What We Are Reading at Our House - YA/Adult Edition

Batting last and playing right field, I present YA/Adult books.

Messy (Spoiled #2) by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Because I just finished this last night, I have to put it first. I am a fan of the Fug Girls and read their website almost daily. I appreciate their wit and I love that they infuse their fashion work with literary references, oftentimes YA from Anne of Green Gables to Sweet Valley High and the Hunger Games. As fans of YA I was so pleased when I learned they were writing their own series. I thoroughly enjoyed their first book, Spoiled (2011) and finally got around to reading last year's equally hilarious sequel, Messy.

For a series that is set in the world of Hollywood extreme fame, celebrity culture, and wealth, the teenage characters are refreshingly well rounded and interesting. Don't let the glossy, teen magazine-like covers turn you off. What's inside is pop culture gold. And laugh-out-loud funny. Seriously, they are comedy team that rivals Pohler/Fey.

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
And another book by one of my favorite writers! That I follow online! And Twitter! Okay, and Pinterest! Because she. Is. Terrific.

Sequels are tough acts and this one, while excellent, suffered the usual pitfalls of having to move things along without resolving too much. There are still unanswered questions from the first book and new mysteries. Plus, there's lots of the great Zuzana for much needed comic relief because it is heavy stuff in here: Bodies for Karou to rebuild, lost underground villages, bloody revolution, murder, and that whole chilling Thiago deal. And, of course, the tortured love story of Karou and Akiva. C'mon book #3.


I had a bit of an adult book trend. One with unhappy people in unhappy relationships. Not really fun at all. I only really liked the poetry collection Stag's Leap and its foundation of an ended marriage still wrecked me.

Good Kids by Benjamin Nugent
A friend recommended this 2013 title and it sounded like potential Alex material. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time keeping interested in both the story and the characters. Josh and Khadijah, high school acquaintances and kind of outsiders, witness his dad and her mom kissing in the grocery store. The ramifications from this affair follows them through early adulthood where they reconnect while both engaged to other people. Josh in particular can't move on, although his life as an accidental bassist in a pop/alternative band was a nice surprise.



The other adult 30-something relationship book I read was Zadie Smith's NW. It was ... okay.  I liked some parts but mostly it was another book where I just didn't like the characters as people and so I had difficulty finding their stories worthwhile.

My favorite adult book was Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a wonder and she is from Florida. I'm so proud.

This is another collection of short stories and I think this is really where Karen Russell shines. The stories all contain an element of the fantastic and she works it all so well. And she is funny in "Dougbert Shackleton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgating", for instance. But she always infuses a layer of the mysterious. Of strangeness on the brink of somewhere. Of odd tastes and unusual sounds you can't quite place but sense their presence. And a little fear. Okay, sometimes a lot of fear. So Deliciously Good.

My favorite story, the one I think about all the time, is "Reeling for the Empire" about teen girls forced/tricked to work in a silk factory. A close second would be "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis" about bully teenage boys.  Okay, and "Proving Up" about families settling the American West. With a twist. Ack! *shivers*

Hello, Alex Committee, this is for sure one for the list.

End of the Year Reading

Goodness, it's already the new year! Make that 28 days until the Youth Media Awards. While I am looking forward to the new year of reading (ahem Sarah Dessen and Melina Marchetta) I still have a small mountain of reading to finish for 2012. Here's a terribly thrifty review list of what I managed to read recently. Happy New Year, Oops Readers!

Every Day by David Levithan
He pulled off what could have been a disaster. A little sci-fi, a little mystery, and chapters of great characters. This one made Patti's Mock Printz list and I would love to hear the discussion. It's still a distance from Stars and Verity for me, but dang, David Levithan is amazing. How does it do it all?

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead
I loved this book. I didn't burst into tears like I did for When You Reach Me, but I was with Georges the whole book. Reading as an adult, there aren't too many mysteries in middle grade stories, but they're not written for me so I overlook it.  Knowing that things are never what they seem in a Rebecca Stead book I still fell for this one hook, line, and sinker. The one about his mother I didn't even see coming. And I thought I had the title all figured out. Silly me.

