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

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Wow. Just Wow. How does someone possibly come up with this stuff? People have been telling me to read The Time Traveler’s Wife for months, and I was a bit intimidated by the popularity of it. Just look at my review of Twilight to see how that turned out last time for me! (Please note the lovely comment that review got!)

Here’s the summary of the book:

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story
of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily
through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential
course. Henry and Clare’s passionate love affair endures across a sea of time
and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey
Niffenegger’s cinematic storytelling that makes the novel’s unconventional
chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

Everyone was right- this book is so good! If it’s on your list and you keep putting it off, move it up to the front. It’s not science fiction-y at all. There was only one incident that made me question how the time travel followed the rules she had set and I was able to figure out the answer. Henry is the perfect hero and clearly madly in love with Claire. I had a few minor quibbles with just how many people knew about his condition, but other than that, no problems with the book at all. I finished it last weekend, and I’m still thinking about it all the time, which hasn’t happened to me for a while now (A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Book Thief being the most notable from 2007.) It seems odd that the second book I read this year will be one of the best, but it seems likely that it’s going to happen that way. If you haven’t read it yet, or find yourself intimidated, please, go get it now. It’s really worth it. If you started it already, and got a bit confused by the beginning, stick with it- you eventually get into the flow of it.

Three more books completed!

Despite having what seems like very little time to myself, I have managed to finish up three books in the last two weeks. I'm not entirely sure how this happened. The three books have pretty much nothing in common, but I'm going to talk about them in the same post or else I'll never do them all.

First was Innocent in Death by JD Robb. This is the 28th(29th? 27th?) book in the series. They are predictable, easy reading. You know how the story is gonna go, you know all the characters, you even know a lot of the dialogue. (Hello, we know. Eve and Summerset do not like each other. Got it. It's getting a little old.) In this one, a woman from Roarke's past shows up and makes Eve jealous. Eve solves the murder of someone no one should have wanted to kill. For a change of pace, Eve does not get beaten up nor does anyone try to kill her. Regardless of all this, the book is good, in that predictable kind of way. By this point in the series you don't really expect something fresh, do you? (3/5)

Then I read Mine Til Midnight, which is Lisa Kleypas' most recent historical. Again, it was what you would expect from a familiar author. I had read online that this one was reminiscent of Dreaming of You, which is my (and everyone else's) favorite Kleypas. I didn't really see that. I was much more interested in the connection between the two Roma than the romance. I did love Cam (first seen in Devil in Winter) and the book wasn't at all bad. It leaves me wanting for the perfect romance though and I have too many other books to read a bunch to find it. Any suggestions? (3/5)

Last night I finished reading Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs. This is the second Mercedes Thompson book. Mercedes is a walker who was raised by werewolves. She does a favor for a vampire at the beginning, which sets of a chain of events that require the cooperation of the vampires, werewolves and fae. This one started slow for me because it has been a while since I read Moon Called, and the details of Brigg's paranormal communities were slow coming back to me. Once the action picked up it was very hard to put the book down, and I stayed up VERY LATE to finish. (OK, I stayed up til 10:30. But I usually go to bed well before 9! Yeah, I'm pathetic, but I am also pregnant and growing a baby is tiring work!) It looks like book three (Iron Kissed) is out in a couple weeks and I might just have to buy it new so I don't forget the details again. I love the Adam/Samuel/Stefan??? problem in this one. I even found myself liking Ben by the end of it! (5/5)

In other news, I'm all shopped out for Christmas. I have a few things left to sew for in town people and then the wrapping and the gifts will be DONE. I want to make one, maybe two, batches of cookies with the monkey this weekend. I can't WAIT to put out cookies for Santa and tuck him in for the night on Christmas Eve. As a child (ok, as a teenager) (ok, as a college student) (ok, ok, up til last year) I could never sleep on Christmas Eve night. I always laid awake waiting for dawn so I could see what Santa brought. I suspect I will not sleep well this year either.

I have a few book related posts in mind for the end of the year, and am having to restrain myself from posting them now, so hopefully it won't be all silence over here until 2008. I hope everyone has a great holiday and gets all the books they could ever read.

