legxleg's 2009 reading part 2

Continuing from my first thread here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/51396




Book 162 is Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, the sequel to Parable of the Sower, and it was another fantastic one. Lauren has started a small community that follows Earthseed, her new religion, but the newly elected president is the head of a movement that believes the recent violence is the result of straying away from their version of the Christian faith, and is big on persecuting cults like Earthseed. This book is quite possibly more disturbing than the first one, but they are both extremely well-done dystopias, in my opinion.

Book 163 is The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction by Justine Larbalestier, a very interesting non-fiction book about the role of women in science fiction between the 20s and 70s. Interestingly Larbalestier explores the presence of women in science fiction stories themselves, among the fan community, and women scifi authors. Even though I'm not all that well-informed about science fiction (I read science fiction, but I think I've only read maybe one of the sci-fi classics, and am pretty ignorant about the 'canon'), I still found it fascinating. It also had an entire chapter dedicated to stories where all the men in the world disappear or vice versa, so TadAD was completely right, Y The Last Man wasn't a very unique concept at all ~_~. At any rate, I recommend the book, although I imagine someone more well-read in science fiction than I am would get more out of it (aside from my vague desire to kick young Asimov in the shins; what a sexist jerk!).

Book 164 is Skunk Girl by Sheba Karim, a YA coming-of-age story about a Pakistani-American teen who is frustrated by living in the shadow of her genius big sister, her parents' conservatism, and unwanted body hair (the title comes from an episode where she discovers that she has a stripe of hair down her back, like, in her mind, a skunk). It was interesting enough, but I didn't really get interested until the end, at which point it ended at a rather unfulfilling point in the story. I assume there's gong to be a sequel, which I would read.

Book 165 is The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, the companion book to Oryx and Crake. For some reason even though I didn't enjoy Oryx and Crake, I did enjoy The Year of the Flood. I think it might have come down to the fact that I just didn't like Snowman, the protagonist of Oryx and Crake, and since we saw the dystopic world through him, I wasn't fond of the dystopia either. I liked the protagonists of The Year of the Flood, Ren and Toby, much more. The reader gets to see the pleeblands, while Oryx and Crake was set in the rarified world of the elite corporate sphere. The Year of the Flood also involves The Gardeners, a religion fusing ecology and a vaguely Christian faith (their leader is Adam One, for instance). I've always felt Margaret Atwood was hit or miss with me, and this one was a hit.

I enjoyed Parable of the Sower but dystopian novels create too much anxiety in me. Have you read Kindred? That was my favorite Butler. It's funny, I don't read much SF, but of the ones I've liked best, they've all included time-travel.

I have read Kindred, and I enjoyed it; I'm becoming a big fan of Octavia Butler.

I can certainly understand why people wouldn't like dystopian novels; it's probably stranger that I find them so fascinating! But I agree, time travel is fun; have you read Connie Willis's time travel novels? They're really great. I think my favorite might be To Say Nothing Of The Dog.

Starring you again!

>3 legxleg:: Mine too! :-)

Oh, I love Octavia Butler! At the check-out counter of my local library several months ago, the clerk commented that she used to take out books on every subject imaginable. Considering her work, it seems totally apt!

That's a neat story about Octavia Butler, prop2gether, thanks for sharing it! And I agree, her books seem to touch a little of everything and I'm not at all surprised she read about so many different subjects.

This week Book 166 was Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez, which is about a young boy on a farm in Vermont. After his father becomes injured and it seems like the family might have to sell the farm, his family brings on some undocumented workers originally from Mexico. This was an interesting book, but I didn't like it as much as In The Time of the Butterflies, maybe because it was, in large parts, filtered through Tyler point of view, and he was so young (Maria, the other narrator, is the same age as he but comes across as older) that some of the issues surrounding the immigration debate were rather simplified as explained to and by him. However, while I feel the book's weakness is its attempt to go into politics, its strength is the friendship between Tyler and Mari, the eldest daughter of the migrant family.

I'm putting Octavia Butler on my authors-to-check-out list. I had never heard of her before!

*also here to add a little star on top - of course*

I hope you like Octavia Butler, girlunderglass. And thanks for the star :-)

I'm simply stopping by to say you read very interesting books!

Thank you for stopping by!

It's good to see people become Octavia Butler enjoyers.

