bymerechance's 75 book challenge

I've been a member of LibraryThing for a year but never joined this group in 2010 despite one of my bibliophile cousins recommending it to me. I'm looking forward to seeing if I read 75 in a year - my "read:2010" tag doesn't reach it, but I think I missed some of my college texts from the first half of the year, etc. And of course I'm also excited to get more involved in the community and talk books with everyone here! Off to the introductions thread... :)

Welcome to the 75ers group!!

I see that you also got that ER book about women sports reporters. I need to read that one soon. For my 11 in 11 challenge, I've got a baseball category and also a sports (nonbaseball) category.

Thanks, Linda!

I'm afraid my review of that one was rather scathing (it was a good idea very poorly executed, I thought), so I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. I'm also intrigued by that US Presidents group you're in - I haven't read many presidental biographies, but one of my main history nerd party tricks is being able to name them all in order, heh.

I just started a longish bio of Millard Fillmore yesterday. That one got some looks at Starbucks this morning. I'd like to get through Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan and then really focus on Lincoln and the Civil War in 2011 and maybe into 2012.

I'm also in a Reading Through Time (RTT) group here. Cheli (cyderry) and quite a few of the other 75ers are there as well. Each month, there's a particular historical focus.

Welcome to the group! I'm also a history person who tends to read more fiction, so I'll be following your thread :)

Welcome to the group, Mere!

Welcome!

Welcome to the 75 group, Mere!
Anita

Thank you, everyone!

By the way, Zoe, very impressed that you're going for your PhD - one of my professors tried to convince me, but I knew I didn't have what it takes!

Because I didn't post the info from the introductions thread here: I'm Mere, age 22; I graduated from college this year and now live back at home in Connecticut where I work as a tutor and try desperately to come up with what I "really" want to do for a living. As a not-so-former history major, I'm a self-described history nerd - as the below book indicates - but I read much more fiction, ranging from YA to historical to whatever I find on the new book shelf at the library.

#1: Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis. The title makes it sound like this is an account of the Founding Fathers during the Revolutionary War/writing of the Constitution, but it's more like an examination of how the 1776/1787 legacy shaped the first real decade or two of our republic. Ellis shows how many paradoxes remained, and compromises were struck, through a few fascinating events: the duel between Hamilton and Burr; how the Potomac gained the capital in exchange for federal assumption of the states' war debts; the first of many congressional debates about slavery; Washington's Farewell Address; and the complex relationship between Jefferson and Adams.

Though I've read a lot about the Constitution, and early American history got a lot more coverage in my education than the later stuff, I've always wanted to know more about the details. How weird must it have been for these men to forge a republican government from scratch, without completely undermining the principles established in the Declaration of Independence? Ellis definitely filled in those gaps for me.

(Is it weird that I was looking forward to reading this not only because I enjoyed it but because I wanted to get number one under my belt? No? Okay, I must be in the right place then. :-P)

Congratulations on getting your reading year off to a good start, Mere!

Is it weird that I was looking forward to reading this not only because I enjoyed it but because I wanted to get number one under my belt? No? Okay, I must be in the right place then.

I would say that you are definitely in the right place!

A bit of catch-up...

#2: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I picked up* this novel about a town that quarantines itself against the Plague after some discussion of it on the Historical Fiction thread. I have to agree with cynara’s assessment there that the ending “was way out of left field,” but until that point I felt Brooks did a wonderful job developing Anna’s voice and showing how the villagers reacted to the bad hand they’d been dealt.

*by which I mean I read it at the library when I had a few hours to kill between an appointment and work

#3: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This novel is about the twin sons (Marion and Shiva) of an Indian nun and British surgeon working at an Ethiopian hospital. The story picks up after Marion, the narrator, moves the focus from his harrowing birth to his own childhood/adolescence/adulthood; I thought his foster parents were far more interesting characters than his biological ones. I could have done without some of the gory medical details, especially in the beginning, and again I felt blindsided by the final 100 pages, when Verghese seemed to veer off into melodramatic territory. But it was definitely interesting to learn more about Ethiopia, and the commentary on urban American hospitals was also thought-provoking.

#4: How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. I watched a documentary on this topic on the History channel on Saturday, and then bought the book the next day because it’s exactly the kind of quirky American history I appreciate. Because the book is categorized by state in alphabetical order, it gets kind of repetitive and you have to cross-reference some of the maps. I ended up reading it from east-to-west, which made more sense.

#12: Some nice reading there, Mere!

I got a bunch of reading done during all the snow this week...

#5: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This is the February read for my neighborhood’s book club. I’d never read it, and I’ve always suspected that I hated the novels in my high school English classes simply because they were assigned reading, but I still didn’t enjoy this one. (Maybe book club is the new assigned reading?!) Concept: good, in light of book-banning, the whole Huck Finn revision controversy, the rise of e-books, and what have you. Everything in between, though: not so much.

#6: Eighteen Acres by Nicolle Wallace. The West Wing in novel form with a female president. Wallace is definitely no Aaron Sorkin – does she not realize that people, even high-ranking government officials, always use contractions in dialogue? – but it was entertaining enough.

#7: All Clear by Connie Willis. At last, we find out whether time-traveling historians Polly, Mike, and Eileen can escape London in the Blitz. I’m a sucker for anything set in London after the semester I spent there, just because I love knowing all the tube lines and locations. I enjoyed learning more about different aspects of the war effort, too: the women who drove ambulances, the Ultra campaign to decode German intelligence, etc. Yes, the constant near misses are a little crazy, but I couldn’t put it down, and Willis kept me guessing right to the end.

#14: I just finished Blackout the other day and hope to start All Clear this weekend. I am glad to see you enjoyed it!

I hope you will, Stasia! Over on the historical fiction thread a couple weeks ago, at least one person said they got weary of it all by the end, but I think you just have to realize the twists will keep coming and enjoy the details about living in England during the war. :)

#16: I do not think there is a chance that I will get weary of it all. I am enjoying the book too much!

Mere

Happy Birthday tomorrow. I hope it is a special day for you.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday, Mere!

Felicem Natalem!! Happy Birthday, Mere!!

Happy Birthday Mere!

Bonne annee!

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday!

Hope you had a very nice day!

Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! I'm so delinquent in getting back here, but it's funny how much you can read when you're not always online! Thus:

#8: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. I must say I didn’t like this one as much I expected to, though it definitely improved as it went on. Andi, a senior at a Brooklyn prep school whose home life has deteriorated since her younger brother’s death, was kind of unbearably (for lack of a better word) emo at the beginning. I was waiting to meet Alexandrine, a girl from the French Revolution whose diary Andi discovers hidden in a guitar case. I wish novels like this could come with soundtracks, since music is so important to Andi, and I would have loved to be able to hear her original songs and those of her friend Virgil.

#9: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. I’d never read anything that addressed the Japanese internment (I mentioned this to one of my fifth grade students last week, and she acted like I’d told her Santa didn’t exist; oh, the ugly underbelly of our nation’s history). Ford’s novel, alternating between a Chinese-American boy’s friendship with a Japanese-American girl in 1942 and his search for her family’s belongings in 1986, definitely delivered. (Although, I could have used a soundtrack here, too, of 1940s jazz music!)

#10: Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz. The research I did during my semester in London was on the displaced persons recruited from German camps to provide much needed labor in Britain, and how the government failed to support them in their difficult transition to a new culture. The characters in this novel faced similar issues, both in Germany and once they emigrated to New York. One pet peeve – Schwarz chose not to use quotation marks when the dialogue was in any language but English, which I hate.

And now I'm halfway through Kathleen Kent's The Heretic's Daughter. Yesterday one of my students was struggling to write a paper on The Crucible ... this is a much more fun way to address the paranoia of seventeenth century New England. ;)

#26: I have already read the first two books and have not heard very good things about the third, so I think I will give that one a pass.

Yeah, it was another of those ones where I liked the premise better than the actual execution. Oh well. And I know your black hole of books is already daunting enough, so no need to add to it for something like that!

You got that right, Mere!

>26 bymerechance: There are some great YA books about the Japanese interment that the 5th grader might enjoy. I know one of them is Journey to Topaz. There is also a sequel entitled Journey Home.

