2012 book 71

Nathacha Appanah's The Last Brother
I've had a sample of this on my Kindle since it came out months and months ago, but other things seemed more pressing. But since it was entered into the Tournament of Books, I figured I should finally read it. And I get why it got so many great reviews, I guess, but a) it's TOTALLY a downer, about an elderly man reminiscing about when he was a bereaved and abused boy who befriended a Jewish boy prisoner during WWII on Mauritania, and b) it's too short to really let too much develop, story- and character-wise. This book was GOOD, but also very DEPRESSING. I predict that 1Q84 is gonna crush it. B/B+.

2012 book 70

Libba Bray's Going Bovine
I've avoided reading this for years, b/c a book about a kid dying of mad cow disease and hallucinating a grand adventure just sounded kind of depressing. And I'll say that it's not actually depressing, and I see why it won lots of acclaim and awards, but I just wasn't into it. And I think the slightly alternate reality world worked better in Beauty Queens (which was about a reality tv show) as opposed to this story about a regular kid. I just wasn't feeling this, but it wasn't bad or anything. B.

2012 book 69

Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles
The book world has been buzzing about this for months and months, and I was eager to read it, but didn't think a reworking of the Iliad could really be that awesome. But man, was I wrong, b/c this book is STELLAR. Told from the point of view of Patroclus, known as the companion of Achilles, this was a surprisingly moving epic and love story. Sure, there's the Trojan war, but it's not the focus here--the characters, and their rich lives, and their struggles against fate, are. I can't really explain how much I love this, but I did, and it made me cry. Solid A.

2012 book 68

Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon
McGuire--author of the Rosemary and Rue series and the Feed series (under the name Mira Grant), both of which I've enjoyed (though the zombie one gave me nightmares)--apparently decided that writing two series wasn't enough, and threw a third into the mix. This one is an urban fantasy about a young woman from a family of monster-hunters-cum-supernatural-beastie-peacekeepers who is unfortunately also a ballroom dance enthusiast (waaaaaay too much of the first half of the book is spent mentioning her dancing. It's "I like this kind of fighting b/c it's like dance!" "Dancing makes my legs strong!" "Dancers are flexible!" I swear the word "dance" and its derivatives appear like 5000 times in this book. Plus she keeps talking about wanting to make Dancing Regionals, and the talk about Regionals just made me think about that episode of Community about the Glee Club and I couldn't help smirking).

ANYWAY. The romance aspect feels kind of phoned-in at first but eventually gets more organic, I liked what McGuire did with the various supernatural creatures (especially the dragon princess concept), and I hope to see more of the protagonist's family in later volumes, b/c there is a lot of promising stuff there.  This would have gotten an A/A- except the dance stuff was so egregiously annoying that it's been downgraded to a B. OK, a B/B+. The second half really was pretty strong.

2012 book 67

Jacqueline Winspear's Among the Mad
In this Maisie Dobbs mystery, the psychologist-investigator teams up with Scotland Yard to combat a threat against London. Winspear is increasingly heavy-handed with her "war is bad" message (which I obviously agree with, she just really hammers it home in this one) and things do get slightly grisly, but it was a pretty good read. B.

2012 book 66

Jacqueline Winspear's An Incomplete Revenge
The next Maisie Dobbs novel after whichever ones I've already read involves petty crimes in a small town where a band of gypsies are hanging out--and a bunch of wartime secrets. The reader is able to pick things up pretty quickly, but Maisie does too so it's not too frustrating when things are revealed a little later. I will say that there are some grim goings-on in this one, but the mystery has enough pieces that it's not too terrible to read. And I like how clever Maisie is. B+.
 

2012 book 65

Maria V. Snyder's Touch of Power
I read and mostly enjoyed Snyder's Study trilogy, but wasn't too interested in the last couple of series she put out--but I may have to rectify that, b/c with this one she has stepped up her game like crazy (plus she's a fellow Penn Stater and I should support her). It's a great start to an epic fantasy, where lots of people have died from a plague and blamed the healers for it, and now one of the last healers is living life on the run so she's not executed like her colleagues. Except that she's just been sort of kidnapped to heal a prince she hates, and now finds herself caught up in the crazy politics (and I do mean crazy) of this fascinating world. And the best part is that the romance is slow-burning and thus not a focus at all. I liked this a lot. A/A-.

2012 book 64

Edward Lazellari's Awakenings
So there are two guys in New York (one a respectable cop with a wife and kid, one a douche who takes pictures for porn magazines) who lost their memories thirteen years ago . . . and it turns out that's b/c they're from an alternate universe and were part of a team trying to escape with an important baby, but things went wrong. Now good guys (an awesome centaur!) and bad guys from that universe have come to NY to try and track that baby down for important political reasons . . . and there are like eight thousand brutal fight scenes. Seriously, like every chapter has a crazy fight. I will say those aren't nearly as bad as what the important baby, now a teenager with an abusive stepfather, is going through. And of course this is the first book in a series so it has all sorts of cliffhangers. I'll probably read the sequel. B/B+.

2012 book 63

Catherine Chung's Forgotten Country
The description of this book, copied and pasted from Amazon, reads: "On the night Janie waits for her sister, Hannah, to be born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, so Janie is charged with keeping Hannah safe. As time passes, Janie hears more stories, while facts remain unspoken. Her father tells tales about numbers, and in his stories everything works out. In her mother's stories, deer explode in fields, frogs bury their loved ones in the ocean, and girls jump from cliffs and fall like flowers into the sea. Within all these stories are warnings. Years later, when Hannah inexplicably cuts all ties and disappears, Janie embarks on a mission to find her sister and finally uncover the truth beneath her family's silence. To do so, she must confront their history, the reason for her parents' sudden move to America twenty years earlier, and ultimately her conflicted feelings toward her sister and her own role in the betrayal behind their estrangement."

Which sounds great, right? But it seemed to me that it wasn't about that at all.  The description makes it sound almost mythical, but it's just a story about a mildly dysfunctional family and what happens when the father is diagnosed with cancer. The Korean immigrant stuff was interesting, but Chung didn't do too much with that, and one big reveal just feels cheap and sad. Everything feels . . . unresolved. Maybe it was all the hype this book was gotten or my own expectations, but either way, I was sort of disappointed. Don't get me wrong, this is a strong enough story (though, like I said, nothing feels resolved), just not what I wanted to read. B.

2012 book 62

Gail Carriger's Timeless
The fifth--and apparently final--Parasol Protectorate book finds Alexia and her entourage on a voyage to Egypt to meet an ancient vampire queen and solve some old family mysteries (I might need to reread the end, b/c I had some questions on that latter point). Things wrap up pretty well, and I'm looking forward to the spin-off series that's set to start in 2013. B+.

2012 book 61

Lauren Oliver's Pandemonium
It's rare for the second book in a YA trilogy to surpass the first, but I have to say, this one kicked Delirium's butt. I mean, I liked that book a whole lot, but Oliver really surpassed herself here. I can't really say anything about the plot without giving away major spoilers for the first book, but this one packs in a lot more adventure and romance, and Lena is a lot more interesting. I will say that some of the plot twists (especially the one at the end) were completely obvious, but it's a testament to Oliver's writing that I didn't mind at all, b/c I was so caught up in the action. A.

