September 6 - 12

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher 
(Incarceron #2)
 So I actually started this a while ago and then sort of lagged on it for a while once I go back to school. There were so many new and exciting things to read! So I dropped this when I was about 2/3 done, and actually at quite a dramatic moment (a weird habit of mine). The ending was pretty impressive though, and I was certainly fooled by the identity of Sapphique. The mysteries of the realm were finally revealed, although at a certain point in this book they weren't really so much of a secret anymore. This book had an ending that doesn't actually resolve everything prettily. There are some still-bad situations going on, and some things that are left uncertain at best. However, I tend to like those kinds of endings because they often feel more realistic (in a book about a living prison...). Overall: solid. I'm a huge fan of this two-book thing, because it was just long enough. Three books can get tiring, but the end of one book can leave you wanting more.


Okay For Now  by Gary D. Schmidt
 Though this was assigned reading for my Young Adult Literature class, it really didn't feel like it. It actually wasn't even assigned yet; I just decided to read it because it sounded good. I get why it was assigned though. I was taken by surprise with how this book handles topics like abuse at home, a war-scarred brother, and assumptions made by community members. The view of the student whose teacher's treated him terribly, didn't believe in him, and basically just assumed that he would never amount to anything was especially powerful for me (most likely due to my designs to become a teacher myself). I am able to console myself with the thought that this novel was set in the 1960s (ish), a time when attitudes and standards for teaching were significantly different. Still, the mood of the student when teachers treated him well and as an individual rather than as his brothers before him with bad reputations... it was just stunning. I know this is fiction, but it certainly represents the truth well.


The not-quite-lead-poisoning at the end caught me extremely off guard. I love the way it was handled: never explicitly stated, the reader has to infer what is going on with Lil, meaning you can never be quite sure. All you know are the statistics, which, of course, don't mean anything. (Another love: this character switch from detailing everything and a fascination with statistics to a firm and repeated declaration that statistics do not matter.) As with the other book I finished up this week, the ending leaves so much in the air. I love it. I appreciate an author who refuses to tie everything up for the reader and hold the reader's hand and say, "and then everyone got better and got married and lived happily ever after in a castle made of candy!" This is not some crazy mix of a Shakespearean fairy tale comedy.

This is real.

(She says about fiction.)

(It's still so true.)