The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

If you are thinking that sci-fi/fantasy is a little too white, a little too European, a little too hyper-masculine, a little too predictable, then this is the book for you. Okorafor-Mbachu’s novel is set in post-nuclear Africa. A bizarre act of bioterrorism has left many children with supernatural powers, and perhaps also created some kind of space-time rift into another world. Protagonist Ejii, has a power that calls her to leave her family and follow Queen Jaa – this crazy, wild leader who has 2 husbands and who also beheaded Ejii’s father, years ago – into the desert. The ending was a bit over the top, but I really enjoyed being immersed in the non-Western mythology and navigating the mix of science and fantasy here.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

I wrote a nice long review of The Scorpio Races for the Words on Paper book club. You should go read it, if you’d like, but here’s the short version:

Book about two teens who live on an island where every year, man-eating waterhorses rise from the sea… and instead of relocating to a safer home, the islanders capture these horses and race them.

Why I liked it, despite the man-eating-water-horses? Great setting, complex character relationships, and short chapters.

What? Short chapters are awesome! Leave me alone…

Split by Svati Avasthi

Ah, realism. There you are! This was a syllabus-book from back in March, but I still remember much about the characters and the story that really pulled me in. The novel opens with Jace knocking on his older brother’s door. His older brother – Christian – isn’t expecting Jace; they haven’t spoken in a number of a years after Christian left home, fleeing their father’s abuse. Christian lets him invade his tiny apartment even though Jace isn’t being particularly forthcoming about why he left home. Both Jace and Christian fight some very real demons from the past and present, and basically have to learn how to be family for each other when neither boy knows what that means. I found the relationship between brothers to be so touchingly honest and painful that I wanted to reach out and hug them both.

Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart

Look, guys. Y’all know I love E. Lockhart. This does not need to be reiterated. But, heck, every time I read these Ruby Oliver books, I feel like they are just some of the most underrated young adult novels of life.

Why do Ruby and her romantic debacles get the short shrift? Is it because Ruby’s books aren’t long enough? They are written in first person? She doesn’t have enough trauma in her life? Because the covers are cute and girly? Because there’s not a “cover plot” to disguise the romance?

I am not sure. All I know is that I was a little heartbroken to realize this was the last in the series. You had a good run, Ruby!

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Álire Saenz

This book has a lot of things I like. Psychological mysteries. Rehab & drug addiction. Emotional triumph. I read this book for my Realism class in the spring, during which we probably read every Most Depressing Book Ever, and Last Night I Sang to the Monster fit right in. But unlike many of our novels that semester, this book had me legitimately concerned about the protagonist’s future. Zach is in rehab, but doesn’t remember why or how he got there. With the help of his friends and therapist, his past starts to reveal itself, but it’s not good. So basically, this poor kid has to deal with addiction, with PTSD-amnesia, and figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of his life. All at the same time.

Poor guy. Great read.

Breath by Donna Jo Napoli

As a child, I eschewed many genres. This included every genre that Ms. Napoli usually writes, so I missed out on her retellings and historical treatments until reading The Smile a few years ago. The Smile – the story of the Mona Lisa – was good. I liked it okay. But Breath? Good God, I have no idea why I liked this book but I ATE IT UP, I really did. Maybe, in my old age, I am warming up to all sorts of genres!

Okay. Breath is a retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, set in a German village in the 1200s. The main character, Salz, is a sickly, skinny teenager, which means that his burly older brothers resent him for getting out of chores and he generally feels out of place in his agrarian town. But then, everyone in town starts getting a strange sickness. Salz isn’t so much trying to solve the mystery of this illness as trying to survive and keep his family alive, but part of the fun of reading is trying to figure out why everyone is going berserk every night. Salz and his grandmother are also part of this pagan group that occasionally gets together to trip out on drugs and have a little rural bacchanal… so the whole of the novel – the plot, the setting, the historicity – I found completely and unexpectedly enthralling.

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

I had mixed feelings about this book when I read it back in May, but the more time I have to stew over it, the more impressed I am by McCafferty’s first foray into non-realism.

Bumped is, indeed, Yet-Another-Freakin’-Dystopia. The dystopic premise? Adults can no longer procreate, leaving teenagers to carry out the reproductive responsibility for the entire human race. The subsequent commodification and commercialization of teen pregnancy is fairly horrifying – i.e. prosthetic pregnant bellies are the new skinny jeans – but the story focuses on two particular girls who reside on opposite ends of the reproductive spectrum. Melody and Harmony are twins separated at birth; Melody is a career-bound goody two-shoes who has finally snagged a choice conception contract and is waiting for her reproductive agent to select a fitting partner for procreation. Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep unannounced, on unexplained leave from a religious compound where sex is reserved for marriage and babies are kept in the family (gasp!).

Wacky hijinks ensue. This is a fun premise for a dystopia, but more than that, after reading and thinking about dystopias for my SF/F class this semester, I started to see Bumped as more of a satire of other dystopias. McCafferty writes humor so well that she can pull this off, I think. I am looking forward to the sequel, coming out in April!

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award finalist. National Book Award finalist (after all the nonsense, anyway). Tons of starred reviews and blog buzz. After having renewed this book 5 times (aka an entire semester), I decided to run with my recent tolerance for the paranormal and read Chime.