Oooh, thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to check those out. I really should start thinking of YA and juvenile books to recommend to the students who tell me they hate reading. I understand hating it when I'm making them read silly short stories at tutoring, but I should try harder to show them what great stuff there is to read outside of school and tutoring.

I should not be here. I should totally be focusing on my job search, which I finally decided to renew after months of being frustrated with my current job. But since I'm wasting time anyway, I may as well be caught up on reporting my reading, right? So, very quickly and cursorily:

#11: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent. I liked how Kent set it up a year or two before women started getting accused of witchcraft. And then once they did, of course, she described the conditions in jail almost too well.

#12: These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf. A quick read about two sisters, one a convicted felon, the other just as affected by the aftermath of the crime.

Then I'm almost finished with Invisible River, about a girl attending art school in London, which I was hoping would be the first Early Reviewers book I actually liked (I was 0 for 2 before this). Not sure how I feel about it yet. Some of the imagery is gorgeous, but then sometimes Helena McEwen's writing seems to be a little too ethereal, not substantive enough. Or something. We'll see!

I've seen The Heretic's Daughter around, I think? It looks interesting. I think I'll add it to the TBR list!

I'm sure you have, as I think I first heard of it somewhere around here, too! Hope you like it when you get to it.

I finally sorted through my impressions of my latest Early Reviewer book enough to review it:

#13: Invisible River by Helena McEwen. In a word, Invisible River, Helena McEwen’s novel of a somewhat lost, troubled girl at art school in London, is ethereal. There’s a light touch to McEwen’s prose, like she’s only floating over the surface of her story, despite the heaviness of her themes and the emotional punch she wants to pack.

The wandering nature of Eve’s present tense narration sometimes works – “she knows how to make an unseen world into pictures and I want to know too” – but also proves that less isn’t always more. (If a crow’s “wings shine white in the sunlight,” that might be a valid image with which to provide the reader, but not one that warrants a chapter break.) Although I don’t know much about art, Eve’s observations of the world and her own paintings often focus on colors and the emotions they evoke, so I didn’t feel like her “artiness” went over my head. But all that description didn’t leave much room for character development outside Eve’s own head. Her fellow art students were either forgettable (the boy she likes; the married friend whose husband is never in the picture) or intriguing sketches that deserved to be more fully realized (the pregnant and engaged friend; the brash Italian friend). Eve’s depressed, alcoholic father, especially, shows up on her doorstop, but his motivations are clear to neither Eve nor the reader, and his story arc wasn’t satisfying to me.

McEwen’s imagery can be incredibly pitch-perfect: “And when I walk under the bridge and along the river, watching it glint and ripple, I feel a wide-open hope spread through me, that makes me stand still just to breathe the feeling of it.” I just wish that there had been a bit more substance between those moments.

#14: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book club pick, because I don’t usually go for the kinds of self-important literature the New York Times Book Review thinks I should read, but Franzen got me with his wacky, incredibly flawed characters. Much of the book was set in the recent past of the early 2000s, when I was in high school, so the social/political climate was familiar to me, but I also wasn’t super aware of the debates going on then. The way patriarch Walter struggled with his liberal elitism – his pet issue is overpopulation, which he addresses via this billionaire who wants to save a particular songbird species – got right to the heart of the conflict. I just wish his wife Patty, whose “autobiography” forms a large part of the book, had focused more on her college basketball past, but hey, I’ve got March Madness for that! It’ll be interesting to see tonight what the rest of the book club thought of it.

#15: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I’m not sure how I hadn’t read this before, especially since I read Gruen’s first two novels, Riding Lessons and Flying Changes. She’s definitely become a stronger writer since then, although I of course missed the focus on horses! I usually don’t like the conceit of an elderly narrator looking back, but Jacob was kind of endearing in his irritable way. The traveling circus was a fun way to learn more about the Depression era.

#16: A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay. Definitely not as compelling as Sarah’s Key. I actually read the entirety of this one, about a brother and sister learning about the past of their long-dead mother, on Friday night when we lost power for a few hours. Good enough to keep me entertained for that, at least.

Edited in failed attempt to fix missing touchstone.

I just put Water for Elephants on my TBR list, so it's very nice to hear a positive review of it. Glad your past few reads have been good ones.

I've finished another book, but I want to write an actual review of it, and if I'm going to stop procrastinating and start writing, I should really write more cover letters. It's an ARC, not from Early Reviewers - somehow I can only get inspired to write real reviews by my "no one else has read this yet!" excitement. Anyway, an acquaintance at the publisher gave me a copy when I visited her office: Iron House, a thriller in the "I have no idea what's going on but I need to find out!" vein, by John Hart.

Also I'm reading Swamplandia!, because I decided to try more books double-reviewed by the New York Times after being pleasantly surprised by Freedom. It's kind of insane - alligator wrestling, sisters captivated by ghosts, teenagers who somehow don't go to school because their father runs a now-failing island theme park - but we'll see.

#17: Iron House by John Hart. In John Hart’s latest thriller, due out in July, Michael, an orphan turned criminal, tries to escape the mob life so he can start fresh with his pregnant girlfriend, Elena. When the mob boss dies and his cronies come after Michael, Michael returns to his western North Carolina roots. His younger brother, Julian, was adopted by a senator and his young wife (Abigail), but that hasn’t protected him, as he is already suffering some kind of mental breakdown before Michael arrives. From there, Hart draws the reader in, exploring Michael and Julian’s past at the orphanage, Abigail’s involvement and motives, and the pursuit of Michael’s old mob friends. Hart is able to invest the reader fully in his characters and mystery without sacrificing actual writing style, which makes Iron House not only a book you can’t put down, but one you may want to reread in order to appreciate his talents. (Posted review; no touchstone yet)

#18: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. I can’t quite suspend disbelief enough for books like this, as evidenced by my comment about the kids not going to school. (This is also my trouble with the show Glee, but I keep watching it, so who knows.)

#19: I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish. If anyone wants to understand a bit more about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and how it affects people living on the ground in the Gaza Strip, this is the book to read. Abuelaish traces the history from his childhood in a refugee camp to the current difficulties faced by anyone trying to cross the border to Israel. His motivation in writing a book to urge more cooperation and coexistence stems from the death of three of his daughters in a 2009 bombing by the Israeli Defense Force. But I was almost more horrified by his account of trying to get home to see his dying wife. The traveling delays and restrictions on Palestinians, not to mention the substandard medical treatment available in Gaza hospitals, are completely unreasonable. I think this speaks to one of Abuelaish’s most important points: peace is not the absence of war. He believes there will never be true, lasting peace for anyone in the area until everyone has access to basic human rights: food, shelter, education, health care. I Shall Not Hate will open readers’ eyes to the human realities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but also suggest a hopeful way forward. (Posted review, and – yay! – a satisfying Early Reviewer book)

#20: The King of Lies by John Hart. I checked Hart’s first book out of the library to compare it to Iron House, and I didn’t like it as much. I still read it quickly and wanted to know what happened, but I got increasingly distracted when there were some similar elements (such as, one of the characters had a very similar backstory to someone from Iron House). *Non-specific spoiler* Interestingly, the character I thought was the most stereotypical and static turned out to be the murderer. I guess Hart tricked me!

I am behind on threads, Mere. Hopefully I can keep up with you for the rest of the year! :)

Have you guys ever read Esperanza Rising? It is a REALLY good book!

>41 abbypuppylover: Hey, abbypuppylover! I see from your page you're new to LibraryThing. Welcome! Some of us have read Esperanza Rising and loved it. It's not too late to join this group if you would like to!

Usually, the faster I read a book, the more I liked it. So, the fact that I stayed up until about 1 AM finishing both of these is a high compliment.

#21: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. This time around, Picoult tackles gay rights, and the Christian right’s reaction to them, with a woman who wants to use her frozen embryos to have a child with her partner. Her suddenly born-again ex-husband has other plans. I was really impressed with the way she was able to describe the Christian characters’ point of view, even though she obviously didn’t agree with them. What you see is what you get – I saw certain plot twists a mile away – but I still really enjoy her novels.