One Year in Coal Harbor by Polly Horvath
A second Polly Horvath novel this year! A cause for celebration. A companion to Everything on a Waffle? Deliciously wonderful. Twelve year old Primrose continues to delight and we also have a return of chapter-ending recipes complete with our heroine's comments. I submit the final line of "Tater Tot Casserole", which, by the way, is in Primrose's charity cookbook entitled Just Throw Some Melted Butter on It and Call It a Day. :

On a cold rainy night when people are not participating in the better plan you have for them, this can be a comfort. (p. 116) 

Polly Horvath books are refreshingly strange. She makes you think with vocab like ersatz and adjudicator and references to Mary Oliver essays and French recipes. She's left of center with a big heart. And really, really funny.

A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Rowling is a bad ass. Case closed. A total departure from HP while also being completely great in its own right amazes and thrills me. She didn't have to write anything else, ever!, but she did and it is really good. The best book of the year? Nah. The most surprising? Probably.

November Reads, Adult

I saw Penelope on a list of the year's best novels posted at Huffington Post. (The author works for the publication but the article insisted that wasn't a factor.) It seemed like good Alex Award material so I checked it out.

I think it could find a place on the Alex list. I am just not a big fan of the novel. While there were plenty of moments where I laughed out loud or was pleasantly shocked, Penelope is a tough character to get close to and in the end that kept me from enjoying the novel wholly.

On the other hand, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? had me from the hilarious start. Told mostly in email and letters with additional help from Bernadette's (delightful) young teenage daughter, the story is a mystery about Bernadette's sudden disappearance. There's quite a bit of adult drama but I am a little curious to see if it also makes an Alex nomination.

I was reading this at my son's baseball practice and one of the mothers immediately asked if that was "The Real Molly Ringwald" and then engaged me in conversation about our favorite Molly Ringwald movie scenes. So while not a contender for the Alex, it fits well with the YA theme of my usual reading. (Sam is my favorite, btw.)

Plus, I thought it was very good! A happy bonus. The story is about the successes and failures of a married couple told through individual short stories. I enjoy discovering characters pop up in different narratives so this worked well for me.

A friend recommended balancing out my 80's teen revival with Andrew McCarthy's The Longest Way Home memoir and I just couldn't finish it. Meh. Not my thing.

What We're Reading at Our House

The 9 year old discovered Bruce Coville.  Okay, not on his own. I picked out My Teacher Is an Alien to add a little funny sci-fi to his reading. I also wanted to introduce him to another series. He loves reading series books.

He really liked those books and started the Alien Adventures series. I never read Coville myself but so many of my students and librarian friends loved him.

Additionally, I started him on Rick Riordan's 39 Clues. This is his first exposure to Riordan and he devoured the books. He completed the first series and moved on to the Cahill vs. Vespers series. Rick Riordan is golden. Thank goodness he is a publishing machine.

The Almost-4-Year-Old and I discovered Tucker the dog. He's by Leslie McGuirk who wrote one of my favorite books last year: If Rocks Could Sing. We love that the Tucker books are small - 6"x6". It just adds to the cuteness.

 As a family we all enjoyed Dragons Love Tacos.  See that cover below? That sums up taco night at our house. Mmm. Tacoooos. Unlike dragons, we love spicy salsa.

The only thing dragons love more than parties or tacos, is taco parties (taco parties are parties with lots of tacos).
If you want to have some dragons over for a taco party, you'll need buckets of tacos. Pantloads of tacos.

Recently I read Summer at Forsaken Lake by Michael D Beil. Not as much fun as his Red Blazer Girls, but still a good mystery. Speaking of RBG, the new one just came out.

I also finished the excellent and award winning No Crystal Stair by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. The combination fact and fiction worked really well for me. It was serendipitous timing to read this right after The Mighty Miss Malone. Two perspectives on overlapping time periods. Two fascinating characters.

Lastly, a quick mention of adult books. I finally read Gone Girl. Great writing and a great example of disliking every single character in a book. I had to cleanse my brain afterwards with Next Best Thing.

Happy Reading!

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

I had read several very good reviews of this title in various professional review journals and I must say the book did not disappoint. This book is set in present time or perhaps a bit in the future. Something, however, has happened to the rotation of the earth. It is steadily slowing making the 24 hour day a thing of the past, daylight and nighttime are no longer dependable, and the birds are dropping dead out of the sky.