I have to say, I was pleased.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot, but the book opens with our heroine, Briony, confessing to crimes unnamed, asserting her inherent wickedness, and asking to be hanged. It doesn’t take too much time to figure out that Briony probably doesn’t deserve to die, but it takes the entire novel to reveal exactly what crimes she committed, which ones she didn’t, and who is ultimately responsible for the lot of bad things that have happened to Briony and her family. But more importantly, to Briony anyway, is the Swamp Cough. The town children are slowly dying from a strange sickness that is baffling the doctors. Briony suspects that it has something to do with the spirits who live in the swamp, but she can’t figure out a way to negotiate with them without revealing that she can speak to them – and if she does that, she’ll be hung as a witch.

The last hundred pages of this book sped by. I predicted the ending fairly well, but not in a way that made me feel like it wasn’t worth the effort to read. More like I felt clever to have solved the mystery on my own.

Also, there is a fairly steamy, but non-cheesy romance, which I totally ate up. Yum.

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

Another great Sarah Dessen book. I’m not sure she can write anything I don’t like. Some books might be stronger than others, but they are all solid reads, in my opinion.

This chapter is about a girl, McLean, who lives “on the road” with her divorced dad as he fixes up dying restaurants. McLean reinvents herself at every port, doesn’t get vulnerable, remains pissed at her mom for ruining her family, etc. She meets a cadre of unlikely, plucky friends and of course, falls a little bit in love with a boy. There’s also city planning, blended families, and college basketball!

Really, though. Sarah Dessen, you are both my bread and my butter. Keep on keepin’ on.

Hold Still by Nina LaCour

As mentioned, I don’t get a lot of time to try out new authors. With limited time for reading, I usually stick to the especially buzzworthy, the tried-and-true authors, and re-reading favorites. So it’s a rare feeling for me to read a book and say to myself “hmmm… I want to keep an eye on this one.” Hold Still felt like a rare book, and I am indeed keeping an eye on Nina LaCour (new book, The Disenchantments, coming out in February.

Hold Still is about Caitlin, learning to recover from her best friend’s suicide. Caitlin is suddenly filled with regret, doubt, and complicity for being the best friend who didn’t realize her friend needed help. She herself begins to slip into a depressive state as she mourns her loss, but she does, eventually, begin to scrape her way out.

This sounds like a big fat downer of a book. And that’s true, actually. But it’s depressing like Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak is depressing: raw, painful, but ultimately reminds you – the reader – that life is a big mess of goodness, badness, beauty, and pain, and we have to handle it all to survive.

Up next… Books for Adults!

I have read 26 works of Sci-Fi/Fantasy in just over three months.

I have whined about it. I have longed for… um… reality. I have read Twilight.

But for all of my posturing, I am glad that I have had this experience. Because, you know what? SF/F books are books, too. Much like realism, many fantastic books suck, but many are quite interesting and well written.

One that falls into the latter category: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.

This month, the stars aligned for me to be able to participate in the November YA Bookclub over at Tracey Neithercott’s blog, Words on Paper. And by “the stars aligned,” I mean, my roommate bought a copy, swooned over it, and let me read it over my long Thanksgiving break! And while it wasn’t one of those books I am inclined to whip through, I was not disappointed.

The Scorpio Races are an annual event on the island of Thisby, riling up the townspeople and gathering tourists, racers, and gamblers from the mainland and all over the world. The reason: instead of racing horses, competitors race cappail uisce – a legendary breed of water horses that emerge from the sea during storms. They are the fastest creatures you can ride… but they also have a taste for human blood. The races are exhilarating and a way of celebrating Thisby’s long heritage, but every year, the cappail uisce claim victims.

Our two narrators, Puck and Sean, are young teens preparing for the Scorpio Races. Sean is a renowned cappail uisce trainer, rider, and handler, despite his young age. Every year, he rides his father’s red waterhorse, Corr, but this year if he wins the race, Sean can finally buy him outright from his boss, a wealthy stable-owner. Puck, on the other hand, has never ridden a cappail uisce, and after one killed her parents, she never wanted to. But when her older brother threatens to leave the island, Puck enters the competition with the hopes of winning and earning enough money to keep her parents’ home and keep her family together.

Of course, they befriend one another. Sean stands up for Puck when the conservative town attempts to throw her out of the competition for being the first female rider and takes her under his wing. But they can’t both win… and participating in such a dangerous race, they might both die trying.

This is exactly the kind of fantasy that I am starting to enjoy. It’s written not in the sci-fi or fantasy generic tradition, but in realism; the elements of fantasy are so elegantly entwined into the novel’s setting that they seem inevitable, necessary, and natural. I never felt like the cappail uisce were supernatural creatures: they were just really weird wild horses. Stiefvater tells this story like a horse story, too (a genre which I used to enjoy, in my younger years, despite minimal interest in actually riding horses), evoking a sense of their physicality, their animal-ness, and their potential for emotional connection. But I was particularly impressed with Stiefvater’s use of the setting, here. For me, it’s not just the “world building” aspect of setting that is important. You can put in all the details and quirky townsfolk and social codes and descriptions you want but that’s not going to woo me. It’s the sense of reverence the characters have for a place that gets me going, the complexity of the relationships between its inhabitants and their relationship with their land. The Scorpio Races aren’t just about racing mythical water horses – it’s about living in the place where these water horses deign to show up, year after year. It’s about how natural events shape your culture; the scene describing Thisby’s annual festival preparing for the races was downright creepy, almost primal, quite carnivalesque.  It’s the character a town takes on when dependent on such a profitable but unpredictable and dangerous event. Stiefvater really plays up the tension of both loving and hating your homeland. Sean’s life’s work and happiness depend on Thisby and the cappail uisce, but he begins to think hard about what he’s giving up being so reliant on one place. Puck is trying so desperately  to hold onto her life on the island, even though she knows it is Thisby that is responsible for destroying her family in the first place.

