69 posts tagged “the 100+ reading challenge”
Finished Between Here and April by Deborah Copaken Kogan for the New Author Challenge.
This is a very compelling book, but I don't think there are many people I would recommend it to.
It's been a jarring day for me, because between marathon reading sessions, I attended a baby shower for two of my coworkers. I say jarring because the event at the crux of this novel is a woman who kills her two young daughters, then herself.
Eliza's best friend when she was six (April) was killed (along with her older sister, Lily) by their mother. Eliza had forgotten April's disappearance until attending a performance of Medea.
So the book is basically Eliza trying to figure out why April and Lily's mother would do it.
But yeah, most of my friends are moms, and I can't imagine any of them would be like, "Oooooh, I want to read that."
Finished Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr for the A-Z Challenge. (It's my X title, which is obviously cheating but there aren't many books that begin with X and probably even less that I'd want to read.)
This is a sequel of sorts to Wicked Lovely although you might be able to read it without having read that one. (I wouldn't recommend it, though.)
Anyway, Aislinn's friend Leslie is the main character in this one. Her home life's really bad (Mom left, Dad's drunk, her brother is on drugs--pot on good days, crack on bad ones) and as a way of trying to reclaim her life, she decides to get a tattoo.
Unfortunately, the one she picks will give her a connection to the king of the Dark Court (Keenan is the king of the comparatively warm and fuzzy Summer Court). This means that he can sort of feed on her emotions. The good thing: she no longer feels fear or worry or anger, because it automatically goes to the king. The bad thing: she no longer feels happiness and also, the guy is feeding on her emotions.
I liked this one. I like tattoos (I have three) and it was interesting (although creepy). I like her tattoo although I wouldn't get it (even assuming that in the real world, we don't have faery kings to feast on our emotions).
Finished Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr for the New Author Challenge.
Another YA supernatural book. This one deals with faeries (and you should know that I roll my eyes every time I have to type it that way--faeries? REALLY?). A girl named Aisleen can see them and so she goes through her life pretending she can't (because faeries do not like being seen). Unfortunately, now the faery king is in love with her, which means she has to make a choice: attempt to become his queen or become a summer girl, but either way her mortal life is pretty much done.
(If she chooses the first option, she runs the risk of not actually being the queen, which means she'd be living a sort of half-life until the next person chooses to try. If she picks door #2, she'll be a lot happier, but she will be in love with Keenan--the faery--and he'll never love her back. Ever.)
Entertaining book. I'm going to read the sequel next, I think.
Finished Bliss by Lauren Myracle for the New Authors Challenge.
This was a really good, really unsettling book. It's set in 1969-1970 when Bliss (teenage girl who is fresh from a commune) goes to live with her grandmother in Atlanta. She starts attending an uber-exclusive school and starts making friends.
And then she starts hanging out with the school outcast, who initially seems nice enough (if a little weird) and then quickly takes a detour to Crazytown.
In between chapters are diary entries and quotes (most of which are either from The Andy Griffith Show* or the Charles Manson trial--which obviously doesn't do much to alleviate the book's unsettling quality).
I'd recommend this, but again--really creepy. And I have a decent threshold for creepy. Also, it's the kind of creepy that sneaks up on you. By the end of the book, I had that creepy "someone's watching me" feeling.
Still, on the plus side, there were no bugs. So points for that.
* = That's one of the few shows that Bliss's grandmother approves of.
Finished City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare for the Series Challenge.
This was so much better than the first one! I'm sad that there's only one more left. (It's over 500 pages though, so at least there's that.)
I don't want to do any spoilers and that means I can't even put in the synopsis, because it deals with major twists that happened in the first book (why would you do that, publishers? Not everybody reads the first book in a series before the second book comes out!).
So I will say this: Clary is still trying to save her mom and still can't decide between Jace (hot Shadowhunter) and Simon (best friend). (Or, to put it in Twilight terms, Edward and Jacob, respectively.)
Valentine is still so scary. (Think Voldemort.)
Also, for those of you who read other supernatural YA novels, the blurbs are getting better and better. Holly Black blurbed the first one (no idea who that is), Libba Bray said this one is "a smart, sexy thrill ride" and apparently Stephenie Meyer has something good to say about the third. (I'll try and remember to let you know what the second I get it.)
I'm really liking this series. :)
Finished City of Bones by Cassandra Clare for the New Author Challenge.
This is another my my newly beloved "YA Supernatural Novels" genre.
There was a lot of exposition in this novel (which isn't a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned) but there was plenty of action, too.
General gist: humans (or "mundanes," as we are so charmingly called) don't see Downworlders (vampires, werewolves, faeries), demons (self-explanatory) or Shadowhunters (the people who fight demons and rogue downworlders--the rogues kill humans). Except now Clary can and the day after she discovers that she can, her mom disappears. So she and a few Shadowhunters are trying to figure out why.
If you read a lot of these types of books, you're probably not going to be shocked by what happens in this one. There are twists and turns, yes, but you'll probably see almost all of them coming a mile away (I will admit that one of them actually was a shock, but most of them weren't).
