, early in the book Doug discovers a book of John James Audobon's birds in his local library and begins to practice drawing them. Each chapter has a picture of one of the drawings and a bit about the composition of the picture (which forced me to flip back and forth to the picture as I was reading). Somehow these technical details about drawing don't feel forced as he's learning them, and even more impressively, don't feel forced as he is thinking about them later. For me, this is one of the best parts of the book, it's just so well crafted that you as you're reading you notice the terrific composition of the book, but you don't mind at all because it's so well done. (Another terrific example of this is Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes, if you're not so into YA literature.) There are other tiny details throughout that, when you notice them, are brilliantly done.

The book wraps up with a bit of a bow on an ongoing theme, but a bit of an open ending on the cute little romance.  Somehow the one balanced out the other enough that I wasn't annoyed by either (and yes, this is vague, but I don't want to tell you anything else.) Like TWW, it takes place over an entire school year, and the pacing is nice and solid.  At this point it's a foregone conclusion that I'll be picking up Schmidt's remaining book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy .

Have you read this one? What did you think? Have you ever read a book that blew you away with techinique, while managing to not have it impact the story negatively? I hate it when an author tries too hard to do something cool, but this one hit exactly the write notes for me. (HAHA, I meant "right notes", of course, but I think I'll leave that.)

Library Loot and Reading Plan

I recently moved the furniture around in our living room so that I could make a little play area for the kids to use during the day. I thought it would make the toys in the living room look intentional, as opposed to messy (and it does!) but one of the by products of this was that I relocated the shelves where we keep our library books. Instead of being along the same wall as my "desk" (the spot at the table where I always sit, next to my sewing machine), they are now directly across the room from me, in my line of sight. Suddenly, I can't stop seeing all the books that I have checked out and need to read before I can't renew them any more.  At my current rate of less than a book a week, there's no way I'll be able to read them all. In order to make it seem a bit more managable, I returned every book that wasn't on the shelf for a reason. That is, I returned all the impulse grabs. This leaves me with the following list, in no particular order, which is still completely impossible!

• Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, half done with this one, as mentioned previously.
• Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. For my personal reading challenge
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Because everyone and their dog loved it and put it on their list.
• Falling for Hamletby Michelle Ray. For the Janssen Reading Challenge. This one is ILL, I can't renew it. Need to brush up on my Hamlet first though.
• Splitby Swati Avasthi. Also for the Janssen Reading Challenge. Also via ILL.
• In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. Again with the everyone and their dog, plus it seems like a good followup to The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.
• This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper. Recommended by several blogs, and my good friend Shawna.
• The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter. Recommended by Amanda. Sadly this one will have to go back because I'm not going to get to it before it's due tomorrow, and no more renewals. I'll bring it home again one day.
• Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have) by Sarah Mlynowski. I have no idea who recommended this one, but someone did!
• A Profound Mind: Cultivating Wisdom in Everyday Life by the Dalai Lama. Ok, no one recommended this one, it was on the new release shelf. I remain fascinated by religion, khama, happiness, and the intersection of such. At 148 pages and two renewals remaining, I think I'll get to it.
• Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch. This is another that made the rounds. I saw it in the Large Print section and snapped it up.
• Shine by Lauren Myracle. Because unless you spent last fall under a rock, you heard about this one and the controversy.
• Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride. Bookshelves of Doom gets the credit for it. ("Speaking of, the love story is adorable.")
• The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (P.S.) by Josh Kilmer-Purcell. Ok, no rec for this either, I guess.
• The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. This one isn't a library book, it's my next book for the BlogHer Book Club. I was thrilled to get in on this one since I've heard so many great things.

And to round it all out, yesterday I got a call that I have two more books waiting at the library- Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods and The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters (that second one is an ILL, so again, no renewing on it!)

If I'm realistic at all, I'll start with the ILLs, then the BlogHer book (due Feb 8, I think.) Where would you start?

(The top shelf of books are the ones on this list, the second shelf are all for Mike. The third shelf are kid's library books, and the bottom shelf are random books we own that needed a place to go when I was cleaning the living room. The canvas bag is full of library returns.)

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt

In case you haven't noticed, this is Book Blogger Appreciation Week. I haven't posted about it because I found myself irrationally disappointed that not only was I not shortlisted in anything, I wasn't even nominated in anything. I took the grouchy old lady stance and ignored the whole shebang (ok, not completely, I did nominate people and I voted.) Without getting completely anti-social, I do feel that the awards part of it really is a popularity contest. This isn't to say that I wouldn't have loved one, I totally would have, but the big get bigger, ya know? Anyway, putting my sour grapes aside, I really have enjoyed all the work the bloggers have put into the daily blog topics and today's topic caught my attention.

Today we encourage you to blog about a book you read only because you discovered it on another book blog. Preferably, this will be a book you loved! You might also write a bit about the blog you discovered it on!

Well! Just like night I finished reading The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt. It was completely and totally excellent and I only have Janssen at Everyday Reading to blame. Janssen gave the book a 10 out of 10, which made me add it to my list immediately. I get a lot of recommendations from her- Sarah Dessen being the biggie, but there are others. I even created a category for her on my Goodreads account. She has yet to steer me wrong.

So the book. The Wednesday Wars is really a little bit about everything, but I'll try to summarize. Holling Hoodhood is in 7th grade (did I mention this book can be found in the juvenile section of my library?) and this year he has Mrs. Baker, who hates his guts. Holling is the lone Presbytarian in his class, which is a shame because every Wednesday afternoon all the Catholics and Jews load up and go off to religious classes leaving him alone with Mrs. Baker. To fill all this one-on-one time, they study Shakespeare (see how much she hates his guts?)