Oh, and one last insight from my darling roommate. “I loved it,” she says, “because nobody fell mysteriously in love within the first 2 chapters and then spent the rest of the novel angsting about it!”

True dat. But how completely SAD that this is even a valid comment? That is surely another post for another day, though.

This book is getting a lot of good press. Horn Book starred it. NY Times said it was one of the top 5 notable YA’s of the year. I’m sure every book blogger from here to next Sunday has already raved about it.

And this anti-fantasy girl… is maybe coming around. A little. Not too much. Let’s not get overly excited.

Oh, May.

You were a treat.

I read a lot. I read a lot of books I really enjoyed. I read a lot of books that I really enjoyed and then wanted to read more.

All around, a fun month for reading!

1. Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

My last “on-syllabus” book of the semester, but also the first “on-syllabus” book of my grad school career that had me completely at hello. Maybe there are books you read that make you want to give the book a hug, or maybe, a smart, mature book might leave you wanting to marry a book, but this book made me want to eat it. And it would taste like candy.

Actually, that’s a fairly accurate description of many of the books I read in May!

But anyway, the story begins with Amy’s family dissolving. Her father died in an accident, her twin brother was shipped off to rehab, and her mother decided to take a new job in Connecticut, leaving Amy behind in California while they sell one house and buy another. When it comes time for Amy to join her mother, it also seems like a great way for Amy’s mother to be rejoined with the red Jeep she left behind.

One problem: Amy doesn’t drive. Enter romantic interest: Roger. An old family friend finishing his first year of college and spending the summer with his father in Pennsylvania, Roger needs a ride and Amy has a car that needs driving. Amy’s mother has their route calculated and hotel reservations made along the way… but of course, what kind of book would it be if Amy and Roger didn’t decide to take off on their own?

Hijinks, emotional arcs, likable side-characters, make-overs, road trip playlists, local food indulgences, and tortured flirtation ensue.

Devoured it.

Loved it.

2. Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

This is one of those quintessentially “YA” Young Adult book. One of the original Printz Honors, I feel like this book could be voted Most Likely To Show Up On Your Children’t Lit Course Syllabus. I, therefore, have read it three or four times before, and at least once when I was an actual teenager.

If you are one of the two people on this planet who have not read this novel, it is quite good, I think, and here’s what you need to know:

John’s parents are divorced. He lives with his mom and takes the train into Boston to visit his Dad’s bachelor pad on the weekends. His father ignores him and goes on dates, his mother weeps about her divorce and doesn’t show John any affection. John has one friend who is kind of a loser and spends too much time representing a heteronormative, nerdy kind of teenaged lifestyle.

John’s life sucks, so why not recreate yourself a little? John writes a zine (aww…. how nineties is that!!) under the name “Gio,” and gets the attention of another zine-writer, Marisol, who lives in Cambridge. Marisol is gorgeous, challenging, mercurial, and a lesbian. Of course, John/Gio falls in love.

The whole “girl falls in love with gay best friend” is almost a narrative trope at this point, but I can’t say I’ve heard of a story about the reverse other than this one!

2000 Printz Honor

3. Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi

I picked up this book for two reasons.

Reason #1: I used to watch Ally McBeal in high school, and I remember clearly all of the hype about the show’s actresses, including Portia de Rossi. Supposedly, the environment on the set was toxic: Calista Flockhart was clearly a too-skinny freak of nature and the show dressed her to accentuate her thinness, so the rest of the female cast felt like they needed to be gaunt to compete. I hoped that de Rossi’s memoir would be an insider account of what was going on there, in the cast of an only moderately successful television show, that seemed to formally usher in the stick-figure-body aesthetic of the late 90s and early 00s.

Reason #2: I heard it was actually a decent read, not obviously ghost-written or trashy.

I was right about #2, for sure. The back cover has blurbs from Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeanette Walls, and Augusten Burroughs for goodness sake! This is not your average celebrity memoir!

I didn’t find what I was expecting with #1, but what I found was equally interesting. This book really is not a Hollywood tell-all but a memoir. De Rossi describes her childhood in Australia, her career as a model that segued into acting, and her struggle to identify (inwardly and outwardly) as a homosexual woman.

By the time she made it onto the cast of Ally, she was already heavily into disordered eating, habits that developed when she was a young, aspiring model that her peers and parents seemed to approve of (or at least look the other way from). Hanging out with Calista Flockhart and Courtney Thorne-Smith and Lucy Liu didn’t drive de Rossi to anorexia, but the pressure of being a working actress in LA, with frequent costume fittings and sample-sized clothing, and with the means to over-exercise and seek professional help from a nutritionist, it was easier for de Rossi’s already present disorder to escalate quickly.