#22: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Like my amateur climber uncles, my mom has a shelf worth of mountaineering books, many of which deal with the tragedy on Everest in 1996, when twelve climbers died in a storm. Krakauer, on an assignment from Outside magazine, was among them. He has a knack for writing so controversially that he ends up writing postscripts to address his detractors (he did the same with Under the Banner of Heaven). But I must say that I’d read more nonfiction if it were all this compelling. I found myself literally shouting at the book as people kept heading for the summit hours after they’d agreed to turn around – even the leaders who’d set the deadline! I also appreciated the suspense of not quite knowing which climbers would survive, as well as having all the photographs in my mom’s illustrated edition. It’s insane, what these people go through physically, financially ($70,000, all told!), etc., just because big mountains are “there,” as George Mallory reportedly said about Everest. And I very much include my own uncles in that!

More to come, as I also have a ton of library books out that I'm excited to read. :)

Edit: I was prepared to think that the new physical description feature is kind of silly. But it turns out that it's fun to know my LT books are slightly taller than Stonehenge.

I'm glad to see you 'enjoyed' Into Thin Air. It's a multiple reread for me, and every time I find it all so compellingly futile. Another one I can recommend in the same vein is Touching the Void about two British climbers who get pushed to the edge, and beyond, with extreme consequences. Also very well written.

As well as this, there is a Discovery Channel series called Everest: Beyond the Limit that is fascinating. The arrogance and ego of some people throwing money at the mountain are incredible. The episodes get a little repetitive but are extremely interesting if you can get past the narrator!

I was convinced that I'd find Touching the Void among my mom's climbing books, but she doesn't think she's even read it. I'll definitely keep a look out for it ... maybe even as a Mother's Day addition to her collection! Thanks for the recommendations!

Edit: Did I really write "edition" instead of "addition"? *headdesk*

43 (bymerechance): Krakauer's really good at describing Murphy's law in tragic situations, does the same in Where Men Win Glory which I read earlier this year. He writes of course _after_ the tragedy has occurred, so hindsight and all that, but there's a weird suspense of watching the horror unfold and internally (or externally!) yelling at people not to be such idiots, while knowing they will be.

>46 qebo: Yes, exactly. I've never encountered another author who writes quite like him.

#23: The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. In this debut novel, a young doctor in the Balkans explores her grandfather’s death through two stories from his past: his encounters with the deathless man and his fascination with the tiger’s wife. By the end I was tired of how Obreht kept telling the back stories of new random characters, and I didn’t think she tied together the grandfather’s life and death as well as I’d hoped. The historian in me wished the exact country was named, especially since I know so little about the Balkans. However, this is still an extremely impressive first novel from such a young author (Obreht’s only two and a half years older than I am…yikes!).

#24: The Four Ms. Bradwells by Meg Waite Clayton. The title characters are women who attended law school together in the late ‘70s; one of them is now a Supreme Court nominee, but her appointment may be derailed by a suspicious death that occurred back then. I noticed that a lot of LTers panned it when it was an ER selection a couple months ago, but I actually really liked it.

#25: Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. I borrowed this one from my neighbor after seeing all the commercials for the film. I already knew the entire story because I’ve read the follow up, Something Blue. I liked this one better because it’s narrated by the more likable girl (even if she is sleeping with the self-centered one’s fiancé!). It’s obviously light, silly, quick reading, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

#26: Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. Bryson can be quite the cranky traveler, but I can’t really begrudge him that when I know I’m the same way. (Pity my college roommate who traveled around Europe with me.) This one reminded me a lot of The Angry Island, which my professor made us read before going abroad to London. Both authors occasionally make such hilariously accurate observations about the British, like their willingness to queue.

To that point: Did you see all those crowds filling in at Buckingham Palace to see William and Kate the other day? Americans would have stampeded like zebras escaping a lion rampage, but the British just patiently marched toward their royals. So funny.

Hey, what's wrong with politely queuing? (says the Brit :/ )

Nothing at all! In fact, I'd say there's more wrong with the Americans always rudely pushing past each other. (Says the American.) :)

I must admit, it did make me smile as well. Especially video clips that have come out afterwards of a policeman who was directing the line of police in front of the crowd, who was doing a comedy turn down the Mall.

There was also a verger who was seen doing two cartwheels down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, as the clearing up began once everyone had left!

So behind! Okay, the first three of the seven books I've read but not posted here:

#27: The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure. Besides the mountaineering shelf, there are a couple other broad categories among the books at my house. One of the most well-read are the Little House books, which in our case consists not only of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series fictionalizing her pioneer childhood, but the books other people wrote about her ancestors and her daughter, as well. Wendy McClure never read these later additions to the Little House bibliography, but Laura alone gave her plenty of material for this fun memoir. McClure dives headfirst into “Laura World,” first by attempting to churn her own butter, and then by traveling all over the Midwest to visit Wilder’s various homesteads. Perhaps my favorite chapter was when McClure compared the Little House books to the American Girl dolls and books. I loved both as a little girl, and carried that interest in history straight through to now!

#28: Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigliani. Italian girl in 1950s New York refuses to bow to traditional views of a woman’s role in society. I read this for book club. It was cute, but I felt like Trigliani kept throwing in random plot twists or passing time too quickly without introductions. And the conceit of prologue-with-protagonist-as-old-lady didn’t work; I wished she hadn’t given away how things ended up for Lucia right at the beginning.

#29: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Harry Potter for grownups? Okay, that’s a simplification, but boy goes off to magic school, insanity and adventures ensue … I was on board until they suddenly left school and ended up in the magical world of a children’s book series Quentin used to be obsessed with. I wasn’t really following all the fantastical elements Grossman came up with there.

You have been busy, Mere! I have The Wilder Life here to read, thanks to Angela. I am hoping to get to it soon.

I did not care for The Magicians all that much. Sounds like you did not either.

Hope you like it, Stasia! I think it's an entertaining read for any Little House fan.

I know a lot of 75ers are the kind of book people who compulsively buy books. I confess I am the opposite. I don’t like handing over money for something I’m not going to want to read more than once, so there are very few books I’m willing to buy for myself – it has to be something I know I’m going to love. These next two books fall solidly under that category. I’ve reread all Megan McCafferty’s and Sarah Dessen’s previous books more times than I can count, and it’s kind of impossible for either of them to disappoint me.

#30: Bumped by Megan McCafferty. In McCafferty’s Jessica Darling series, the brilliance came from the realism of Jessica’s snarky voice; I could quote entire passages from each one that nailed how I felt as a sixteen-, eighteen-, twenty-two-year-old. Here, McCafferty goes dystopia, envisioning a world in 2032 in which only teenagers can get pregnant, and yet it’s still kind of hauntingly plausible.

The narrative switches back and forth between separated at birth twins: Melody, who has a Surrogate contract that gave her a six-figure bonus, and Harmony, who grew up in an isolated Christian community that groomed her to be a young wife and mother. Though McCafferty goes a bit overboard with clever slang about “pregging,” and the character development of both twins comes a bit out of left field, this was definitely entertaining and intriguing. I’ll be looking forward to the sequel.

#31: What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen. Dessen’s books, especially her more recent ones, are formulaic in many ways: quiet, troubled girl makes new friends, quirky boy brings her out of her shell, she freaks out and withdraws, then realizes what a mistake she made and goes back to him. But Dessen’s inimitable, smooth, observant prose saves each version of the story from feeling tired.

Mclean of What Happened to Goodbye has been reinventing herself (complete with new names) at each place she moves in the wake of her parents’ scandalous divorce, but in Lakeview she introduces herself to the boy next door as Mclean, and she ends up revealing more of her true self than she intended. Subplots about college basketball and the restaurant world were especially fun knowing that Dessen is a UNC fan and former waitress.

#55: I have only read one of Dessen's books to this point and not any of McCafferty's, so I will have to give those two a try. Thanks for the recommendations, Mere!

>56 alcottacre: Oh no, I've added to the infamous Black Hole! ;)

Moving on:
#32: The Girl Next Door by Elizabeth Noble. Another chick-lit borrowed from my neighbor, this tells the story of several different families who live in the same NYC apartment building near Central Park.

