KellyVision

Finished Fallen by Lauren Kate (this is a review copy; it comes out December 8).

Luce (short for Lucinda) is about to start school at Sword & Cross (a sort of cross between boarding school and an alternative school for troubled and/or dangerous children).  She's there because of a mysterious incident involving a fire that led to a boy's death.  (That's about all we know, because she doesn't remember it.)

Not long after arriving, she meets Daniel, who is really, really, ridiculously good looking.  He smiles...then gives her the finger.

She's still fascinated.

This is a suspense/love story. 

Luce is a good heroine.  She's smart and easy to root for.  Daniel is a fairly typical love interest (I don't think it's a spoiler for me to say that) although I wish that authors would let go of the "He's cruel because he cares so, so much" rationale. 

The writing is cheesy in parts but the story is compelling, so I forgive it.  (Also, since I got a review copy, it's possible that some of that got edited out.)

Fallen

Lauren Kate

Here's how I'm doing so far:

Books read in October: 37 (I know, but I had two little vacations and I also read three books that consisted of six-word memoirs) 

Books read in 2009 so far :  223

Money raised so far:  $350.35 (mostly promised; $100 officially donated on my First Book page so far)

Best books read in October:  Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby), The Everafter (Amy Huntley), Pure (Terra Elan McVoy), Demon Ex Machina (Julie Kenner), Hush, Hush (Becca Fitzpatrick), PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death & God, Hate List (Jennifer Brown), 9 Dragons (Michael Connelly), Spellbinder (Helen Stringer), The Van Alen Legacy (Melissa de la Cruz), Fat Cat (Robin Brande), Fire (Kristin Cashore), After You (Julie Buxbaum), Hold Still (Nina LaCour), The New York Regional Mormon Singles Dance (Elna Baker), Splendor (Anna Godbersen), How to Say Goodbye in Robot (Natalie Standiford) and the three Six-Word Memoir books I read.

What I'm looking forward to in November: the new Stephen King book, Under the Dome.  It's over a thousand pages.  Anything else is a bonus. :)

In case you are curious to see what I've read so far, visit this page.

If you would like to donate to First Book now instead of at the end of the year, you can access my (currently ultra-generic) page here.  You can also donate in installments, which is what I'm doing. :)

Finished How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford.

I completely adored this book.

It's set in Baltimore (and there are parts in Ocean City and it mentions my beloved Haunted House there!) and is about Bea, a new girl in Baltimore, and Jonah.  The two of them are outcasts (mostly by choice, I think) but they quickly bond. 

It's not a love story.  They're not dating, really.  It's more like they're soul mates (if you believe that you can have a soul mate that you're not sleeping with or wanting to sleep with).

This is one of the few books that you can't say "Well, it's like..." about.  It's not like anything.  But if you see this book, pick it up.  It's amazing.

How To Say Goodbye In Robot

Natalie Standiford

Finished Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, edited by Smith Magazine.

Yup, still love this idea. :) 

My favorites:

"I'd rather be watching a movie."

"Never really finished anything, except cake."

"Discovered moral code via Judy Blume."

"Boy, if I had a hammer."

And my absolute favorite:

"Most successful accomplishments based on spite."

Not Quite What I Was Planning, Revised and Expanded Deluxe Edition: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure

Larry Smith

Finished Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, edited by Smith Magazine.

This book obviously focused on the good and bad of love and relationships. 

My favorite good ones: "In his eyes I saw forever" and "May I have the last dance?"

My favorite bad ones: "Happiness is a bed to myself" and "Love makes the world go stupid."

I love this series. :)  There's one more in print currently and another one is coming out in January.

Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: by Writers Famous and Obscure

Larry Smith

I got this from Viral Bloggers and it's very interesting so far.

I don't want to gulp these essays down, so I'm going to say a little now and then whenever I finish, I'll discuss it in more depth.

The general gist is that working for justice is one of the most important things a Christian can do, but that a lot of times that gets bogged down with other things.

My favorite line so far:  "It's stories that give meaning to the reams of data in our lives, and it's ultimatly stories that provoke us to action."