She barely mentions her female costars in this book, but she so clearly portrays this kind of pandemic Hollywood attitude toward women’s weight and appearance that it is easy to imagine that Flockhart and Thorne-Smith and Liu could have easily had similar personal experiences that kept them losing weight during the show’s filming… and contributing to whatever effect that had on women watching their show from home.

Anywaaaaay, super interesting read that I breezed through in an afternoon. I found myself very invested in de Rossi’s life and career and worried for her health, and I was glad to know that in Real Life, she was doing okay.

And yes, I’ve been watching Ally McBeal reruns on Netflix. It’s kind of like Grey’s Anatomy with lawyers!

4. Made for You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly

I picked this up from one of my favorite places to hear about quirky new books: NPR’s weekly “What We’re Reading” report.

And while I was reading it, I realized that when it comes to narrative non-fiction, I have a really big soft-spot for books like Shetterly’s.

I think I might call them “Memoirs by normal-ish people who have done little noteworthy other than craft their particular life experience into an interesting story.”

And this is why I don’t get mad when 20-somethings write memoirs. For me, a memoir isn’ about the destination, it’s about the journey! If you can take me on a journey, I love you.

Anyway. I loved this book. The journey Shetterly takes you on is one from New England to Los Angeles and back again. Caitlin gets married and she and her husband decide to pursue their lifelong dream of moving to LA and living as working artistic-people. However, the move is neither cheap nor smooth (as very few moves tend to be), and their savings is pretty much shot… just in time for the Great Recession to swing in to eliminate the middle-class day jobs the two were hoping to acquire to pay the rent, and for Caitlin to get pregnant…. and if that weren’t enough, she develops hyperemesis gravidarum and can’t walk across the living room much less find a job or work.

So the thirty-something couple and their new baby end up moving back to Maine… and moving in with Catilin’s mother. But that’s not really the point. The point is that Shetterly takes you on this very American journey of hope, pursuit of happiness, and the nuclear family… when she fails, you can see how thousands of other American families can so easily fail even when they are doing everything right… but also that we are all kind of in this economic rollercoaster ride together.

Her story could be anybody’s story, but in a good way.

5. Bumped by Megan McCafferty

My awesome roommate pre-ordered this book for me for my birthday in March! This is one of my favorite methods for gift receiving – I would gladly forgo a gift on my actual day of birth in exchange for an Amazon delivery on pub day! It’s a little like Christmas!

I have waxed poetic about my love of Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling oeuvre before.

I had mixed but generally positive feelings about Bumped, which is McCafferty’s first “straight” YA novel, as well as a departure into the oh-so-trendy world of futuristic dystopia.

The dystopian premise: every adult gets a disease that renders them sterile. All procreation lies on the shoulders of the teenage demographic… so of course, the whole system becomes heavily monetized, with babies being purchased, adoptions and surrogacy brokered by the powerful and rich, and the more fertile you are, the cooler, most popular, and closer to celebrity you become!

I didn’t have any problems with the story itself. The premise was interesting with lots of surprising and thought provoking details, and the main plot clever and snappy (two twins, separated at birth, meeting for the first time: one who lives in a private, religious cult that favors traditional attitudes toward procreating such as “marriage” and “don’t sell your baby,” the other a popular overachieving girl with a contract to bear a child for a high-powered couple as soon as they find a suitable sperm donor).

But I am, sadly, getting a little bored/overwhelmed with the poor, beat-int0-the-ground dystopia.

Similarly, the recent influx of built-in-trilogies. Can’t we just write longer books instead of spreading out the goods intentionally?

I’ll be excited to read book 2, though, whenever it comes out…

6. What Happened To Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

What to say about a Sarah Dessen book that hasn’t already been said?

Janssen wrote a pretty solid review a few months ago. I stand by everything she says about this novel and the whole “Sarah Dessen” aesthetic.

There’s just something comforting about her novels. Everything you want out of this book, you will get. So while some people might find her novels formulaic, I delight in finding out exactly how she plays with the formula with each successive book, and how her knack for creating likable, three-dimensional characters and rich settings (although they are always suburban?!? who can do that?), make me, the reader, seduced into her novels.

Another win for Ms. Dessen.

An aside for fellow Dessenophiles: this is the THIRD book that Jason has appeared in as a significant minor character… what is it about that boy? Do you think Sarah Dessen has a soft spot for the old nerd? Do you think he’s having some kind of multi-book storyline that will end up with him as a love interest two or three books down the road? I’m so obsessed with this…

7. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

Okay, at this point in my summer-break reading, I’m not even pretending to be a literary-type person.

Whatever.

This is chick lit! It’s been turned into a RomCom! It’s got a lot of silliness and betrayal and sex and consumerism!

I liked it.

This is probably like saying “I like eating Krispy Kreme donuts.” Of course you like eating Krispy Kreme donuts! They are deep fried in fat and covered in sugar! Your body was made to like eating Krispy Kreme donuts!