Our narrator is an indeterminate age looking back on her 11 year old self as she lives through this change in the earth. As a reader, I felt comforted by that. That she grew older. That she must have survived. The truth of that actually remains to be seen, but it was a comforting thought nonetheless. As I said, Julia is 11 and she is a mature one at that. She is also crushingly lonely for a variety of reasons. I don't think I've been so touched by a character in quite some time. I loved Julia, I felt her pain like it was my own. She was so real I couldn't help but ache for her. She is worried about the future of the earth, but she is just as worried about her grandfather, her parent's marriage, and the boy she wishes would notice her.

The story is masterfully written. It is not a shrill end of the world tale, but the tale of a girl and her family and how they are affected by a life and earth altering event. We learn about what happens to the world and what happens to the people in it as they struggle to hold onto normalcy. What would a world look like if the rotation slowed? The days stretch, the nights stretch, it is light when it should be dark and vice versa. People begin to get sick, the magnetic field is affected, radiation begins to be released, crops begin to fail. And all through this people attempt to survive.

It is a beautiful story and I can't recommend it enough.

===========================
Book Source = ARC from 4th floor

What We're Reading at Our House - 6, part 2

In my last post I mentioned my youth lit reads. I also plucked some adult lit to mix things up a bit. Here's what stood out.

First up, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I totally forgot that Patti mentioned it during the ALA Youth Media Awards chat and said she put it down because she knew it would be too sad. Patti, I think you should reconsider!

I loved it. It takes place over 12 days surrounding Hurricane Katrina and the lives of a 15 year old teen and her brothers who live in a Mississippi swamp. We know the devastation of Katrina and that just added to the tension. Forget food - get out! Esch and Skeetah are a sister/brother team that will stay with me for a long time. Check this one out. I read it in a day.

An excellent choice for a 2012 Alex Award Winner. *below for a slight spoiler that could be the Patti deal-breaker.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan earned this Pulitzer Prize this past year.  Two people, a music executive and his assistant, are the common thread in the multiple stories of other people that build this novel. We don't get the story in chronological order and sometimes it takes until the next chapter to figure out how the previous chapter's character fulfills his/her part of the larger story. It's a fun ride with lots of rock and punk references. I liked this one better than Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot. The section of the novel with the most striking impact for me was the power point presentation by the tween daughter. (Go figure.)

Now State of Wonder by Ann Patchett involved a bit of a leap for me. Yes, I thought it was excellent. It was my first Patchett novel even though friends have suggested her for years. I checked it out after seeing it on some Best of 2011 list and without much knowledge of its plot. Turns out it's about doctors developing medicines in the Brazilian rainforest. Huh. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I quickly became engrossed. Rather fascinating.

Finally, I'm trying to add more contemporary poetry to my reading. This month I read Kay Ryan's The Best of It. Kay Ryan was our poet laureate from 2008-2010. She was recommended in an interview with Sherman Alexie so I took that as another good sign. The poems are short and I found them very accessible. Here's a NYT review with a copy of the (excellent) title poem included.







*P.S.  re: Gordon Korman's excellent YA novel about the animal on the cover. But it's sooooo good.

I May Not Have Been Posting, but I Have Been Reading

A ton of books. A ton! And some were real stinkers. Let's recap (briefly and in reading order):

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

In my official reviewing capacity, I would classify this book as "OK." I really like curmudgeons and there was a great one in this book. The ending was far fetched and ridiculous, but the book overall was entertaining enough. The setting was great.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

If you're looking for a romance with no sexual tension between a bossy vampire with no personality and a witch who could be interesting, but isn't. Well, this is the book for you! There were some disturbing parallels to Twilight. He sneaks in her window and smells her (*shudder*) she falls in love with him, his incredible need to protect her makes him so angry (so angry!) that sometimes he just can't take it. And they never have sex. Never. And it is really, really long.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

This was really fun. I loved Rory, she was just a real appealing character. Loved the idea and setting. Wished there was more to it. I know it is the first in a series, but I didn't get a good enough sense of "why" to make me want to tune in for more. I reserve the right to change my mind though.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

A Scandinavian police mystery where a cop has gotten shot and his bad attitude gets him hidden away in a newly created "Department Q" which will focus on cold cases. This was much lighter than Steig Larsson (thankfully - who could take more of his horrors?) and I had totally figured out what happened about half way through, but it was fun. I really liked Carl the cop and I would tune in again to find out more about his mysterious assistant Assad.

Happy Birthday, Sloppy Firsts!

