Updated reading list
In case you are wondering, in addition to the aforementioned Mermaid's Mirror, I just finished dystopian YA Matched. I'd tried it in bookstores a few times and was unimpressed, but now I get why people love it. It's not perfect - I don't entirely know how I feel about the love interest and whether he's been developed (or whether I think he and the heroine have a particularly realistic relationship) - but I feel completely in love with the voice, and the heroine's emotional journey. I know that's a hideously cliched way of putting it, but the character grew and changed in a believable way, and I enjoyed that so much. I'm a sucker for that, generally. All in all it was really entertaining. I love the set up, too - honestly, it's like setting a story on IT's planet, Camazotz, from A Wrinkle in Time.
I'm dipping into Biblical satire Lamb and famous best seller Water for Elephants now, and I've got family memoir Not Daunted, this season's other buzzed about dystopian YA Divergent and WW2 historical The City of Thieves waiting for me. Can I finish them all in a week, or will I end up bringing some to camps with me? It's a bit tough, since I liked Matched so much; I can't stop thinking about it. Also, to be truthful, I just can't stop rereading The Hunger Games books. I've also gotten a third of the way through the Wolves of Mercy Falls and the Wicked Lovely trilogies. Shiver and Linger I liked well enough, but though I didn't love them. I actively loathe the fairies in Wicked Lovely (which is clearly a problem) but I loved Aislinn and Seth so much I almost don't care. Ink Exchange (book 2), on the other hand - meh. I accidentally picked up the middle novel (Behemoth) in Scott Westerfield's steam punk WW1 saga without having read the first. Ooops! I kept being impressed that the story started in the middle, with such little backstory. Hah! That was a ton of fun, though, for a middle grade, and I'm going to go back and get the first one if I can, and definitely read the third when I can.
What else? Chime, by Franny Billingsley. That's good stuff, with a really unusual voice and a super appealing heroine. And, let's see. I read The Second Summer of the Traveling Pants, basically because it was at my sister-in-law's cottage and I'd only brought the one book (Linger) which didn't last long enough. It wasn't nearly as emotional as the first, but those are genuinely nice books. There's more, but right now I forget what. Oh, that's right - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was fairly entertaining. It cracks me up that they made Darcy ruder (with a naughty sense of humor), and Elizabeth less funny (and much more bloodthirsty). Not all the changes made sense within the narrative structure, but overall it was an interesting riff on a text I know absurdly well.
Are you guys on Good Reads? I'm tempted to join to keep track of what I'm reading. Without new episodes of The Good Wife to take huge chunks out of my blogging week, not to mention lots of sunshine and school vacation, I've been spending a lot of time this summer outside reading while the kids do their thing. Their many things.
What about you guys? Anything fantastic to recommend?
I'm dipping into Biblical satire Lamb and famous best seller Water for Elephants now, and I've got family memoir Not Daunted, this season's other buzzed about dystopian YA Divergent and WW2 historical The City of Thieves waiting for me. Can I finish them all in a week, or will I end up bringing some to camps with me? It's a bit tough, since I liked Matched so much; I can't stop thinking about it. Also, to be truthful, I just can't stop rereading The Hunger Games books. I've also gotten a third of the way through the Wolves of Mercy Falls and the Wicked Lovely trilogies. Shiver and Linger I liked well enough, but though I didn't love them. I actively loathe the fairies in Wicked Lovely (which is clearly a problem) but I loved Aislinn and Seth so much I almost don't care. Ink Exchange (book 2), on the other hand - meh. I accidentally picked up the middle novel (Behemoth) in Scott Westerfield's steam punk WW1 saga without having read the first. Ooops! I kept being impressed that the story started in the middle, with such little backstory. Hah! That was a ton of fun, though, for a middle grade, and I'm going to go back and get the first one if I can, and definitely read the third when I can.
What else? Chime, by Franny Billingsley. That's good stuff, with a really unusual voice and a super appealing heroine. And, let's see. I read The Second Summer of the Traveling Pants, basically because it was at my sister-in-law's cottage and I'd only brought the one book (Linger) which didn't last long enough. It wasn't nearly as emotional as the first, but those are genuinely nice books. There's more, but right now I forget what. Oh, that's right - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was fairly entertaining. It cracks me up that they made Darcy ruder (with a naughty sense of humor), and Elizabeth less funny (and much more bloodthirsty). Not all the changes made sense within the narrative structure, but overall it was an interesting riff on a text I know absurdly well.
Are you guys on Good Reads? I'm tempted to join to keep track of what I'm reading. Without new episodes of The Good Wife to take huge chunks out of my blogging week, not to mention lots of sunshine and school vacation, I've been spending a lot of time this summer outside reading while the kids do their thing. Their many things.
What about you guys? Anything fantastic to recommend?