Octavia Butler gets quite a response! But her books are so good, I think it's warranted. I agree,VisibleGhost, it is nice to see people become Octavia Butler enjoyers :-)

As for this week's reading, Book 167 is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which just won the Booker prize. It's historical fiction about Thomas Cromwell, Cardinal Wolsey and then Henry VIII's right hand man, and even though you'd think the market for Tudor fiction would be over-saturated, this was still quite good. The other Tudor historical fiction I've read has centered around women, mainly Ann Boleyn, and while I certainly knew about Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell was largely unknown to me (this sort of lop-sided knowledge is always a danger when you get your history from historical fiction, I suppose). The entirely new (to me) point of view made the well-tread story interesting. Another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was Thomas Cromwell's interaction with Thomas More. I'd seen/read A Man For All Seasons before and loved it, so my image of More going into this book was a very positive one. However, More is a bit of a villain in Wolf Hall, portrayed as intolerant and unkind to his wife. Thomas Cromwell has genuine sympathy with Protestantism, and in a passage I particularly liked early on he wonders why it is that everything Thomas More sees corroborates his Catholic faith, but everything Cromwell sees causes him to doubt it (I'd like to quote the passage itself, but I didn't bookmark it, and I've given up on trying to find it again as Wolf Hall is rather long; sorry, but if you read the book you'll see it!). At any rate, while I didn't love Wolf Hall as much as The Little Stranger, I certainly enjoyed it and am happy that it won the Booker.

Book 168 is Aya of Yop City by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, the second of the Aya books, which are graphic novels set in the Ivory Coast in the boom period of the 70s. The story is lively and fun, and centers around Aya and her other teenaged friends in romantic and professional (if that's even the word for the rich boy who starts working his father's business) entanglements. It's quite funny and I like the art style, which is lively and colorful and really suits the story. I'm just sad that my library doesn't have the third book!

I'm certainly curious about Wolf Hall but everyone (including you) says it's quite a long read and I have another one of those going on at the moment so don't feel like getting into another one. Some other time...

I'm number two on the waiting list for Wolf Hall. My local librarian just purchased the book and she promises to be sure I get it. I've heard so many good things about it.

I've read a lot of books re. Anne Boleyn -- she is one of my favorite historical figures -- Henry VIII and the cast of characters. It will be interesting to read something that does not cannonize Thomas Moore. I read the book Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett and learned somethings about Moore, for example that he had an adopted daughter...see link below.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1976711/reviews

Thanks for your comments legxleg, now I'm even more anxious to read this book.

#14, girlunderglass, I think you're right, you need to be in the right mood to start in on a long book or you won't enjoy it properly. And reading two long books at once sounds like it could be exhausting! I hope you remember Wolf Hall when the mood (and free time) strikes, and that you enjoy it.

#15, Whisper, after you said you read a lot of books about Anne Boleyn I had to go check out your library, and I've been copying out a lot of interesting ones! And I'll also have to look for Portrait of an Unknown Woman, as it sounds very interesting. Thanks for the additions to the TBR list, and I hope you enjoy Wolf Hall when it comes into the library.

Thanks for checking my library. Are you an Anne Boleyn fan as well?

I am an Anne Boleyn fan. I actually dressed up as Anne Boleyn for Halloween one year when I was younger (although the costume wasn't that great; everyone thought I was a headless hippie since we didn't exactly have Tudor-era dresses lying around the house), which is probably a rather insensitive way to express my interest, now that I think about it. Yes, I was (am) an utter dork.

I'm going to be laughing all night visualizing your "headless hippie."

Have you watched the HBO series regarding The Tudors? Some of it is historically inaccurate, but the costumes and the castles are wonderful! Natalie Dormer plays Anne Boleyn -- rather well.

I'm glad I could amuse, bonniebooks :-P And as it turned out 'headless hippie' counted as a decent costume in more people's books than I expected!

Whisper, I've actually just checked the first season of The Tudors out from the library; my plan is to watch while I exercise on the treadmill. I'll let you know what I think when I watch it!

I actually didn't finish any books last week. Work has been very busy. However, this week I finished two.