#33: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. This doorstop of a novel is essentially an expose on elite American colleges in the 2000s, despite Wolfe’s insistence that it is “not even partly” based on a specific school. The title character is a freshman from the Blue Ridge Mountains who experiences culture shock at Dupont University, a school that is as difficult to get into as the Ivies and yet also boasts the reigning men’s basketball national champions. Besides the hypocrisy of the academic/athletic balance, Wolfe explores nepotism, classism, and of course the debauchery of typical collegiate behavior. On the unrealistic side, there’s no way three different older boys would become so obsessed with a shy, brilliant freshman like Charlotte. Wolfe also gives his characters this weird obsession with whether other people call them by name or refer to them at all, which at first seems like a great observation of social insecurity but quickly gets overused.

However, as someone just removed from the environment Wolfe describes, I can say that much of I Am Charlotte Simmons rings true. F*** Patois is the dialect of choice. The social system is often controlled by the frats (as my alma mater, Colgate University, learned from an eye-opening survey on sexism and sexual assault on campus that came out my senior year). There are lists of “athlete-friendly” classes (Stanford recently denied the existence of such a list), and the term student-athlete is a joke at some schools (UConn, who just won the men’s basketball championship, has also just lost two scholarships due to poor academic performance).

I posted that one as an actual review – I can be much more coherent when I write up my impressions right away! So that catches me up from the seven, but I have lots more to read from the library book sale. Sure, I don't like paying full price, but $2? And then on the last day, $5 for an entire bag of books? Count me in. :) Oh, and this weekend I read my latest ER, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, so I really must review that before I forget what I wanted to say.

#57: Oh no, I've added to the infamous Black Hole!

Yeah, you and everyone else - that is how it got to be the BlackHole! lol

Hi! De-lurking to say that I am enjoying your reviews. I need to look for The Wilder Life. I read my set of the Little House books many times over as a child. About 10 years ago, I was working at a summer camp in the Adirondacks in upstate New York when I saw a sign on a country road that said "Almanzo Wilder Homestead." I couldn't believe it! I visited it on my day off. It was wonderful--the guide pointed out many things that were mentioned in the book, Farmer Boy. It really was in the middle of nowhere, though.

Sandy K

Thanks for saying hi, Sandy! I'm guilty of doing a lot of lurking myself. I went to Colgate University, so I'm not afraid of New York's middle of nowhere. :)

#34: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield. Preacher Samuel Lake and his family return to his wife’s Arkansas hometown for the annual Moses family reunion in summer 1956. But after grandfather John Moses kills himself, and Sam finds out he hasn’t been assigned to a new parish, the Lakes decide to stay. Sam’s eleven-year-old daughter Swan befriends a young boy named Blade, who is trying to escape his abusive horse-trainer father. She is also intrigued by her uncle Toy, a war veteran with an ugly past. In some ways, this is a quiet book about a family in the South, but the stakes are much higher than they seem. I was a bit uncomfortable with the description of Blade’s father’s abuse, the portrayal of law enforcement, and the later focus on religious faith, but Wingfield stays within the realm of gritty reality for the most part. If the Moses, Lakes, and Blade grab you from the beginning, you’ll be eager to learn what happens to them as the year goes on.

(I don't think I'm the target audience - pitfall of selecting too many ER books that month - so I'm just going to leave my review at that.)

#35: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. Thank God for this group: I got asked in a job interview what I’ve read recently and was able to talk about this one because I’d already put it in my list. Because I’ve researched the Mormons, I found this novel – part fictionalized autobiography of Brigham Young’s wife Ann Eliza, part modern day mystery about a murdered polygamist – fascinating. Being a history nerd, I think I would have abandoned it had Ebershoff not included an author’s note and bibliography, and I’m still not sure why he chose to reimagine Ann Eliza’s autobiography when she really did write one. Or why he made the titles of the two parts so confusingly similar (Wife No. 19 v. The 19th Wife? Really?). But I loved how he included things like newspaper articles and a student’s paper about Ann Eliza. Very cool, and very well done.

#36: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. The more I think about this book, the more it annoys me. It just kept getting worse, as terrible things happened that didn’t even seem to make sense in context of the previous terrible things. And then I started skimming so much that I totally missed one of the major terrible events at the end. Which I guess is to be expected, considering I saw a production of King Lear (which A Thousand Acres is based on) a couple years ago and got lost halfway through that too! ;) I get that it’s Shakespearean tragedy and everything is supposed to be misery, but wow.

I guess I’m picky: I don’t like Pulitzer Prize winners or mindless chick lit. (My book club read the Stephanie Plum books this month; I couldn’t make myself read more than two and a half chapters. I thought it was just silly. And actually kind of vulgar.)

Left out (37): In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar. I read this for the Middle East TIOLI back in March and just realized I never included it in my count!

Forgot this one:

#38: Bossypants by Tina Fey. I’m going to count this even though, honestly, I read it in Costco while waiting for a prescription, so I was definitely skimming over chapters. Some of the most memorable parts were well-documented in reviews I read, but being one of those people who instantly thought of Fey when pictures of Sarah Palin first surfaced (despite not even really liking SNL), I most enjoyed learning the behind-the-scenes of Fey’s Palin impersonations.

Congrats on making it to the halfway point of the challenge, Mere!

Thanks, Stasia! So apparently, I spend a couple weeks reading then post it all here in a day or two. (Only in this case, I read and reviewed a whole book in a day - what can I say, I was on a train for three hours today.)

#39: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares. When I was thirteen, my mom read an article about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and thought it would be the kind of book I would love. I thought it was the lamest title and concept I’d ever heard, which just proves you have to be careful when trying to appeal to teenagers. I must have been convinced to try it anyway, because ten years later, this is another entry in that small category of books-I-need-to-buy. Even though I was utterly spoiled – thanks for nothing, Kirkus Review! :( Oh, and a USA Today article included the spoiler too. You have been warned.

Like Megan McCafferty, Brashares aged her characters believably through their teenage years in her first four books, then launched them into their twenties in the fifth. Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bee are twenty-nine here, older than me again, but I still felt connected to them. I think Brashares’ writing style has gotten more introspective with time, almost self-indulgently and insanely so (as the reviewer at the hilariously awesome Forever Young Adult pointed out). As a result, I’m sure some readers won’t be able to sympathize with the intense monologues of these girls, who are grappling with the concept of being adults and living lives that are either transient or in a rut or completely detached. But as someone who kind of feels all of those things simultaneously and daily, I loved it.

Oh yay, another FYA fan! Best YA blog ever.

I loved the first book in the Sisterhood series (and actually cried over parts, a true rarity for me) but the following books never really caught me. Maybe I'll seek out the spoiler-heavy review as I doubt I'll actually read the book...

I first heard of FYA years ago, I think, but I only just started reading their reviews. And now I'm kind of addicted to them. :)

If you want to know what happens without reading it, you'll need more than the one big spoiler (it's something that happens on like page 50), but the ending shouldn't be hard to find either if you're at all interested.

#40: The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts. In this sweet underdog story, Dutch immigrant Harry de Leyer discovers the schoolhorse he bought for $80, Snowman, has an amazing talent for jumping and takes him all the way to the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in the late 1950s. Elizabeth Letts’ writing style was a little plain for my taste, so I must agree with the reviewers below who felt the book could benefit from tighter editing to remove some repetitious sections. She clearly wanted to place her story within the context of 1950s society and politics, a concept that worked when she addressed how Harry and Snowman were outsiders to the wealthy, elitist equestrian world. Sometimes, though, her parallels were too simplistic; did people really think it was important for an American plow horse to beat a German thoroughbred, especially if the German horse was ridden by an American Olympian? Also, I felt that Letts kept randomly alluding to Harry’s experience in the Netherlands during World War II without actually developing it.

But judging by the author’s note, endnotes, and bibliography, Letts clearly did her research, through newspaper articles, books, and interviews with the participants, which lends the story welcome credibility. I enjoyed learning more about how equestrian competitions were designed back then. Harry’s relaxed style with Snowman – he rode on an incredibly loose rein – was a nice contrast to the other riders’ borderline abusive tactics. For all the descriptions of him as an ordinary fleabitten plow horse, the pictures, which were a great addition to the text, reveal Snowman to be a perfectly adorable, friendly gray gelding. (On the other hand, the picture on the title page, on the advanced reader copy at least, is a creepy up-close of Snowman’s grinning teeth that looks straight out of Mr. Ed – not his best moment.)

