National Novel Reading Month!
My posts have been scarce lately, as I've been in a bit of limbo with my writing and, more recently, traveling without steady access to a computer. The up side to this is that I am reading a TON.
I actually have to remind myself to read. This isn't because I don't love it, because I do--but I get similar pleasures out of writing and reading, and often when I make time for that in my life, the writing takes over. Especially when I have a project I'm really buckling down on, all my free time goes to writing and my pile of books gets sadly neglected. Something I've learned only in the past year or so is that when I don't read, my writing suffers. My creativity falls. I get sad. Basically, everything starts to slide if I'm not reading enough!
So this month, since I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, I've decided to do NaNoReaMo--read as much as I can within the month! I'll post the books I've read here as I finish them, along with little blurbs about them.
I'm off to a roaring start, one week into November and four and a half novels read. The half is Cassie Clare's CITY OF GLASS, but as I started that at the end of October I can't count it.
So on with the books!
THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL by Meg Rosoff. This is a beautifully-written book about a girl living in a huge, poor family in 1850's rural England. She is destined to marry her childhood friend, but seeing her own parents' unhappiness, she flees that life for the open road, taking with her only her horse, Jack, and her little brother, Bean.
My housemate and CP Amie Kaufman recommended this book to me ages ago, and I never got around to reading it for a variety of reasons. There's no speculative element in it, and I run the risk of being a book snob in reverse--avoiding books that aren't fantasy or science fiction in some regard. I brought it on vacation with me so that I'd HAD to read it or face running out of books, and I'm so glad I did. The writing in this book was so beautiful it hurt me, literally forcing me to put it down sometimes to breathe.
WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON by John Green and David Levithan. This story follows two teenaged boys--both named Will Grayson--whose separate lives come together and intersect in the most unlikely ways. The voices in this book are astonishingly real and honest. I don't read as much "regular" YA (meaning non-speculative) as I should, so take this pronouncement with a grain of salt, but I've never encountered such authentic modern teen voices. These characters are so real I find myself missing them still, days after having finished the book.
This is another recommendation from Amie, although I'd been hearing about this book all over the place so I would've read it eventually whether she recommended it or not. I'm glad she bought it, though, giving me access to it while I'm living with her, because it made it really easy to pick up this book and fall in love.
EAST by Edith Pattou. This book is a retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Pattou has done an absolutely beautiful job of it. The novel remains extremely true to the original fairy tale, taking very few liberties but somehow managing to weave what is a very far-fetched tale into a real, believable narrative that I ripped through in less than a day.
I LOVED THIS BOOK. This book was basically written for me, folks. Fairy tale retellings are my single favorite subgenre in the entire world. I got it from my friend Ellen, who brought a bunch of books over as a sort of hostess present when she came to visit me and Amie. BEAUTY by Robin McKinley remains one of my favorite books of all time, and EAST has that same quiet magic to it, spell-binding and rare and ultimately hugely satisfying.
THE PENDERWICKS by Jeanne Birdsall. This cute mid-grade book follows the story of four sisters, whose ages range from 4 to 12, who vacation over the summer in the guest cottage of a wealthy and snobbish lady. They get into a variety of scrapes, trying to escape the wrath of the snobby Mrs. Tifton while simultaneously befriending her son Jeffrey.
Another recommendation from Amie--you see, I get most of my books from her library these days, because she has great taste and I have no money with which to buy my own books. In return she gets the satisfaction of me flailing around about how much I loved her latest recommendation. I may be leeching off of her collection, but I promise the relationship is completely symbiotic. I really enjoyed this book. The sisters all had such distinct and entertaining personalities--my personal favorite was Jane, the aspiring novelist, because of course I saw a lot of myself in her. She's constantly staring off into space while people are trying to talk to her, only to burst out a few seconds later with a non sequitur like "She could rescue him from the tower in a hot air balloon!"
What I also loved about this book was that I could see Amie's style in it, and knew instantly why she had loved it so much. This is classic mid-grade, absolutely top of the line, and makes ME want to write mid-grade and I've always been firmly rooted in YA. It's tremendous fun, and even though it's clearly written for younger kids, I'd still recommend it to adults in a heartbeat.
That's it for now. I'm about a third of the way through the next book, and will post as soon as I finish it! If I'm not stuck in the middle of a rainforest at the time, which may in fact be true. I will have to do a big "WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION" post soon, once I have pictures to share.