Book 169 is The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, which took me forever to read but which I enjoyed immensely. It basically follows a number of artistic, Fabian families around the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, and Byatt goes out of her way to give us a backdrop of 'current events'. The children of these families discover family secrets, strive to become artists, academics, and doctors, and in many ways are betrayed by their well-meaning (well, some are well-meaning) parents. I'm afraid I can't think of a much more interesting summary without giving things away, but it was a wonderful book, and I enjoyed it much more than Possession. I actually think I liked it more than Wolf Hall, and I quite liked Wolf Hall.

Book 170 is Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler, in which she does her own version of vampires. Shori, the protagonist, wakes up in the dark unaware of who or where she is, and really, really hungry. As Shori discovers her own history, the reader learns about the Ina, Butler's version of vampires, and their interesting symbiotic relationship with humans. I did, however, have some difficulty with the book because Shori has the appearance of an 11-year-old girl, and she is involved in a number of scenes that are pretty sexual, and even though Butler didn't go on about her young appearance, it still just creeped me out. Still, the take on vampires was really interesting.

Ick on Fledgling even though I like Butler. And you're the first one to really tempt me re: The Children's Book. I only liked Posession once I started skipping all the poetry, plus I didn't like the male character that much for how he treated the girlfriend he had been living with.

I wasn't sure if I'd like The Children's Book, but it took some of the things I liked about Possession (fairy tales, basically) and not the things I didn't (the poetry and basically everyone in the modern academia storyline), so I'd say give it a try, and abandon it if it doesn't suit you. There's some poetry at the end, but I skipped over it quickly (I'm sorry I've absolutely no taste for poetry). While some of the parents were unlikeable, I liked all the children.

I like Butler as well, and there's a lot to like in Fledgling, but sadly the ick factor overshadowed some of that for me. I guess I'll stick to her other books.

Argh, how did I lose you, you read so much that I have read or want to read!

Sadly for my tbr pile, I've found you now.

I'm glad that you found my thread! And my condolences to your TBR pile - I certainly know how that goes :-P

Book 171 is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, which I liked. It's an alternate history of WWI where the Austrians and Germans are 'clankers', meaning they use elaborate war machines, while England, France and Russia are 'Darwinists', meaning they splice animal genes to create creatures that serve as airships and all sorts of other things. It's very neat.The story follows Alec, an Austrian sort-of prince, and a British girl-disguised-as-a-boy in their various adventures. It's fast-paced, which you can expect from Westerfeld, but (so far at least - this is only the first book after all) I think it's avoiding my main problem with the Uglies series, which is that I felt that everything was just too circular. Also, I *love* the illustrations. I'm looking forward to book 2!

Book 172 is North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley, a YA book about a teenaged girl named Terra who has angst about the birthmark on her face, which she thinks makes her hideously ugly, and her awful, emotionally abusive father. It's a nice bit of coming-of-age story, mixed with romance and a trip to China. I've ordered some other books by the same author.

Book 173 is Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett, which lived up to my expectations. The wizards realize that they need to field a football team to continue receiving money from a bequest, and off we go. Pratchett is always funny, and this is no exception. Since the book had a lot to do with British football culture, and I'm an American who is not particularly sports-oriented, I'm sure I missed a lot, but I still enjoyed it. Not as much Vimes as I like in my Discworld books, but I liked this one better than the other wizard-oriented Discworld books.

Book 174 is Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz, which was a very interesting book based around the 10001 Arabian Nights. However, I think I probably picked the wrong book for my first Mahfouz, because I've never actually read 1001 Arabian Nights. I've got a general idea of what it's about, but I got the sense while reading the book that that wasn't enough. Arabian Nights and Days starts off with the sultan deciding that Shahrzad's (the book's spelling) stories have spoke to him, and vowing to give up killing women and become a good man. However, Shaharzad is not quite convinced, and the sultan's reign has produced a society full of corrupt people. In good fantastical style a bunch of genies, some good and some bad, show up to start plaguing the town. Some of the characters in Arabian Nights and Days I recognized as being part of the original 1001 Arabian Nights - Sinbad and Aladdin. However, the Aladdin story didn't resemble the story I knew, which is partially to be expected (the Aladdin story I know is the Disney version, after all), but this book's Aladdin had one of the few stories *without* a genie. I couldn't help but feel that if I was more familiar with the original story, I'd be better able to identify what elements were changed or preserved, which would help me better understand the book. Still, even though I felt that I was missing a lot, the story-tellin was solid, the language was (for the most part - there were some odd parts that made me wonder if it was awkward translation or what) quite nice, and it explored some very interesting themes.

