JUNE 2016 book list

Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill / ***** / A / Kindle

 The story itself was very mundane... man and woman get married, have a child, grow apart.  What made this book memorable was the writing style.  It was written as a series of thoughts, observations, and declarations what seemed totally random but unified the story as a whole. It was really fascinating reading, although it did take me a while to get used to how it was written. It is short enough I plan to actually read it again.  It reminded me of how our brains (at least mine) are always jumping around from thought to thought. I loved it.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benajamin Alire Saenz / * / YA / ePub
Dante: I need friends as I'm gay and an outcast
Artistotle: I need friends as I'm moody and an introvert
Dante: Let's be friends.
Aristotle: Okay but don't try to make me gay.
Dante: I love you.
Aristotle: I love girls.
Dante: I love you so much. SOOOOO sooo much.
Aristotle's parents: Aristotle...Maybe you are moody because you are really gay and suppressing it (like why would you listen to anyone that named you Aristotle?)
Aristotle: Okay I guess I am gay, too.

The character voices in this book are so tremendously flat. The writing felt stilted and choppy.  It drove me nuts to read it. I'm all for a journey of self discovery but I honestly felt the only reason it won awards is because it is about the hot topic of the day - homosexuality. The emotions were forced. 

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia / ***** / YA / Kindle
Delphine (11) and her two younger sisters are sent across the country one summer to visit the mother that abandoned them more than 5 years previously.  The mother is a talented poet, and resents the bother and burden of her three young children.  To get them out of her way every day, the mother sends the children to a free community day camp ... which happens to be run by the Oakland Black Panthers.  While this book deals with serious subject matter including the meaning of freedom, racial inequality,  1960 politics, and the ties that bind us; it does so in a way that doesn't feel inappropriately heavy.  By the end of the summer there is growth and understanding and beautiful love. This book was really well written, and received several awards. I really enjoyed it - one of the best I've read this year.


Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Mass/ ***** / YA but should be A / Hardback

This is the second book in the Court of Thorns of Roses series, and surprisingly I loved it even more than the first book. There was beautiful world building and fantastic character development.  The overall story arc surged forward in a breathtaking fashion, establishing the track of the final story while containing enough inner story to stand on it's own. 
The main character, Feyre, has earned immortality through her bravery against an evil fairy queen. She is set to live happily every after, but is realizing that happily ever after may not be all it's cracked up to be, especially as she doesn't feel she deserves it for the horrible things she had to do to survive. She is eager to redeem herself, to learn and grow and fight for those she loves, especially as the threat of war among the different fairy courts is approaching. But to do this, she may have to hurt more people and make some tough choices.
I love love love this series, and I especially love the characters. But this book is too sexually mature for the high schoolers in my life.  I'm not a prude but this went over the line for the demographic this book is targeted for. 


The Choice by Nicholas Sparks / ** / A / Kindle
Bleh. Not one of Nicholas Sparks' best.  The writing felt choppy and stilted, and I felt no emotion for the characters.  I'm hugely turned off by the "I've only dated you for a weekend but I love you forever and ever" story line.  The only thing enjoyable about this book was that it was set around Atlantic Beach, which is the beach we visited while visiting Ashlee and Bradley for their wedding. 

Time and Materials by Robert Hass / ** / A / Kindle
When I read poetry, I have two desires: to understand (however vaguely) what I'm reading and 2) to feel something.  Neither of these things happened for me.  I do not know enough about poetry to judge the collection offered in this book by Robert Hass, but all I know is that it wasn't for me.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin / **** / YA / Kindle
This book tells the story of a young Chinese girl who sets off to find the Man in the Moon in hopes he can help her poverty stricken family. Along the way, she meets many friends, has many adventures, and hears many other stories/fables. The book had a really nice "Just-So Stories" feel to it. It won the Newbery Honor award


Bone Gap by Laura Ruby / **** / YA / Book

This was the Printz winner for 2016.  
Bone Gap is a story about a girl named Roza that got kidnapped and a boy named Finn that saw it happen but couldn't do anything about it.  Sounds simple, right? Add some small town quirkiness, a delightful level of suspense, beautifully written and likable characters, the love of family, and a great setting and what isn't there to love about the book? Well actually there are a few things not to love.  The story all of a sudden threw in a weird medical diagnosis for the boy Finn that explains why he can't describe the kidnapper, and a sudden twist that makes me think this could be the retelling of the story of Persephone.  Despite those glitches, it was really a mesmerizing tale that to me was made less by the additional of the magical realism thing going on.  That being said, as great of a writer as Laura Ruby appears to be, I have a  feeling it's all going to come together in the end.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore / ***** / YA / Book

