book 6

Candy Girl, Diablo Cody
rating:


Okay, obviously I have been living in an ivory tower. Strippers on TV just dance around without clothes on and that's it. This memoir by the screenwriter of Juno tells a different story. Basically: stripping is dirty and I don't get the appeal. Also, Cody's writing style didn't really work well for me. It was like Juno and her quick, wise-cracking, nobody-really-talks-like-that voice the whole time.

book 5

Alive and Well in Prague, New York, Daphne Grab
rating:


Pretty standard coming of age YA novel. Matisse, whose parents are artists, has to endure a move from NYC to the small town of Prague, NY, after her dad's Parkinson's Disease renders him unable to sculpt. She learns lessons, meets boys, makes friends, etc.

book 4

Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos
rating:


A really nice follow-up to Love Walked In, which I read in 2006 (read it here). Overall I liked it better, it had a richer cast of characters and a little more texture all around. And I read it all in one sitting. Cornelia from Love Walked In is the main character, but she makes a few interesting friends when she moves from NYC to a little Pennsylvania suburb. There were a few random jokes about the ACC that made me feel a little homesick.

book 3

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
rating:


I have been dismissing this novel as a circus book for over a year, and I'm now fully prepared to admit how dumb that was. This book is fantastic. It's about Jacob, now in his nineties, and the time he spent working as a vet for the Benzini Bros circus during the Great Depression. Just overall really engaging.

book 2

School's Out, Christophe Dufosse
rating:


I was seduced by the cool cover of this book, and a blurb on the back that likened it to Secret History, which was the greatest book in the world to college freshman me. The comparison is NOT apt, and the cover is much cooler than the story. Basically, it opens with a teacher dying - it looks like a suicide, but many involved are suspicious of one of his classes, a group of students creepily and ardently devoted to one another. Sounds interesting, right? WRONG! The rest of the book is weighed down by the new teacher, Pierre Hoffman, waxing philosophical on what amounts to very little. It took about 150 pages for anything to really happen, and then there was another lull that lasted until almost the end. Ugh. I'll allow that some of the nuances may have been lost in translation. But that's all I'll allow. I need to read something really meaty and good to get me going in 2008. Suggestions?

book 1!

ah, nothing like a fresh start.

The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman
rating:


Can you believe I've never read this? I started it in December, in anticipation of the movie, but I got distracted by the fact that we have to move, the weather was bad, it's really cold here, etc. Anyway, a friend demanded that I finish it today so that we could go see the movie while it's still in town, and I'm glad that I did because I really enjoyed it. People talk about the religious undertones and they're definitely there, especially at the end. It's really pretty violent and intense at times. Mostly I'm excited about seeing the giant bears in the movie.