That doesn't begin to address all that the book is about but it would take me all day to detail the plot for you. What you need to know is that it is a terrific book. It is funny and sad, silly and serious, there are bomb drills (it takes place during the Vietman war) and giant rats, roses and tailfeathers. There is a lot about being a kid and a little romance, of both the young adult and adult adult kind. It is a very well done coming of age story and like Janssen I could recommend this book to everyone I know.

Other coming of age stories I've reviewed that you might enjoy:

Boy's Life by Robert McCammon (same era, same age boy)

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen (finding out that your family isn't as you thought)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky


What coming of age book do you love? Are you a die hard fan of The Catcher in the Rye? (For the record, I am not.) Do you think that term is used too much with young adult novels, or do you think most YA novels are essentially coming of age? Do you not read any YA at all? (If you don't, you should still read this!)

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt
Sandpiper
2007
272 pages

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

It is rare for me to be at the leading edge of a book release instead of tagging along a couple years behind, so I was really excited to get this book so early from the library. I actually requested that my library order the book, so I was first in line. I had a good bit of time to read last weekend and flew right through it.

What's it about? Along for the Ride, like the other two Dessens I've read, is about a teenage girl who is struggling with who she really is, as opposed to who she thought she was. In this one, Auden has just graduated from high school and is spending the summer at the beach with her father and his new wife and baby. Auden is very academically minded, after growing up with a fierce feminist mother who valued education above all. She has no time for silly things like the Prom, bowling, hanging out with friends, boyfriends, or riding bikes. Due to her parent's divorce, she has a hard time sleeping at night and wanders through town drinking coffee and enjoying the solitude. She meet Eli, another night owl, and he teaches her all the things she missed.

What did I think? It was good, but not great. I never really warmed up to Auden but the supporting characters were all excellent.

Why? Auden is very stiff. She's completely out of her element socially and very unforgiving of people who aren't like her. Despite the book being about her relaxing, she never totally loosens up and it made her hard to like. While I myself have a low tolerance for stupidity, I thought Auden made an awful lot of snap judgements based on appearances, and had not room for mistakes. She was dealing with a lot of truths about her parents and their divorce, and I thought her emotions were true with that and that her interactions with her parents would be realistic, but she was too unemotional and hard for me to really like.

So what did I like? I loved Maggie and her stepmother Heidi. The two of them totally made the story for me. Also Adam- Adam was terrific and would have made a good lead in one of her books. Eli was similar in form to Dessen's other romantic leads, but wasn't as awesome as Wes. He had his own struggles and they were well drawn, but I didn't fall for him like I did for the others.

I loved the small town setting of Colby and the pie-baking, bike shop-owning, late night businessman. I loved the house that Auden lived in. I loved the baby and the sheer exhaustion of the baby's mother. (Teenagers, take note, the exhaustion was not exaggerated! Sarah Dessen herself has a baby (toddler?) so I suspect she knows from exhaustion.) I loved the relationship of the girls and the way they slowly took Auden in.

This wasn't my favorite Dessen. In fact, of the three I've read it's my least favorite, but I have three more of them on my TBR and I still plan to read them all. My favorite is The Truth About Forever (my review), then This Lullaby (my review). I'd still recommend this to someone wanting to try out a Sarah Dessen, and if I gave ratings I've give it a nice solid 7 out of 10.

You can find Sarah Dessen's Website and Blog online as well.


Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
Viking Juvenile
383 pages
2009

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

The Truth About Forever is about 17 year old Macy. A year and a half ago Macy saw her father die and it has defined her life ever since. She lives with her control freak mother who refuses to show any grief and both she and her mother expect perfection in everything. Macy spends her evenings studying for her SATs, she has a perfectly genius boyfriend who doesn't feel emotion, and her room is in perfect order. Then summer arrives, her boyfriend goes away to Brain Camp and Macy is left with time to fill. She takes a part time job with Wish Catering, run by the scattered Delia and staffed by an assortment of teenagers who aren't perfect. Well, on paper anyway. With these new friends, Macy starts to loosen up and feel things again, and with Wes (sa-woon!) she learns to really tell the truth and let herself really care.

The short version: Loved it. LOVE Wes. Every character in this one is dead on and Macy's transformation is completely belieable.

The long version: Wes first. Wes is awesome. He doesn't have a perfect past but he's pretty darn perfect now. Wes is an artist as well as a waiter and takes care of his 16 year old brother in his free time. Macy and Wes start talking and have this effortless easy companionship that you can totally believe turns into something else. Those of you who want a little romance in your YA will find it here!

Macy is also believable. She's lying to herself about being fine with her father's death and controlling every aspect of her life so that nothing bad can happen again. As the story progresses she starts to see that being in control might make things predictable and safe, but it doesn't make you happy.

I don't think there was a single character in this one that was a straight stereotype. Possibly Kristy and Bert, but I still enjoyed them. Macy's mom and sister are perfectly drawn and there is one scene with the three of them that made my heart break for them all. By the end of the story everyone has learned a little something (of course) and the ending is so completely perfect that your heart might just swell up a little.

Overall, quite an enjoyable read and definately gears me up for more Sarah Dessen.

(PS. I just gave in and added a new tag for some of my posts. I've also added this tag to my new Goodreads account.)

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Viking Juvenile

2004

384 pages