North of Beautiful and Leviathan have both gone onto my wishlist, so thank you for the reviews!

I would have had three out of the four gone onto the list but Unseen Academicals was already there.

Your review has almost convinced me to read Leviathan, despite having pretty much given up on Westerfeld after Specials. Is there any character development or at least consistency, or is it only action?

I only have vague recollections of Arabian Nights and Days, but I think I enjoyed it even though I hadn't read much of the Arabian Nights.

lunacat, I hope you enjoy North of Beautiful and Leviathan. They were very different books, but both still enjoyable.

Zoe, the action definitely takes the front seat in Leviathan, along with the world-building, but I was happier with the characters than I was with the Uglies series. I felt like Alec actually was growing, and Deryn was consistently a tough-guy (except for one moment where the act endearingly dropped and she declared something 'so romantic!'). I think that there is potential for the same problems that the Uglies series had, but that it will take place later on in the series - after all, I didn't get frustrated by the Uglies series til the second book. I don't know if that's much of a help, but I'd say check it out from the library - if you don't like the story you can at least look at the pictures.

Thanks, that does help. I did really enjoy Uglies (except for one major issue), so I appreciate the reminder that the series started off strong. It's probably worth giving Leviathan a try at some point, though I won't rush off to the bookstore.

I am adding Leviathan to the BlackHole. I just read Westerfeld's Uglies recently and enjoyed it, so I am game for reading more of his books.

North of Beautiful and all of the Pratchett Discworld books are already in the BlackHole or I would be adding them again!

Well, I'm glad I could help, Zoe :-)

Alcottacre, your TBR BlackHole really is impressive. I often think my TBR list is too overwhelming; I can't imagine how you feel!

Well, since I know beyond any possible doubt that I will never finish them all, I try not to get too overwhelmed :)

#34

Unless medical technology comes on leaps and bounds, you live until you are 200 and people stop writing books.

I don't think that will work, Jenny; she'll just find more previously published books to read. However, if some scientist is able to clone her into 5 or 6 identical Stasias, that might solve her problem. Unfortunately our TBR piles would multiply astronomically!

I am not sure if one of my clones reads it, that it counts as me reading it :(

Perhaps we could simply give you eyes all round your head and hands all round your back so you can hold and read 5 books at the same time.

#38: Given the number of books I am reading at any one time, 5 just will not cut it. I need somewhere around 15.

#39

Well, you might look quite strange but I'm sure we could accommodate 15 sets of eyes and hands.

Octopus anyone?

#40: I already look strange, so that would be nothing new :)

175 is Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer, which I found to be as enjoyable and fun as the other books I've read. When Charity is taken in by her relatives after the death of her father she is treated so badly she decides to run away and see if her grandfather will take her in. Luckily, Lord Desford comes across her as she is making her ill-conceived escape, and decides to help her. It has the funny side characters that are always present in Heyer books, and for once I was actually surprised by a plot turn (I love Heyer books, but I read them for characters and humor, not plot surprises).

Book 176 is And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, the latest Hitchhiker's Guide book. I was a bit nervous to read it - can you have Hitchhiker's Guide without Douglas Adams? - but it was all right. A couple running jokes got old fast for me, but Colfer did a good job emulating Adams's style (imo), and there were some good jokes as well.

Book 177 is Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley, which was sadly not as good as North of Beautiful. The protagonist is Syrah Cheng, the daughter of a self-made billionaire and his much younger second wife, and she always feels like she is not a 'real' Cheng, a feeling not helped by the fact that her older half-siblings by her father's first marriage resent her and her mother, who they consider a trophy wife. Syrah wants to be a professional snowboarder, but after a bad accident that resulted in a serious injury, her parents don't want her to snowboard at all any more. Honestly, it was only okay, and at times I felt like the editor was kind of falling down on the job (since when is Kristi Yamaguchi Chinese-American? And I was once a geeky high schooler with some of the same (non-snowboarding) interests Syrah is supposed to have, and even now I saw so many glaring errors regarding Syrah's geeky hobbies that I kind of couldn't believe it). Plus, a recurring theme is Syrah struggling with being overweight, and then the book mentions she's 110 pounds...110 pounds? Are you kidding me? In what crazy universe is 110 pounds fat? Anyway, this book was okay but I didn't love it, maybe because I paid too much attention to details.