The Good News, the Bad News, the Book News

First, the Good. I sold a bag!! To a total stranger on Etsy! Whoooo!! This really inspires me to get crafting again, and luckily the creative juices have been flowing. Look for new stuff at over at the bag blog in the near future! (some of the won't be for sale, as I have CHRISTMAS to think about!) I have Monday off work and hope to make some serious progress in the Christmas sewing, as well as make up a Brand! New! Bag! that I drew out last weekend.

And now the Bad. Just as I'm starting to feel like a human being that eats again, I got a sinus infection. Booo. The good part of the bad news though, is that I thought up this blog post title days ago, and am already feeling much better. I actually went to the doctor, where they gave me Amoxicillian. Does that stuff really work? No good decongestants or cough medicine though, which I was hoping for.

And for books. I've actually read two books in the last few weeks. Kitty Goes to Washington and Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn. These are books 2 and 3 in the series that begins with Kitty and the Midnight Hour. Kitty is a werewolf (ha. ha.), the first to come out publicly. She's not an Alpha wolf, she's not always right, she's often unsure of herself. She's very human, for a werewolf. If you can suspend you system of beliefs long enough to believe in these things, the books are very believable. (How's that for a selling point?) No Anita Blake superpowers or Stephanie Plum slapstick or anything, just a nice girl who happens to be a werewolf. The books are getting stronger, and I think with this last one that Vaughn really took a risk and established herself. (In a word, Cormac.) The next one comes out in January.

After finishing Holiday, I zipped over to Amazon.com to read some reviews and see what people thought of it. One of the reviews is a decent review of the book, but ends with this, which surprised me. Do people really think this way?

I do hope the series continues- I'd like to know more about the shaman who comes to save the day. As for the setting, I hope the story takes place somewhere else. I have never been to Colorado, but I don't much care to visit. Seems kinda lonely and small minded, appropriate for this book, but I'm done with it.

She's never been there, but knows she wouldn't like it? Based on a fictional book about WEREWOLVES? You know, I've never met her, but I don't think I care to. She seems kinda small minded...

Up next, a little non-paranormal to cleanse the palate. I started Knocked Up by Rebecca Eckler on Haley-O's recommendation. This does not appear to have much in common with the movie of the same name, regardless of whatever lawsuits are floating around. I am thinking of reading the latest Lisa Kleypas (it's about Cam! Swoon!) once I'm done with this one.

Did I mention I sold a bag??

Charlaine Harris reviews

I haven't read a lot lately, but do have a couple of books to talk about. I managed to finish off Definitely Dead and All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris, which finishes off an entire series. I had really enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse series to this point, but feel like these two books are significantly better than the first 5.

Definitely Dead takes place in New Orleans, where Sookie has gone to clear out her cousin Hadley's apartment. All Together Dead takes place in Illinois during the vampire convention. If you know me, you know that I generally don't like series books that stray from the characters main residence too much. In this case, I thought both of them were excellent. All Together Dead is my favorite in the series. I love Quinn. I love Barry. I did miss Sam, but was glad to see less of Bill. I like the queen a lot, she's the perfect blend of power with the illusion of caring. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I have a few more things to post about, but am going to break them up into smaller posts because they don't really go together.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

THIS POST CONTAINS NO SPOILERS

I can't believe it's over. I read the first Harry Potter in 1999. I was 24 years old. Now it's 8 years later and finally the adventure is over.

On Friday night we met most of my in-laws in Pierre, SD for a fishing/boating trip. My husband went to Wal-mart (the only place open and selling HP at midnight) and bought our copies. We bought one for each of us, as neither of us were willing to be the second one to read it. He read 100 pages or so that night, I read some Saturday morning while he was out fishing, but neither of us got very far until we got home on Sunday. From that point on we pretty much just sat on our respective couches reading. (What about the Monkey, you might ask? Well the Monkey had a grand time eating whatever he wanted, watching whatever he wanted on tv, and making huge messes of his toys. It was a vacation for him too!) We sped through the books only looking up to say "What page are you on? What about NOW? Now? What about now?" Fortunately we read at about the same rate. We finished within a few minutes of each other, and it could not have been a more perfect way to read The End.