2012 book 60

Lisa Lutz's Trail of the Spellmans
Well, this was a Spellmans book, so I loved it, but I loved it slightly less than the previous ones--the usual low-key mysteries and their wrap-ups were entertaining, and I liked all the business stuff, but I'm kind of disappointed about what Lutz is doing with Izzy's personal life in this one (it makes sense in context, it just bums me out). Yes, maybe I am overly wrapped up in these characters! I will say that Demetrius is an excellent addition to the cast, and as usual I loved Lutz's narrative voice (though fewer footnotes next time would be appreciated). I guess there was no way this could top book 4 for me, and I can't believe I have to wait like two years to find out what happens next. A-.

2012 book 59

Meg Howrey's The Cranes Dance
Howrey--author of Blind Sight, which I loved--is apparently a former ballet dancer, which means she brings more than a little credibility to the story of Kate Crane, a soloist in the New York Ballet (or whatever it is), who has recently called her parents to rescue her more talented and very troubled younger sister, also a dancer in the ballet, who was apparently having a breakdown. And Kate isn't taking all of that very well, not to mention she's injured her neck during a performance. It's to Howrey's credit that this is a completely riveting story, even to someone who has absolutely no interest in ballet (me) (though I do like stories about sisters, and this is a doozy in that regard). Great characters and pacing--I seriously can't recommend this enough. A.

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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in May.

2012 book 58

Jessica Spotswood's Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles
Set in an alternate version of America where witches once reigned but now everything is run by a religious oligarchy called the Brothers and witches are punished severely, the story here focuses on Cate, the oldest of three sisters who are all witches. Cate just wants to protect them per their mother's dying wishes, but the political situation might interfere. This is YA so there is a romance, but it works really well in the context of the story, and doesn't take too much of the focus away from the fascinating world-building and characters. Parts of the plot are easy to see coming, but the story is interesting on the whole, the wrap-up is pretty intense, and I look forward to reading the inevitable sequel(s). A-/B+.

2012 book 57

Lauren Fox's Friends Like Us
Pretty great novel about a twenty-something woman, and what happens when she reconnects with her (male) high school best friend--and he starts dating her roommate/new best friend. The reader knows from the beginning that things won't end well, and occasionally I got impatient waiting for the inevitable trainwreck, but I did really relate to these characters and felt for them. I was going to give this a B+, but went back and reread the prologue when I was finished and that somehow upped it to an A-.

2012 book 56

Megan Crewe's The Way We Fall
This reminded me a little bit of Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It, in that a teenage girl is chronicling a semi-apocalyptic event (in this case she's technically writing a letter to her estranged best friend, but it basically is a diary--though the verisimilitude here leaves a bit to be desired--I mean, would a teenager faithfully recount dialogue in a grammatically correct fashion? That's a minor point though). Anyway, the event here is a deadly virus striking down the denizens of an isolated Canadian island; soon they're cut off from the mainland and left to their own devices. For all the bad things that happen, this is a fairly tame book, and I thought the very end was a bit silly (and it really left me wanting more). The emotional depths were not plumbed--this is more akin to the less-serious YA I grew up reading. I mean, I liked it well enough, it just could have been a lot more harrowing. B.

2012 book 55

Shannon Hale's The Book of a Thousand Days
Hale has written a bunch of other fairy-tale themed books that I've enjoyed, so I was glad to read her take on the lesser-known Maid Maleen story, where a maid and her lady are bricked into a tower for seven years when the lady refuses her father's choice of who to marry. Even without knowing the original story, this is somewhat predictable, but Hale's writing keeps things going, and there's some great stuff with animals. B/B+.

2012 book 54

Leah Stewart's Husband and Wife
This has been on my to-read list for a while, since I enjoyed Stewart's first two novels a lot, but I just wasn't that interested in the subject matter--a man confesses to his wife that he cheated on her. But I finally read it, and more or less enjoyed it--Stewart's writing is good, but I couldn't relate to the main character, a poet-turned-Duke-administrator (hilariously, the few bits about her job I totally got) with two small children, married to a jerk novelist. In the end, I didn't really care much about what would happen to their marriage. No fault of the book, it just wasn't my kind of thing at all. B.

2012 book 53

Edward Eager's Half Magic
I've started and stopped reading a couple of books over the last couple of days, and probably could have gone on like that for a while, so I reread this awesome classic children's book as a palate-cleanser. Can't go wrong with magic charms and the 1920s (I think? They go see a silent movie and cars are a novelty).

2012 book 52

John Irving's A Widow for One Year
With Irving's new novel coming out later this year, I've had a few conversations about his other books, especially about this one, which is definitely one of my favorites. I'm always sad more people don't feel the same way, but I really do find this much more appealing than most of his other works. Maybe it's the rare woman protagonist, maybe it's the way Irving weaves about eight different books into one. It does have a few of the Irving Themes--infidelity, dead child, Exeter, writers--but really takes a much different approach than his earlier works, I think. It's compelling stuff--I stayed up way too late to finish a book whose ending I already knew.

And I still can't believe they made the first chunk of this book (about a marriage dissolving in grief and infidelity) into a movie starring Kim Basinger, Jeff Bridges, and what must have been a very tiny Elle Fanning. Anyway, I hadn't read this in years and was pleased that it still held up, especially since I couldn't get into his most recent one at all. But it looks like they're releasing more of his backlist for the Kindle, so I imagine I'll be revisiting more of his stuff soon (I reread and reread his books in high school and college but haven't really read them since).

2012 book 51

Lisa Lutz's The Spellmans Strike Again
I can see why so many people (me included) thought this was the last book in the series--it ends on such a great note--but I'm thrilled that there will be at least three more. No other mystery series floats my boat as much as this one.

2012 book 50

Lisa Lutz's Revenge of the Spellmans
The third Spellmans book really, really holds up on multiple re-readings, I have to say. Interesting low-stakes mystery and more hilarious family interactions. 9 days till the new one comes out, and I'm off to reread the fourth right now.

2012 book 49

Lisa Lutz's Curse of the Spellmans
I've said a few times that I find the mystery in the 2nd Spellmans book to be the weakest, but actually, it's a pretty solid story--it's one that just is a bit frustrating to reread, knowing the outcome. I think the humor balances that out--and this book is what made me want to watch Doctor Who. :)

2012 book 48

Lisa Lutz's The Spellman Files
This is at least my fifth time reading this book, but a) The new one in the series comes out in ten days! and b) It never stops being awesome. I really wish I could find another mystery series with such a hilarious bunch of characters and non-stop pop culture references, but Lutz is really the only one who does it.

2012 book 47

Nina LaCour's The Disenchantments
I loooooved LaCour's first book and so was super-excited about her second YA novel, which was getting a lot of pre-publication raves--and it totally lived up to my expectations.* LaCour does these heartbreaking stories so well--though this one isn't nearly as heartbreaking in a serious way as her first one was, it's heartbreaking in a more typical teenage way. It's about a boy who's coming on a small tour with his best friend and her terrible girl band after their high school graduation, and of course he's secretly completely in love with her. And they're planning on spending a year traveling through Europe together, but, you know. It's also a great road trip book. It just feels so authentic! All the kids were great characters (best friend Bev is perhaps overly mysterious, but that mostly works in context) and I loved all their conversations about music, and LaCour makes all the people they encounter feel real too. I really loved this. A.

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*I did spend wayyyyy too long trying to figure out when this was set based on the music they listened to--the main character and his friend go to a Sleater-Kinney show at some point in the past, but Sleater-Kinney haven't played together in like 6 years, and they also listen to Bon Iver on their road trip, and that first album came out in 2008, so I guess a few years ago? Not that it's at all relevant to the plot or anything else, it just was bugging me.

2012 book 46

Deborah Henry's The Whipping Club
God, this book was just DRAMA heaped on DRAMA. I have no idea what the point of it was, except to show how much the 1950s SUCKED. It's about a young woman in Ireland in 1957 who gets knocked up by her Jewish boyfriend, and her priest uncle convinces her (b/c she is a moron) to give the baby away, even though she and the boyfriend are planning on getting married. And then they do get married and have another baby, but this TERRIBLE SECRET is driving a wedge between them. And then everyone does everything wrong that they possibly can do wrong, and everything gets WORSE and WORSE till a weird and unresolved ending and it is all just unbearably annoying. And the writing keeps flashing back in this weird way, and quickly switching POVs, and you're just like, wait, is this now, or ten years ago, and who is thinking what? ARGH. This book was really awful and I have no idea why I even finished it. F.


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An e-galley was provided by the publisher.

2012 book 45

Gail Carriger's Heartless
Haha, this series is the best. This one involves our heavily pregnant heroine trying to foil a plot against the Queen. But, you know, with vampires and werewolves and ghosts involved. Carringer has done a really excellent job of fleshing this world out from book-to-book and still writing insanely entertaining stories. A/A-.

2012 book 44

Gail Carriger's Blameless
As Arianne noted in a comment for one of the earlier books in this series, the world-building here is really interesting--not the usual vampire and werewolf stuff. I love how action-packed these are, and how they maintain a sense of humor throughout. But enough with the dumb steampunk devices! I am so not into fake old-fashioned science. A-.

2012 book 43

Gail Carriger's Changeless
Man, this series is so right up my alley. In this second volume, there's all sorts of crazy werewolf politics going on, plus something is taking away the supernatural beings' powers--not to mention poisonings and other murder attempts. But who (or what) is behind it all? I love the characters here--the central romance is just great--though one major plot point will be very obvious to a reader and annoyingly hard to figure out for the protagonist. I did wish there was less steampunk in this one--I really didn't need the pages of descriptions of dirigibles and ancient fax machines. Still, great fun. A-.

2012 book 42

Gail Carriger's Soulless
I've meant to read this series for ages--does anything sound more appealing than a Victorian-era fantasy series involving vampires, werewolves, and a woman with the ability to negate their powers with a touch? Or is that just me? Well, if that didn't convince you, let me assure you that the writing is full of sly humor, the inevitable romance is actually well-done (and somewhat swoon-worthy), and the whole thing is entirely entertaining. A/A-.

2012 book 41

L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables
Sometimes you just have to reread a book b/c it's awesome. I can't tell you how many times I've read this, and I laugh and cry and am delighted anew every single time.

2012 book 40

Julie Schumacher's The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls
Fairly cute book about a teenager whose mother organizes a summer mother-daughter book club full of disparate personality types (though you just know by the end they'll all be friends, b/c it's that kind of book). I did like that the story was told through the protagonist's AP English essay. The end annoyed and surprised me in equal measure, and I really wished there had been some satisfying answers to the several large lingering plot points. But like I said, it was cute. B.


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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in May.

2012 book 39

Diana Wynne Jones' Power of Three
Another fun fantasy from Diana Wynne Jones, this story involves the middle child of two royal parents, whose people are constantly in danger from nearby Dorig and Giants, and whose siblings both have special gifts. Jones takes this in a great direction, with her usual sense of humor. A/A-.

2012 book 38

Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child
A childless middle-aged couple has moved to Alaska in the 1920s to try and start a new life together, but their marriage and their farm are both struggling--until they start to see a little girl in the woods outside their cabin. Because this is based on a Russian folktale (where a childless couple builds a snow-girl who comes to life, and they love her, and no matter how the story goes, she ends up melting), I thought I knew how things would proceed, but I must admit that Ivey took the story in some unexpected (and some inevitable) directions. Really strong characters here, and the descriptions of Alaska, the woods, and the wildlife are outstanding. The book is well worth the praise it's been receiving, and almost has a timeless feel (perfect for a reworking of a folktale). A.

2012 book 37

Natasha Solomons' The House at Tyneford
I saw this book recently on a list of "What to read if you like Downton Abbey" and since I already had a sample on my Kindle (you'll see in a second why I'd want to read it), I decided to give it a try. And, interestingly, it actually is more of a book to read if you were sorely disappointed in the Upstairs, Downstairs update that aired last year*, but were intrigued by the plot point about the upper-class Jewish refugee who became a maid. Because this book is about an Austrian Jewish girl in 1938, the daughter of an opera singer and a novelist, who's sent to England to be a maid (b/c her parents clearly have some foresight). While she desperately waits to hear news that they've gotten their American visas and are sending for her, she has to learn to be a maid--and to deal with other complications that soon arise. Most of the plot points are easy to see coming, and some of the characters aren't as fleshed out as I'd like (though the protagonist is stellar), but this was a very, very enjoyable read--and yes, I'd recommend it to fellow Downton Abbey fans. A-.

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*I was clearly one of these people--they tried to cram way too much story into three hours, and since it aired so soon after season one of Downton Abbey, it seemed extra-lame by comparison.

2012 book 36

Melina Marchetta's Froi of the Exiles
Marchetta is a reliably awesome author, and the sequel to the much-lauded Finnikin of the Rock is no exception. The action this time focuses on a secondary character from the first book, an orphaned thief turned badass warrior who's sent to a neighboring kingdom to assassinate its king--and deal with the king's mad daughter. There are also scenes featuring the main characters from Finnikin interspersed throughout. Lots of politics, secrets, plots, and adventures ensue, all leading to an INSANE cliffhanger ending--yup, Marchetta busted out a YA fantasy trilogy, it seems. All I have to say is that the next book had better come out soon, b/c I am dying to know what'll happen next. A/A-.


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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book comes out in March.

2012 book 35

Melina Marchetta's Finnikin of the Rock
I had to reread this so I could read the sequel and really get it! I'd forgotten what a great story this was, and how it was kind of a departure for Marchetta, whose other books are all contemporary YA, whereas this is a straight-up fantasy epic--though still full of the strong characterization and sly humor that marks her other books. And I'd also forgotten how awesome the women in this book are--not just the mysterious Evanjelin, who drives the plot (along with the titular protagonist), but all of the small women characters too. Really strong stuff and I am starting the sequel right now!

2012 book 34

Daisy Whitney's The Rivals
The sequel to The Mockingbirds (which I liked a whole lot) unfortunately spends way too much time floundering around in an overly silly plot involving a cheating ring. Things get really awesome and interesting right at the end . . . and then end. Very disappointing follow-up. B-. Also, I looked at the author's site to see if there's a third book planned (I'd read that one) and it weirdly looks like the site of someone who spam follows you on Twitter--all marketing and whatnot. Kind of off-putting.

2012 book 33

Jacqueline Winspear's Messenger of Truth
The next Maisie Dobbs book after the one I read already (I think this is the 4th in the series) finds Maisie investigating a possible murder in the art world. It's interesting to me how sly Winspear is with her narration--obviously we know what's coming after this time period (1930s), but she drops in references to European Jews selling their art (never mentioning the word "Jews," weirdly) and to that Fascist jerk Oswald Mosley (I know a lot about that guy b/c he was married to one of the Mitford sisters). None of that is relevant to the plot, but I found it noteworthy. As for the story itself, it's a bit slow in the middle but still worthwhile. B.

2012 book 32

Ramona Ausubel's No One is Here Except All of Us
It's 1939, and an isolated Jewish town in Romania decides to remake the world to try and fend off the war.  And the rest of the book proceeds like that, feeling entirely unreal and almost like you're underwater. I didn't really understand protagonist Lena's journey, maybe because she just seems to float through life and I really wanted her to be more proactive. And one part of the end really pissed me off. Nothing in this story is straightforward, really, but if the Holocaust doesn't lend itself to weird fairy tale-like stories, what does?

Look, I have no idea what I thought about this book. It was a little too . . . literary-cum-atmospheric for me. B.

2012 book 31

Paula McLain's The Paris Wife
Our book group decided this book--about Hemingway's first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their years in Paris--should be its second selection, and I really wonder how discussion is going to go. I mean, it's a perfectly fine book and the mentions of various literary expats is interesting, but mostly it's just the story of a kind of depressing marriage. I mean, what are we going to say:

"I felt pretty bad for Hadley. "Yeah." "Hemingway was kind of a jerk, huh?" "Yeah." "I wished she would have left him earlier and not been such a sap." "Yeah."

I enjoyed this book but am more excited about the madeleines I'm making for discussion than I am about discussing it. B/B+.

2012 book 30

Diana Wynne Jones' The Crown of Dalemark
The final book in the Dalemark Quartet brings together characters from the three previous books to great effect, as well as introducing a new character--a girl from 200 years in the future who gets sent back in time.  This was a great conclusion to the series and the end made me smile. A/A-.

2012 book 29

Diana Wynne Jones' The Spellcoats
The third book in the Dalemark Quartet takes place in the world's ancient times and centers on a very interesting family. Plus the whole story is ostensibly woven onto coats! I liked this one much better than the previous two. A/A-.

2012 book 28

Diana Wynne Jones' Drowned Ammet
The second book in the Dalemark Quartet has completely different characters than the first one (though it does refer to those events) and is more-or-less as satisfying; one main character, a young revolutionary, takes a while to become interesting, but his counterpart, a princess-type, is pretty great. I especially liked the magical elements here. It ends a bit abruptly, but that made me more eager to read the next one. B.

2012 book 27

Diana Wynne Jones' Cart and Cwidder
A whole slew of Jones' long out-of-print books came out for the Kindle this week (and more are coming later this spring). This one, the first in the Dalemark Quartet, centers on the youngest son in a family of traveling performers, making their way through a precarious political situation. This wasn't my favorite of Jones' works by a long shot, but was still very readable. B/B+.

2012 book 26

Jacqueline Winspear's Pardonable Lies
I think it was my mom who recommended the Maisie Dobbs series to me, and I'm glad she did, b/c this was a very enjoyable mystery involving an intrepid woman detective/psychologist in 1930 investigating the deaths of two WWI soldiers, as well as trying to protect a young girl accused of murder. Great character and engaging storylines. A/A-.

2012 book 25

Cate Tiernan's Darkness Falls
The second book in the Immortal Beloved series starts off a little slowly, recapping the first book in a super-hyper-casual tone that is slightly grating. But once the action kicks in, and plots left hanging from the first book come into play, it's a quick and fun read like the first one. I'm only mildly interested in the romance angle, but watching main character Nastasya confront her past and learn about her powers is pretty interesting. Note for the interested: Tiernan apparently lives in Durham! B/B+.

2012 book 24

Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles
Now, this is the kind of book that is right up my alley--but also makes me think about stockpiling canned goods JUST IN CASE. Yes, it's a near-future dystopian-ish novel, but it's a literary one instead of YA, for a change of pace. The crisis here involved the earth's rotation slowing, so that each day gets a little bit longer--which maybe seems nice in theory, but causes all sorts of problems for the planet. Our protagonist is 11-year-old Julia, whose nice little life is thrown into disarray, and whose only fault as a narrator is the tendency to too often say "That was the last time I ever [ate pineapples/ate grapes/saw whoever]." It's a little over-dramatic. The rest of the book is fairly strong--the reactions to the planetary crisis seem pretty realistic, and I really wanted to know what would happen next (although all the things that happen are fairly small, I was still on the edge of my seat). The publisher is pushing this pretty hard, and with good reason. A-.
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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in June.

2012 book 23

Alan Shapiro's Broadway Baby
I think this book--described as being about a woman who loves the theatre and pushes her talented son into performing, but which is actually about the life of a super unsatisfied woman who is never happy and makes everyone around her miserable--wants to be an American-Jewish family epic, but the protagonist is too self-centered (or rather, the author is too centered on her) for any of the other characters to be more than thinly drawn figures (the daughter, whose few short sentences made her the most interest character, is sadly almost a complete non-entity). I have no idea what the point of this story is and really hope the protagonist bears little resemblance to the author's mother, b/c all I can think is that this is some sort of attempt to deal with childhood issues. As a side note, what I believe was the last line of the book on the Kindle version feeds right into what are apparently the acknowledgements, which was . . . jarring. This book was just depressing, but not in a good or interesting way. C-.

2012 book 22

Joshilyn Jackson's A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
Jackson writes books about ladies in the South beset by various crises and secrets, and this is a good example of that--keeping it vague so as to avoid giving away plot points, it's about three generations of women (who are 45, 30, and 15--the 45 year old is convinced a curse hits their family every 15 years and leads to teen pregnancy and other problems) who are currently in crisis due to the 30-year-old having a stroke--and due to a secret literally being unearthed in their backyard. Was that all once sentence? Sorry. Anyway, good characters, though adult authors REALLY need to stop with the forced teen-speak. I'm pretty sure no one now, or ever has, actually texted "hellz to the yeah" to anyone else. I mean, maybe ironically. But ugh, those parts are mildly painful to read. And some parts are pretty easy to guess, which isn't entirely a bad thing, and everything is revealed in a timely manner. Pretty good stuff. I may go see the author read at Quail Ridge on Feb. 15th. (But probably won't--due to laziness, not b/c of the author--I like her books.) B/B+.

2012 book 21

Meg Rosoff's There is No Dog
This is one of those YA books that could easily be shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy shelves instead, alongside authors like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. (I'm pretty sure it's being marketed as YA b/c Rosoff has written several YA books.) Though it is slightly less silly than those guys' books, the premise and characters would feel right at home with them--I mean, it's about God, who is an eternally selfish teenage boy named Bob (whose mother won the job in a poker game and passed it off on him), the administrator who actually runs things, and what other Godly dramas happen when Bob falls for a pretty young assistant zookeeper. This was really, really fun reading. A-.

2012 book 20

Carol O'Connell's The Chalk Girl
For a fairly grim 'n' grisly mystery, this book was surprisingly heartbreaking. The plot has a huge amount of twists and turns that I don't want to hint at, but it involves bodies strung up in trees, a gifted little girl who knows an awful lot about rats (note: don't read this book if you're squeamish about rats, seriously, don't), and a probably sociopathic police detective caught up in a bunch of internal politics (this is part of a series, and of course I haven't read the earlier ones). The detective is a bit of a cipher, but her partner and other friends/colleagues (including a rabbi!) keep the story moving, and the little girl is entirely lovable. The end was kind of anti-climactic, but it totally worked for me (and is bound to bring a slightly wicked grin to some readers' faces). A-.

2012 book 19

Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son
This book has been generating a HUGE amount of buzz (and getting a lot of rave reviews), so I was pretty eager to read it--though normally a novel about a North Korean soldier wouldn't immediately appeal to me. And I will say that I almost gave it up at first--there are some crazy things that happen in the first few chapters, like some kidnappings, that are hard to read. But then I found myself completely wrapped up in the young man's story, as he progresses from being an orphan to being a soldier to being caught up in the ludicrous world of North Korean politics. I've read that Johnson did a lot of research for this book, and if it's even fifty percent accurate, that country is kind of messed up (from my capitalistic American viewpoint, anyway). I mean, this reads like a post-apocalyptic dystopia in some ways. Maybe that's one of the reasons I liked it so much? A/A-.

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An e-galley was provided by the publisher.

2012 book 18

Edward Eager's Knight's Castle
Sometimes you just want to reread something fun, and Edward Eager almost always fits the bill. This has always been my 3rd-favorite of his (after Half Magic and Seven Day Magic) and it holds up really well. It once inspired me to try and read Ivanhoe, since it talks about that so much, but man was that book boring to little kid me. Maybe I'll give it another try now that I know Rebecca was inspired by a real (Jewish) person from Philly.

2012 book 17

Shannon Hale's Midnight in Austenland
I enjoyed Austenland quite a bit, so was eager to read this sequel/companion, where another woman goes on the Austen-themed vacation and meets a whole new cast of Austen-esque characters (with one memorable returnee from the previous book)--and was pleased that this one had a mystery thrown into the plot (a la Northanger Abbey). Look, these books are nice light reading and Hale's writing is really enjoyable--she really highlights the humor of the situations--so even though they're somewhat predictable, they're very likable. I know I tend to rail against the Austen spin-off industry, but these books are very well-done. A-/B+.

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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 31st.

2012 book 16

Carola Dunn's Gone West: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery
Maybe it's my love for Downton Abbey talking, but I really enjoyed this mystery, about a sharp young(ish?) woman helping solve a crime in 1920s England. This is actually the most recent in what seems to be a long-running series--I haven't read the others (though now want to), but didn't feel like I was missing anything crucial. So our lead Daisy is approached by an old school friend, currently working as a ghostwriter for a successful author who's fallen ill--only she suspects he's being poisoned, and wants Daisy to come take a look. Since this is a mystery, things quickly get more complicated, and I enjoyed every second of it, was surprised by most of it, and loved all the characters (and the gender/class issues they raised--ah, 1920s!). Solid, solid read. I'll definitely be checking out the rest of the series. A/A-.

2012 book 15

Ayad Akhtar's American Dervish
OK guys, this book is REALLY REALLY good. It's the story of Hayat, a young American-Muslim boy, and what happens when his mother's best friend Mina and her young son leave Pakistan to live with his family (which is complicated enough as it is, with a father openly cheating on his mother, who is interestingly [and somewhat hilariously] philo-Semitic), and what happens when Mina falls for a Jewish man. And it's also about Hayat learning about his Muslim faith from Mina--and from others in their community--and how his views of religion impact all their lives. But, you know, awesome? Really really great family/cultural drama here, great characters--I was totally engrossed in this and got weepy more than a few times. I know it's only January but this will probably be on my best of 2012 list. A.

2012 book 14

Sere Prince Halverson's The Underside of Joy
This is the kind of book that almost seems to be written with book groups in mind--a big central issue to discuss (in this case, a custody battle) and lots of characters to dissect. But like with many book group/women's fiction type books, a lot of the characters are thinly sketched (all the protagonist's friends and especially her gay brother-in-law fall into this camp) and it all feels just a touch overwrought. And I only sort of appreciated the author's efforts to bring attention to Italians interned in camps in America during WWII. Anyway. When our story begins, Ella is living an idyllic life with her husband and his two children, whose mother left them years ago. But when her husband dies in an accident and his ex-wife turns up wanting custody of her children, things hightail into crazytown. I'm not even going to get into how ridiculous the end is--it didn't work for me at all, but like I said, this should be a strong book group book. B.

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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book comes out on Tuesday.

2012 book 13

Matthew Kirby's Icefall
It's back in the day when people worshipped Odin and the other Norse gods, and a king at war has sent his three children to a stronghold in the mountains for safety. Later, a group of his strongest warriors come to protect them, but bored warriors isolated in a mountain during winter can make for trouble. And it looks like a traitor is in their midst. Our protagonist, Solveig, the ignored middle child, has to try and keep everything together--while also training to be a skald, an awesome storyteller. Great characters here--Solveig is especially likable, as is the warrior chief--and I really couldn't wait to see what happened next. A/A-.

2012 book 12

Kathryn Harrison's Enchantments
Novels based on actual history often sort of flounder as the author attempts to stay true to the facts while still making the story his or her own--and make it compelling. With the story here, which focuses on Rasputin's daughter, her friendship with poor little Alexei, the stories she tells him about their families, and her adult life working with large animals in a circus--well, it should be something really exciting to read! But Harrison leans too heavily on the literary side, and somehow such an insane story ends up reading really slowly. Masha, Rasputin's daughter, is a fairly fleshed-out character, as is the tsarevich, and their interactions were interesting, but this wasn't at all the engaging, immersive novel I was hoping for (such a book would have been a huge bestseller, I think). I mean, come on, Rasputin's daughter went on to work for circuses and it's just not interesting to read about here. The Wikipedia article is more absorbing. B/B-.
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An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 6.

2012 book 11

Daniel O'Malley's The Rook
I'm not sure I can summarize this effectively, but here goes: a woman finds herself by a bunch of bodies wearing gloves, and there's a letter in her pocket explaining that her memories have been taken--she works as a high-up admin type for a super secret British organization that deals with supernatural stuff, and someone within the organization is a traitor! So of course she has to try and find out what the heck happened--as well as dealing with all the other crazy crazy crazy things her job entails. It makes for a delightfully weird and interesting story, with some highly entertaining characters. I REALLY liked this. Great world-building. A/A-.

2012 book 10

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars
Sooooo the new John Green book is here, and it's about a Cancer Girl. Cancer Girls are a fictional trope wherein a teenage girl has cancer and is lamenting her soon-to-be-lost life and is sarcastic but secretly longs for love. Since it's Green, this character is actually likable and something of a departure from the cliche, even though she meets a cute boy who's lost a leg to cancer and this book is about their relationship. Things don't go the usual route and I loved reading their conversations, especially the ones about books (a great fictional book/author are part of a major subplot). They're unrealistically articulate, but hey, great reading. I did get a teensy bit teary more than once, but there was no straight-up sobbing, which I guess merits an A-? Side note for music fans, John Darnielle is thanked in the acknowledgements. Are all creative dudes named John secretly friends?

2012 book 9

Sarah Ockler's Bittersweet
Long-time readers of this blog know I'll read anything involving cupcakes, hence my excitement for this book, about a teenage ice-skating star who found out her dad was cheating on her mom right before a big competition, which she throws. Three years later she's baking cupcakes at her mom's diner. Then all sorts of teenage drama involving the hockey team and various current and ex best friends starts, making me want to scream "just make UP already" and/or "just make OUT already" at the very whiny protagonist. Who sucks at life, seriously. I was very impatient for all the stuff that was obviously going to happen to just happen already, and was relieved when it was over. Good descriptions of cupcakes though. Oh, and the cover of this book has a cookie on it for some reason, which is just silly. B-.

2012 book 8

Naomi Benaron's Running the Rift
I always feel a sense of moral obligation to read books about genocide, even if I don't really want to read them. But this is getting stellar reviews and so I decided to just dive in (I actually typed "bite the bullet" there but that just felt inappropriate). Anyway, Benaron's novel involves a young boy in Rwanda who has dreams of running in the Olympics--at least until the Tutsis start to be targeted. We follow his experiences as things get worse and worse, even as he gets closer to attaining his dreams. I will say this was not as harrowing a read as I was expecting, since almost all of the violence happens off the page and is never discussed in great detail, though the scale of the genocide is pretty clear. And I'm not going to comment on white ladies writing books with African protagonists; Benaron's historicization and characterization are pretty solid and I do think the world needs more good books about terrible things that most people don't really know about. The resolution of the story itself is a little iffier for me. A-.


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A review copy was provided by the publisher.

2012 book 7

Stef Penney's The Invisible Ones
Penney (author of The Tenderness of Wolves) does one of my favorite genres--literary mysteries! This one involves a half-Gypsy private eye who is hired to find a Gypsy man's missing daughter--except that she disappeared seven years ago, as a newlywed, and he's sure her husband killed her. The story is also narrated by a fourteen-year-old boy, a cousin of the missing woman's husband, providing extra insight into their family (and culture). There's all sorts of intrigue and secrets and poisonings afoot, and Penney surprises at every turn. Really excellent--though I'd expect no less. A.

2012 book 6

Myla Goldberg's Bee Season
So a friend of mine started a book group and I was like YAY because of course there are few things I love more than talking about books while sitting in a circle. I was slightly less excited that this is our first book--I read it when it first came out like ten years ago, and all I remembered was the brother's subplot--and that I didn't like it at all. But I figured, hey, ten years, maybe this time I'll be into it!

And then I spent a LOT of time bitching to anyone who would listen about how slow this book was, how flat the story and the writing felt (despite the use of present tense), how it's not really a story about a Jewish girl competing in spelling bees (ah, now you see why I read this in the first place) at all, but about how a couple of completely insane married people screw up their children through neglect and general looniness. And their daughter participates in spelling bees and is pressured by her father to get into Jewish mysticism, and their son joins the Hare Krishnas (interestingly, I looked up the movie version, and the guy who introduces the son to the cult is played by Kate Bosworth in the movie).

Actually, towards the end things get interesting for a little while, and then get super super weird. At least there are plenty of things to discuss. C.

I think the theme of the group is books that were turned into movies--so if you have suggestions of GOOD books that might fit the bill, please let me know, so I don't have to feel like book group is homework.

2012 book 5

Kristin Cashore's Fire
The companion novel to Graceling, Fire, is a sort of prequel set in the same universe but in a faraway land, with an even more complicated mythology and powers and whatnot. I think I liked it more this time around, since I wasn't disappointed that it didn't feature the characters from the first book, and it's a fairly strong adventure/romance/fantasy story on its own (though the end borders on cheesy).

2012 book 4

Kristin Cashore's Graceling
This was one of the 99cent Kindle deals recently, and since I loved it, but didn't own it, I snapped it up. And since it's still a little bit slow in terms of new books this time of year, it seemed to merit a re-read (especially since I no longer remembered most of the details). It's definitely as good as I remembered and I am super excited that the third one is coming out in May.

2012 book 3

Jennifer E. Smith's The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
On her way to her father's wedding in England, where he's marrying the woman for whom he left her mother (and her, by proxy), a teenager meets a cute boy on the airplane and they bond. It's a sweet book that occasionally veers over the edge into cheesiness (with a premise like that, how could it not?) but is, on the whole, well done. I fully expect this to be turned into a movie where people kiss in the rain a la all Nicholas Sparks movies. B/B+.

2012 book 2

Nina Hoffman's Past the Size of Dreaming
Weird but enjoyable book involving various people involved with magic, and a haunted house. Trying to explain the plot any further would take longer than I care to spend on that. :) It's a bit of a meandering story leading up to a fairly bizarre (but mostly satisfying) climax, but the characters are actually very interesting, and Hoffman gives them powers that I haven't seen much in fantasy fiction. B+.

2012 book 1

Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly
I wanted to start the new year's reading on a positive note, so reread this book, a cute story about the Greek pantheon stuck in London and wreaking havoc on a young couple's lives. I'm pretty sure this was one of my favorites of whatever year it came out, and it's still an entertaining read. Plus, soon to be a major motion picture starring Christopher Walken, Alicia Silverstone, and other assorted stars. B+.

2011 book 331

Daniel Handler's Why We Broke Up
This was a much better book to end the year on--sweet story about a high school girl returning a box of stuff to her ex, along with a letter detailing the history of their (brief) relationship. Handler totally nails the teenage girl thing. The only downer here is that obviously my Kindle didn't do justice to Maira Kalman's illustrations (I love her!)--this might be better read in print or on a tablet or something. A/A-.

2011 book 330

Donna Leon's Death and Judgment
This Guido Brunetti mystery involved sex trafficking and was horribly dark and depressing. I'm not reading any more of this series.

Gonna try and squeeze in something light now--this is a terrible book to end the year on.

Favorite Books of 2011

Without further ado, and because I'm not expecting to read any more 2011 releases in the next couple of days, here are my favorite books of 2011! (Alphabetical by author.)

Josephine Angelini's Starcrossed
Kate Akinson's Started Early, Took My Dog
Libba Bray's Beauty Queens
Geraldine Brooks' Caleb's Crossing
Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot
Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow
Melina Marchetta's The Piper's Son
Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus
Haruki Murakami's 1Q84
Ann Patchett's State of Wonder
Rainbow Rowell's Attachments
Elissa Schappel's Building Blueprints for Better Girls
Amor Towles' Rules of Civility
Carrie Vaughn's After the Golden Age

I read a lot of really excellent books this year, but I think these were the standouts, the ones I kept recommending to everyone (or the ones that were just extra-awesome).