I actually have to remind myself to read. This isn't because I don't love it, because I do--but I get similar pleasures out of writing and reading, and often when I make time for that in my life, the writing takes over. Especially when I have a project I'm really buckling down on, all my free time goes to writing and my pile of books gets sadly neglected. Something I've learned only in the past year or so is that when I don't read, my writing suffers. My creativity falls. I get sad. Basically, everything starts to slide if I'm not reading enough!
So this month, since I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, I've decided to do NaNoReaMo--read as much as I can within the month! I'll post the books I've read here as I finish them, along with little blurbs about them.
I'm off to a roaring start, one week into November and four and a half novels read. The half is Cassie Clare's CITY OF GLASS, but as I started that at the end of October I can't count it.
So on with the books!
THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL by Meg Rosoff. This is a beautifully-written book about a girl living in a huge, poor family in 1850's rural England. She is destined to marry her childhood friend, but seeing her own parents' unhappiness, she flees that life for the open road, taking with her only her horse, Jack, and her little brother, Bean.
My housemate and CP Amie Kaufman recommended this book to me ages ago, and I never got around to reading it for a variety of reasons. There's no speculative element in it, and I run the risk of being a book snob in reverse--avoiding books that aren't fantasy or science fiction in some regard. I brought it on vacation with me so that I'd HAD to read it or face running out of books, and I'm so glad I did. The writing in this book was so beautiful it hurt me, literally forcing me to put it down sometimes to breathe.
WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON by John Green and David Levithan. This story follows two teenaged boys--both named Will Grayson--whose separate lives come together and intersect in the most unlikely ways. The voices in this book are astonishingly real and honest. I don't read as much "regular" YA (meaning non-speculative) as I should, so take this pronouncement with a grain of salt, but I've never encountered such authentic modern teen voices. These characters are so real I find myself missing them still, days after having finished the book.
This is another recommendation from Amie, although I'd been hearing about this book all over the place so I would've read it eventually whether she recommended it or not. I'm glad she bought it, though, giving me access to it while I'm living with her, because it made it really easy to pick up this book and fall in love.
EAST by Edith Pattou. This book is a retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Pattou has done an absolutely beautiful job of it. The novel remains extremely true to the original fairy tale, taking very few liberties but somehow managing to weave what is a very far-fetched tale into a real, believable narrative that I ripped through in less than a day.
I LOVED THIS BOOK. This book was basically written for me, folks. Fairy tale retellings are my single favorite subgenre in the entire world. I got it from my friend Ellen, who brought a bunch of books over as a sort of hostess present when she came to visit me and Amie. BEAUTY by Robin McKinley remains one of my favorite books of all time, and EAST has that same quiet magic to it, spell-binding and rare and ultimately hugely satisfying.
THE PENDERWICKS by Jeanne Birdsall. This cute mid-grade book follows the story of four sisters, whose ages range from 4 to 12, who vacation over the summer in the guest cottage of a wealthy and snobbish lady. They get into a variety of scrapes, trying to escape the wrath of the snobby Mrs. Tifton while simultaneously befriending her son Jeffrey.
Another recommendation from Amie--you see, I get most of my books from her library these days, because she has great taste and I have no money with which to buy my own books. In return she gets the satisfaction of me flailing around about how much I loved her latest recommendation. I may be leeching off of her collection, but I promise the relationship is completely symbiotic. I really enjoyed this book. The sisters all had such distinct and entertaining personalities--my personal favorite was Jane, the aspiring novelist, because of course I saw a lot of myself in her. She's constantly staring off into space while people are trying to talk to her, only to burst out a few seconds later with a non sequitur like "She could rescue him from the tower in a hot air balloon!"
What I also loved about this book was that I could see Amie's style in it, and knew instantly why she had loved it so much. This is classic mid-grade, absolutely top of the line, and makes ME want to write mid-grade and I've always been firmly rooted in YA. It's tremendous fun, and even though it's clearly written for younger kids, I'd still recommend it to adults in a heartbeat.
That's it for now. I'm about a third of the way through the next book, and will post as soon as I finish it! If I'm not stuck in the middle of a rainforest at the time, which may in fact be true. I will have to do a big "WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION" post soon, once I have pictures to share.