Ten years ago next week (8/28) Megan McCafferty unleashed the irresistible Jessica Darling into the literary world. And the world became a better place.

Please, take a moment and reflect on its awesomeness.

 And if you haven't read it, now is the perfect time. While I love Patti for many, many things, she nagged me for at least 3 years to read it. Thanks, Patti.

Reflect with Megan & other fans on twitter : #sloppyfirsts10th

See Bumped, Kerry's Marcus Post,  Perfect Fifths and Fourth Comings,

What We're Reading at Our House - 4

As summer vacation closes shop, my 8 year old also winds up his summer reading. His school sent home a goal of 30 books (at least 100 pages each or 2 books to combine for 100 pages) for incoming 3rd graders. My guy is almost there. School starts August 22.

Fred and Anthony's Horrible, Hideous Back-to-School Thriller
by Elise Arevamirp with Elise Primaver (Hyperion Paperbacks for Children 2008)
A new favorite. The title is irresistible this time of year and it has lots of fun illustrations. It seems like it is out of print so look for it at a library.

Max Disaster #3: Alien Eraser Reveals the Secrets of Evolution
by Marissa Moss (Candlewick Press, 2009)
Another comic-like story. I love all the Amelia books so I was happy to see that she has a series for boys. Two thumbs up for sticking science in there as well.

There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom
by Louis Sachar
Reaching back to old school. The outdated cover almost turned him off completely. My son loves Sideways Stories so I selected this one for him. He enjoyed it quite a bit. I heard lots of laughs and that's a solid seal of approval.

Star Wars Character Encyclopedia
DK Publishing, 2011
It's about Star Wars. Instant must-have in our house. We checked it out last week and he's probably read it 6 times already.

Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
Dad is reading this aloud for the 2nd year in a row. They still laugh and laugh.

In Zanesville: a novel
by Jo Ann Beard (Little, Brown and Company 2011)
Yay! I liked this one very much. My friend Martha reviewed it on Goodreads and her good words were more than enough to get me to check it out. At times it was hard for me to keep track of the who's who of the teen girls, but I think that's supposed to happen. Our narrator takes us along with her for her 9th grade year in the 1970s and she doesn't explain much. I thought this storytelling fit really well with our teen protagonist because she is a teenager. I don't really want her to have deep thoughts and wisdom beyond her years. She and her BFF Felicia are figuring things out. They're definitely weird, but is that okay? She leaves quite a bit out so we have to do some work to piece together what is happening outside of what she is immediately doing and thinking. Another possible contender for the Alex Awards.

Just Kids
by Patti Smith (Ecco 2010)
On my to read list for ages. Once upon a time a woman at a work training I attended asked to take my picture because she thought I looked just like Patti Smith. I took it as a compliment. And maybe I should brush my hair. I haven't finished this book yet, but all I have to say is that I was a total sloth as a 21-22 year old. Holy cow. The people she met and worked with is pretty much EVERYONE. And she knew it then, too. She knew to learn from the people around her. Just really amazing. She wrote this book with a lot of love and you can feel it in every paragraph. (oh, and a sequel!)

A Veritable Reading Spree

Yes, I have been on a veritable reading spree of books published for adults! And they were great! Which is fantastic. I kind of love this "adult fiction" thing. Even if I seem to be drawn to the ones with teen characters.


The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Magical. I loved it. Basically two illusionists set up a contest and the circus is the result. With lots of intrigue and fantastic characters it is easy to just succumb to the story. It is very descriptive, usually that would turn me off of a book, but here I thought it really worked. The world the author created was amazing. The ending? Perhaps a bit anti-climatic. But still lovely. Definitely one of my favorites for the year.


Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
I obsessed about reading this book for probably about two months before I finally gave in. It sounded like it could go either way: totally awful, or awful in the most awesome way possible. I ended up really liking it. On the cover someone said that it was succinct and I would have to disagree. Not succinct and with descriptions that did not make sense in a first person narrative. BUT. Awesome nonetheless. And it looks like it is going to be a movie directed by Steven Spielberg. Now i'm just wondering whether or not Cowboys & Aliens is going to be awful or amazing? Decisions, decisions...


Bossypants by Tina Fey
Not much to say about this other than the woman is funny. I giggled my way through the entire book. Literally laughed the entire way through. I don't know when the last time I did that.


Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
This is one that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. And it is well-deserved. A fun book about a boy who grew up with a grandfather who told him extraordinary stories. As the boy grew older he believed the stories less and less until one day he didn't believe them at all. Then something horrible happens and Jacob discovers that it's quite possible that everything his grandfather told him was true. Adventure and danger ensues. I really enjoyed it.

I think the book trailer really gives a good insight into the atmosphere of the book:



=================================
Book Sources:
Night Circus - ARC from staff ARC shelf
Robopocalyspe - library copy
Bossypants - library copy
Miss Peregrine's - ARC from staff ARC shelf

What We're Reading at Our House - 3

I'm reading more than I have in ages, but nothing really to blog about yet. Patti and I both read Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Little, Brown 9/11) and will chat about it later...ONE HECK OF A CHAT.

So here's what we are reading at our house.

Almost-8-year-old:
Still on his Geronimo Stilton kick and added Thea Stilton to the mix. I also introduced him to Big Nate by Lincoln Peirce and he's a big fan. Also, before Big Nate Strikes Again (#2) came through on his library holds, he was reading Ramona and Beezus. I'll have to hide the 3rd Big Nate from him until he finishes that one. Girl books rarely make it into his hands.

Picture books:
Purple Little Bird by Greg Foley (Blazer+Bray, 2011)
Greg Foley's Bear books are some of my favorites. I saw this one on the shelf and did a happy dance. Purple Little Bird looks for a new place to live. Colors, animals, and gentle sweetness.

That's How! by Christoph Niemann (Greenwillow, 2011)
Fun for both my boys. I love its over-the-top silliness and imagination.

Let's Count Goats! by Mem Fox and illustrated by Jan Thomas (Beach Lane Books/S&S, 2010)
Saw this just hanging out on the library shelf and grabbed it immediately. Mem Fox AND Jan Thomas?! Yeah, it's hilarious. It is reminiscent of one of the greatest picture books of all time - Where is the Green Sheep? also by Fox.

If Rocks Could Sing : a discovered alphabet by Leslie McGuirk (Random House Kids, 2011)
We all love this one. Fascinating, whimsical, and funny. As if collecting rocks wasn't fun for my boys as is, now we can try and find some that look like letters. Thanks to Bookends Book Blog and Book Moot for the tip.

My books:
All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin (Macmillan 9/11)
We love GZ here at Oops. When I went to TLA I beelined for Macmillan only to be told they were out of ARCs but they would send me one. I declined thinking how much better it would be to wait for its release. Nice thought. When Patti went to ALA in June she snagged one for me. I'm not finished with it yet.

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai (Viking, 2011)
Well looky here. An adult book. My cousin pointed this one out to me. It's about a children's librarian! I'm 1/2 way and so far I'm not sure what I think. Have any of you read it?

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

This book sat in my library holds for 4 months before it became available. Every now and then I'd look at my holds account and check its progress. So when it finally arrived I dove into Swamplandia! by Karen Russell with great anticipation. The book accumulated loads of glowing reviews, the cover is fantasgreat, and the narrator is a girl on a small island in the Florida swamps. It pretty much said JOANNA WILL LOOOOVE ME.

I didn't LOOOOVE it. I do really like this novel and have no qualms with the aforementioned glowing reviews. Excellent writing - check! Compelling characters - check! Unique and oddball - check!  Recommend to others - check!  I also expect this novel to be recognized by the Alex Awards Committee in January. My hangup involves my own disappointment with what I wanted to happen and how I wanted the story to progress in my own imagination. What really happened was indeed logical for the progress of the story.

Our heroine, 13 year old Ava Bigtree, lives on a swampy island with her father, called "Chief" even by his kids, sister Osceola (who has the most pathetic sweet 16 bday ever), and brother Kiwi. They are not Native American but masquerading as so for their family's livelihood - running a second-rate, third generation tourist trap called Swamplandia! where they wrestle gators, sell the most ridiculous souvenirs, and have a museum that exhibits items from their house that Chief relabels and calls Bigtree Artifacts. Awesome. This tourist tacky, phony history is really part of Florida's history and I embraced this part of the story.  It's genuine and counterfeit. It's so Florida. And if you want to dig around some, connect the man-made invasion of non-native plants and animals destroying native Florida like the cancer that killed the mom and the World of Darkness that signals the end of Swamplandia!. Good stuff, friends.

