reading wishlist – february 2012

This semester, I’ve been hit pretty hard with a case of Book Fever. I want to read everything. I haven’t kept a To-Read list in years, but since January I’ve somehow come up with 45 titles I want to check out.

It’s like my subconscious knows that in two short months, I will be able to read whatever I want for the REST. OF. MY. LIFE. Even though my conscious mind is all “Homework! Work! Reading! Schedules! Jobs!”, my subconscious is like “booooooooooooooooooooooooks.”

Ahem.

Here are some titles I’ve recently added to the growing stack:

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

This is the kind of book I’d usually skip over, but 1) I’ve been running a lot lately, so the title alone keeps catching my eye 2) The plot summary reminds me of a 21st century Izzy Willy Nilly (which I enjoyed reading for a children’s lit class way back in the day in undergrad) 3) Janssen called it “Quite Excellent”. That is enough convincing for me!

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

I think my YA lit class has given me a bit of what could be called Literary Revertigo: I’m spending a lot of time talking about what kind of books teens want to read, what they read for pleasure or relaxation, what they are interested in, etc. This is a book that Teenage Jessica would have been really into; I inexplicably really want to read it. Maybe I want to spend some time with Teenage Jessica?

The List by Siobhan Vivian

Siobhan Vivian writes books with really good hooks, I think. I am always intrigued by them but never get a chance to pick them up. This one is a multiple-narrator story about a school whose male students create a list of the prettiest and ugliest girls every year. Perhaps the above Revertigo applies here as well.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

This book came up in a class discussion last night, and the cover just beguiles me. Also, I have residual fondness for authors whose short stories I read in my undergrad creative writing classes, which includes Ms. Bender.

Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bauman

This book is getting a lot of buzz for just being scandalously sexy for young adult fiction. If you think I can resist scandalous YA in the interest in maintaining my morals… you just don’t know me very well.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

So I know that less than 24 hours ago I said I hated dystopian trilogies. But I’m susceptible to hype, and my classmates are getting geeky about this one. So I put it on hold. But not because I am in any way supporting the dystopian trilogy as an institution.

Baby’s in Black by Arne Bellstorf

Ever since I read Elizabeth Partridge’s John Lennon: All I Want Is The Truth – which is AWESOME, in case you were wondering – I have become a bit fascinated by Beatles history. This biographical graphic novel of “The Missing Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, looks like exactly the kind of graphic novel that I lurve. Plus it’s all dark and moody looking. Even though I say I like books with covers like The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, I am sometimes secretly a dark-and-moody bookcover girl.

Titanic: Voices From the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson

There are a lot of books coming out this year in honor/exploitation of the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking. This one, however, has received some good reviews and good buzz.

Or maybe I just want to relive the frenzy that was being in 7th grade when Leo sunk with the ship on the big screen. See: Revertigo.

Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers

I just really liked this cover.

And Chambers writes smart books. So there you have it.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith