books 48,49, 50!!!!

hey, the 'bots are back in town.

the wounded hawk, sara douglass
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this is the second book in that fantasy trilogy i started back in june. i really liked the first one, but i got bogged down a little here. too much talk about war and weird angel stuff. this one didn't really leave me hanging like the first one did, so i'm not sure if i'll end up finishing the series or not. will thomas neville trade earth's eternal damnation for the love of a half-angel/half-human woman? i'm not sure if i care that much.

the ruins, scott smith
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i can't give this a full five 'bots, because i thought there was a little too much character typing at certain points. but other than that, WOW! this book is totally creepy and scary. a pretty intense thriller with some serious elements of horror. kind of a departure from a simple plan, because there are more main characters involved in this one, but still the same tight writing. i'll never be able to go into the mexican jungle now.

born confused, tanuja desai hidier


book 50! only 28 more to go until i hit my ultimate life goal. at least for this year.

okay, this is a really great young adult novel. it's about dimple lala, an indian-american teenager with identity issues and a real knack for photography. it sort of reminds me of a few of sarah dessen's books, as it takes place largely over the course of a summer. plus, there's music! and dancing! and cooking! a nice summer read.

books 45, 46, 47

the girls' guide to hunting a fishing, melissa bank

i like this book. you can say all you want about chick lit and how dumb it is, but there are a few books caught in this category that i still find to be very well-written and real. and this is one of them. i read it back in 1999, but, with the upcoming film version (which has just been really horribly casted, i must say), i decided to read it again. it's written like linked stories, in a similar way to bank's second novel, the wonder spot, which i also liked. there's this one story, sort of right in the middle, that i still don't understand. but the writing style is clean, there's not a lot of excess, and this protagonist is relateable.

girlbomb: a halfway homeless memoir, janice erlbaum

i'm not sure why, because this book actually seemed sort of predictable to me, but i really got sucked in. i like memoirs, and this one's nice because erlbaum doesn't really seem to sugarcoat things. she was a promiscuous, drug-abusing (and sometimes drug-addicted) runaway, and she doesn't apologize for it. her writing is good, too, wry and honest, which i always go for.

i am the messenger, markus zusak

OH MY GOD, READ THIS BOOK. this is an australian young adult novel (published originally as simply the messenger. it's all about ed kennedy, a 19 year old cab driver who starts to get these weird playing cards in the mail, which take him on a number of missions across his town. i can't even begin to explain why it's so good, but it is! trust me on this one. if you've ever: had a best friend, wished you had done something in a crisis situation even though you couldn't muster the strength, been in love with someone, felt like you weren't sure what you were supposed to do with your life -- basically, if you're a human -- then you should give this book a chance. I MEAN IT!

book 44, etc.

a simple plan, scott smith
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i know i've been neglecting my little robots, but this book deserved all five, so i brought them back. i read this in anticipation of smith's new book, the ruins, which comes out next tuesday. i've never seen this movie or anything, so i had no idea what to expect, but this book is IN-TENSE! basically: three guys find a wrecked plane with 4.4 million dollars in it. they take the money and come up with "a simple plan" (get it??) to keep the money for six months to make sure no one claims it, and then to split it three ways. but things go horribly, horribly wrong. smith's writing is really amazing, clean and well-paced and very tight. and i was really creeped out by how easy it was for this completely normal-seeming narrator to rationalize the horrifying things he does during the course of this story. CHILLING. now i really can't wait for the ruins!

i also can't wait for the keep, jennifer egan's newest, which amazon says will come out august 1! bookslut gave it a good review and it seems to align quite nicely with my current taste for books that thrill and chill.

books 41, 42, 43

wow, summer flies when you are an idiot, idiotically working too much!

i did take a few days of vacation last week, and here's what i have to show for it:

vacation reading!

sacred and profane, faye kellerman

these days all i want to do is read mysteries/thrillers. i mean, i'm technically in the middle of suite francaise, but i'm just too tired at night to think about world wars, etc. i just want murder! and detectives! and a little police procedure thrown in! this is the second peter decker/rina lazarus mystery (i read the first, the ritual bath, earlier in the year), and it was a lot more gruesome than the first. let's just say: snuff porn. but a really fast read, and it reminded me of being thirteen and staying up really late reading mysteries and then having to sleep with my light on because i'd gotten myself all worked up and scared.