This isn't to say, though, that the book wasn't fun--it was extremely entertaining. I'm going to read the second now, and I'm psyched to get the third one in a couple weeks.
Finished Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult for the Pub Challenge.
Jodi Picoult is one of those authors you love or hate. She's my second favorite author, so it's probably no surprise that I fall firmly in the "love!" category.
What I like is that (especially in her later books) she presents an issue and no matter what you think going in, you'll probably be in a different place after you read the book. (Or, if not I'd be willing to bet that you at least had to think long and hard before staying in the same camp.)
This book is about Willow, a young girl (five when the book starts) who has osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic abnormality that means that she breaks bones very easily. As in she could break a bone by tripping and falling, being hugged the wrong way, turning over in bed and, once, sneezing.
Because of this, Charlotte (Willow's mom) can't work, because she always has to be with Willow. Even when Willow's in school, she'd have to be able to leave at any given time in case she got hurt--which, naturally, makes it hard to hold down a job. So they're surviving on her husband's salary (Sean's a cop) so they don't have a ton of money. And since insurance doesn't cover everything, that means they DO have a ton of debt. (And older daughter Amelia's not doing too well either.)
So then they hear that they can sue the OB/GYN for wrongful birth, because she should've been able to tell earlier than she did that Willow had OI, and then they could've been counseled to not go through with the pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the OB/GYN is Charlotte's best friend, Piper.
Anyway. So Sean is absolutely horrified that Charlotte would even consider basically saying that they wish Willow had never been born. Yes, it's exhausting and yes, it's incredibly hard, but she's also Willow, this incredibly smart, sweet girl who knows all this stuff (apparently OI kids are generally smarter than their peers; Willow, for example, reads on a sixth grade level) like, for example, that your thumb is the length of your nose.
But Charlotte feels differently. It's not so much that she wishes Willow hadn't been born, it's that she's incredibly worried about what will happen to Willow once she (Charlotte) isn't around anymore. Willow will need to have a ton of money, and the way things are now, there's no way that that will happen. But Charlotte's convinced that if she can win this lawsuit, then Willow will be set and it won't matter what insurance will or won't pay for or how many bones she breaks--she'll have enough money and she'll always be okay. And she knows that even though she loves her best friend, she'll do whatever she needs to do to make sure her daughter's okay--even if that means hurting her daughter at first by saying that she was a mistake.
So yeah, it's a pretty complicated thing but I totally get where Charlotte is coming from. How could you not do whatever it took to take care of your kid?
I really liked this book (way more than her last one, Change of Heart). Although it sucks that there won't be another new one until next March.
Somebody else needs to read this, now, so we can discuss. :)
Finished Would You by Marthe Jocelyn for the New Author Challenge.
This is a quick read--less than 200 pages, short chapters. It takes place over a summer week. Claire and Natalie are sisters and pretty close. Claire's going off to college in the fall and Natalie's spending time with her sister and her (Natalie's) friends.
And then Claire gets hit by a car. There's all kinds of trauma to the body and her brain's bleeding and swelling. So her family has to choose whether to keep her on life support or to let her die.
Really, really good book. And I cried a little at the end.
Also, because it's appropriate--I am an organ donor. And I would never want to be kept on life support. If I'm not at Johns Hopkins, I hope my family consults the doctors there and if there's no hope, pull the plug. It's too expensive, and besides, I'm not really alive anymore anyway.
Finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for the Casual Classics Challenge and my 30 by 30 challenge.
This is a brilliant book, one we've all heard of. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I liked it, but it's an amazing book and I'm glad I've read it.
According to the front cover and Vanity Fair, it's "the only convincing love story of our century."
I really hope that's not true, because Lolita has nothing to do with love.
Humbert (the narrator) tries to convince himself that he loves Lolita and that she loves him back, but in his more honest moments (there aren't many, but they are there), he knows that she doesn't and that she stays with him because she feels trapped. (He tells her that if she tries to go to the police or to tell anyone, he'll go to jail and that she'll be put into the foster care system or in some sort of facility for wayward girls.)
The book's more about obsession (on his part) and helplessness (on hers). He tries to paint it as love and as concern for her (he decides at first that he's going to drug her before touching her so that she can stay pure) but really, not so much.
Finished Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman for the Celebrate the Author challenge.
I have kind of a love-hate relationship with her books. Her writing is always gorgeous but I'm usually not drawn in. I'm pretty confident this will be the last book of hers I read, so I'm glad I enjoyed it as much as I did.
It's broken into three parts. The first part is told by Arlyn. She marries John and their marriage is pretty unhappy, but she gets two children out of it (Sam and Blanca). She and Sam are very close (Blanca only appears toward the end of the first part, so I don't mean to imply that she didn't love Blanca, too). The second part is told by Meredith, who comes to take care of Sam and Blanca. Sam is older and is a total handful; Blanca is one of those kids who tries very hard to please. The third part is told by Blanca, who is now in her 20s and lives in London.
It was a gorgeous book, although everyone was so unhappy, it was hard to read in parts.