The essays are more intellectual than emotional--that's not a bad thing, necessarily, but I do get moved more by stories. 

Finished Whip It by Shauna Cross.  (Apparently formerly called Derby Girl.)

This is now the movie with Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore.  It's pretty appropriate that Ellen Page plays Bliss (narrator and main character) because she's basically Juno on speed.

Bliss lives with her parents and four-year-old sister in a small town in Texas.  Her mom's uber-crazy about pageants and insists that Bliss and her sister participate.  The sister (Shania) keeps winning, but the most Bliss attains are the certificates that everyone gets for entering.

And then she finds a roller derby league in Austin and immediately falls in love.  She tries out and makes the team, but she has to keep it a secret (because no way would her parents approve).

Fun story about a girl finding herself.  :)  And now I really want to see the movie.

Whip It

Shauna Cross

Finished I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb.

I bought this for the title and for the fact that Jon Stewart and Judd Apatow gave blurbs for it.

In case you need more--Oliver Watson is in middle school.  All of his classmates think he's probably borderline retarded.  His dad thinks he's a disappointment and his mom is smothering to the point of being ridiculous.

But really, Oliver's a genius.  He's the third richest person in the world and uses this to his advantage.  He has developed a chemical that makes people who would pick on him suddenly get very tired.  If they continue to harass him...well, it's just not a good idea.  We'll leave it at that.

Here are the first two paragraphs. 

"Someday you will beg for the honor of licking my feet.  You will get down on your stupid, worthless knees and beg, `Please, sir!  Please! Let me lick the disease dog dung from between your toes!'  (I will be standing barefoot in the dung of diseased dogs--just to make it grosser for you.)  And if I am in a good mood and am not too disgusted by your stupid, wormy tears or your stupid, scrunched-up face, I will allow you the signal honor of licking my feet clean.  Even though you don't deserve it.

But that's all in the future.  At the moment, I'm in the seventh grade."

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President

Josh Lieb

I just saw Paranormal Activity.  I do think it's been over-hyped as far as the "one of the scariest movies ever" thing goes.  Most of the movie is pretty slow (not to be confused with boring, because it isn't), but the last three or four scenes?  Holy crap, terrifying.

I saw it with Kim, Shannon and Debbie.  Shannon didn't realize it was a horror movie and spent those last few scenes with her eyes closed.  At the very, very end, Kim and Debbie screamed.  And I'm pretty sure my heart possibly actually stopped for a second.

After Jen saw it (over the weekend), we were discussing where she'd put it on the Scaremeter (where 1 is Phantom of the Mall and 10 is The Exorcist).  She said it was a seven, maybe a high six.

I was thinking I'd probably rate it a six, but the end alone pushes it up to a high seven.

Maybe eight.

In case you're curious, here's an example of my Scaremeter:

1)  Phantom of the Mall

2)  Prom Night

3)  Friday the 13th

4)  The Hitcher 

5)  Nightmare on Elm Street

6)  Night of the Living Dead (original) 

7)  The Strangers

8)  Halloween

9)  The Blair Witch Project

10)  The Exorcist

Finished Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon.  (It comes out Tuesday.)

This is nonfiction, a sort of memoir of a family.

Suzan is pretty used to hard times--her family, she says, has worried about money on and off for something like a hundred years.  She and her husband have been doing pretty well, but after she gets laid off, she starts cooking more.  Her grandmother saved a folder of recipes, and some of those find their way into the book.

In between the recipies are stories--some of Suzan and her husband, Nathan (who seems like the world's most perfect husband), but also of her childhood, growing up with her (single) mom, Carolyn.  And, of course, there are a lot of stories of her grandmother, Matilda, who was the family's sole wage-earner during the Great Depression.  (And she was a teenager at the time, getting by on half a corn muffin for breakfast, the other half for lunch and a can of soup for dinner.)

This is such a fantastic book, very comforting and compelling.  (You may think that it'd be depressing, reading about people who are worried about money.  You'd be wrong.)

Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times

Suzan Colon