September 20 - 26

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Finally finished this up! I wasn't totally impressed with the ending as a story, but the ideas in the novel were intriguing enough. This is like the original young adult dystopian novel that has recently become so popular. Lois Lowry knew what was up before there was even a genre for what she was writing. I see, though, why I was so unimpressed with this when I read it roughly twelve years ago. The story is kind of flat, with interesting things that are seen and then forgotten. The ending was rather abrupt, too. It leaves me with a feeling that it only brushed the surface of these ideas. Usually it would be fine to leave some of the interpretation to the reader, but with so little authorial input to guide, it ended up just sort of trailing off for me. So not amazing, but good enough that I would have it in my class for any interested students.


Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
 I've only read about 70 pages of this so far because I'm trying to pace myself and save it, but it's already blown me away! It started out pretty harmless, and then looked like it would be a Tom and Huck kind of story mixed with To Kill A Mockingbird (interestingly, both books that are mentioned by the main character), where the main characters focus on this kind of crazy character that the kids all treat as some scary myth. It's a common enough plot line. However, upon entering the secret clearing, it took QUITE a drastic turn with the scraped and abused girl hanging dead from a tree. Well dang.

I was really impressed by how Silvey wrote the character Charlie realistically in this scene. It didn't feel like one of those books where the characters discover a dead person and are totally okay with hiding the body and investigating the murder themselves. Charlie is traumatized. I'm surprised he didn't get physically ill. His description of having to touch the girl to move her feels incredibly relatable and exactly what I would expect to feel in that kind of situation. Both Charlie and Jasper are painfully aware of the legal ramifications they could easily face, unlike the usual ignorant cheery kid who doesn't consider the rules of the real world. It was just very well done.

There was also, amazingly, a moment of absolute hilarity for me after this dead girl has been dropped into a lake by her boyfriend. How is that even possible? While the characters try to drink and smoke their terror and pain away, Charlie makes a comment about how he hates both of these vices that reading promised him he would adore! He cites one character who holds up booze like a housewife in a commercial, and the way Holden Caulfield reaches for cigarettes like an act of faith. He goes on to speculate about what sex might be like if it's as bad as these other vices he was promised he'd love. It's absolutely WONDERFUL, and I'll update this with the actual quote when I have the book on me again.

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
 This book has been taunting me on my shelf since my first week back at school. Remember when I read We Were Liars? Yeah, well, this has been around just as long as that book. I finally got to it, and HOLY CRAP I LOVED IT FROM THE DEDICATION PAGE. It's dedicated to WRIMOS, also known as the fervent writers who participate in National Novel Writing Month every November with a 50,000 word target. This book is really two books. Two different stories. It's incredibly meta and I adore it already, though fair warning: this book is definitely not for someone who dislikes keeping track of different character story lines (think Game of Thrones but somehow even more complicated since the two characters don't even live in the same universe). One character is a 18-year-old girl who got her NaNoWriMo novel signed to a published and is going to New York after high school to revise it and write a sequel. The other half of the book is the novel that this girl wrote. It has so far been entirely unacknowledged in the WriMo story that it is in fact a story. I'm very curious, knowing Westerfeld, if he's going to turn this on its head at some point....

(Also, the book is visually awesome with the WriMo story designated by dark strips of black at the top and bottom of the pages. B-E-A-Utiful!)