I ate a book donut in May and it was good. I put the sequel on hold. I was a little disheartened that the book ended with the protagonist kind of “falling into” the resolution of her love-triangle, but all in all I thought the conclusion was an interesting way to end the novel. Is it too much to ask for a female romantic protagonist who isn’t either A) totally confident and outgoing and take charge or B) completely mousy and ineffective and doesn’t DO anything?

I guess I can’t eat a bunch of donuts and expect them to be better than… something that’s not just a donut.

8. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Do you ever get into a reading mood? When you just want to read a certain type of book or books about a certain topic or maybe the same book over and over again?

Maybe it’s just me.

But I hope you like books about running, because that’s what I’m in the mood for.

That being said, I really liked this book for many reasons other than the fact that it is a book about running. The author is a well-known writer of fiction in Japan, so he can craft a sentence for sure. And I loved the Not-Western-ness of some of his attitudes and of his writing style in general. Refreshing.

But above all, this is one of those kind of meandering, philosophical books that has you reaching for a pen and paper to jot down quotes that say something so perfectly, something you never thought anyone else ever thought about except for you.

For example, this quote that has nothing to do with writing but everything to do with life (and maybe YA fiction):

Sixteen is an intensely troublesome age. You worry about little things, can’t pinpoint where you are in any objective way, become really proficient at strange, pointless skills, and are held in thrall by inexplicable complexes. As you get older, though, through trial and error you learn to get what you need, and throw out what should be discarded. And you start to recognize (or be resigned to the fact) that since your faults and deficiencies are well night infinite, you’d best figure out your good points and learn to get by with what you have.”

Good stuff. The book is structured as short essay-type pieces that revolve around Murakami’s experiences a long distance runner, but yeah, it’s not all about running. Don’t worry. Try it anyway.

9. Hush by Eishes Chayil

Okay. I am pounding out a whole system of weird reading philosophies here, but bear with me. Along with reading moods, I think people have “hot topics” that they just can’t resist. Ever. Sometimes, the topics just come to you: my mother has read more books about mountain climbers than 95% of the population, but very rarely chooses to read a book just because it’s about mountain climbers. She reads them because somebody recommended the book or because it’s about something entirely other than climbing mountains but somehow is also about climbing mountains, et cetera.

Anyway. One of my hot topics for reading/documentaries/Dateline specials?

Secluded religious communities that hold onto traditional ways of life in spite of all the 21st century America happening around them.

So, basically, stories about fundamentalist Mormons, the Amish,

and Orthodox Jews!

Hush is an intense young adult novel about life for young girls in extremely Orthodox communities. The kind of child abuse that occurs in this novel is by no means unique or even prevalent to this religious community, but the religious beliefs regarding women, sex, marriage, and the pressure placed upon a family unit to be godly, to be pious, to be normal, creates a kind of strange environment in which severe child abuse gets swept under the rug. Young victims are ignored or silenced and perpetrators are never confronted and can continue to abuse other children.

It’s a vicious cycle. This book is not only an “insider’s look” at a religious community that still thrives today, slightly outside the focus of the average American, but also calls attention to this systemic problem and calls for action to be made within the communities themselves.

2011 William C. Morris Award Finalist

10. My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel

File this one under “Trying to Read Those Children’s/YA Books Everyone Has Already Assumed I’ve Read.”

Also file this one under “Weird Books That I Don’t Quite Appreciate Because I’m A Modern Reader With Modern Expectations.”

This is Zindel’s “problem novel” about abortion. I read it a few weeks ago but don’t remember much about it other than the fact that female low-self esteem was usually followed by this random older guy appearing to take the offending (and desperate) girl out on a date… where they found this guy and decided he was worth speaking to was a mystery to me: his character is basically Generic Offensive Asshole.

I guess when you are feeling down, this is what you get, ladies. A Generic Offensive Asshole to punish you for making bad decisions.

11. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

See: Reading Mood… but also see: Reading Candy! This book was awesome and I ate it right up in like, two days.

This book is…

– One part Intro to Ultramarathons. Running 50 to 100 mile races might not seem like the most interesting topic for a book, but it certainly attracts a very interesting breed of person and McDougall does a great job of capturing the many interesting characters who have found and excelled at the sport. (Spoiler: they are all kind of crazy)

– One part History of People. Running, McDougall posits, is an innately human thing to do. He gathers the data and research on primitive running cultures and examines how they run, why they run, what they eat, how they live, and talks about how those choices keep them free from injury and able to maintain superior athletic performance. I now want to run around barefoot all the time and eat chia seeds.

– One part Epic Adventure. McDougall does a story on the notoriously elusive and skilled runners, the Tarahumara. In digging into the jungles of Mexico to find them, he meets a random crazy ultramarathoning white dude who has earned the Tarahumara respect… and who also wants to bring some of America’s best ultramarathoners down to the jungle to have an epic 50 mile race. Somehow McDougall and this Crazy Guy convince some of those crazy characters to travel down into Mexico (while avoiding food poisoning, falling off cliffs, and Mexican drug cartels) and compete against the Tarahumara.

They pull it off in the end, but the path to get there is pretty ridiculous.

I really just want to buy this book for people. I don’t know why, but I do.

12. Bossypants by Tina Fey

I read this book from start to finish last Wednesday while I sat in various airports for various lengths of time!

