[AnneN Posts: 509 Status: Offline]

I closed out 2013 with a reread of Austen's PERSUASION, combined with Ellen Oh's WARRIOR, which does such a lovely job of combining action and heart. Then over the last couple of days, DREAM THIEVES by Maggie Stiefvater (man, can she write!), IN A GLASS GRIMMLY, by Adam Grimwitz (which I think I liked even more than A TALE DARK & GRIMM), and Paolo Bacigalupi's dark-darker-darkest THE DROWNED CITIES. Lots of books came into the house over the holidays, so January's looking good!

[AnneB Posts: 3,655 Status: Offline]

It's January, the snows are as deep as the thermometer is low, so I'm warming up by re-reading Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. I listened to them the first time around and suspected I was missing a lot of secondary meanings to the character names (although I caught "Braxton Hicks" right away, based on extensive personal experience). Now that I have the book in front of me, I'm searching online for character names like Bowden Cable and Landen Parke-Laine. Yup. A name is not just a name!

[stella-michel Posts: 223 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Lately I've read Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Veronica Roth's Allegiant and Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue. Two out of the three were the last books in a trilogy. I think Cashore's Bitterblue was much better than Allegiant.

I'm now reading The Twistrose Key and finding it hard to get into. I'm giving it more time.

[JodyJS Posts: 1,254 Status: Offline Preorder now! Out April 2021! WWW]

The Fledgling. It's a goodie.

[RaeE Posts: 150 Status: Offline]

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowel is everything they say it is and more. Not sure how to move on after this reading experience.
Also loved Eleanor and Park. New favourite author.

Have you read her Attachments? It's next up on my reading list. Can't wait!

[updog]

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowel is everything they say it is and more. Not sure how to move on after this reading experience.
Also loved Eleanor and Park. New favourite author.

I felt the same way. Definitely reading everything this author writes from now on. 

[Shannywriter Posts: 505 Status: Offline Believe in yourself and never give up WWW]

I haven't read Fangirl yet. I loved Eleanor and Park so much I wanted to take a week off from reading to absorb it! But I didn't of course because I'm trying not to get addicted to any new TV shows!
Just finished Fault Line by Crista Desir. Difficult to read but very well done.
Now onto Fracture by Megan Miranda
And PB's --Penguin in Love by our sweet Syoon! Valentines is coming up so I want to see how I can use it with my kindergartners  :

[ChristineSarmel Posts: 230 Status: Offline WWW]

Half-finished with Sue Monk Kidd's THE INVENTION OF WINGS and I don't want to finish because it's a wonderful book. Historical fiction about one of the first feministists/ abolutionists (one of those real-life women lost to history) and a fictional slave girl.


P.S. Rainbow Rowell fans - she was selling at my local indie on Small Business Saturday back in November and I asked about her next book. LANDLINE - adult fiction - is coming in July.

[Sam Hranac Posts: 667 Status: Offline Reach for the stairs. They're closer. WWW]

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD, by Susan Crandall. The jacket compares it to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE HELP. I would also add, HUCK FINN. That should be more than enough praise for any book, right?

[Anthony Posts: 67 Status: Offline You know, for kids! WWW]

THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but I'm hooked now. It's great so far.

[Pons Posts: 2,543 Status: Offline]

I just finished the last book in the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley. It was brilliant and captivating and intriguing with a sly and wistful sense of humor.


These books (six of them) were actually written for the adult market, but the MC is 11 and fascinating in her own right. I would have loved reading these books when I was a teen.  In some ways today's YA market baffles me.

[olmue Posts: 3,526 Status: Online WWW]

Laurel, I have the first of those checked out right now. Yeah. Not sure why it's being market as adult, unless the adult mystery market is stronger at the moment. But then, there are plenty of books over in SFF that to my eyes are clearly YA, so...

[Mike Jung]

I'm diving back into my WIP so my semi-frantic reading pace of the past couple of months is about to slow down, but I loved, loved, loved FANGIRL. I might even have loved it as much as I loved ELEANOR & PARK. I was also knocked out by Connie Willis's time-traveling historian books (THE DOOMSDAY BOOK, BLACKOUT, and ALL CLEAR), and I'm halfway through Charles Yu's HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. I'm also halfway through Ellen Booraem's TEXTING THE UNDERWORLD, which is great - Ellen is a phenomenally good writer, one of the best MG authors out there. I also read Holly Black's THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN, which was okay but not amazing.

[olmue Posts: 3,526 Status: Online WWW]

Mike, I love The Doomsday Book. Every so often I find myself rereading it.

My favorite of the ones I've read so far in 2014 is Kurtis Scaletta's The Winter of the Robots. It's different and interesting and suspenseful. A great one to read on a snowy day (it takes place in Minneapolis in winter).

[Mike Jung]

Rose, it actually took me a while to get into THE DOOMSDAY BOOK because I read BLACKOUT and ALL CLEAR first, and I was just devastated by them (in a good way). I got so attached to those characters and so immersed in the story that I felt weirdly resentful when reading THE DOOMSDAY BOOK. I got over it, and ended up feeling similarly devastated by the end, but it took some time.

[Marissa Doyle Posts: 2,975 Status: Offline Charles Bewitched: out now! WWW]

Oh, Mike. I'm a total Connie Willis fangirl. Have you read PASSAGE yet? Talk about devastating...but wonderful and strangely comforting. And TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG is splendid fun--also in the time-travel series.