How do I feel about the book? I loved it. I thought it was a great ending to a long adventure. I can't think of any loose ends that weren't addressed. I was able to predict a few things, but got some others completely wrong (thankfully!) Harry, Ron and Hermione have come a long way since 1999, and I thought they had finally grown up and proved themselves.

In interest of spoilers (because I do NOT want to be the person who spoils it for you) I am posting my spoiler thoughts here. If you wish to comment on them, please do so there.

I don't know what could possibly followup Harry Potter. I can't imagine any other series every being as a well loved as to have such a release. I hope to see another, but Harry will always be the standard, I think.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns is possibly the best book I'll read this year. (The Book Thief was also excellent, it's a close race between them at this point.) ATSS is the story of Mariam and Laila, two women who live in Afghanistan from the early 70s or so until almost present times. Laila was born in 1977, making her two years younger than I am, which figured heavily in my reaction to the story. Their story is set against the very real political actions of the times- Soviet invasion, Mujahideens, the Taliban. I admit, this is not an area of politics that I know much about. My husband was nice enough to give me mini history lessons as the need arose.

This book was so emotionally hard for me. It took me something like three weeks to read it. I kept reaching points where I had to stop for days to recover my equilibrium. I finally emailed someone who had read it and forced her to tell me that it ended well. (That would be Trish, of Trish's Reading Nook. Her review is here.) The book, though it is fiction, seemed so very real to me. Mariam and Laila are so well done, so different and so believable. I kept saying to myself, "this can't be happening, it can't, it can't!" My mind could not comprehend that in 1994 when the Taliban invaded and women had to be covered in burqas, and couldn't leave home without a man, that I was 19 years old and in college. I had my own apartment. I was wearing swimsuits in mixed company! It was fiction, but it was so real. I cried so many times. Two points were worse than others (spoilers here. PLEASE come talk to me about it if you've read it! Shawna, if you're reading this DO NOT go read them!)

A Thousand Splendid Suns was beautiful and horrifying. It affected me more than any book ever has, I think. I felt sick while reading it. It was the first time that I have ever wanted very very badly to read the ending first. I didn't, but I really wanted to.

Trish recommended that I read The Storyteller's Daughter by Saira Shah and I picked that up at the library today. That one is non-fiction, also about Afghanistan. I also have two books to follow up The Faith Club with that deal with Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Peace Be Upon You by Zachary Karabell and The History of God by Karen Armstrong.) Holy Blood, Holy Grail has come up in conversation lately. I realize I am combining two topics- religion and oppression, but it all blends together for me. I am not at all sure when I'll get to these, what with all the challenges I'm in for and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being less than a week away, but I am certainly all fired up for it. You can bet I'll be paying closer attention to the news now, and trying to imagine myself in their shoes. This was a very good book, I'll be recommending that everyone I know read it.

(This is my first book for the Saturday Review of Books Challenge.)

Pride and Prejudice by by Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

I first read Pride and Prejudice my senior year of high school. I remember enjoying it, but skimming lots of it. This time around, I read every word. I can easily see why so many people list this book in their top five or top ten or top one. I'm not going to lay out the plot, if you don't know what P&P is about, it's because you aren't interested in the first place. Everyone who could want to know, does. I was struck by the writing- there is not one extra word anywhere in this book. Every sentence is perfect, the dialogue is exactly right. My favorite character is Mr. Bennet.

And no, it was on the list. I got this one via email from www.dailylit.com so it didn't count. I read it at times that I couldn't read a paper book. I've signed up for Sense and Sensibility next.

Now I just need to find time to watch the Colin Firth version of the movie.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I mentioned recently that I've been slowly reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Well, last night I finally got totally hooked and stayed up well past bedtime to finish it. I can't say enough about this book. The writing is just beautiful, the words have taste, and smell, and just leap off the page into your mind.

This is what it says on the book flap:

Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.

With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

I think I cried for the last 100 pages. It's been a long time since a book made me this emotional. This book will stick with me for a long time, and it'll be a tough act for the next book to follow.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Today I had an unexpected afternoon off, and decided I would spend it catching up on my reading. I was closest to finishing The Giver and so I started with that. Wow. I knew from about the halfway point that this book would make an emotional impact on me, but did not expect it to be so powerful.

Here's the summary from Amazon.com:

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of Brave New World, in this 1994 Newbery Medal winner, Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price.

