update.

i should change the name of the blog from "this is jennyville" to "this is embarrassing." because it's nothing but shameful that i'm not reading and/or updating more often.

i have actually read two books since the last time i posted, but that still only gets me to 62... 16 to go, and at this rate, i'll never make it. luckily, i have probably lost my readership, thus diminishing my public accountability and eliminating the possibility of public humiliation.

i love it when a plan comes together.

anyway, onto some very quick reviews, largely because i barely remember these books now:

book 61
the night gardener, george pelecanos
rating:


not so much.


book 62
specials, scott westerfeld
rating:


i mostly just had to get some closure by finishing out the trilogy.

a note: it took me about three hours to read the second one, a YA novel. it took me more than three weeks to read the first. which leads me to believe that i am now utterly incapable of reading literature meant for consumption by adults.

book 60

dude, i totally read this book more than a week ago. i have to keep a blog for one of my classes thsi semester, and i'm finding myself fully unable to keep up with two at once.

nick and norah's infinite playist, david leviathan and rachel cohn
rating:


i usually hate co-authored books, but this one was awesome. it's a YA book, supposedly. here's the premise: nick (written by leviathan) sees his ex-girlfriend at one of his shows with a new guy, and he asks norah (written by cohn) to be his girlfriend for five minutes. all sorts of hijinks ensue. my only beef is that these kids get to just stay out all night even though they still live with their parents. what's up with that? i don't even get to stay out all night when i go to visit my parents, and i'm an adult. maybe it's a new jersey/new york thing. i don't know. but it's like those christopher pike books i read when i was eleven. NO ONE EVER HAD PARENTS! IT'S LIKE THERE WERE NO PARENTS. it used to bother me more than the murders and stuff.

book 59

oh, how sad. i hope my pace isn't always this slow during the semester.

but enough about me, jancee dunn


dunn started writing for rolling stone back in 1989 and also worked a few other jobs (vj for mtv2, us weekly correspondent for good morning america, and maybe some others), so she has lots of good stories to tell about celebrities she's interviewed. these little snippets are interspersed with the "real" chapters of this memoir, which tell the story of dunn's life. while the anecdotes about celebrities are often laugh-out-loud funny (especially at the beginning), i think that i liked the stuff about dunn's real life more. you know i'm a sucker for an ordinary girl memoir. but all of it is smoothly written and very readable, and i particularly love that the acknowledgements page is written like a last will and testament in a high school yearbook.

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.