Book 178 is On The Line by Serena Williams with Daniel Paisner. I've always been iffy on Serena Williams, so I decided to pick up her new memoir from the library to try and get a better understanding of her. While some parts reinforce my negative image of Serena as a diva, other parts highlighted parts of her life I knew nothing or very little about, like funding a school in Africa or trying to come to terms with the death of one of her sisters. She speaks with a lot of love and affection for both her parents, and there's a whole chapter on the Indian Wells Incident (which might mean something if you follow her in tennis, but probably won't mean anything if you don't - basically, she and her family got booed at horribly in a match at Indian Wells and has refused to go back since. That short summary doesn't really do the story justice, but the chapter in the book does). Anyway, the book served its purpose for me, and I now feel like I like Serena Williams more than I did before.

Book 179 is Genesis by Bernard Beckett, a short science fiction novel(la) that I really enjoyed. I feel like I can't say too much about it without ruining it, but the basic structure is that a historian is undergoing a 4-hour entrance examination for an elite Academy, during which she explains the origins of their society and her subject, a prominent historical figure named Adam. I'm a fan of dystopia books, so I felt pretty sure I'd enjoy this one, and I wasn't disappointed.

Book 180 is The Concubine's Daughter by Pai Kit Fai. Dear God this was a terrible book; I can't believe I finished it. It starts off well enough. The writing isn't bad, and the plot is certainly fast-paced, but it somehow still totally failed to engage me. Part of it is the fact that it felt like the protagonist was almost-raped every other chapter. In the course of the book it almost became a joke for me - oh look, it's a man, I bet he tries to rape her. Yup. The horror of rape fades the more often the trope is used, to the point where the last couple of attempted rapes I was almost laughing because I couldn't see it as the horrible thing it would be; I could only see it from the 'oh come on, *get a new plot device*' angle. It all is a little weirder because basically every sexualized monoracially Chinese man is a would-be rapist; every white or mixed-with-white man is respectful and loving towards women and the conveyer of lots of great, consensual sex. I mean, come on, would it kill the author to throw in *one* Chinese guy who isn't into rape? One? Anyway, terrible book.

Book 181 is Front and Center by Catherine Murdock, the latest (and last?) of the Dairy Queen series ,which follows DJ Schwenk, a high school girl who decides to play boys football. Front and Center takes place after football season is over, and follows DJ's basketball season as she tries to use her great sports skills to get into college. I played sports in high school, but I wasn't very good, so the process of what high school athletes do to get the attention of recruiters was very interesting to me. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the first two, but it was still very good.

Phew! Sorry this week's reading rundown is so long. Thanks for reading :-)

Hi lxl, I've never heard of the DQ series... how would jr high/high school girls in sports enjoy reading them?

Your comments about Georgette Heyer's books set me off on a 2 hour tour of her life, the Regency period, the War of 1812, privateering, Bermuda and The Bahamas. :-)

Milda-TX, I think a junior high/ high school girl who does sports would enjoy the Dairy Queen series. DJ is a relatable character with a good narrative voice, and the series mixes sports, friendship, family, and boy drama nicely.

Bonniebooks, wow, a 2 hour tour! I actually don't know much about Heyer's life, or how it might intersect with privateering, Bermuda, the Bahamas, or the war of 1812. Color me intrigued.

I am anxiously wanting to get hold of Genesis since I am a big fan of dystopian literature, so I am jealous! Glad you liked the book.

I hope that Genesis comes your way soon. Waiting for a book you're eager to read can be frustrating sometimes! I actually gave the book to my dad to read before I return it to the library, and so far he's enjoying it too. When you get your hands on Genesis, I hope you like it as much as I did so that it's worth the wait.

After having it in the BlackHole for so long, I finally gave up and ordered a copy for myself from ABE Books. Your post just gave me the nudge to do it - since it looks like my local library is never going to have it!

Well in that case, at least the wait shouldn't be for too much longer. I'm always so glad that my library is set up so we can order books from university libraries and other library systems in the state - it lessens the chance of not being able to find a book.

#49: I have interlibrary loan here as well, but it is such a hassle that I rarely use it.

#42 Oh, I will look for Genesis by Beckett. Sounds good.
I've never tried any Heyer, I have one around somewhere, maybe I'll give it a go.

#50, well, in that case I'm sorry that interlibrary loan is such a hassle.

#51, jadebird, I hope you enjoy Genesis when you read it. And I do recommend picking up whatever Heyer book you might have lying around; she's very funny.

I'm trying to catch up on threads and discovered your new one. Gotcha starred again.

You've certainly grabbed my attention with Octavia Butler and I'm interested in reading something by her. Can you recommend a good book to start?

I read the first couple of chapters of The Children's Book and then set it aside. There are so many characters, I found it a little bit difficult to keep track of them. But after your recommendation, I think I'll try again.

Hi Lorie, I'm glad you found me again!

There are a lot of characters in The Children's Book, and I'll admit that sometimes characters would crop up later on and I wouldn't quite remember who they were. Still, I think if you just keep in mind the main ones, the book is a very good read.

As for Octavia Butler, I think the book she's most well-known for is Kindred, where the protagonist is a black woman who winds up traveling back in time to the Antebellum South where she meets a white boy who will become one of her ancestors. It's a stand-alone book, which makes it a good one for trying Butler out. The first book I read by Butler actually wasn't Kindred, it was an omnibus of her Xenogenesis trilogy, and I absolutely loved it, but it is admittedly very strange - the premise is that mankind has basically destroyed itself and the protagonist, Lilith, and a few others have been saved by an alien race who want to assimilate some human genes. I thought it was fantastic and it truly hooked me, but as it's a bit odd and a trilogy, it might be better to start out with Kindred.

legxleg, I read recently that the Huntington Library in California received Octavia Butler's papers through her will. I'm crossing my fingers that there might be some unpublished work in there. I think I've now read all her published work.

Oh that would be great, I'll join you in crossing my fingers even thought I haven't read all her published work yet (I still hve the Patternmaster series and her short stories to read, I think).

#54 Thanks Legxleg, I've added Kindred to the wishlist. You've contributed several books to my reading for this year!

I loved Kindred too. The time travel component added a really interesting component that I would love to talk about but don't want to be a spoiler.

#57, I hope you enjoy Kindred, Lorie!

#58 - It's so hard when you want to talk about a book but don't want to reveal spoilers. I wish LT had that white-text function so you could only see it if you highlight it. So I'll just say that I thought Kindred was a really neat use of time travel to explore one's own history.

Book 182 is Ash by Malinda Lo, a YA retelling of Cinderella. I love fairy tale retellings, plus I thought the cover was really nice, so I went and read it without looking at the summary on the bookflap first, so the lesbian romance angle was a complete surprise for me (I thought the romance was going in a completely different direction the first half of the book), but it actually worked pretty well. This book's take on the fairy godmother was different as well, but again, I thought it worked. There was one part at the end where a big climactic thing happened off-screen, which frustrated me a little bit (I'm trying to be vague to avoid spoilers), but aside from that it was a good retelling.

Book 183 Song of the Hummingbird by Graciela Limon, in which a priest is sent to Mexico in the 1500s to help convert the people living there, and when he goes to hear the last confession of an old woman she tells him that she was there when Cortez and the conquistadors came. She tells her story of witnessing the end of the Aztec nation, which doesn't mesh with the pro-Spain version the priest had always heard. I thought that the way the old woman talked about witnessing the destruction of an entire way of life was really very affecting, and it made me want to read more books set during that time period/those events.

Book 184 is Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez. So far my hypothesis that Alvarez's books about Trujillo and the Dominican Republic are her better books is holding up. In Before We Were Free, Anita is a little girl living in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo's dictatorial regime, and as time goes on she comes to realize that Trujillo isn't the benevolent leader she'd been told he was as per the party line, and that her family is actually involved in a resistance effort. As life becomes more frightening, Anita speaks less and less. I thought this was actually a pretty good book to read in conjunction with In The Time of the Butterflies because it seems to pick up, historically, where Butterflies leaves off. Also, I think Before We Were Free might dovetail with one of Alvarez's other books, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, so I think I might pick that one up soon.

