June 21-27

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

WHOA, I forgot how good this was! I did remember most of what happened in the story, but that doesn't make it any less good. I was also impressed by the vocabulary. There were words in there even I have only encountered once or twice, and a few I looked up! But not overdone in an Engfish, I'm-trying-too-hard kind of way either.

June 14 - 20

Eragon by Christopher Paolini
I've read this before, but it was YEAAARS ago when it first came out. I wanted to give it another go, and it was still really good! I was impressed with the vocabulary too: there were words in there I still don't know! It was pretty awesome, and I'm interested to see how I end up feeling about the second one, Eldest, since I didn't like it very much when I read it first years ago.

June 7 - 13

Teach like your hair is on fire by Rafe Esquith
I picked this book up at a goodwill for $3, and I would say it was definitely worth that investment and more. I didn't realize that this teacher was in elementary school, but for once that doesn't actually matter too much. Many of the activities and ideas that he uses with his children I could easily see being used with older students as well. I think that is the mark of something that does well: when it is easily adaptable and interesting for any age. He's going through each subject now as well, and so far I have seen reading, writing, math, and am currently hearing about social studies. Another little thing that I enjoyed is that he explained the story behind the title right away. I wasn't kept in suspense, it was a story that set the frame for the rest of the book well, and introduced him as a teacher. I'd say so far that this book is quite well done.

I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
Finally! I have been waiting to read this book since I picked it off a shelf at the used bookstore. The title, of course, caught my attention. It sounded pretty funny too, as Lucifer is given a chance to potentially rejoin God in heaven if he can live sin-free in a human's body for one month. That's not in Lucifer's plan though, and he's basically just screwing around and having fun, which is a delight to watch. The descriptions and language in this novel I feel evoke the image of Lucifer well. They're very fluid and flowery and honestly quite stunningly beautiful at times. The humor is wonderful, as well.

I'm a little less than half way through right now, but I have had a little bit of a problem. For a book about the devil, there sure is a lot of stuff about the Bible and God. While it is an amusing and intriguing take on the whole matter, it still goes into long tangents about biblical things that kind of lose my interest. Not sure how much that will affect the rest of my reading but for now I'm hoping it gets toned down a little bit.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
While I have read this before, it was years ago in seventh grade. I think I missed a lot of it, particularly because I thought it would be more like a children's story with kids who stole books or a young boy Robin Hood or something. Either way, I read it and thought, "Eh." From what I remembered, I didn't think that was a totally fair estimate looking back with my adultish eyes. I decided I would reread it, and so I have. Already, I'm understanding more and seeing things I missed. I'm really glad I thought to do this. The perspective from death is very interesting, and I love the little inserts in the book with definitions and list.

The Last Wish  by Andrzej Sapkowski

I bought a book for Luke this week, but I kind of nabbed it for myself before I gave it to him and managed to read about 150 pages before I passed it along to him. It's the series by the polish author that the Witcher games are based on. This one was actually written most recently, but it's set up to be an introduction to the characters and world (in fact, it's literally called "An Introduction to the Witcher"). It's set up as a series of short stories to explain the one smaller main story. I'm interested to see where it goes, and what the main storyline will be in the later books.  

May 24 - 30

Wicked by Gregory Maguire
So it felt like it wrapped up really quickly without much explanation. I definitely think I liked the first half of the book the best. Once Dorothy was introduced, it seemed to kind of devolve from the vivid world it was before. I'm curious about how much of the story Maguire pulled from the short stories by L. Frank Baum. Anyway, I finished it off, but I'm left with a kind of "Eh" feeling. I don't really have much else to say, I guess. Strong start that sort of trailed off.

May 17 - 23

I knew I'd kick back into high gear!
So I am home from school now and have had some time to regain my wits. I have also had time to visit the library, which I've only been able to visit once before since it was built a few years back. It was terribly exciting! And as you can see, I picked up an entire series that I've been wanting to read. Very nice welcome home!

The Selection by Kiera Cass
I PLOWED through this one! I started it at about 7pm and read until I finished it at 2am. My favorite part? The foreword, where Kiera begins by saying "Okay, in case you're in a hurry or are tired because you stayed up really late to finish this..." Oh, how accurate that was! It wasn't a terribly original plot or anything, but after what I've been reading --(refresher: critical analyses)-- this was a DELICIOUS break for my mind. It had some unexpected moments of intrigue behind the predictable girly backstabbing and drama. Basically, this is a dystopian-ish form of the show  The Bachelor.

The Elite by Kiera Cass
It was interesting to get the additional character development here, to actually have few enough girls remaining to have personalities beyond "she's nice" or "she's mean" or "she's manipulative" and whatnot. Quite frankly, I'm having some trouble remembering what was in this one because I read each book in such quick succession. I do have to say though: what's up with the king? I feel like that was a plot line barely established before it was snuffed out.