I’m not sure I have much to say about it, though. This book is getting a lot of good press and for good reason. Everyone wants Tina Fey to be their best friend, and here she is, telling you about her life and making you laugh.

My favorite part is when she writes about 30 Rock, and how she wanted to write a really popular, accessible sitcom that would make a lot of money… but for some reason, 30 Rock just wouldn’t have it. It just became weirder and weirder.

That just makes me smile.

13. Good Eggs by Phoebe Potts

When I was planning out books to bring with me for my trip to Michigan, I had this feeling that I would find at least one good book lying around my house. Probably a book I hadn’t heard of, or maybe one I’d been meaning to read that would just appear on a kitchen counter…

This was that book! And it was really good!

Remember how I like “Memoirs by normal-ish people who have done little noteworthy other than craft their particular life experience into an interesting story?” Here’s another one! AND it’s a graphic novel!! Best day ever!!!

This actually did kind of remind me of Made for You and Me, but in reverse. Where Caitlin is an artistic New England girl struggling to find a place in the world after she gets married and becomes unexpectedly pregnant, Pheobe Potts is an artistic New England girl struggling to find a place in the world after she gets married and becomes unexpectedly infertile.

I’m glad I spotted this book hiding on the bottom level of the end table sitting next to the chair in my parents’ family room.

 

13 books read in May

(you overachiever, you!)

 

Even though I have a week off for Spring Break, March is usually a fairly light reading month for me. Maybe because a week off from school means a week off from my syllabus? But heck, who am I kidding, I am having trouble even attending to my obligatory 2-novels-a-week quota.

Ah, well. Some months are lean, some have books of plenty, their reading cups runneth over, et cetera. Take it easy, Jessica, it will all get read, in time.

1. Alice in Charge by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I read my first Alice book in 5th grade, when Alice was a year ahead of me. Now, 10 years later, Alice is finally a Senior in high school, and Lester – her epically older, working on his Masters since I was in middle school, brother – just turned 24.

I am now the most epically old person alive.

Anyway, this year, Alice is going on (underplanned, heavily misguided) college visits, helping a friend report unsavory teacher-student relations, and investigating an undercover hate group that has targeted her friend, a refugee from Sudan.

But, most importantly, she’s pining over Patrick, who has started college a year early (what an idiot). Ah, sigh, Alice and Patrick, Patrick and Alice. Some things just don’t change in 10 years.

2. Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart

I wrote about how much I enjoyed reading this book, but I didn’t go into much detail as to why.

Here’s the quick and dirty: E. Lockhart’s books, without fail, remind me of the sheer complexity of attempting to maintain a romantic relationship with another human being, the triumphs, the pain, the importance of keeping at it. They might be considered “romantic comedies,” but they never sell a single character or interaction short.

These books make me want to hug them. Like, actually hug.

3. Split by Swati Avasthi

Return of the Syllabus… but I really enjoyed this book. The novel begins with Jace knocking on the door of his older brother, who he hasn’t seen in a number of years and who isn’t expecting him for a visit, much less to move in and stay awhile. Christian is miffed, but he understands, since he ran away from the same home years before to escape the domestic abuse of their father… who is a District Judge. The story focuses on Jace adapting to a new life while trying to reach out to the mother he left behind, trying to relate to a similarly emotionally damaged brother, and dealing with a bit of a secret past that could come back to haunt him.

I found this to be one of those books that zips right along, the pages flying by for a few days and when you are done, you don’t feel floored (or prone to book-hugging) but just satisfied.

2010 Cybils Winner – Young Adult Fiction

4. The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

We read this book for class alongside Split, which turned this class period into a Domestic Abuse Extravaganza!! (These books are pretty much all super depressing this semester)

This time around, we have a crazy, occasionally violent mother. Nikki has three kids from two different fathers, and this novel is a letter written from the oldest (Matthew) to the youngest (Emmy). Matthew and his sister Callie have done a great job of keeping Emmy safe from Nikki’s crazy outbursts and drunken rages, but Matthew still secretly hopes that somebody – a Knight in Shining Armor – will show up and save them all, even though he’s not sure that Nikki is really “all that bad.” Matt and Callie see a strong, kindly stranger in their neighborhood and decide that he is the One, and they hunt him down and find his name and address. However, Nikki finds Murdoch first and seduces him, and when their romantic relationship fizzles, Nikki turns her rage towards him.

I’d read this book a few years ago and I definitely enjoyed the re-read, but unlike say, Split, the end of the book felt a little scrapped together, a little disconcerting. Well, the whole book was a bit disconcerting, but I didn’t close the novel feeling resolved – I left feeling a little lost, a little confused… and all the more glad that I have a pair of mentally balanced parents.

2006 National Book Award Finalist

5. Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I’ll say this first – this book has me all sorts of riled up, for a number of reasons.

I feel like I don’t want to spoil much, but I’m going to anyway. In chapter one, the narrator – Gemma – is drugged and abducted at the airport and flown against her will and her knowledge to the remote deserts of Australia where her captor has spent years building a little homestead for the two of them to live.

The novel has two storylines, then:

1) Gemma tries to escape

2) Gemma falls in love with her captor

The second story line bothered me, but it mostly bothered me because it was really obvious that the story line was SUPPOSED to bother me.