body of a girl, leah stewart

another mystery, and really quite different from stewart's second novel, the myth of you and me, which i read at some point in my life, and which has a very nice cover. this was good, a kind of creepy-feeling mystery in which a memphis crime reporter becomes obsessed with a murder victim she's said to resemble. super creepy: the relationship this reporter, olivia dale, forms with the dead woman's teenaged brother. also, i met leah stewart once, and she's a really nice person, with great hair, so she wins in my book.

the madam, julianna baggott

i love julianna baggot. she's a really great novelist and her poetry doesn't make me want to vomit, which is a pretty big deal. girl talk? loved it. the miss america family? loved it more. but, the madam? only sort of liked it. there are a lot of nice scenes, and of course, nice writing, but the whole thing fell flat for me. the main character is closely based on the author's grandmother, who went to florida with her husband in the 1920s to try to make some money and ended up going back to west virginia alone and opening up a brothel. there are lots of colorful characters: an opium-addicted prostitute named delphine, a giantess named roxy, and more, but this book isn't as funny as baggott's first two novels. it seemed like the dysfunction was just too sad to be humorous, even in a darker way. but, all that said, this is a fast read, and a pretty interesting look at life in 1920s west virginia.

officially the worst birthday gift ever.

you might not know of my deep, long-standing committment to my favorite band of all time -- sleater-kinney. but even if you don't, trust me, it was deep. and long-standing. so, there's something especially bitter about this happening on my birthday:

statement from sleater-kinney

I GAVE YOU PEOPLE ELEVEN YEARS OF MY LIFE!

book 40

the nameless day, sara douglass

this is me, branching out! that's right, i read a 'fantasy' novel and really liked it. i'll have to say, though, that this was more in the realm of historical fiction than high fantasy. 14th century europe -- lots of intrigue, wars between england and france, corruption in the church, hotspur, etc. the fantasy comes in when the main character, friar thomas neville, is charged by this archangel to be the keeper of the cleft of hell. this one friar died of the plague, and when he did, he accidentally left the cleft open, so there are totally demons running around everywhere! and no one can tell because they are also shape-shifters! anyway, this book was really engrossing (and not as religious as it might sound, so don't worry). it's the first in a trilogy, and i'll definitely be looking for the next one to see what happens. this one ends with a cliffhanger.

in other news: today is my birthday! yay! and it's a sequential number birthday, which won't happen again for 11 more years! sadly, my plans to be totally pampered have been hampered (you like that, don't you?), but i still get to open awesome presents and have a special birthday meal! and there's always cake!

book 39

two word reviews continue!

julie and julia, julie powell

pretty entertaining.

books 37 and 38

new experiment: book reviews in two words or less!

grosse pointe girl, sarah grace mccandless, illustrated by christine norrie

pretty boring. (but nice illustrations. oops. the experiment isn't working)


the man of my dreams, curtis sittenfeld

total vomit.

books 35 and 36

the true story of hansel and gretel, louise murphy

it seemed sort of inappropriate to possibly put a glib, decapitated robot near the description of this book, which is rather heavy, so i'm skipping the rating for now. this is another book for my jewish fiction list. i would recommend reading it, but i would not recommend doing so if a) you are in a really good mood or b) you are eating. this is a holocaust book, a reworking of the hansel and gretel fairy tale in a forest in poland, where a stepmother convinces her husband to abandon his two children as the family flees the SS. a very intense book, and one that i thought was really vivid and well-wrought. it doesn't really shy away from much, so there all manner of terrible and sometimes perverse things that happen in this book, and there are a few parts you might want to skip if you have a weak stomach (like somewhere in the middle, where a young pole decides that he must maim the young children of the village so that the nazis will not take them away). this book might have been popular when it came out -- there was a book club discussion guide in the back.