Book 185 is The Concubine by Norah Lofts, a novel about Anne Boleyn. I really enjoyed this book. You would think that I'd be sick of the Anne Boleyn story, having read so many different versions of it, but I think what set this one apart was that Lofts took the time to tell the story from a number of different perspectives. There was Anne and Henry, of course, but there were also sections from the perspective of the doctor Henry sends to treat Anne when she has the sweating sickness, of Anne's stepmother, Anne's maid, Queen Catherine, Harry Percy (who Anne almost married when she was younger) and others. It put a fresh spin on things often enough to keep the story from getting old, and also helped Lofts paint a fuller picture of Anne Boleyn by showing what all sorts of people thought of her.

Book 186 is Nothing But The Truth (And A Few White Lies by Justina Chen Headley, a YA book about Patty Ho, a half-Chinese and half-white girl who feels like she doesn't fit in. Some of the kids at her school give her a hard time for being Chinese, and her Chinese peers consider her to be white. When a fortune teller tells Patty that she's going to have a romance with a white guy, her mom freaks out (Patty's white father has left) and sends her off to math camp at Stanford, where Patty makes new friends that accept her, comes to terms with her own identity, and has a bit of a romance. I think I'd put this one about on par with North Is Beautiful.

Book 187 is Forest Born by Shannon Hale, the latest of the Bayern series that started with The Goose Girl, and are basically about a fantasy world where some people have the power to speak to air, fire, water, etc. You know, I had forgotten how much I like these books; I felt lukewarm about the one before this, River Secrets, and between my tepid reaction and the fact that the publisher seems to have changed cover artists (the earlier Books of Bayern have these great paintings on the cover that I love, and this book has a more realistic painting of a girl with really skinny arms. Sorry, but that's all I could think of whenever I looked at the cover - why is that girl's arm so skinny?) I decided to get this one from the library instead of buying it. But Forest Born was really enjoyable! It follows Rin, the youngest sister of Razo, one of the main characters from the earlier books, who starts showing bits of power that frightens her so much that she decides to leave home for the first time and come live in the palace with Razo and the other main characters. Rin coming to terms with her own power was a really compelling character arc, and the climax of the plot was a lot darker than I expected. I'm glad that the Bayern series is enjoyable again (but I wish they'd kept the old cover artist! I really loved those covers).

Your thread is very dangerous to the BlackHole! I am adding multiple books from your last post. Thanks (I think!)

thanks for the recs for YA books - I'm Christmas shopping for discriminating teenage girls and your book #186 sounds good! will try north of beautiful too...

#61, Well I'm glad to return the favor (I think), since your reading list has added a number of books to my TBR list over time.

#62, I hope the discriminating teenage girls you are shopping for enjoy your gifts! And of course I'm really happy that my thread was able to help you out.

Ash sounds really interesting--I've added it to the TBR list.

I've heard of Nothing But the Truth (and a Few White Lies) before, and the description always surprises me and makes me wonder at how race issues in the US seem to be completely different from what I was familiar with in Canada (or maybe it's just a Toronto-area thing). I'm not Chinese myself, but my boyfriend is half Chinese, and one of my best friends is Chinese as well. I just can't imagine someone being given a hard time for being half Chinese among Caucasians--pretty much the only thing I've ever heard said about the issue is that mixed Chinese/Caucasians tend to be attractive. Does the premise of the story ring true to other people?

As for the Bayern books, I'll have to continue with that series eventually. I really enjoyed The Goose Girl, so that I immediately went out and bought the next one... but somehow I lost interest as soon as I started reading it. I think I had wanted more of the Goose Girl story, not something entirely different.

While I have read and enjoyed several of Shannon Hale's books, I have not read any of the Bayern series, so I will have to look out for them!