Though I was disappointed and distracted by the execution issues, Harry and Snowman’s rags-to-riches triumph is probably not known to most people, even those in the horse world, and I’m glad for the opportunity to read their charming tale.

Note: Especially after the halfway mark, the advanced reader copy contained enough typos that I became completely taken out of the narrative, wondering when the next mind-boggling mistake would come. I’m not mentioning that in my LT review – I know it’s uncorrected at this point, and isn’t relevant to most readers who will be getting finished copies – but seriously. I was also a little bummed that the ARC didn’t come with the cover (and also that the cover on the LT page isn’t the same as the one on Amazon and the author’s website).

#41: The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. This sequel to The Tea Rose is pure soap opera – but it’s soap opera in 1900 London! Featuring real places I’ve been (the heroine, like me during my abroad program, lives in Bedford Square) and real historical figures (why, hello there, Emmeline Pankhurst and George Mallory). I’ll forgive a lot of insane plot twists and people-who-get-shot/seriously injured-but-survive-even-though-we’re-talking-1900-medicine for the fun of the rest of it. The third book comes out in August and features WWI, which should be good.

Since the year’s almost half over, it looks like I’m totally going to meet this challenge! I suppose I should mention that I’ve been going for 75 new books; I don’t count rereads, which I do a lot of, usually with things I love so much I practically know them by heart.

>68 bymerechance: I'm impressed with your goal of only counting new to you reads and I'm glad your latest read was enjoyable.

#42: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Because I loved Connie Willis’ time traveling books, I thought this series would be right up my alley; after all, it’s time traveling to Scotland, my motherland. (Someday, I swear, I am going to travel to places like Kirtlebridge and Ecclefechan in search of old family homesteads, and it will be glorious.) But there was something off about Claire and Jamie’s story for me, maybe all the sex and corporal punishment? Also, I think Claire’s mid twentieth century medical knowledge should have been more suspicious in the Highlands in 1743. I can’t say I’m interested enough to read six more tomes of this (only interested enough to stalk the author’s website for synopses of the sequels!).

#43: Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. I read this in less than a day and a half, but the subject matter still made it hard for me to read. Framed around the death of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, Where Men Win Glory provides a sobering, uncomfortable account of the War on Terror’s goals and conduct. In a conflict where a few Americans bear all the sacrifice, the rest of us ought to at least pay better attention to what’s happening, so as uncomfortable as it was, I’m very glad I read it.

With Krakauer’s other books, I usually felt like he did an admirable job of maintaining neutrality in the face of an extremely controversial event. Not so here. Random things that I thought weren’t really proved:
• I’ve never read an actual timeline of events between the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore, but Krakauer makes it sound self-evident that the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court illegally threw the election to Bush. If so, then why isn’t everyone still outraged by the breakdown of our democratic political system?
• He baldly states that “the primary focus of the Bush administration had always been taking down Saddam Hussein” (p. 166-7). Although that may be true, to me it sounded like only a couple steps away from the conspiracy theorists who believe the Bush administration planned the 9/11 attacks as part of that mission to remove Saddam from power. (One of my uncles is part of this movement, so I’ve heard way more about this than I’d ever care to, despite the major flaws in its logic – namely, why pin the blame on bin Laden if it were Saddam you wanted?)
• Then, suddenly, at the very end, he gives shocking statistics on how many casualties in past American wars occurred by friendly fire – 52% in the first Gulf War?! And I’m not sure who should investigate these tragic accidents, but I do agree that having the military do so itself is a total conflict of interest.

Other thoughts: Even Krakauer can’t make Afghanistan’s convoluted history comprehensible; I’ll have to reread those early sections to try to make sense of the players and groups. However, his postscript warnings on Pakistan are eerily prescient in the wake of bin Laden’s death. Okay, that was longer and more political than I usually want to be. I’m done now. :)

Sorry Outlander wasn't to your taste. Here's hoping your next read is more your style.

#44: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I didn’t like this nearly as much as I thought I would based on all the great reviews last year; I think I just didn’t feel connected to any of the characters.

#45: Graceling by Kristin Cashore. I enjoyed this young adult fantasy, even though there were long stretches with only two characters, and they spent a lot of time talking about mind reading (or a variation thereof). I liked the dynamics between the seven kingdoms, and Katsa was an interesting, complex heroine.

#46: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Andras Levi is a Hungarian Jew off to architecture school in Paris in 1937, where he falls in love with an older woman. This is what historical fiction should do: take an event from the past – even one you think you know well, like World War II and its lead up – and bring it to life through fascinating little known details. (It appears that I had no idea Hungary was an ally of Germany. How did that happen?) Orringer’s research is evident, some of it based on the recollections of her grandparents; I only wish she’d included a list of sources, but I bet no one at Knopf was willing to print any more pages! She also had a beautiful style of writing that I really enjoyed.

>72 bymerechance: The prequel to Graceling, Fire is a really good read too. Most of the people I know who have read both usually prefer Fire, so you may want to give it a try.

Good to know; I hadn't heard which one people preferred. I'll definitely pick it up sometime soon. :)

#70: I have stayed away from Where Men Win Glory and from the sounds of it, I am glad I have.

I don't blame you, Stasia. The way it was written was much more partisan than I expected, and I think it would rub a lot of people the wrong way.

#47: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. A rather odd book, darting around different, variously connected characters and decades, from the ‘70s to an even more technologically dependent future. It would have been easier to follow if there were years at the front of each chapter. Egan employs a variety of styles, too: second person; PowerPoint; an article that felt like it could have been written by David Foster Wallace, massive footnotes and all.

What a reading year so far! I'm impressed, not only by your commitment to only counting NEW books (even if you DO count the things you skim whilst in Costco waiting for prescriptions), but also by your diligence in actually reviewing (or commenting on) everything you put up! Things I want to do...

I'm going to wholeheartedly second MickyFine's recommendation about Fire. I read the pair last year, and while I couldn't put either one down, I think I preferred Fire. Glad you appreciate (and are willing to forgive some of the historical stretches in) the Jennifer Donnelly books, too! We'll have to chat about the new one when it comes out.

And, um, can I borrow a few of these?

Um, you can borrow the ones I didn't get from the library! Which is probably not that many, but hey. Just let me know if I've got any you want!

Someday, I will learn to actually make a list of the books I'm looking for when I go to the library, and then request them if they're out. In the meantime, I went for what I could remember: more young adult fantasy.

#48: Tortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce. Since I’ve never been a fan of short stories, it’s no surprise that the ones I liked best featured familiar characters (Nawat and Aly; Kitten and Numair’s horse Spots). The rest, eh. I kept wanting a map so I’d at least know where these weird new lands were in relation to Tortall, if they were even in the same world. The last two were actually set in the real world, which was really jarring.

#49: Fire by Kristin Cashore. I didn’t think I’d like new characters and new lands, having just gotten used to the seven kingdoms of Graceling, but Fire and the Dellian royal family quickly caught my interest. Sometimes Fire seemed too similar to Katsa except for calculated differences – look, this one is mysterious and powerful in strange ways too, but she likes children and her horse! Far be it from me to criticize a girl for being attached to her horse, though. :)

I don't think I really noticed the similarities between Katsa and Fire but there was probably a six- to eight-month gap between when I read Graceling and when I read Fire. Glad you enjoyed it though. :D

I think it was just that both of them were feared for and isolated because of their uniqueness. But yeah, I enjoyed both books. It's been too long since I read any new-to-me fantasy, and these two reminded me how much fun they can be. Might have to seek out other recommendations... :)

One of these days I will get around to reading Graceling, which I bought at the time of its release, and Fire.

What struck me about the two of them is how afraid they both are of themselves. They both feel that they're monsters (well, Fire actually is, but she really does feel it), and they censor their desires and power because of it.

