Reading things everyone else has read too....

I've managed to pick up quick books lately -- books that are either action-packed, or breezy, or just short reads. As one might guess (well, someone who is at all aware of the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth), Allegiant falls in the action-packed-can't-put-down category. I really enjoyed the first two books in this trilogy - the action, the characters, the interesting set-up, the twists, and the love story (relationship growth and no love triangle -- thank you!). Although many of the dedicated and devoted fans of the books are divided when it comes to this final installment -- with reactions that range from dissapointed to enraged -- I actually thought Roth did an excellent job with this last book. Did everything get tied up with a nice, neat bow? No. But realistically, I don't think it could have. I loved that the world "outside" was not exactly what everyone expected. And again, I liked that Roth managed to fit character growth into all the action. I liked that life continued to be messy, just like real life. It was a bittersweet ending, but ultimately satisfying as well.


When I first discovered John Green, I went on a bit of a binge, reading everything by him that our library had. I fell for that John Green wit and snappy dialog. But I may have burned myself out -- what started out as smart and funny began to strike me as smug and condescending. So it was with trepidition that I picked up The Fault in Our Stars. Unfortunately, I listened to the audio book, and I have to say the narrator did not do anything for me. There were parts that worked -- Hazel, Isaac, Peter Van Houten -- and parts that didn't -- the parents, Augustus. So it was hard for me to separate the actual book from the narration. Ultimately, I liked it, but I didn't love it. I liked its separate parts -- the relationship between Hazel and Gus and their parents, the quest to find the ending to Van Houten's book, the trip to Amsterdam. I liked the contrast between Hazel's synicism and her genuine love and compassion for her parents and other people. I even liked Augustus's self-awareness and posing and his desire to live a life bigger than himself. I liked that the characters didn't seem to have clear answers. But somehow, I didn't connect with the book as a whole.

Reading...Spirit and Dust

Spirit and Dust, by Rosemary Clement-Moore is a companion book to Texas Gothic, a book that introduced us to the supernaturally gifted Goodnight family. In Spirit and Dust, we meet Daisy, a psychic whose particular gifts manifest in an ability to speak with the dead and help them pass over to the other side...whatever that is (she doesn't ask). Like her aunt before her, she's a regular consultant for the FBI, and that gig lands her in Minnesota, at the scene of a murder and possible kidnapping. Before too long, Daisy herself is kidnapped and forced to use her powers to investigate on behalf of a local crime lord.

The Goodnight books essentially classic mysteries with a supernatural twist and a little swoon thrown in for good measure. The characters are one of the strongest things about these books, in my opinion, especially this latest one. I could not stop thinking and wondering about what happened to the characters after the book ended. I just wanted more, more, more. And that's a successful story for this reader.

bottom line: read if you're in the mood for a ghostly, fun mystery.

Reading...Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

I knew going into it, that Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick was going to be a tough read in some ways. After all, you find out within the first few pages that Leonard Peacock is planning to shoot a classmate then kill himself. This plot point on its own is heavy stuff, not to mention the likely revelation of what event or events are motivating Leonard to walk toward this choice. However, having read Matthew Quick's novel Silver Lining's Playbook, I was confident in Quick's ability to handle serious subjects. Thankfully, my confidence was rewarded. Quick sheds light on subjects like depression, severe loneliness, bullying, abandonment, and abuse, and puts them in a context of hope. He tells a story that is respecful of pain, trauma, and despair, but approaches it from the viewpoint of someone who believes that people can help each other through these desperate situations.

Now, I'm not going to lie: this book was heartbreaking, and it's not going to be for everyone. Kids being abused isn't exactly easy to read about, even in past tense. It would be easy to get bogged down thinking about how there are real kids going through this kind of stuff (and more) every day. And the ending isn't exactly "and they all lived happily ever after." Of course...that all depends on how you look at it.

Clearly, I connected with the tone and heart and themes of this book. But more than that, Quick is a talented writer. Leonard's voice rings true, and each character is distinctive. And something that stood out to me personally: Leonard strikes up a slightly odd relationship with a teenage girl who hands out Christian tracts at the train station, and I appreciate that Quick writes this character respectfully. Lauren is very firm in her faith and beliefs, but it's a blind faith -- the faith of a teenage girl who hasn't delved deep into the things she's always been taught. Leonard asks her some valid and tough questions, and she doesn't really have satisfactory answers (in fact, she gets a little upset at Leonard's challenges). As a Christian, I wanted to sit down with Leonard and answer his questions -- they were good questions! Perfect for some honest dialog about faith and God. And I wanted to sit down with Lauren and say -- look, sweetie, I appreciate your determination and doggedness, but you need to step back and really THINK. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid of a deeper look.

Anyway, that stood out to me, but probably won't to other readers in quite the same way. The bottom line is: this book is heartbreak and hope. A wake-up call and a challenge.