I don’t like feeling manipulated…

but I suppose it DID make me think, right? And also we talked about Colonialism in class – Stockholm Syndrome = the oppressors tricking the oppressed into wanting to be oppressed – which I thought was crazy-interesting.

So I’m torn.

2011 Printz Honor

6. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

It was a BPL miracle: this book was getting a lot of hype in the media/blogosphere, I went to put a hold on it, I WAS NUMBER FOUR IN LINE.

Anyway, last week when I was recovering from my terrible illness, I missed out on 12 hours of work on Thursday and thought I would go onto campus and do a little extra on Friday. But first, I had to walk to the library to drop off my overdues and pick up my holds.

The bags were really heavy, though, and I forgot my caffeine in my fridge, and walking a mile was a little exhausting. I did not make it to work on Friday – I made it back onto the couch and read through this book in the span of an afternoon.

I found the book to be not much at all like the media portrayed it – it wasn’t a parenting polemic, it was a memoir. It wasn’t a “This is How You Should Raise Your Kids,” this is “This is How I Raised My Kids and It Kind of Worked and Kind of Didn’t.”

The book revolves around her two daughter’s music lessons and skills – they are both highly advanced musicians because Ms. Chua lorded over their hours-a-day practicing and arranged for them the best lessons available – so I naturally handed this one off to my boyfriend.

However, I didn’t expect him to eat it up like he currently is…

more about THAT later…

All-syllabus, all the time.

At least I’m getting more reading done than I was last year at this time, what with The Semester of the Picturebook weighing me down. And I’m actually caught up with my reading to the point that I *gasp* picked up a JUST FOR FUN book yesterday! And I might have time to finish it! Yowza!

1. Trash by Andy Mulligan

This book is much more action-y than I usually like, but I did like this book. It has a strangely dystopian-feel, but maybe that’s because the kids in the book make a living digging through the trash of the rich and selling what they find. It seems hard to believe that kids like this really exist in the world, that communities like this exist, but they do. These kids get in and out of a fair amount of trouble when they find some trash they shouldn’t have, and they end up doing the whole Fighting Off the Evil Opressors! thing throughout the novel. Really engaging.

2. Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz

I love me a good addict memoir, but this fiction is just as good. Alex is in rehab, but he doesn’t remember why. Actually, he just doesn’t want to remember why, so he doesn’t. But if he wants to leave, wants to stay sober, wants to return to the real world, he has to work with his therapist, with his friends, and with himself to figure out what’s worth remembering from his past and what’s worth returning to.

3. Boy Toy by Barry Lyga

I read this book when it first came out, a few years ago. I thought it was pretty good, whatever. Read it again, and suddenly, I felt like a big fat creep. This could be because I’m currently enrolled in a graduate program, that besides from being freaking AWESOME, it also requires that I think about what it means to be an adult who wants to read about teenagers, and the inherent creepiness about the whole process. ANYWAY, the book is about a 13-year-old kid who has affair with his 24-year-old social studies teacher. Five years later, he’s 18 and she’s being let out of jail on parole, and he’s finally forced to dredge up the past and figure out what exactly happened in seventh grade.

The difference between my two readings of the book? When I first read the book, I was 22. Now, I’m older than his teacher.

Insert squeamish faces and noises and feelings in the pit of your stomach.

4. Fell by M.E. Kerr

This was one of my favorite audiobooks as a kid. Yeah, I listened to a lot of Books on Tape while I played with my Legos… what’s it to you? Anyway, I’ve heard this story a lot, but I’ve only read it a couple times in print. This time around, I was surprised that there was a lot that my mind had inflated – I knew the story so well, I was sure of this EPIC nature of the book, that scenes went on longer, that the plot moved slower. Nope. This is a lean, fast read. It’s about a boy, Fell, whose girlfriend stands him up at Prom. Angry, he backs out of her driveway too fast and runs into her neighbor’s car, an accident that ends up changing his life when the neighbor offers to get him out of his struggling single-parent home and take a place at a prestigious boarding school under a false name. I also wrote a paper on this book…. which was probably not very well executed. Urgh.

5. Surrender by Sonya Hartnett

I brought this book home in the summer, thinking it looked like a nice literary, edgy read. I never got around to it… THANK GOODNESS. It popped up on my syllabus, and I first found it…. dense. A lot of description. It wouldn’t have been what I wanted to read over the summer…. and then, close to the end, it becomes completely horrifying. I don’t even want to get into it, but jaw-dropping, eye-covering, horror. 2007 Printz Honor.

6. Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

No offense intended to Mr. Myers…. but how can you write a book like Monster and then KEEP writing books about kids in prison? I can’t read a single book about a kid in prison without comparing it to Monster… much less another book written by Walter Dean Myers.

So it was good, fine, yes. But no Monster. 2010 National Book Award Finalist.

7. Nothing by Janne Teller

Just when I thought I couldn’t be more horrified by a book (See: Surrender), more horrifying books come along!

This is one of those books that you’ll find yourself trying to explain to every person you meet. It starts off with a bunch of seventh graders, one of whom decides that life is meaningless, climbs up a tree, and proceeds to harass everyone that walks by, screaming at his former friends for continuing to live when there’s really nothing to live for. So the rest of the gang want to prove him wrong and shut him up: they start to gather a pile of things that have meaning, to show their friend. Only, the things they put on that pile…. oh my good Lord. This book was so disturbing, but I do feel I’ll have to read it again, someday, when I’m done being horrified. (And want to be re-horrified?). 2011 Printz Honor.

8. Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

No one in my class seemed to like this book, but I was quite fond of it. Punkzilla is a fourteen-year-old runaway who has gone AWOL from military school. He’s living a questionable, drug-laden, crime-driven lifestyle in Portland when he finds out his older brother – also estranged from their parents – is dying of cancer, so he sets off across the country to see him before he dies. The novel, however, is told in letters. Letters Punkzilla sends to his brother, which may or may not have been sent, while he’s on the road. Letters he’s received from his parents and family and friends. Letters that are non-chronological, unreliable, and hard to decipher. What really got me was the last letter – after an entire novel about this really troubled, confused kid, the last letter is an older one, sent right after he left military school: Punkzilla – or Jamie, which is his real name – used to be a totally normal, kid with normal-league problems. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM IN PORTLAND? Gah! Also, I’m fairly certain this was edited by my internship supervisor at Candlewick. *smile* 2010 Printz Honor.

9. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

I heard about this book a lot, but never actually read through it until it -duh- appeared on my syllabus. The premise: the narrator, Keir, has raped his friend Gigi. The rest of the book: him explaining himself. So based on that, I thought the novel would be pretty salacious, pretty ridiculous, pretty over the top, whatever. But it wasn’t. I was reading, feeling like there would be some revelation at the end of the novel, that there would be some explanation that would make Keir’s actions make sense. But there wasn’t. So the whole book becomes, then, Keir trying to figure that out for himself – that there’s no explanation. Some things are inexcusable, and not just things that people do to him, but things he’s done to others. It’s a bit of a mind-trip, and really compelling. 2005 National Book Award Finalist.

10. Sorta Like A Rockstar by Matthew Quick

My roommate kept asking me if this book was any good. I kept answering “Yeah, it’s okay. It’s more like something we would actually read for fun.” I’m still trying to figure out what that means, exactly, other than 1) Not so literary 2) Kind of silly/fluffy 3) Not so depressing. Well, I mean yes, the book is depressing, and I *may* have shed a tear at the over-the-top Hollywood ending, but it’s nothing like.. oh… Nothing. It’s basically the story of a really plucky homeless girl who is really into Jesus and befriending the kind of people who nobody wants to befriend, and whether or not true tragedy can or should break your faith in God or the goodness of life or your eternal optimism. A nice way to round out the month. I flew through the last half of the book.

Popular Girl dies.

Then Popular Girl wakes up, in her bed, not dead, living her last day again.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

This book is definitely gripping. I won’t say it’s the best book of the year – the characters are hard to like, the story of “Popular Girl Seeing The Unintentional Damage Her Life Causes” a little too typical – but good gosh I couldn’t put it down. Lauren Oliver does a most excellent job in playing with the reader’s emotions and expectations. There is one level of the book – Samantha, stuck in a perpetual Groundhog’s Day cycle, struggling to solve the mystery of how to live this particular day in her life – and then there is another, the more interesting, theoretical level. Why is this happening to her? What will be the optimal outcome of this story? If she “wins,” does she get to live? What does it mean if she doesn’t?

And of course, there’s the visceral pleasure of ripping through the pages… the rapture of having to choose sleep over reading because you just can’t keep your eyes open.

Check this one out in March. Or you can borrow my copy.

Okay, this book messed with my head. I thought I had it figured out, had Micah, the narrator, figured out. And then on page 200 or so, I really did not, and just lost more and more of my grasp on this book’s reality as the pages flew by. And yes, they flew. I should have known with a story told my an admitted compulsive liar… IN A BOOK ENTITLED LIAR! But no, this book was too smart for even me.

I do NOT want to tell you much about this, so I will reccomend you pick up this book if:

– It’s been awhile since someone REALLY screwed with your mind

– You’re into a little grit: dirty, NYC streets, whodunitmurdermystery grit

– You liked Twilight but not in a 13-year-old-girl oooohI’minLovewithEdwardCullengoshILoveRomance kind of way, but just… a different kind off way. I can’t explain it.

– Unreliable narrators turn your crank

– You have a day or two at your disposal to carry a book around with you and read at traffic lights and bus stops and while you sit in the car in the rain and wait for AAA to come jump your car. Again.

This book knocked my socks off.

Justine Larbalestier online {fun fact that everyone knows: she’s married to Scott Westerfeld of Pretties&Uglies&Specials fame} | Buy it on Amazon

P.S. Some more stuff everyone knows: This book’s cover has caused a big fat hubbub. The original cover (the one on my ARC) had a girl who looked kind of Asian, or white, with long straight hair. Micah is definitely African American, so everyone was like “Oh, no! Racism!” and then they got a new cover! And I’m not sure what I think about that. It’s upsetting that you can’t put a black young lady on the cover of a book if you want it to appeal to those who aren’t black, but it might be true, so maybe the false cover would have done the greater good of putting a book about a black young lady in the hands of those who aren’t black? However, why didn’t they just take the bitchin’ Australian cover instead?

Maybe I’m culturally biased. I did just have some tasty Australian-style yogurt this morning.