2011 book 329

Nevil Shute's On the Beach
I've been on a Shute kick lately, so imagine my delight at discovering he wrote a postapocalyptic novel! Written in 1957, this is impregnated with Cold War fears--it's gradually revealed that there's been a nuclear war, but Melbourne, Australia wasn't hit and is functioning pretty normally . . . at least until September, when the radiation comes their way. Shute neatly shows the probably psychological effects of two groups of people--a bunch of American naval officers, who know their loved ones are dead, and the Australians who know their deaths are coming but are powerless to stop them. The protagonists are an Australian naval officer (and his wife, though she's not a particularly fleshed-out character), the American commander of a submarine, and the young Australian woman who befriends him. Also, her scientist cousin, who finds and exciting and reckless hobby. Shute beautifully illustrates how these characters come to terms with everything. Surprisingly un-grim. A/A-.

PS. Apparently this was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire. I have GOT to see that.

2011 book 328

Rosemary Clement-Moore's Texas Gothic
Very well-done story about a girl who, with her sister, is housesitting for her aunt over the summer--but things aren't easy, b/c the whole family has supernatural gifts and a local ghost story is threatening to wreak some havoc. Not to mention the cute cowboy whose family owns the supposedly haunted land. The story unfolds at a nice pace, the romance feels organic, and I loved all the details of the quirky Goodnight family and their gifts--they are ripe for a series and it's one I'd read. A/A-.

2011 book 327

P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley
I've been dithering for a while about whether or not to read this, both b/c it's gotten mixed reviews and b/c I find the cottage industry of Pride and Prejudice sequels/takeoffs to be off-putting and mildly distasteful. But James' books have been recommended to me a few times, and this NYT review convinced me. Unfortunately, I wasn't really feeling this AT ALL. Even ignoring the butchering of classic characters, there's a lot to dislike here--overly stilted dialogue, really clumsy exposition ("You know Mr so-and-so, you were there when blah blah blah and have met him a zillion times"), and really bad attempts to sound Austen-ish. Plus the mystery--involving that jerk Wickham as a murder suspect--is really boring and the big reveal feels blah. Very disappointing. C.

2011 book 326

Nevil Shute's Pied Piper
Shute's A Town Like Alice is one of my favorite books, but for some reason I'd never read any of his other works. This one has a similar structure to Alice--someone's harrowing 1940s wartime adventures are being told after the fact to some random English person (in this case, an old man is telling his recent adventures to a member of his club during an air raid--this book was actually published during WWII). Anyway, this is really a powerful story about an Englishman on a fishing trip in France who, as the Germans invade, prepares to return home--but is asked by a married couple to bring their children with him. As he makes his way across France, he somehow collects other children, but finds himself right in the war zone. How will they make it out???

As a side note, interesting commentaries on Jews here, especially considering it was published in 1942. Clearly Shute knew the Germans were targeting Jewish people/putting them in death camps of some sort and he thinks it's appalling (it's mentioned several times), though one of his heroes is very mildly anti-Semitic (well, there's one comment involving the Jews/money stereotype) and one Jewish child is completely bloodthirsty (understandable, in context). Still a very strong work though--I kind of wished for a sequel. A-.

2011 book 325

Lisa Mantchev's So Silver Bright
Mantchev really packs a lot into the final book of her trilogy, so much so that it feels like something new and zany and/or dangerous is happening on every page. Like I said of the last one, I was REALLY not into the love triangle, which didn't work for me at all (the Ariel stuff rang really false) but that ended in a manner that was mostly ok. Really I just liked this series for the fairies. B.

2011 book 324

Lisa Mantchev's Perchance to Dream
The second book in this series picks up right where the last one stops, with protagonist Bertie taking a motley crew to try and find a kidnapped friend--and maybe her father. I will say that this book is a little weird, or maybe "interesting" is a better word, since it doesn't follow the usual YA fantasy formula, and Mantchev packs a LOT of action into the story (which is kind of all over the place). It is the second installment of a trilogy, though, so the lack of resolution makes sense. I'm not going to comment on the love triangle, which is kind of silly and contrived. I like the characters, though, especially the fairies. B/B+.

2011 book 323

Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars
Very likable YA book involving a girl raised in a magical theatre where all of the characters from all the plays are hanging out (her friends are the fairies from A Midsummer's Night Dream). When she's threatened with having to leave her home, she has to suddenly find a place for herself . . . which obviously leads to craziness and secrets and stuff, since this is a YA fantasy book. A very likable one, though. A-.

2011 book 322

Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys
I'm pretty sure I read this in college, but I didn't remember a thing about it, so when it suddenly became available for the Kindle this week (thanks, Mr. Chabon!), obviously I wanted to revisit it. And of course it's a solid, solid novel, though one that I still can't believe was made into a movie (with Michael Douglas as the protagonist, no less--I don't think I've seen the movie, is he still a total pothead? I kept picturing Jeff Bridges in the part while I was reading). Mainly I love this book for all the Pittsburgh mentions (including my high school, alma mater of the protagonist's brother-in-law!). Anyway, Chabon is basically the bestest, though I prefer his more overtly Jewish-y books (there is a pretty good seder in this one though). 

2011 book 321

Sonia Taitz's In the King's Arms
 This book was so frustrating, and I can't figure out why it got so many great reviews (the writing is gorgeous, and it has a happy ending, so I guess that helps). It starts off strong, focusing on the daughter of Holocaust survivors who goes to Oxford to study--but when she falls for a classmate's brother the story bogs down in poetics. The author is apparently a playwright and actually it reads like a play--you have to infer all the emotions and motivations that the characters should be having. There's no meat to the story or to any interactions, it's all just facile talk. I think the two main characters were supposed to be actually in love, but they read like jaded hipsters, everything cloaked in layers of irony (and this takes place in the 70s, before there really were hipsters cloaked in irony). I never felt like I knew any of these people at all. In fact, I found the whole thing really annoying--it never breaks beyond that surface level and it had so much potential! B/B-.

2011 book 320

Tamora Pierce's Mastiff
The third Beka Cooper book finds her and a special team on the track of a royal kidnapper. Pretty good conclusion to the trilogy, but I wasn't really interested in the romance that popped up (especially after a nice lack of romance in the first two books). Plus there was an epilogue involving some other Pierce characters entirely. A-/B+.

2011 book 319

Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound
The second Beka Cooper book is as strong as the first, as Cooper and her partner try to track down a counterfeiting ring that threatens to completely destroy the kingdom's economy. And this time there's an awesome dog to help! A/A-.

2011 book 318

Tamora Pierce's Terrier: The Legend of Beka Cooper
Pierce is one of those authors whose books I always hear good things about, but for some reason had never read--and I'm glad I finally changed that, b/c this was a solid book. This really hit a lot of my buttons--it's a YA fantasy, but it's a mystery at its core (although I guessed the villain really early on, it was still a satisfying read). The heroine is a great character (though her shyness is made too much of early on), just out of training to be what is basically a junior police officer in a crime-ridden world. And she's driven to solve two sets of crimes--who's kidnapping small children for ransom, and one involving some missing men--with the help of her magical cat and the ghosts she can hear. Because she has a magical cat and can hear ghosts, of course! But Pierce's storytelling makes it all work (and made me cry more than once). A/A-.

