books 54, 55, 56, 57, 58

the fruits of my last hurrah before the semester began.

king dork, frank portman


one of my favorite books so far this year. a smart and funny look at high school, with a 'mystery' threaded through it. apparently this author is some sort of big shot musician, but, as you may know about me, if it's not sleater-kinney or something sleazy and electronic, i'm unlikely to know about it. anyway. i recommend this book! the main character is tom henderson, who's kind of an outcast, and who stumbles upon his late father's books from high school while trying to find a copy of catcher in the rye to read for school. and it's about a lot of other things, too. it's categorized as "young adult," because the narrator's fifteen, but there's really not much else that's young adult about it.

pretties, scott westerfeld


i felt a little bit more eh about this, the second book in the uglies trilogy, than i did about the first. extreme overuse of the word "bogus." but still, a nice, fast-paced read. tally got the surgery and became a "pretty" so that a scientist she met back in uglies can try out a "cure" on her. these books are like sci-fi-lite. sci-fi for teenaged girls. with pretty covers. honestly i read this over a week ago so i forget whatever it is that i meant to say about it.

the keep, jennifer egan


okay, so here's the book i've been waiting for all summer. i really liked most of it, but i'm in absolute agreement with bookslut about the ending. it's about two cousins, who had a bad experience when they were teenagers, and who reunite as adults to help renovate this mysterious eastern european castle. and it's about a guy in prison, writing a manuscript in a writing seminar. and it all comes together. it's so creepy and nicely layered but then there's just this piece at the end that seemed tacked on, like maybe the publisher was afraid people wouldn't "get it" or something. anyway, still worth reading, as are all of egan's books.

kiffe kiffe tomorrow, faiza guene


i've been pretty consistenly impressed by salon's fiction recommendations lately, and this was no exception. the narrator is a fifteen year old girl named doria living in the projects outside of paris, the daughter of north african immigrants. her father went back to morocco when doria was younger to marry a peasant woman so that he could have a son. and now doria and her mother are struggling, trying to exist on welfare and the crappy pay from the mother's housekeeping job at a hotel. sometimes depressing but with some optimistic notes that managed to be non-cheesy. i absolutely hate the author because she wrote this in college and is now a big famous international book-star. but at least she grew up in the housing projects outside of paris as well, so she's not posturing too much.

memoirs of a muse, lara vapnyar


eh. a russian girl who learns about dostoevsky's muses early on decides that her goal in life is to be a muse for a great author. she moves from russia to new york city, meets an accomplished american author, moves in with him, and quits her job to become a muse. well-written, but a little slow for my current taste. also, i guess i thought there would be more about dostoevsky than there was.

books 50, 51, 52, 53?

ahem. i am behind. i actually can't even really remember for sure if these are all the books i've read since my last post.

milk and honey, faye kellerman


my sister warned me that these just got worse, and she was right. i actually don't even remember anything about this. i think there were beekeepers in it.

uglies, scott westerfeld


i'm almost positive that i read something else between the kellerman and this one, but i can't remember it. oh well! anyway, this book was very good. it's the first in westerfeld's super-popular young adult trilogy of the same name. basically, it's set in a future where you have plastic surgery on your sixteenth birthday and you become flawlessly beautiful. tally, the protagonist, is pretty seriously pumped about turning "pretty," but her friend shay is a rebel, and wants to hide out in a seemingly mythical place called "the smoke" to avoid getting the surgery. fast and really engrossing.

miss american pie: a diary of love, secrets, and growing up in the 1970s, margaret sartor


this memoir rocked that one little robot's head off. i mean it. margaret sartor, who teaches at duke, put this together from diaries, notes, and letters she wrote between the ages of 12 and 17. her diary entries had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. lots of one line entries -- e.g. "i'm so depressed" and "the haircut is not working out" and "i'm really in love this time." the younger margaret is really hopelessly naive, and i like that the older margaret isn't afraid to show that. a few times i got a little bogged down in her frequent religious crises, but all in all, this is a great read.

pale blue eye, louis bayard


whoa! three four 'bots in a row books! unheard of! anyhow, i read about this book in salon's summer reading thing that they did a little while back, and i finally got my hands on it. this is a great mystery that takes place at west point in 1830, where a soldier who appears to have committed suicide has his corpse stolen and someone totally cuts out his heart. CREE-PY! so this retired detecive guy is hired to quietly solve the crime, and he hooks up with a rebellious cadet named edgar allan poe. serious twist at the end that i didn't see coming AT ALL. very nice. now i want to read bayard's last novel, mr. timothy, another historical thriller starring timothy cratchit, better known to most of us as charles dickens' tiny tim.

attn: sleater-kinney fans

the greatest band (soon to be ex-band) in the world is currently broadcasting a live show on npr's all songs considered. go listen!

edit: actually they are not playing right now. they seem to be broadcasting the pre-show PA songs, though.

books 48,49, 50!!!!

hey, the 'bots are back in town.

the wounded hawk, sara douglass
rating:


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
rating:


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
rating:


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.