Reading...The Dream Thieves

 The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Steifvater is the oh-so-delicious sequel to Raven Boys. I kind of wish I'd re-read Raven Boys just to help me remember some of the details of the story, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this latest adventure with Gansey, Ronan, Adam, Noah, and Blue (and Blue's family....and the Grey Man...not Kavinsky, because he's just CRAZY and super creepy and pretty much a sociopath). So here are some thoughts...

1. Ronan takes center stage in this book, and becomes more than the slightly unhinged, rough around the edges, unpredictable one. He's a kid who is confused and hurting and lost.

2. As much as I despised Kavinsky, he's kind of the anti-Ronan. By that, I mean that Ronan could have been Kavinsky. They have some striking similarities....but Ronan has his brothers (ok, he has Matthew. What's Declan good for at this point?), he has Gansey and Adam and Noah. And before his dad died, he had a mom and a dad who loved him. And in a lot of ways, I think it's these relationships that really ground Ronan and help him take a healthier path.

3. Love all the relationships in this book and how they're alive (you know...like real live relationships). Adam and Gansey, Adam and Blue, Blue and Gansey, Ronan and Gansey, Blue and her mom and her aunts/cousins....

4. Still fantastically atmospheric. I was there in the hot, summertime Virginia mountains. In Gansey's parent's mansion.

5. For some reason during this book I kept picturing Logan from Gilmore Girls as Gansey.

6. The Grey Man = nice addition to the cast of characters.

All in all, a great sequel. It was great spending time with the kids of Henrietta and Aglionby.

Reading...The Bookman's Tale

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession, by Charlie Lovett was given to me by a friend who knows my bookish weaknesses. The book opens in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, Wales (see: bookish weakness, stories set in Great Britain), where an antiquarian book dealer stumbles upon a Victorian painting that looks exactly like his recently deceased wife. Peter Byerly is not dealing well with his grief and the loss of his wife, and this picture lights a fire inside of him, urging him to figure out where it came from, who painted it, and who is pictured. His quest leads him into a mystery surrounding a history-making rare manuscript, a centuries-old family feud, a blackmail scheme and murder.

As Peter's present-day story unfolds, the author uses alternating chapters to also tell us the story of the manuscript and more of Peter and Amanda's story. I enjoyed the alternating time periods and point of views, the reveal of more layers to both Peter and the mystery. The author is also clearly a rare books officianado himself, because this story is as much a story about books and the love of books (the older the better) as it is about the characters and plot. It's a book for booklovers.

For a mystery, the pace was a bit slow, but personally I don't think that detracted from the story at all. I actually enjoyed it. Reading the book brought to mind chilly, rainy days, crackling fires, musty libraries, and good strong cups of tea. In a word: yes, please! (okay, that's two words)

Books!

I got to attend the Austin Teen Book Festival last weekend. Fun times! I'd never been to a book festival like that before, so it was a cool experience. I went to three author panels and got a book signed (Dream Thieves by Maggie Steifvater. CANNOT wait to read it!). Hubby came along to get a book or three signed by Brandon Sanderson who was there with his new YA book Steelheart which has a pretty cool premise: what if people started getting super powers but did not take the advice of Peter Parker's uncle? What if all the super powered people were jerks and the regular people wanted to fight back. It looks like a quick read, so hopefully I'll get to pick it up soon as well. It's always a good time to hang out with people who share your interests and who get excited about the same things you're excited about.

Reading...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is my kind of non-fiction. Educating, but entirely engrossing. Skloot weaves a story instead of just laying down the facts. Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman in Baltimore who died in the early 1950s of ovarian cancer when she was 31. As was a common practice in the 1950s, a doctor took a tissue sample from Henrietta -- one of healthy cells and one of her cancerous cells -- for research. A biologist at Johns Hopkins was attempting to grow cells in culture and asked the doctor for part of the sample for his research. Henrietta's cells -- dubbed HeLa -- did what none of the scientist's cells had done before. They survived, and they grew, and they thrived. They made it possible for scientists to experiment and conduct studies on live human cells, paving the way for amazing advances in medical and scientific research -- from the polio vaccine, to a multitude of medications. Her cells have been in space and have been blased with a nuclear bomb.

But what Skloot does is give you a context beyond just research and science -- she tells you the story of Henrietta and her family. She takes you to a small tobacco farm in Virginia, and to the streets of Baltimore. She shows how Henrietta's death affected her family, while her immortal cells were simultaneously affecting the whole world.

In some ways, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is controversial, because readers are presented with ethical issues of tissue rights and informed consent. Who should or should not profit from tissues taken from a person's body? Who should have say over what research is done with a person's tissue? In an age of genetic research, what are the implications to people's privacy? Race, poverty, education, healthcare, medical reasearch, ethics, and faith are all themes that run through this book. However, Skloot skillfully weaves all of this into a wonderful, fair, and very informative narrative. I learned something, I was outraged, I was inspired, I may have teared up a bit at one point, and I was most of all interested until the last page.

Bottom line: if you like biographies, history, or science and narrative non-fiction, pick up this book.