2011 book 317

Mal Peet's Life: An Exploded Diagram
I found out about this book through the Forever YA blog, and saw it on at least one YA best-of-2011 list . . . but I would argue vociferously that this is NOT a YA book (unless YA is super literary in England). I wonder if it's marketed that way because the main character is a teenager through most of it--a feature of pretty much all coming-of-age novels, which this is, DUH. Anyway, the novel traces young Clem from his birth at the tail end of WWII through this childhood with his eccentric family, his school years, and then his pivotal teenage meeting with Frankie, daughter of the local rich guy (if Masterpiece has taught me anything, it's that all small British towns have one rich guy), and how everything comes to a head during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Solid writing and story--I had some mixed feelings about the very end but otherwise liked this a lot. A-.

Favorite Music of 2011!

2011 was a pretty good year in music, so now I will commence with the annual Listing of the Albums I Liked.

In no particular order, except The Rosebuds is first b/c seriously, that album is GREAT, why isn't it on more end-of-year lists?

1. The Rosebuds --  Loud Planes Fly Low
2. Des Ark -- Don't Rock the Boat, Sink the F----er (my Mom hates when I swear, hence the dashes)
3.  Mates of State -- Mountaintops
4. The Generationals -- Actor-Caster
5. Destroyer -- Kaputt
6. Real Estate --  Days
7.  Crooked Fingers -- Breaks in the Armor
8. Mount Moriah -- Mount Moriah
9. Wye Oak -- Civilian
10. Megafaun -- Megafaun

Also, you can listen to some of my favorite songs of 2011 on Spotify here (not all the albums listed above were available, hence no Des Ark): http://open.spotify.com/user/wordnerdy/playlist/4FYo6mkU566yuD4Y5bHi3i

2011 book 316

Kate Saunders' Beswitched
Ignore the silly title of this book, b/c it's actually a super cute modern version of Charlotte Sometimes (that book is awesome, if you haven't read it), where a bratty British twelve year old on her way to boarding school is suddenly whisked away to . . . a boarding school. But a boarding school in 1935! Now she has to deal with the crazy ways of the past and try to get back to the future with the help of her new friends (and of course she will learn Valuable Life Lessons, but not in an annoying way). This is an MG book so parts of it are pretty clearly telegraphed, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. A/A-.

2011 book 315

Donna Leon's Death in a Strange Country
I was looking for a new mystery series to get into and Elizabeth recommended this one, about a police commissioner in Venice, saying that although the mysteries themselves were pretty standard stuff, the relationship between the protagonist and his wife was pretty great--and since I tend to like mysteries that are more about the characters than the crimes they solve (cf. the Spellman books and that series about cupcakes), that seemed promising. This is actually the second in the series (the first isn't available for the Kindle) but I didn't feel like I was missing anything major.  The crime here involves a murdered guy from a nearby American Army base who seems to have been a robbery victim--but the commissioner soon realizes there's much more to the story than that. It all plays out in a manner both compelling and melodramatic, but the main character is great and I did really enjoy his family dynamics. I'll definitely be reading the next one. B/B+.

2011 book 314

Jessica Gregson's The Angel Makers
WWI has just started, and for once Sari--the oddball in her village, a learned girl who knows a lot about plants and healing, and is generally an outcast--finds herself part of a community, as the women band together to keep things going. But when a prisoner of war camp full of Italian men comes to town--and then the war ends and their own men return--things get a little messy, as most of the women preferred life when their men were away. Apparently based on a true story, this novel is full of a kind of dark humor that I found really enjoyable. This needs to be a movie, like, now. A-.

2011 book 313

Megan McCafferty's Perfect Fifths
The only bad thing about this book is that there isn't more of it! (Oh, and that the middle section is a bunch of annoying haikus.) What can I read next that will possibly make me as happy as these books do?

2011 book 312

Megan McCafferty's Fourth Comings
Jessica and Marcus, you just keep on breaking my heart! Actually, for a lot of this book I was kind of thinking, "these books would be more effective if we ever really saw Jessica and Marcus together-together" but even that is addressed pretty well by the end. Which is why I love this series and am about to start the fifth.

And by the way, with this book, I just tied the number of books I read last year . . .

2011 book 311

Megan McCafferty's Charmed Thirds
Jessica is slightly less likable--but no less realistic or relatable--in the third book, which features her college years. Man, I love these books.

2011 book 310

Megan Mccafferty's Second Helpings
I'm rereading all the Jessica Darling books b/c she and Marcus Flutie are the BEST. Teen drama has never been done as well as these books do it.

ALSO, I'm totally going to break my book record again this year. I read 312 last year. How many will I manage for 2011?

2011 book 309

Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts
Aaaahhhh Jessica Darling and Marcus Flutie, I love you. Some of the best characters ever, really, and well worth a re-read.

Which reminds me--I'm hoping to get into a new series over Christmas--like one year I read all these, and one year all the Percy Jacksons. What other awesome series might I have missed? Any genre (but I don't want to read Dance of Dragons, ok?), from any time period.  Help me discover something new!

2011 book 308

Markus Zusak's Underdogs
So before Zusak wrote the incredible I Am The Messenger and The Book Thief,  he apparently wrote a trilogy about a couple of teenage brothers and their slightly downtrodden family. Now they're published in one volume in America--which is fine, b/c they're not very long, and the first two aren't particularly strong works. They're likable, and of course the characters are compelling b/c it's Zusak, but each book has these short interludes interrupting the story (in the first, the younger boy's dreams; in the second, his late-night conversations with his brother; and in the third, his attempts at writing, which are just excruciating to read and which I mostly skipped). It's possible to see the roots of Zusak's awesomeness here, but on the whole this is just good solid general YA. B/B+.

2011 book 307

Emily Arsenault's The Broken Teaglass
This is not a great time of year for new books, unfortunately, and none of the samples on my Kindle seemed appealing. So I decided to reread this--it was one of my favorites of a few years ago, and I wanted to see if it held up. And it did! But I think I'm predisposed to like a literary mystery that's maybe more literary than mystery, and that's narrated by a young man who works for a dictionary company defining words.

2011 book 306

Marie Lu's Legend
This is basically the buzziest YA book to come out in a while, but I wasn't sure if I'd read it--and then the NYT gave it a rave and I was convinced. Now, it's not perfect--the writing is occasionally heavy-handed, lots of telling-instead-of-showing (mainly in terms of the romance)--but it is a really fun read, about a future militaristic dystopia where a young (girl) prodigy is tasked with hunting down an infamous (young boy) criminal. But obviously things are more complicated than that--I mean, it's a dystopia, after all. I've read that the main characters were inspired by Javert and Jean Valjean but can't comment on any other parallels to Les Miserables, as I haven't read it in well over a decade. A-.

2011 book 305

L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I
Blah blah characters from the Tempest blah blah immortal and powerful blah blah the father is in trouble and Miranda has to investigate and warn her siblings blah. For a book that has so many action-packed scenes, and features a 500-year-old businesswoman/magic-user, this was surprisingly slow and boring. Not to mention that Miranda is kind of a nimrod. And despite all the fight scenes, the plot doesn't progress much, and the end is taken up with some really stupid romance. The sequels to this seem to be better-reviewed, but I really don't care what happens to these characters next. I only finished this b/c I'd invested so much time in it already. C.