I actually found this Simmons Children's Lit program because of Kristen Cashore-- I was reading her author bio and saw that she graduated from it! Rumor has it that she attends the conferences, too, so I'm hoping that she's going to show up this weekend! Preparing avid fangirl response.

>82 alcottacre: I hope you'll like them as much as the rest of us do, Stasia!

>83 ALK982: Haha, I saw that in her bio too and thought of you. Fingers crossed that you get to meet her!

#84: Thanks, Mere. I hope so too.

I went to the library prepared with a list this time, although the third one was a random pick up.

#50: One Day by David Nicholls. Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet on the night of their graduation from the University of Edinburgh on July 15, 1988. Nicholls gives us a glimpse of their lives – in or out of touch, successful or struggling – on that date for the next nineteen years. It’s a somewhat disjointed way to tell a story, especially when point of view gets mixed between the two of them and some sections are told in present tense while others are past. It didn’t bother me too much until the curveball climax, though. I'd still be interested to see the film version coming out soon.

#51: Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle. I had to read this young adult novel when I saw Micky’s review of it, partly because she liked it, but also because of the title. I was obsessed with ducks when I was little. Anyway, our protagonist here is fifteen-year-old Carly, who has some serious misgivings about living in Atlanta’s wealthiest neighborhood and attending an exclusive Christian high school. Sophomore year is exactly when my classmates and I started feeling the fakeness of our privileged Connecticut world, so I found Carly very real, especially since Myracle isn’t afraid to show the reader that Carly’s high-and-mighty attitude has its own hypocrisies. Also, Carly’s little sister Anna has just started high school and has to field unwanted male attention now that she’s become conventionally attractive, causing friction between the sisters. A good read, even though I thought it wrapped up too quickly and neatly.

#52: The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. I didn’t even know Sittenfeld had written anything between Prep and American Wife. Hannah Gavener, like Lee Fiora of Prep, has a lot of insecurities. This time, her coming of age is told through third person present tense (with occasional flash forwards in future tense). In Part I she’s fourteen; in part II we get several different looks at her college years; and by part III she’s in her mid twenties. Besides Hannah herself, this can make for rambling character development, just like in One Day, but I did like it.

Side note: If you’re going to name a character Fig, you shouldn’t wait until page 195 to (mercifully) say it’s only a nickname, and you should explain how a child who can’t pronounce Melissa ends up calling her cousin Fig anyway. Her name irritated me every time she was mentioned.

Mere, your comment about a character named Fig made me laugh. I recall one of the Anne Rivers Siddons books (maybe Outer Banks?) had a female character named Fig, and I don't think it was ever explained in the book (at least I can't remember it). I just chalked up to those colorful upper-class Southerners that fill her books, but it certainly was odd to my plebian Midwestern ears.

Glad you enjoyed Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks, Mere. I agree with you on the ending, although it was cute so I forgave the overly neat packaging of it.

Great mix of reads. One Day is already hanging out on the TBR list, otherwise I'd add it on. Hope your next reads are equally enjoyable. :)

>87 rosalita: How funny! What are the odds of two authors using such a weird nickname without explaining it? The Fig I read about was from Philadelphia, so who knows where they got the idea.

>88 MickyFine: Thanks for pointing me to it! With One Day, I'm kind of ashamed to admit I hadn't heard of it until I saw the copy with Anne Hathaway on the cover, but at least I managed to read it before the movie comes out! ;)

Congratulations on passing 50 books for the year, Mere!

#53: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. A young adult novel about a Lithuanian family who get deported to Siberia in 1941. It ended way too quickly for me. According to the author’s note, many of them didn’t make it back to Lithuania until the ‘50s; I wish we’d gotten to see some of that in the book.

I keep reading books that are good but have somewhat disappointing endings - what's with that? Still, this next one's probably the best Early Reviewer book I've gotten so far, which is exciting:

#54: The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell. In June 1968, millions of Americans turned out to pay their respects to Robert F. Kennedy as his funeral train traveled from New York to Washington. Journalist David Rowell, in his first novel, has created a cast of characters across different states, all awaiting the train’s passage, to examine the public’s reaction to RFK’s shocking assassination. The best stories were the ones most connected to the politics and society of the era: a black porter assigned to the funeral train for his very first day on the job; a young amputee home from Vietnam; and an Irish girl supposed to interview to be the nanny for the latest addition to Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s clan.

What could have been an utterly discontinuous reading experience skipped pleasantly from one vignette to the next; just when I had forgotten about someone, Rowell dove back into that thread, keeping me interested even with the more random stories, like the suburban couple hosting a pool party. The omniscient third person point of view, while occasionally distracting, provides additional glimpses into the national conscience on that day.

I think Rowell should have paid more attention to the tragic crash in New Jersey, where two people were killed. However, I’m intrigued enough to look up more about the incident, the assassination, and the volatile spring of 1968 in general, which for me is a hallmark of the best historical fiction. The Train of Small Mercies is a fascinating snapshot into a tragic day in American history, even though it petered out a bit at the end, just when I was hoping for a more cohesive message about what the event meant to Rowell’s varied characters. It’s a worthwhile read, both as a supplement for readers who have their own memory of RFK’s funeral train, and as a fictional introduction for those who are too young to know much about it.

#91: I will have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of The Train of Small Mercies. Thanks for that recommendation, Mere!

You're welcome! But just so you know, since it was an ER book it won't be out until October.

Edit: And I should also warn you that my mom just finished it declared it "pointless. It was well-written, but it was pointless." She wanted more on the Kennedys, when it's really just supposed to be about the ordinary people.

#93: Thanks for the heads up about the publication date.

I gathered from your review that the book is supposed to be about ordinary people, so I guess my expectations are not going to be the same as your mother's.

Yes, I told her that too, but she probably didn't listen in hopes that I was wrong about it. ;) Anyway, The Train of Small Mercies got me thinking about RFK's assassination and the Kennedys in general, so I asked my mom if she had any books on the Kennedys. Surprisingly, this is the only one she had on hand:

#55: Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy A team of Boston Globe reporters put together this biography of Senator Ted Kennedy after his diagnosis of brain cancer but before his death. I’m still going to have to read something else to find out more about JFK and RFK, but this book kind of worked as a history of the last forty years in American politics. Ted Kennedy was one of those veteran legislators who really knew how to get things done in the Senate – which issues to press, who to make friends with (including members of the opposite party!), when to compromise. He observed that it usually takes six years to get new civil rights legislation, and I think history does show that: it looks like Congress can’t get anything done at the time, but they eventually figure it out.

(When I was little, I literally believed that Ted Kennedy was JFK's uncle. I guess I knew the president was young when he was assassinated, and my parents were alive then, and Ted looked old ... I don't know, but it blew my mind to learn that not only were they brothers, but Ted was fourteen years younger than JFK!)

#95: it blew my mind to learn that not only were they brothers, but Ted was fourteen years younger than JFK!

Somehow, when a person dies they become frozen in time and that is the way we remember them, completely forgetting at times that life has gone on.

A while ago I noticed that LT was listing one more "read:2011" books for me than I had listed here. I finally just figured out that I'd labeled two books as #43. *shakes head* At least I've got it straightened out now. That makes this fifty-six:

#56: Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner. Not much to say about this chick lit. It’s well written, but the plot (narrated by four women – egg donor, surrogate, adoptive mom, and the mom’s stepdaughter) got a little ridiculous for me.

I'm currently reading A Discovery of Witches, which is fun so far.

#57: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I finally found this at the library after my cousin (ALK982) recommended it months ago. There’s just the right mix of history and fantasy and romance – very cool.

#58: The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall. I almost didn’t even bother finishing this novel about a polygamist family because it kept dragging on – could have been way shorter.

#59: In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. William Dodd, a historian, was an unlikely choice for ambassador to Germany in 1933, and he ended up being more anti-Nazi than the Roosevelt administration was comfortable with. I had no clue that American tourists got assaulted by the Nazis for, say, not saluting. But in those days Hindenburg was still president to Hitler’s chancellor, so people thought Hitler’s influence could be curbed – at least until the Night of the Long Knives, when he executed many of his rivals.

