Books and Stories Read: February 2010 (Part Two)

[crowinator]

Here are the summaries, sans book covers because I am at work and can barely get LJ to work for me right now. This is why the recaps are in an entirely new post instead of just tacked-on to the old February 2010 post. Anyway.

**08. Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, Book Four), by Melissa Marr. YA Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy. Read ARC.
**09.

Comments

[crowinator]

I'm not sure why SLJ listed The Glass Maker's Daughter as grades 8-up, unless it's because of the age of the heroine, who is 16. When I wrote the Booklist review, I marked it as grade 7-11, and Kirkus said ages 10-14. I feel the age rating is kind of arbitrary at times, to be honest. There isn't anything in the book to prevent 6th graders from reading it that I can remember.

I actually passed on the review for Hunting the Dragon because I disliked it so much, and Booklist doesn't do negative reviews. I'll be curious to see if other journals review it, because I always wonder if it's just me when I really dislike something.

It looks like The Truth Trap was re-released by one of those publishers that does out-of-print books. We don't have it at my library but I think I can find it. It sounds good -- but I saw on Amazon that the murder mystery isn't solved until one of the sequels? Is that true?

I was trying to finish All the Broken Pieces on my dinner break one night and had to stop because I didn't want to go back to the ref desk in tears. I had to take it home and finish it instead.

[checkers65477]

Agree about the arbitrary age ratings. Sometimes it seems like SLJ puts a book at gr. 8 and up if it has a sexual component to the story. That's not necessarily a deal-breaker for me, but if it's a big part of the story I'm not always comfortable with it. So, Dreamhunter and the sequel, yes. Graceling, no. Breaking Dawn--NO. I could easily add Graceling and it would probably be ok, but many of my avid fantasy readers are 6th grade and I do try to be careful with them. Some of them are still shielded babies, and yay for that. It's funny, though. Parents get more riled up about the F-word in a book. Like it's not flying around the halls all day long. Anyway, I'll definitely add The Glassmaker's Daughter to my list of books to order, and the sequel once it's out.

Yes, Truth Trap and sequels have been re-released with much more appealing covers than the old hardbacks. The old paperback covers aren't bad. And yes, the mystery isn't solved until the third book, but it's worth waiting for!

[crowinator]

Books with a sexual component (i.e., more than kissing) should be grades 8 or up, for sure. Graceling did have a lot of frankness to the sexual relationships among characters.

God, I still remember booktalking How I Live Now to a class of 7th and 8th grades and realizing right in the middle of the whole "and they're cousins! and they fall in true love!" what I dumb idea that was. Live and learn (and never again).

[checkers65477]

Oh, lord, How I Live Now?!? Yikes. I loved that book, but...yeah. Just had an image of you in the middle of the booktalk, thinking "hocrap, how am I going to get out of this one with my job intact?" :)

[crowinator]

The school was pretty liberal and progressive. I chose all of the books from their library and they had a LOT of materials I wouldn't have in a middle school, including How I Live Now. I ended up only book-talking that to only one class because it was so awkward -- the kids' reactions kind of snapped me back to reality. I think in an academically rigorous school, it's easy to forget that the kids are still kids -- even if they can read at a 12th grade level doesn't mean they should read all the same things 12th graders read.

[checkers65477]

Very true! I set up a display of romance books around Valentine's Day and was surprised at the number of kids who said, "Ew, yuck!"