charmed thirds, megan mccafferty
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i love megan mccafferty. i mean, i LOVE her. i think she is a very funny and sharp writer, and she somehow managed to shrug off any "YA" chains that might have been placed on her. i loved her first two books that feature this character (sloppy firsts and second helpings. so my expectations were very high. and i think i was a little disappointed. i think the time span was too long -- jessica's whole college career. and, i'm no prude, but there was too much sex talk in this. it just seemed out of character. it was still funny and witty, but just not quite what i was looking for.

books 33 and 34

somewhere in the midst of having my mom up for a visit, moving our roommate out, getting "new" furniture, arranging new furniture, and watching matt organize all of our books, comics, movies, and music, i managed to read two more books.

your mouth is lovely, nancy richler
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lookee there, a perfect score. this is a book about miriam, who is writing her life story as she serves a life sentence for murder in siberia in 1911. she's writing to the daughter she was forced to give up at birth. lots of very vivid description of growing up in a small village on the verge of the russian revolution. i loved this book. i loved the title. i loved the cover art. i loved that i knew which historical revolutionary figures richter based her characters on because i took that awesome literature of russian terrorism class in undergrad. vera figner! dora brilliant! the frenchman!

by the way, i'm doing a "jewish fiction" bibliography as my big field experience project, so please comment with good books that you think should be included. i have not yet ascertained whether jewish fiction means: fiction by jewish authors, fiction with jewish characters, or fiction with "jewish themes," so feel free to recommend titles that fit into any or all of those categories.

girls in pants: the third summer of the sisterhood, ann brashares
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what can i say, sometimes i like books that don't require me to think or backread to understand what's happening. i snagged this off the reshelving cart at the public library the other day, as i've been meaning to read it since it came out and alicia's post from a few days ago put it in my head again. i was somewhat confused because it's been a few years since i read the second one. but things wrapped up fine and of course it worked out for the best. i vaguely remember the other two books being a little heavier. plus i forgot about kostos being such a dog! anyway, sometimes it's nice to read about teen angst. it makes you remember how much you LOVED josh satterfield when you were fourteen and how you were going to DIE if he didn't LOVE you back. especially if you're like me, and your current worries are much more boring and practical, like figuring out why your kitchen light fixture mysteriously shattered all over the house and finally teaching yourself how to effectively iron pants.

books 28-32

oops. i've been negligent.

here's the quick wrap-up of the last five:

third girl from the left, martha southgate
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this is about three generations of women hailing from tulsa, oklahoma. a grandmother, who witnessed the violent race riots in tulsa in the 1920s; a mother, who ran off to los angeles to be an actress, but only ended up with bit parts in blaxploitation films and a baby; and a daughter, who is working her way through film school in new york. the title comes from the mother's most memorable acting role -- third girl from the left in the fight scene in coffy.

boy meets boy, david leviathan
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this little YA novel was described to me as "not a problem novel. more like a 'there are no problems' novel." it takes place in what amounts to an alternate high school universe where homosexuality is totally acceptable and the star quarterback doubles as the homecoming queen. it was fun and weird, and basically a typical teen love story, with some variables switched around.

birth of venus, sarah dunant
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this is a great book about fifteenth-century florence. it's got the medici family, savonarola, the bonfire of the vanities, forbidden homosexuality, and a couple of plagues. it's fast and sometimes gruesome and really engaging. this book is all of what's good about historical fiction.

just listen, sarah dessen
rating:


i'm biased because sarah's my pal, but i really thought this book was great. lots of nice scenes, good dialogue, and what seemed to me like a very real plot. lots about music, and sisters, and friendship. also particularly impressive because it spans most of a school year, where most of sarah's other books are set during the course of a summer.

one of those hideous books where the mother dies, sonya sones
rating:


another YA, i'm really on a roll. this is another novel in verse, but quite a bit different from the one i read earlier in the year (a bad boy can be good for a girl). this is about a girl who is forced to live with her estranged father, a movie star, after her mother dies. funny and sad and i almost forgot it was written in verse.

okay, i think that's all i read. maybe? i might be missing one. or two. like i said, i'm really on a roll with these YAs i've been reading for my field experience.