Finally, while Ava gets main billing, I hold big love for socially inept Kiwi and his journey with his SAT vocabulary (he homeschooled himself and gave himself report cards) to real life shock and awe when he escapes to mainland in an effort to save Swamplandia! from bankruptcy. His story and Ava's alternate chapters.

YA Note: In the acknowledgements the author thanks  Kelly Link for the Bigtrees story. Ah ha! I really need to read her stories and Karen Russell's earlier collection of short stories which debuted the story that sparked this novel.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Wouldn't it be hard to be just a regular run-of-the-mill kid if both of your parents were superheroes? What would it be like to feel that you're a constant disappointment to your father who not only heads up the Olympiad (the superhero group), but is adored and revered by all (even though privately he's a bit of a jerk)?

Celia, the only daughter of Blaze and Captain Olympus, lets us know it totally sucks in this very fun novel about growing up in the shadow of your super-human parents.

I really enjoyed this book. We get to see behind the mask, and the very human downfalls that even superheros can't avoid. Celia is a fantastic character to follow. She's smart, wry, and embittered in just the right amounts. As a reader, I was rooting for her from the get go. There was quite a bit of humor in this story (Celia gets kidnapped so much she is quite blase about the whole experience, frustrating her kidnappers to no end).

I really think this could be on next year's Alex Award list.

===================================
Book Source = Tayshas Review Copy

Knocking out my Alex Award Reading

Book seven and eight on my quest to read all the 2011 Alex Awards.

I apologize in advance for doing some lame double post of two books without actually saying anything interesting about them. I just don't have the energy to actually do any reviews and have to actually, like, think about what I want to write. Seems like too much work at the moment

But, dang it, I still want credit for reading them!




They were both fantastic. It was interesting reading them back to back. They both have the theme of alienation in them, but how the main characters deal with their circumstances couldn't be more different.

I am really glad that I decided to try to read all the Alex Awards this year. I'm really impressed by the list. Only two more to go!

======================

Book Source = Library Copies

Other 2011 Alex Award Reviews:

Room
The Radleys

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to
The House of Tomorrow
The Reapers are the Angels
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Room by Emma Donoghue

Book six on my quest to read all the 2011 Alex Awards.

This is the one that I was least excited to read. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that I kind of dreaded it. As a rule, I don’t like to read books that deal with really dark realistic human evil. They scare me and freak me out and make me want to bolt the doors and never leave the house. Give me a vampire or zombie any day over someone who would kidnap a young lady, lock her in a room, and make her his sex-slave.

Having said all that, I did enjoy this book. This was more of a survival story than an abuse story. I thought having Jack, the 5 year old son, tell the story was a smart move. It infused this story with much needed innocence and optimism. We are spared disturbing details while not being spared the fact that they obviously happened. For instance, we aren’t told what Old Nick does with Ma at night while Jack is hidden in Wardrobe, but we know that Jack often falls asleep counting bed squeaks. Still horrifying and real, but not graphic.

I really loved the relationship between Jack and his mother. The mother is an amazingly resilient woman who managed to create as much normalcy as she could for her son in a situation that was anything but normal. Their struggles once they leave Room were so heartbreaking. How does one re-enter society when they’ve been locked in a small room for almost a decade? How does one enter society when they thought the entire world consisted of only one room?

I found the reactions of the outside people to be a little odd. Some were spot on. Like Ma’s father who can’t stand to look at his grandson because he can’t get past the situation in which he was created. But others I felt strained belief. The grandmother who doesn’t get why Jack doesn’t know how to play in a playground and doesn’t seem to want to play with him to show him how. The Aunt and Uncle who will only buy Jack one thing at the store. Why did the extended family not receive therapy too? It seems to me that Ma’s doctor would have had sessions with them so they would know how to deal with Ma and Jack better.

I had a final thought while surfing through the reviews on Amazon.com. Many reviewers were horrified that Ma still breastfed Jack for 5 years.They thought there were a gratuitous number of references to it in the novel. I was stunned by this reaction. It seemed so obviously an act of comfort. When Jack felt out of control or unbearably lonely he would nurse. Furthermore Ma is very concerned with Jack's nutrition and breast milk is so full of nutrition it made even more sense why she wouldn't have stopped. I'm irritated with those reviewers. Although, I have to say, some of them made me laugh.

