27 posts tagged “just4thehelluvit challenge”
Finished Shanghai Girls by Lisa See for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
I got this review copy from Random House; it comes out May 26.
I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan but I hadn't read any of her other books before this one. Snow Flower was definitely amazing, but this one was even better.
It's initially set in Shanghai in the 1930s. Pearl and her younger sister May are "beautiful girls." (They pose for calendars, which enables them to make decent money but is viewed by their parents' generation as basically being two steps above prostitution--and not terribly big steps, either.)
Anyway, their life is still going along pretty well until they learn that their dad has lost all his money (and, incidentally, all THEIR money) and so they've been sold to another family and they have to marry that family's sons. And the wedding will happen the day after tomorrow. And after the wedding, they'll be living in the United States.
So it's basically about having to adjust to a life you never thought you'd have to live.
This book was seriously just fantastic. Lisa See's prose is wonderful and the characters feel like friends by the time the book is over. (I do wish it had been longer, but I think that's just because I loved the book so much.) And like real life, a lot happens that's unexpected, but I didn't think anything strained the bounds of reality.
Everyone should read this. :) (Again, it's out May 26.)
(I feel pretty confident in saying that the people I know who get books for presents should not be surprised to find this one under wrapping paper on their nearest gift-getting opportunity.)
Finished Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
I really liked this book (even more than Stealing Heaven, which I read earlier this year). I think Elizabeth Scott's books tend to sneak up on you. They're entertaining enough at the beginning but usually (for me) about halfway through, I realize I'm having a really hard time doing anything that isn't reading that particular book.
Anyway. :)
This is about Hannah, who has the misfortune of being the only child of two very distinctive parents. Her dad is a Hugh Hefner-type, a man in his 70s who is surrounded by beautiful women all the time and who has next to no time for her. And her mom? She lived with Hannah's dad when she was 19. Once she was legally able to drink, they ended things. Except her mom (the unfortunately named Candy) was two months pregnant. Now Candy supports herself and Hannah by webchats where she wears very, very little. (It's best not to think about it; I didn't.)
So Hannah works to be invisible. She wears huge, baggy clothes and has a crush on her coworker, Josh. Josh seems to be the exact opposite of her father--he reads and writes poetry and can talk at length on exactly why the world is so messed up and has ideas on how to fix it. She also works with Finn, who is smart and sarcastic and makes fun of Josh all the time.
Very sweet love story. And Sarah Dessen liked it, too. :)
Finished The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
I read her other book, The House at Riverton, and really enjoyed it. This one was even better.
It takes place in three different times and focuses on four different women.
Nell learns on her 21st birthday that she's not who she thought she was. Her parents actually adopted her after her father found her wandering alone on the docks where he works. She was abandoned on a ship headed for Australia. Most of the book is Nell (and later her granddaughter, Cassandra) trying to solve the mystery of who Nell's parents are.
The other two women in the story are Rose and Eliza. Rose is Nell's mother and Eliza is the woman who abandoned her on the ship.
This is a very Gothic story (lots of long-hidden secrets and whatnot) so if you like tales like that, I think you'd love this book about as much as I do. :)
Finished Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
Really good book and it's a National Book Award finalist, according to the bright silver circle on its cover.
It's about Deanna, who has been branded the school slut for one incident that happened a couple years ago. (She was 13 and having sex with a high school boy. Her dad caught them.)
Since then, the boy (Tommy) has told everyone at school, so she's basically harassed and teased every day. AND since it happened, her dad can barely look at or talk to her.
I just felt awful for her because wow, can you imagine your whole life changing because of one stupid mistake you made when you were 13? (And of course nothing happened to the gross high school boy who had sex with someone who was barely a teenager.)
Finished Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
Okay. Just like the last one, this totally made up for the lack of angst in Prom.
Kate is a total Type A student. Ever since she was in the fourth grade, she's wanted to go to MIT--and it was the only place she applied.
She doesn't get in. So she's freaking out (as naturally she would be), and, as an added bonus, there are two houseguests (neighbor's house catches fire, and so her children come to stay with Kate and her family while she stays somewhere else). One of them is the weirdest, creepiest girl in school--who also happens to steal pretty much everything she sees.
So yeah. Things aren't so great in Kate's life.
Really, really amazing book. And yes, I cried.
Not sure what to read next. The Book Thief? A book about a guy who read the Bible? (It seems to be similar to AJ Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically, which I LOVED.) No idea.
Finished Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
This was the Laurie Halse Anderson I enjoy. :) Angst aplenty.
This one is about Tyler--for most of his life, he's been the boy that's always picked on by the popular kids. Then he pulls this huge prank at school and gets community service.
He ends up on a landscaping crew and heads back to school looking totally different (read: muscular) and the girl he's had a crush on for ages is talking to him and things are better.
Until something happens at a party and he's accused of something awful that he didn't do and then things are much worse.
This is angst-filled and dark and good. I think Wintergirls and Speak are still my favorites, but this was very good, too.
Finished Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
You know Speak and Wintergirls and probably every book she's written?
Prom is the exact opposite of that.
There's no angst, there's no trauma...it's kind of nice.
Unfortunately, it's also not as good, but it is fun. I'm debating reading Twisted and Catalyst next. :)
Finished Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
Really amazing book; I think I preferred it to Speak. (Which, if you've read Speak, you will register as incredibly high praise.)
Lia and Cassie are best friends; they've known each other since they were little. They met when Cassie moved in across the street and proximity and similar interests were enough to make them BFFs. Now though, they're pretty much united by eating disorders. (Cassie's got bulimia and Lia's got anorexia.) Cassie's found dead in a motel room one day and after, Lia's haunted (literally) by her best friend, who's whispering at her to eat less, exercise more, weigh less, just a little more and you'll be perfect. (Well, or at least dead.)
It was easy for me to identify with Melinda in Speak. It was harder for me to understand Lia and Cassie (for better or worse, my relationship with food does not include deprivation) but I cared about them and the book made me cry multiple times.
I think this is another one that every teenage girl should read (and every parent of a teenage girl).
Finished Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith for the Just4thehelluvit Challenge.
I bought this because I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so much--this is not as good as that one. It's still entertaining though. It's about Carl and Annie and their first year of marriage.
I hope you don't consider this a spoiler, but it's a hard year because they have no money and neither mother-in-law is happy that they got married.
There's really not much to say about this. Read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn instead. :)
Finished March by Geraldine Brooks, which was fantastic. It's Little Women, as told by Mr. March.
It's mostly about the year he's at war, and it details what he sees and does during that time. But we also learn how he met Marmee (you know how she tells Jo she had a temper? She wasn't lying or exaggerating) and there are little bits and pieces about Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy too.
I think I preferred this to Little Women.
And, as a side note, it also won the Pulitzer Prize a couple years ago. :) So there's that, too.
Did anyone else read this and, if so, did you prefer it, too?