#60: Faith by Jennifer Haigh. In this novel, a Boston priest’s sister details her brother’s pedophilia accusation. It was a weird narrative choice in a way, because the sister’s role is minimal compared to the priest’s and that of her other brother, but Haigh takes on a complex issue from all sides.

Glad you enjoyed A Discovery of Witches. It's been hanging out on the TBR list for a while. One of these days, I might actually get to it. :)

>99 MickyFine: Hi Micky! I think you'll like it when you finally do read it.

#61: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. Three sisters return to their Midwestern, college-centered hometown, ostensibly because their mother has cancer, but really because their own lives are spiraling out of control. The characters were a bit too stereotypical to birth-order – the oldest is a control freak and caretaker, the middle is always trying to distinguish herself, the youngest is free as a bird and gets away with everything. Other than that I really enjoyed it, including the random bursts of Shakespeare (the father is a professor obsessed with the Bard’s work).

#62: The End of Everything by Megan Abbott. A kidnapper story narrated by the taken girl’s best friend – a little unsettling, but a good read.

#63: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Some elements of this horror-ish YA novel worked better than others, but the way Riggs built his story around weird, randomly collected photographs was extremely creative. I liked the setting of the isolated Welsh island, too, which in my head looked like this English beach town I visited one weekend on my semester abroad.

#64: Room by Emma Donoghue. Book club forced me to finally read this bestseller from last year, and I’m glad I did. Jack’s voice got inside my head for the rest of the day. Without giving it away, I will say that I was surprised and impressed with where Donoghue took the story after the original mother-and-son-trapped-in-eleven-foot-room concept.

#65: My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira. A good historical novel about a woman who wants to be a surgeon during the Civil War, but I think it was mistitled. Mary Sutter is not always the main focus; Oliveira also explores the rest of her family and even gets into Lincoln’s White House, as the president and his advisers struggled to find a competent general to run the Eastern Front of the war.

#66: Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. I was going to love this book no matter what, because it felt like it could have been written about my own family and our summer home in Maine. The four multigenerational female narrators and their complicated attachment to each other, as well as the house in Maine, rang very true.

#67: The Soldier’s Wife by Margaret Leroy. Also mistitled – the solider is never seen, while his wife, left behind with their two daughters on the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation, begins an affair with the German captain headquartered next door. I might not have bothered to finish it if I didn’t have a morning job as a hair salon receptionist where any book beats reading fashion magazines. ;)

#68: The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson. I wasn’t super impressed with the first one, but following Ginny around Europe was fun enough that I wanted to see what happened in the sequel.

#69: Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. Confession: I thought it was cheating to bend genres by writing a book about your grandmother and calling it a “true-life novel,” until I learned some details about one of my great-grandmother’s life that immediately made me think “this would make a great story!” So yes, my apologies to Jeannette Walls, and I want to read The Glass Castle now to find out what happens in her own life.

#70: The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian. I’ve loved some of Bohjalian’s work (Midwives, Skeletons at the Feast) and been less impressed with others. This ghost story, centered around a pilot suffering from PTSD whose family relocates to a haunted house in rural New Hampshire, falls somewhere in between. I knew it wasn’t going to end happily, but Bohjalian took it to an even creepier level.

#71: The London Train by Tessa Hadley. Put London in the title of your novel, and I’ll probably want to read it – which was not a good instinct in this case. I didn’t like how the two stories came together, and I really didn’t like how there were millions of blatant run-on sentences in need of semicolons. I assume it was supposed to be in the character’s stream of consciousness or something, but seriously, I don’t let ten-year-olds get away with writing like that.

#72: The Language of Secrets by Dianne Dixon. I completely did not buy into the explanation behind the premise (why has a man returned to his childhood home to find his name on a tombstone?); it was a cop-out that wasn’t enough to sustain a story and I suspect wasn’t even psychologically accurate. Lame.

I've enjoyed your reviews and the impressive range of books that you read. I highly recommend The Glass Castle when you get a chance.

Hi Nancy, and thanks! I just checked out some of your reviews, too. Love the feminist test questions - I'd never heard of that before.
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#73: Shine by Lauren Myracle. I wanted to be able to back up my belief that it was unnecessary for the National Book Award committee to make Myracle remove herself from consideration after they mistakenly nominated Shine. If the book were somehow terrible, then sure, its inclusion might have hurt the award’s integrity. Except it’s not terrible. It’s the rather remarkable story of a girl trying to find out who committed a hate crime against her former best friend, a gay boy who is left in a coma. But even more than the plot, the setting - a tiny, rural, impoverished town in North Carolina - impressed me. Myracle chose to examine a part of America not often seen in fiction. In doing so, she opens the eyes of her young readers, most of whom probably didn’t realize that there are places where meth is readily available, but cell phones, Internet connections, and high school diplomas are not. As for the teenagers who live in that world, a book like Shine shows them that their lives and problems matter. A book like that is worthy of recognition, even if it’s unintentional.

That whole debacle is just hideous and Myracle has been really classy through the whole thing. Did you read Libba Bray's blog post about it?

I did! I'm glad Myracle's got friends like Bray to say what she won't. And shaming them into donating to the Matthew Shepard Foundation was brilliant, but I kind of expected it to be more than $5000. (But then I don't know what kind of budget the National Book Foundation has, so.)

#74: The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. The trouble with the third and final installment in this historical romance trilogy wasn’t so much the return of faked deaths in the Thames. Or the potentially implausible spy subplots. Or the star-crossed lovers who repeatedly referred to themselves as each other’s “heart and soul” (insert swoon here). That, I expected. The trouble was the sentence structure. That everything was all choppy like this. Even in dialogue. As if this is how people talk. As if it increased the drama, or something. Except it didn’t. It only got. On my nerves.

Sorry about the poor writing in your last read. Hopefully you have something really excellent lined up for book 75! :)

#75: Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. Reading two WWI sagas back to back might have been crazy, except then I lost power. Fall of Giants helped keep me entertained; it focuses more on the politics and relationships between European states from 1914-18 and beyond, which I appreciated. WWI resulted from such incompetence – see this hilarious anonymous account of WWI as a bar fight that Follett linked on his website. And somehow I didn’t know the US had this spat with Mexico in 1914, or that Britain secretly tried to stop the Russian Revolution in 1918. Good stuff.

#76: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I liked the characters, but not so much the gothic elements; I don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of the trilogy.

#77: The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Eleanor Roosevelt. Book club selection. Roosevelt would claim she knew nothing about politics while her husband was alive – even as she was flying all over the world to visit US troops during WWII – and then suddenly developed not only a personality but also all kinds of opinions and activism after he died, through her work with the UN. I guess it’s a function of the times. Her thoughts on Russia, India, and the Middle East were fascinating and yet incredibly frustrating, since a lot of the issues she described still haven’t been resolved now.

#78: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. The dual narrative between the tape recorded voice of a girl who committed suicide and one of the boys who mysteriously receives her tapes is both inventive and well-executed. It’s the kind of book that will be banned for the very same reason it should be celebrated: the sobering light it sheds on teenage suicide and the people who (unwittingly or not) fail to prevent it – including guidance counselors. That one hurt, but I’m sure it happens all the time.

#79: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I might have appreciated this more if I’d read it back in high school, when I, like Charlie, was the quiet observer among my more outgoing friends. But I can see why it’s so influential to today’s crop of realistic YA fiction.

On the note of banning YA books, I’ve noticed my local library puts a “High School” sticker on the spines of YA books deemed to have mature themes, or something. I kind of disapprove of that in general, but especially when it’s applied haphazardly: Wallflower earned the warning (I returned Thirteen Reasons and can’t recall whether it did), but The Book Thief, which I’ve only just started, didn’t. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t add up.

#80: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Now, this one didn’t live up to the hype. I just was not feeling the charm: the Major’s family members and the uppity, class-conscious townspeople were so irritating, and the juxtaposition of the Major’s crankiness with his weirdly gallant manner of speech bugged me too.

Oh, Early Reviewer books, why are you so disappointing?

#81: All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson. A first novel by filmmaker and lawyer Duncan Jepson, All the Flowers in Shanghai is a pale, derivative addition to the subgenre of Chinese women fiction. It’s all been done before: a woman in China trying to negotiate a world in which having male heirs and saving face with others is the only thing that matters.