It certainly wasn't a perfect book, the second half wasn't as consistent as the first, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

====================

Book Source = Library Copy

Other 2011 Alex Award Reviews:

The Radleys

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to
The House of Tomorrow
The Reapers are the Angels
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Radleys by Matt Haig

Book five on my quest to read all the 2011 Alex Awards.

I was pretty geared up to love this one. A family of abstaining vampires living a boring suburban life? What was going to happen to test that I wondered? I was ready for excitement and struggle! I was ready for the abstainers to get all ape on some regular folk. I didn't get that exactly and I certainly don't blame that on the book, it isn't its fault that I had certain expectations. But I can't really say I enjoyed this one too much. I felt like it lacked dramatic tension and that it was basically a book about suburban vampires having a really boring mid-life crisis (to bite or not to bite, that is the question). It was like what I would imagine Revolutionary Road would be like, but with vampires.

I did like how each chapter began with quotes from the Abstainer's Handbook, which was a fairly tongue-in-cheek little tome. And the writing was quite funny at times. I especially enjoyed when Rowan finds out he is a vampire:

"He doesn't want to be having this conversation. Already, this night's happenings could take him a century to absorb, but his father keeps on and on as if he's talking about a minor STD or masturbation."

I mean, way to take the sexy out of being a vampire dad!

I also enjoyed the references to To Kill a Mockingbird, I mean why name a family of otherly pale strange abstaining vampires the Radleys if you aren't refering to Boo? As you read it seems that the Boo character is Rowan, the outcast teenage son who faces graffiti splattered throughout the town about what a freak he is. He is lonely, he is pale, he is weak, he is hated. Rowan also saves two people from attack and he is sort of vindicated at the end. Which would make Nathan Radley Uncle Will, the member of the family that is definately not abstaining from blood.

I'm actually quite surprised this was an Alex Award winner. There was a lot of adult middle aged business going on that I can't see appealing to the teenage set all that much. Yes, there were also two teenaged characters that were central to the plot, but I'm not sure that balanced out the older stuff.

==============================
Book Source = Library Copy

Other 2011 Alex Award Reviews:

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to
The House of Tomorrow
The Reapers are the Angels
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by

Book Four on my quest to read all the 2011 Alex Awards.

The premise sounds great and maybe I didn't give it a fair chance...but I barely got through 40 pages. And to be perfectly honest I'm not entirely sure if I even got that far. There was entirely too much geeking out over plans for a movie/comic book/franchising scheme for me to stay interested.

So maybe I'll try again later, because I like the idea that the boy who can never sleep and his friend are on the run from the government who may or may not be trying to tap into his brain.

==========================
Book Source = library copy

The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

Book three on my quest to read the Alex awards.

This one was much more of a reach for me than the previous books, if only because the characters were so out there I found it hard to connect with them at first. It is basically a story of how two marginalized boys find punk rock and how it changes them forever.

Sebastian lives in a geodesic dome on the outskirts of town with his grandmother who probably at one point meant well, but has really (and this is me editorializing) lost it somewhere along the line. She is obsessed (obsessed!) with Buckminster Fuller and only teaches Sebastian things that go along with Buckminster's view of life - but not the naughty bits, she censors those out with black ink. There are some very funny things that come out of this, but I couldn't help but feel a bit horrified that Sebastian has pretty much spent his entire life without interacting with anyone else and certainly no one his own age.

Enter Jared, a foul-mouthed, skinny, heart-transplant recipient who inadvertantly, and much to his chagrin, become's Sebastian's first friend. Since Jared is the first teenager Sebastian has ever met, he becomes his friend pretty much by default. Sebastian sort of won't leave him alone. The thing is though that Jared is almost as isolated as Sebastian. After his heart transplant he's been alone in his bedroom, wallowing in punk music and hiding from the world. I really enjoyed Jared and how the rudest possible things poured out of his mouth, but at times it got to the point where he became a charicature. Luckily the author was witty enough to carry the storyline.

Here are a couple samples:

When Sebastian is attempting to learn bass and it is not going well:

I went to bed each night, trying not to think about how deficient I was at Punk Rocking. It was all I could do not to weep.

And the conclusion, where the boys show up to a church talent show and rock out was one of the best things I've read in a long time:

"WE WANT THE RASH! WE WANT THE RASH!"
She peeked out the slit in the curtains.
"Is that you guys?" she said. "Are you...The Rash?"
"Yeah," said Jared. "That's our band name."
She looked at the crowd again and then back to us. "Well, you better go out and play, then," she said. "Or these assholes are going to tear down our church."