The One by Kiera Cass
Okay, well, the cover and the title pretty much assure you of what happens at the end. She tries to throw you off in the final hour, but in the final minute she brings you back around to the usual conventions. It was an interesting and bold move though, at least more so than usually seen in the genre. However, it's a good thing this was the final novel because it entered that territory of the boy and the girl just fighting over stupid things and making way to big a deal out of things that would have been barely a speck on the radar if they had just freaking talked to each other! So minus some points for being one of those miscommunication stories, because those are too common and dull. It was really weird as well though because  it felt like really interesting things could have come in the next book... If it existed. :/

Wicked by Gregory Maguire
While I am excited to get back into this gripping story, I'm also slogging through it a little bit. The point where I became too busy to read was in the middle of a very political section, complete with protests and detainment camps. It was interesting, but at times got very philosophical and kind of lost me. I haven't gotten too much further, but I am interested in seeing how he pulls everything together, especially since we know the ending is not in Elphaba's favor.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
In the midst of all my fiction I finished up my nonfiction, a controversial piece this time. This is the author talks about how she gets her children to be excellent musicians and star students and that kind of thing, as many Asian children are according to her. I can see how the controversy comes in, as she often puts down things that seem kind of weird, like having fun and caring about your child's feelings. Those moments through me off, as did an early scene where she puts her three-year-old out into a snowstorm because she refused to do a musical drill or something like that. That's the moment that made me go, "Oh, I see now". With that said, it was still very interesting, & I think she has valid points. Either way, it's her opinion. As for the experience of it as a book, it was very well done. It was chronologically organized, and there were many funny stories. There are also many touching moments, where I found myself smiling and cheering for the girls as well as the mother. There were moments of pain and failure, but that exist in any life and so it made it feel like a more balanced and fair point of view. The sorry if it is, I enjoyed this book, and kept in mind that different people parent in different ways.

May 10 - 16

Critical Analyses
These have been my life this last week as I raced to find the perfect ideas and quotations to work into my capstone thesis work for my 400-level English class, Terrific Liars (about unreliable narrators, very interesting!). It was a 20-page beast of a paper, and I'm so proud of what I managed! However, this week was nuts and after reading hundred of pages of criticism, I wasn't exactly feeling up to reading when I got home from a flurry of goodbyes and packing and unpacking. BUSY BUSY BUSY! But I have a whole long list of books to read and a few to get back to that had to be interrupted (Hello, Wicked and A Handmaid's Tale!).

UPDATE: I actually managed to get in a little bit of reading for FUN this week!! :D

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

So I was at the used bookstore today, and I saw this sitting on a shelf. I have to admit, the cover of it is quite beautiful and eye-catching. It was only $7 and for a used copy, it was in really great condition. I've been interested in reading this one for a while now, because I've heard so much about it and the author. For any who don't know, Amy Chua has been accused of many things, and basically she totes a kind of screaming yet affectionate yet focused parental method and puts down the gentle individual-based method that she describes many Americans and Western families as having. I'm not too far and yet, but there has already been a moment that caught me off guard, and made me kind of cringe and cool towards her. She described early on a moment with her 3 year old daughter who refuses to play a simple tune on the piano. Amy decides a pro priate course of action is to put her three-year-old outside into a snowstorm until she will apologize promise to play what her mother wants. The three year old is stubborn, and refuses, staying outside and slowly freezing. It's a really uncomfortable moment for me, because I can't imagine ever being able to validate doing that to a child. Or anyone, really. So after reading that, I kind of knew what sort of person I would be reading about, and adjusted my expectations accordingly. We'll see how this goes. I am intrigued.

April 26 - May 2

Luckily...
I was able to get back on track this week, and it felt goooood. They were for school unfortunately, so they're not exactly the books I've had waiting for me on my shelf for so long, but I did choose them and they were good reads.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
I had to read a novel in verse for a project, and thought of this one immediately. It's a pretty popular one, and I had never read it, so I thought I would give it a try. I picked it up off the shelf at the library that evening and read it in about a half hour. I more or less knew the story, but I still enjoyed it. I think it did a pretty decent job showing the transition and reluctance people often have with poetry, and it did it in a pretty short amount of space. It seems like it would be a pretty good one to read with your kid before bed or something.

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff
So this is the book I chose for the actual novel-in-verse project I needed to do. I found a list on goodreads and was desperately trying to find something that wasn't 1)depressed teens or 2)love-struck teens or 3)depresssed love-struck teens. Amazingly, I did find it. Even more amazing though is that one of the quotes on the back from a reviewer was actually accurate! They never seem to help much. It more or less says that the book is interesting because it focuses not on a racial culture, but on the culture of poverty, which transcends all racial boundaries. It was an intriguing book for sure. A young girl being raised by her mother is working hard hard hard to be able to have enough money to go to college. She picks up a babysitting job for a seventeen-year-old girl named Jolly who has two young kids, about 5 and 2 years old. The narrator helps out at the home, experiences some really terrible things with this young mother, as well as some really amazing things, she tries to help, fails, succeeds... it's actually a quite well-written and moving story that feels very realistic and honest. The ending is not exactly happy, but again it's honest and realistic. It feels good. It's an optimistic, hopeful ending that made me feel ready to start my day full of an incredible load of work.