Feng, as a second daughter, has spent her childhood out in the gardens with her beloved grandfather, while her sister is groomed to marry into wealth. When Feng is forced to follow her sister’s path in life, she is completely unprepared for the expectations of being First Wife to the heir of the powerful Sang family. She claims to plot revenge against her mother and sister for ruining her life … except what she does isn’t revenge, because it has no impact on her mother and sister; it only hurts innocent parties and ricochets back on Feng herself. As she learns to manipulate the social world her in-laws inhabit, she becomes an unbearably unlikeable protagonist.

As a historical novel, All the Flowers in Shanghai fails miserably. There was no historical context most of the time; it felt like it could have taken place in the nineteenth century just as easily as the 1930s. In the final third, Jepson suddenly starts referencing the war against Japan and then the rise of Mao, but he commits the cardinal sin of telling rather than showing. Feng announces that the war stripped away the old traditional way of life without giving any concrete evidence of changes. Even if the point-of-view character is hopelessly naïve about the world she lives in, there has to be a better way to introduce the reader to these tumultuous events, or else the author shouldn’t bother mentioning them at all. Overall, I found the book infuriating and not worth my time.

#82: 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Though I’ve never read any Stephen King before, I was totally intrigued that he was writing a book about someone going back in time to stop JFK’s assassination. I liked it, except that it didn’t need to be quite so lengthy, and overall I think I might have been more interested in a whole alternate history on what-if-JFK-lived.

#83: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. The premise of sticking American teenagers in European boarding schools is pretty weak, but make it London, add some modern Jack the Ripper drama, and have relatable teenager characters, and you’ve got a recipe for decent YA.

#84: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I liked it when they were their own little eccentric nomadic tribe out West, but it got harder to read as the despair they faced in West Virginia went on and the parents became increasingly unsympathetic individuals.

#85: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Interesting (narrated by Death; I also enjoyed the illustrated stories), heartbreaking (hello, Nazi Germany), memorable characters (gotta love a girl who steals books). I know I was supposed to be absolutely blown away by it, but it didn’t resonate with me quite that much for some reason.

#86: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I almost don’t think something I read in half an hour should count! Adorable exchange of letters (and gifts!) between the delightfully outspoken Hanff and the accommodating, friendly used book store employees who feed her rare book fix.

#87: Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. You know how Margaret Mitchell said she didn’t know as a child that the South lost the Civil War? Seems some people still haven’t gotten the memo. In his tour of the South, Horwitz meets terrifyingly hardcore Confederate reenactors; the last living Confederate widow; and enraged, race-conscious Alabama teenagers, among others. Very interesting look at how the bloodiest chapter of our nation’s history continues to affect today’s society.

I'm sorry that The Book Thief didn't blow you away as you'd hoped. I fall into the camp with the many people who absolutely adored it, but I know that not all novels work the same way for everyone. Looks like you had a good reading week, at any rate.

#88: Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close. Don’t let the summary fool you: this isn’t a story with three main characters, girls in their twenties who struggle while everyone else they know gets blissfully married. It’s structured into sections more like vignettes, following a wide range of loosely connected characters in various relationship statuses. Still a decent read, but completely misrepresented.

#89: Next to Love by Ellen Feldman. Now, this one really did have three female main characters, war brides in 1942 Massachusetts. Feldman then explores what happens to them and their families after the war. I had some issues with the structure (separate sections in each point of a view in a given year, leading to repetition), but I’d like to find more books like this, kind of a chick lit/historical hybrid.

#90: Princess Masako by Ben Hills. This is the story of the crown princess of Japan, where some antiquated traditions still reign and a gang of bureaucrats can control the royals’ every move. Masako has suffered depression as a result of her failure to provide a male heir for the world’s oldest throne. Fascinating stuff. It reminded me that I want to read more about Japan, specifically how it went from American occupation to economic superpower in like thirty years flat.

#91: The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. For the author, after a tough childhood in Baltimore and the Bronx, everything came up sunshine and roses (Rhodes scholarship, Wall Street career); while the “other” Wes Moore, who grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood, is serving a life sentence with no parole. Which is interesting, for sure, but I just found it so weird that this guy basically wrote a book to say, “My life rocks; his sucks; and I kind of feel bad about that! Isn’t fate funny?” To his credit, though, he includes an extensive appendix listing organizations to support urban youth, so there’s that.

As someone who likes real books and real bookstores, I feel like a bit of a sell-out for reading The Other Wes Moore on an e-reader. But my neighbor was selling her year-old Nook Color, and my mom decided to buy it off her. I'm not used to navigating with the touchscreen yet, but we'll see how it goes.

#92: Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr. Enjoyable YA about a pastor’s daughter whose mother is in rehab, while the community reels from the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old girl. I found Sam a very relatable fifteen-year-old.

#93: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I’ve had this for years and been too intimidated to pick it up, with good reason, because it’s 782 dense pages of historical magical fiction with wandering footnotes. I can’t say I liked it, necessarily, but it was interesting?

I love Sara Zarr's novels. Utterly. Totally. I also liked Strange and Norrell so I'm glad you at least found the novel interesting. :)

I remember liking Sweethearts but not thinking it was totally OMG the best book ever like so many people do. I figured that had to be some kind of fluke - or too high expectations - so I decided to try another. It worked out very well. :)

Story of a Girl is absolutely brilliant. You know, just putting that out there.

>118 MickyFine: Duly noted, thanks.

#94: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I liked this way less than Fall of Giants, both because I prefer my historical fiction to be set in the last few centuries, and because I thought it wasn’t anywhere near as well-written. But since I’ve visited quite a few medieval cathedrals in England, it was still fun to read a story about the people who built them, even if they did have an insane number of attacks by the same evil earl guy.

#95: American Nations by Colin Woodard. In this compelling historical and political analysis of North America, Woodard argues that Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico are comprised of eleven distinct national cultures, as have evolved over the centuries from the original European colonizers. Besides splitting the region we think of as the American Midwest into extensions of New England Yankeedom and the Pennsylvania Midlands, everything he said was so logical that I can’t believe everyone doesn’t see these fault lines across the continent. Really, really interesting (and terrifying, given the musings on how easily these national groups might split into separate political entities).

#96: Past Perfect by Leila Sales. As the daughter of a silversmith, Chelsea Glaser has worked at Colonial Essex Village for as long as she can remember. Every summer she and the other teen interpreters wage an intense prank war against their counterparts at Civil War Reenactmentland, which is why it’s so not okay for her to fall for a Civil Warrior, especially when she’s not over her Colonial ex-boyfriend. If this sounds insane, I assure you it was amazing in all its history nerdiness, humor, and exploration of how we cling to false memories in fear of embracing change. It kind of makes me want to move to Williamsburg, except that I definitely couldn’t handle wearing colonial petticoats in Virginia summer.

Looks like that'll be it for the year. I'll post a wrap up of all my books, and then head over to the 2012 group!

Summary for the year:

FICTION: 78 (28 historical, 18 YA, mostly library because that's how I roll)
Categorized (easily translated to stars, as there are five, but that’s a coincidence, as it took me a while to name them all!):
9 favorites (All Clear, What Happened to Goodbye, The 19th Wife, Sisterhood Everlasting, The Invisible Bridge, The Weird Sisters, Maine, Fall of Giants, Past Perfect); then 26 very good; 20 decent; 19 not worth it; and 4 that weren’t worth it and also made me angry.

NONFICTION: 18 (all of which I enjoyed or at least found intriguing, because I have a very low tolerance/attention span for nonfiction; I often end up skimming even with ones I like)

GOALS FOR 2012:
Stop reading books that aren’t good (or more accurately, books I don’t like). Seriously. Those last two categories of books that aren’t worth it have got to go. There are so many books I did like this year; if something’s not living up to that bar, quit it. In other words, I’m going to try to take my quick-trigger nonfiction attitude to fiction. (Similarly, I only read YA that I hear good things about, because there’s some silly stuff out there, so I want to try to be just as discerning with my adult fiction.) And I have to be smarter about my ER requests; several of the books I was most disappointed by were ERs.

Looks like a very good year, Mere. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on your reads next year. :)