I think of all the Alex books I've read so far, this one may have the most limited readership, which I certainly don't mean as a criticism. I say that only because I feel like the reader has to have had an interest in punk at some point in order to get a lot of the humor. But if they get it they'll love it. I fully intend to buy this one for my brother.

========================================

Book Source = Library Copy

The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell

Book Two on my quest to read all the 2011 Alex Awards. I requested these without even reading the summaries so my first thought upon starting Reapers was basically that I wasn't sure the world needed (or that I could handle reading) another zombie book.

Temple won me over.

Temple is 15, she's been born into a world where zombies exist and she is definitely a product of this new world. She accepts her world, at times revels in it, but carries its weight on her shoulders. She is my favorite type of female protagonist. She's strong, she's assertive, she's pragmatic, she's far from perfect.

She's also basically a drifter and a loner, but when one of the undead wash up on her island sanctuary she knows its time to move on. The novel follows her on her journey from place to place meeting different groups of survivors until the day she meets up with an unresponsive man and her fate becomes entwined with his.

I liked the setting. This is basically the wild west. There are vigilantes, there are the modern day equivalent of wagon trains, there are new "cities" where people are forging a new life for themselves. There are also grotesque things that will make your skin crawl (Spoiler --> like mainlining zombie brains holyeffincrap!!! <-- end spoiler) But, you know, there are ZOMBIES so there is bound to be some nastiness.

I'm a little torn on the ending, one the one hand the story was barreling to that conclusion and on the other hand it seemed a little over the top.

=====================================
Book Source = Library Copy

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

I picked this title up because after watching the ALA awards I realized I had read exactly one (or to be more exact 3/4s) of the books that won an Alex Award. I hadn't even heard of most of the books that won either. How disgraceful I thought! Plus, you know, this one had a giant piece of yummy looking cake on the cover so it was only natural that I gravitated toward it.

The story is told by Rose, a girl, who on her 9th birthday begins to have problems with food. But not in any ordinary way. Rose can taste people's feelings in food. She can taste her mother's hollowness, another's anger, her brother's blankness. By the time she graduates high school she can pinpoint food to their state of origin, she can taste the tiredness of the fruit pickers, she knows which factories produced what. It is overwhelming.

I have to say, I was swept away by this book. There is an element of magical realism that I found very appealing. I enjoyed how Rose makes a plea to her scientific brother (this plea falls on deaf ears) and his equally science-focused best friend (who is really the only normal character in the book) who agrees to conduct an experiment which ultimately validates Rose's abilities. The mixture of science to prove a "magical" gift was a lovely touch.

Rose's family is very different, offbeat without really being quirky, although I take that back about her father. His extreme avoidance of hospitals is probably the definition of quirky. The mother is loving and yet somewhat unreliable, the father present in body if absent in spirit, and the brother almost catatonic. I found myself most interested by her brother Joseph. I spent the first half of the book convinced he was severely autistic and the last part thinking he was wildly depressed. The thing is, that like Rose, Joseph has a gift. Unlike Rose, however, we are never privy to what this gift actually is. Although I understand the limitations of the narrative (this book is told solidly from Rose's perspective and she would have no realistic way to discover what her brother was actually experiencing) I still found it a little unsatisfying.

Spoilers --> I mean the dude was turning himself into furniture. What the eff was that about? The author state's Joseph's emptiness from the beginning. When Rose takes a bite of his toast she tastes, " a blankness and graininess, something folding in on itself." so yeah, the fact that his favorite piece of furniture to turn into is their grandmother's folding chair has a nice symmetry. But why was he wanting to disappear? I felt as though Joseph's gift/curse was so unbearable that he couldn't deal with it, he needed to retreat at all costs, but I also felt as though his gift/curse was not turning himself into furniture per se (because wtf kind of of "gift" is that?). I felt as though he used science and reason to learn how to transform his "gift" into that. But a little clarity on this end would have been nice.

Also was he smothered by his mother's love? There has to be something about his mother making furniture and him choosing to become furniture.
<-- end of spoilers.

Anyhow, a great book deserving of the attention the Alex award will undoubtedly bring.

=====================================
Book Source = Library Copy