Amysue's Read-o-rama

# 47 How to Buy a Love of Reading

I read this in one sitting and didn't skim anything so it certainly held my attention...and yet.  Tanya Egan Gibson's, How to Buy a Lovel of Reading ultimately depressed me with the emptyness of the lives of the teens it was about.  They are super wealthy, super self-centered, have no parental oversight and as near as I can tell live on booze, drugs and sex.  There was some cool stuff going on in this book, but I was so distracted by the complete dissolution of the lives of it's characters that I simply couldn't care.

Oh and finally?  Hunter, one of the most frustrating characters (loved and worshiped by all-adult and teen alike and yet he is as emptyheaded and drug/booze addled as the rest) is always sick, it's a theme that runs throughout the novel but we never find out why.  Is it psychosomatic?  Does he have a real underlying illness?  Allergies?  A wonky immune system?  No one, least of all him, seems to care.  At the end oi the novel it's a moot point, but still?

Like I said, I kept reading until I finished so clearly it was compelling on some level but for the life of me I can't think of who I would reccomend this to.

Oh, I did like one concept that the main character, Carly, uses-her idea of "aftermemory" where she rewrites her encounters with others in her head and there makes better comebacks or is better treated.  It's a kind of active daydreaming.

#46 My Most Excellent Year

Steve Kluger's, My Most Excellent Year: A novel of love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park was one of the sweetest (not sickly sweet though) YA novels I've read in a long time.  I could not put it down once I started it and loved being thrown into the lives of some amazing teens as they navigated their first couple of years of High School.

One of the character's  lists some of the things he's learned and included this "Always remember what is was like to be six." which I found to be true and so wonderful.

My daughter will be starting her freshman year in a few days and if she goes through her HS years with a crew like this and their attitude of acceptance and love then I really won't need to worry much at all.

#45 Aunt Dimity Slays A Dragon

by Nancy Atherton,

because sometimes, you just need to curl up with a nice, safe, delightful cozy!

#43 and #44

Just listing them:

Wonderous Strange, Lesley Livingston

Breaking Midnight, Emma Holly

#42 Fragile Eternity

Melissa Marr's Fragile Eternity is the third in her series (Wicked Beauty and Ink Exchange being the other two).  It was so beautiful and lovely, despite it's initial gloomyness.

I have to say that this series presents a view of faerie that is very dark.  No one seems happy.  Not anyone in faerie or of it, not the mortals who get caught up in the faerie realm and not even actual earth.  Despite this many of the Kings/Queens are trying their best to craft an uneasy balance that would avoid all out war and destruction even as some of them seem to embrace it.  

None of this really matters though.  Mostly, we are interested in how Aislinn, now that she is Summer Queen will find a way to keep her throne, serve her subjects and king and still keep her true love, the mortal, Seth.

Mhy only real complaint...what's with the sudden plethora of "book trailers" in the publishing world?  They are really lame:

#41 Bloodhound

I absolutely loved the second book in Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper series, Bloodhound.  This series is set in Tortall's past and because she's created such a consistent and compelling world any novel that takes place in it is great.

I got a little bored with some of the details about the false money, but the interaction between Beka and Clary Goodwin was great and Beka's latest animal aquisition was perfect as well.

I still don't get Pounce, as much as I love him and am glad a way was found to mitigate his ability to be there to help her out of dire straits.  Beka grows as a woman here and as a "dog".  She learns she is capable of taking care of herself (this is kind of funny because everyone around her has always known this-she's the only one who doubts herself).

I hope we don't have to wait as long for the next in this series!

#40. I'm Down

I'm Down, a memoir by Mishna Wolff was a fast read, but I came away loathing her parents.  It's clear she loves them despite their flaws but I wanted to haul them both up on charges of severe neglect and abuse and then go back in time and give this girl back her childhood.  Somehow, not the reaction she probably was going for.

#39 Back to the Garden

Back to the Garden:The Story of Woodstock, Pete Fornatale

A nice, though not rivetting, trip down memory lane.  I was 8 years old and make no claim to have been at Woodstock (although I believe a friend of mine lost a sandal in the mud there) but it sure shaped my imagination.  We used to have a shed under our porch before we did a major renovation and I got hold of some bright paints and painted huge Peter Max-like flowers and the words "flower power" and peace symbols and such inside.

Now..it's 40 years later.  Just wow.

#38 The Magicians

Lev Grossman's, The Magicians was brilliant and disturbing and real and wonderful and it kept me up until 2am.  Go read.

#29-37 The Sookie Stackhouse novels

Dead Until Dark

Living dead in Dallas

Club Dead

Dead to the World

Dead as a Doornail

Definitely Dead

All Together Dead

From Dead to Worse

Dead and Gone

Charlaine Harris has certainly created a fun, involved world of vampires, weres, shifters, fairies and others doing their best (or not) to co-exist with humans and the books are as addictive as potato chips.  The series, True Blood, on HBO which is based on these novels is a lot of fun too.  

Funniest thing?  Everyone on the beach (at least on Cape Cod) seems to be reading these this summer!