It makes me so happy to be standing in the stacks of the Richfield Library and have Elissa ask me to pick her something to read.  Graceling is such a favorite of mine that of course I had to read it with her.  This is probably my 4th time reading the book, and I loved it just as much this time. 
It tells the story of a land where some are born with extreme skills, called "Graces". Katsa is the niece and ward of the King, and has what she thinks is the skill of killing.  She is struggling to justify the brutality of her grace and the demands of her Uncle to use her grace to expand his power with who she is as a person and the freedom she craves in her life.  The real story is about friendship and love and doing hard things. It is a character driven story with a fast pace and a strong heroine. Love it.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley / *** / YA / Kindle

I read this book as part of the Good Reads Best Books challenge. I haven't seen the movie, but I was expecting a dark stormy castle, a decrepit lab, and a dramatic life-giving lightning strike to enliven the monster on the table.  I was waaaayyy off base.  It wasn't scary. It was dramatic in that lovely English way.  And surprisingly, it was pretty interesting.   The main character (the scientist Frankenstein) was a total pansy. He drove me nuts.  Let's just say by the end I was rooting for the monster.  

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven / **** / YA / Book

I will never understand how this book has not won multiple awards.  It is one of the best books I've read this year - I literally could not put it down. I didn't do laundry. I didn't cook. I didn't go to the store. After the book was done I felt guilty and cooked a new complex recipe EVERY SINGLE NIGHT last week in penance. My children are someday going to realize that when they eat good it means momma's been naughty.  Anyway, back to the book.   The characters were fun and quirky and very very real.   I like quirky. There as a lot of quirky. Quirky for the sake of quirkiness sometimes can bother me, but not this time.  The story touched on the timely and relevant subjects of mental illness and suicide, and handled it very gracefully.  It wasn't macabre. It wasn't sappy.  It wasn't condescending. This book made me cry and made me hurt and made me laugh. I LOVED (spoiler) that it pointed out that a person with depression can be the most loved and cherished person on the planet and SOMETIMES IT JUST IS NOT ENOUGH.  I'm going to get on my soap box here and say that a lot of the problems we have in our country are due to the stigma of mental illness and the lack of funding for treatment.  
Anyway, this book was the best I've read this month.

Slaughterhouse Five / **** / A / Kindle
This book was part of the Good Reads list I'm working through this year.
I'm not sure even how to describe this book.  The story sounds absurd.... it is about a man named Billy Pilgrim, who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore.  Billy is constantly jumping around to different phases of his life, so we experience all parts simultaneously. The book focuses on Billy's time as a prisoner of war who experienced the fire bombing of Dresden.  
The book is an easy read, and while I will likely never read it again I did think it was genius.  You didn't know if it was a tongue-in-cheek farce, a series of PTSD experiences from a war-ravaged mind, a science fiction romp, or a gleeful foray into the absurd.  It was totally fascinating.

The Lifeboat Clique / ** / YA / Book
This one was just meh. It is a story of a teen girl that gets ousted from the cool clique by her previous best friend turned drama witch.  The twist is the two girls plus a few of the witches' cronies are now trapped on an abandoned boat that they found after (wait for it) a tsunami hit LA and swept them to sea on a roof. It is a survival story flashing back to the story of their rocky friendship, but it never felt heavy or serious or emotional. There was too much cute fluff that dragged on way too long.  I did finish it, but I was not really engaged in the book by the end.  I did think it was interesting that the girl tried to make a fish hook out of the underwire of her bra.  That was pretty ingenious. I would probably not survive a natural disaster. I'm old. I'm fat.  I can't run, I cry easily, and I don't think I could eat bugs. If the Hunger Games were a real thing, I'd just lay down and tell them to shoot me. 

Close your Eyes, Hold Hands: A novel by Chris Bohjalian. This is the third book I've read by Bojhalian, and is my favorite so far.  When Emily's parents are thought to be responsible for the meltdown of the nuclear power plant in their community, Emily opts to run away and make it on her own instead of seeking help.  The novel explores that this is not the only poor choice Emily has made in her life. Now, almost a year later, the world is getting back to normal, but this girl is simply STUCK in a spiral of bad decisions, homelessness, grief, self-mutilation, and drugs.  It tells the gritty reality of what people due to survive poverty.  The sweet and painful part of the story are not the loss of her home, school, parents, and life but the relationship between Emily and a 9 year old boy who is a foster care runaway.   I read this story in one sitting, so it was definitely engaging for me.  Despite that, the emotions felt a little flat... I couldn't really truly feel her pain I guess. I was waiting for this breathtaking growth to happen in the character and it just didn't.