I read this book as part of my own Dystopian Challenge. (heh, I was putting it off cause I thought I'd chosen it for the Newbery Challenge. I'm getting my lists confused!) For the first half of the book or so, Jonas' world seems perfect, very rule driven, very orderly. The people are happy. There aren't any secrets. At his 12th December, he is assigned his career, and from then the book takes a turn. The truth of the happiness is revealed, but only to Jonas.

I can't say much more without giving away plot points, so I'm going to jump over here with a some spoiler points that I need to say outloud. If you have not read the book, and plan to, I would not read these.

This is my first finished book for the Dystopian Challenge.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Wow. Just wow. Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that I've always meant to read and never done (until now.) It's a short little book, only 150 pages or so. In terms of reading time, it was a fast little book, but it took me over a week to read it. I knew before I read it that it would be powerful, I mean, how could it NOT be??

Here's the part of the summary from Amazon.com:

"In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

So much of this book is scarily like today. People don't want to think or read challenging things. *I* don't want to read challenging things. I like my life to be easy and happy. Bradbury takes it to an extreme. Decades of life without books, without philosophy, poetry, fiction. No one just talks. Families aren't in love, parents don't care about kids, school is only about the sciences. Politics are boiled down to soundbytes. Happy ones. There is a war, but it's vague, and no one knows the details because it's not about them. Sound familiar?

Fahrenheit 451 is fast. The action is non-stop. One event leads to the next with no pause for breath. The entire book is a buildup to the climax. I really enjoyed this. I can't believe I never read it before. If you haven't read it, go read it now. (Hmmm. A challenge? Shall we? Let me ponder this...)

Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes

Finally! I finished a book. And what a great book it was!

Rachel Walsh is Irish by birth but has lived in New York for the past several years. Rachel wants to be trendy, fashionable. She wants to be with the popular people and be the life of the party. She loves a good time, and a little (ok a lot of) cocaine. Everyone does, right? When she ends up in the hospital from an overdose, her family snaps to and sends her to the Cloisters, a rehab center in Ireland. Rachel expects a glamorous holiday, surrounded by celebrities and mud baths. She doesn't need rehab, because she doesn't have a problem, but to appease her family she checks in.

This book is so well written. The plot swaps back and forth between her experience in rehab and her life in New York, with each of them building to the inevitable conclusion. You feel the urgency with which Rachel craves her drugs and the denial and anger when she finally sees the truth. It's not always easy (for Rachel) but the writing makes it very clear what she's going through, and what it's like to face an addiction and recover. Rachel grows up a lot, she learns how she came to be an addict, and how live with it. She makes mistakes and moves on. She learns to apologize and to forgive.

The secondary characters in the book are excellent. Luke is wonderful, Brigit is perfectly flawed, the sisters have distinct personalities. The conflict with her mother is heartbreaking.

I really really liked this book. At nearly 600 pages this was not a quick book, but I am glad that I read it. I have known a few addicts and this book gives me insight into why they behave the way they do. I trust the author knows her stuff, as she wrote a great essay in Under the Duvet about her own experience with addiction and recovery. I will definitely be looking for more of her books!

This book was part of the TBR challenge.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand, and the next thing that happened was we kissed each other, and I found I knew how, and I felt happy and sad in equal parts, because I knew that I was falling in love, but it wasn't with him.
---From A History of Love, page 202.

For Christmas, my friend Shawna gave me A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to read it. I was nervous, she had loved the book so much and I was worried that I wouldn't love it. I was wrong. It's hard to summarize what this book is really about, so here's the text from the back cover:

Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother's loneliness. Believing that she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of it's author. Across New York an old man named Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the lost love who, sixty years ago in Poland, inspired him to write a book. And although he doesn't know it yet, that book also survived: crossing oceans and generations, and changing lives . . . .

This does not begin to describe the book. It's very good. It's written so well, from the perspective of a half dozen people. The clues to how it will all end are evenly paced and well written. Nothing is given away too soon and nothing is left out. This isn't a light fluffy book, the parts that are the book within the book are completely different in style and tone from the rest of the book. It's so well thought out and written that I wish I had written it. I should not have worried, this book will end up on my personal best of 2007 list.