[Mike Jung]

Hey Marissa! I haven't read PASSAGE yet, but it's on my radar, and I have TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG on my nightstand right now!

[AnneB Posts: 3,655 Status: Offline]

I am reading Kurtis Scaletta's The Winter of the Robots, apparently in real time. I just came across the line: The next day was Saturday. Monday was MLK Day, so I had a three-day weekend. [cue Twilight Zone music...]

The next line is All I wanted to do was sleep until Tuesday, but Dad woke me up before nine, so I'm not going to read the rest of that chapter until tomorrow morning.

Edited to correct the spelling of Kurtis's last name.

[olmue Posts: 3,526 Status: Online WWW]

Lol, Anne. That's too funny!

Mike, I know what you mean about getting attached to one set of characters in a world and then finding it hard to switch. I think a while back there was a similar discussion here about The Blue Sword vs. The Hero and the Crown (both Newbery books by Robin McKinley, set in the same world many eons apart). (For the record, I'm a Blue Sword girl. )

[ChristineSarmel Posts: 230 Status: Offline WWW]

Uh-oh Olmue, take up your blue sword and I'll grab my red because I'm definitely a Hero and the Crown girl.

[olmue Posts: 3,526 Status: Online WWW]

En garde, Christine!

[J-Bert Posts: 257 Status: Offline WWW]

Finished a couple of great reads recently: THE DREAM THIEVES by Maggie Steifvater and THREE TIMES LUCKY by Sheila Turnage. Both so, so good. Dream Thieves is the second in what I think will be a quartet of books and I'm really loving the series so far. And THREE TIMES LUCKY was just an absolutely wonderful middle grade mystery. The vibrancy of the characters and the strong voice and fast pacing reminding me of SAVVY by Ingrid Law, although the stories aren't similar at all. There is a sequel coming out next month for THREE TIMES and now I can't wait to read it.

[Shannywriter Posts: 505 Status: Offline Believe in yourself and never give up WWW]

THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but I'm hooked now. It's great so far.

Anthony, I read this 4 times! I loved it that much. 
 
Reading Hysteria by Megan Miranda. My TBR pile from Christmas is shrinking quick.

[G.R. Posts: 631 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I'm almost finished with John Grisham's A Time to Kill sequel, Sycamore Row (which I got for Christmas). It takes place only a few years after ATTK, and once again Jake Brigance finds himself involved in a racially charged case -- this time, a contest over a will in which an elderly white man has cut out his estranged children and left the bulk of his multimillion-dollar fortune to his black housekeeper. There's some suspense, but mostly it's just oddly reassuring -- for a longtime JG fan as myself, anyway -- to catch up with Jake, his friends (Sheriff Ozzie Walls, disbarred lush Lucien Wilbanks and cynical divorce lawyer Harry Rex Vonner), his family and his community in Clanton, Mississippi.

[rab Posts: 533 Status: Offline WWW]

How can you choose, Olmue? I'm a Blue Sword girl when I'm rereading (for the billionth time) The Blue Sword, and a Hero and the Crown girl when I'm rereading The Hero and the Crown.

Recently reread Kathryn Erskine's Mockingbird, thinking to look at it analytically, but once again I was so swept up in the story that I wept my way through it, unable to learn anything about writing from it---except that I would kill to be able to engage my readers so well.

[olmue Posts: 3,526 Status: Online WWW]

I suspect I'm a Hufflepuff at heart--so it would be loyalty to Harry (as in Angharad) because I met her first. Um, and because it's hard for me to understand Aerin's ability to be in love with two different people at the same time (as I said, I have Hufflepuff loyalty issues). But maybe I would feel differently if I'd met Aerin first...

I know what you mean about getting blown away when you are trying to read for analyzation. I was trying to analyze Cosmic (Frank Cottrell Boyce--funny, heartwarming MG book by the author of Millions), and that keeps happening, too. Right now, though, I've picked up The Book Thief to reread. What an amazing book. I heard Zusak speak at a conference several years ago, and he talked about planting a surprise for the reader on every page. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I read.

[sydney-oneill Posts: 23 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I'm listening to two audio books by Jean Fritz, Pocahontas and Homesick. Has she written anything that wasn't wonderful?

I recently finished The Remains of the Day and loved the subtle development of plot and character.

Also recently read My Dad Is the Best Playground--such a fun board book.

[Mike Jung]

I'm 70 pages into Joshua McCune's debut, TALKER 25, which is a genuinely original YA take on dragons. Highly recommended. I also started Allie Brosh's HYPERBOLE AND A HALF, which is fantastic.

[J-Bert Posts: 257 Status: Offline WWW]

From Olmue: I heard Zusak speak at a conference several years ago, and he talked about planting a surprise for the reader on every page. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I read.


Thank you for sharing that, Olmue! Fascinating tidbit to mull over as I write.

[kategoka]

I have some graphic nonfiction books that I would recommend to you all:

-ANNIE SULLIVAN AND THE TRIALS OF HELEN KELLER by Joseph Lambert
-AMELIA EARHART: THIS BROAD OCEAN by Sarah Stewart Taylor & James Strum, Ben Towle, art
-TRINITY: A GRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

The first two are more MG. Trinity is more YA/ adult. There are not enough graphic novels/ graphic nonfiction to munch down. I want more!!