#64 - As far as the realism of the race issues Nothing But the Truth (And A Few White Lies) goes, I'm mixed white and Chinese, but 3/4-1/4, not half and half, and I look pretty much white, so I can't really say what it's like for mixed people who look Asian or mixed walking around. For my experiences, I had a little bit of trouble when I was at school where people knew I was mixed, even if I didn't look it, but nothing that was too traumatic, and certainly nothing like what what Patty in the book experienced (if anyone had actually spat on me at school, I'm pretty sure the teachers would have come down on them like a ton of bricks - when I was a kid, my classmates did the whole 'lookit me, I'm Chinese' thing pulling the corners of their eyes up exactly once and the teacher gave them such a harsh lecture it never happened again), but again, I pretty much look white, so my experiences might not be comparable. But I will say that Headley did a good job on the feeling of exclusion among fully-Chinese people. The scene where one of the fully-Chinese girls obliviously says "But Patty, you're white " gave me a sort of a-ha moment of recognition, and reminded me of a time when I was telling a fully-Chinese friend about a time a girl had called me a chink (which seems to against the 'not too bad' statement earlier, I know, but there were a whole bunch of situation-specific factors that came together such that the whole thing really wasn't all that upsetting), and my friend responded with an oblivious "But you're not Chinese," which, considering I knew the name-calling girl to be basically a ridiculous person that no one took seriously, and the girl I was talking to was a friend, I was actually more hurt by the 'but you're not Chinese' statement than the slur. Since I've seen a lot of books that talk about the trouble minorities (or mixed-race people) get from white people, and hadn't ever read anything before that recognized the exclusion that mixed people can feel from a minority group (which doesn't mean it's not out there, of course, just that I haven't come across it), I was really impressed by the book on that front.
Whew, I apologize for this being so long, and if it was more of an over-share than you were asking for, Zoe.

#65 (and #64 a bit), ronincats, the first Shannon Hale book I ever read was Goose Girl, and I really loved it, so I definitely recommend it. Like Zoe, I was a bit thrown by the rest of the series not focusing on the same characters as much, but I still think the series is enjoyable overall.

Whew, I apologize for this being so long, and if it was more of an over-share than you were asking for, Zoe.

No, not at all! Thanks for answering in so much detail; I found it really interesting. I could get some sense of how mixed-race people were treated in groups of white people based on my own experience, but I obviously didn't know much about how mixed-race people were treated among fully-Chinese people, so thank you for explaining that.

I can relate in a different way to how you were less hurt by the slur from a non-friend than by the casual statement from a friend saying that you weren't Chinese. My mother is Jewish and my father isn't, but since the religion is supposed to be determined by the mother, I've always considered myself fully Jewish. So I was a bit surprised and offended when a friend was writing a newspaper article and asked if I could do a survey giving my perspective on what it was like to be "half-Jewish".

I'm glad my answer was interesting. I think that one of the nice things about reading about unintentionally hurtful things relating to race/ethnicity in books is that it helps people get a better perspective on what can be hurtful. I mean, a person who throws around slurs or spits at people knows they are being offensive and intends to hurt people, while things like the statements by your friend and my friend aren't meant to hurt anybody's feelings, but wind up doing so anyway. I would imagine that if a person reads a book that shows the perspective of a person who is hurt by these kinds of statements it might change their behavior, while I doubt any book would change the behavior of the sort of person who spits at people. A book doesn't need to have this sort of didactic value for me to like it (and a lot of times books that get too preachy aren't fun to read), but it's nice when a book has a bonus of helping people understand each other better.

it's nice when a book has a bonus of helping people understand each other better.

One of my major reasons for reading!

Zoe, your comments are good to hear because it shows how much has changed for younger people--though still lots more needs to happen. Even in the Northwest, neighborhoods were segregated when I was growing up, though I had no awareness of that. Only as an adult, did I find out that many neighborhoods even had written covenants excluding the buying/selling of your house to certain groups. When I was growing up, we had no African-Americans in my suburban school and only one Asian-American girl that I was aware of (and only one of her parents was Asian American) and 2 Jewish students.

Well, I'm not sure how much it's a general thing and how much it's just a big-city (or even just a Toronto-area) thing. One of my university friends was from a small town, and she said that she hadn't known any Asians in high school or earlier.

What attracted me to these books was the fact that my daughter's best friend is adopted from China, and I was wondering if maybe there might be something in this book that would of interest from her perspective. I really don't know if she's ever faced any negativity - or noticed it if/when she did...

I remember Cheryl Chow, a Seattle City Council member, and daughter of Ruby Chow who was also a Seattle City Council member for many years, saying one time how sick she was of people asking her where she was from. And when she said Seattle, they would follow up with, "No, I mean where is your family from?" Uh, still Seattle!

That reminds me of a joke on Parks & Recreation (an American sitcom) where a character of East Indian descent is asked 'where are you from?' He replies 'South Carolina' and the questioner is all 'but where did you move to South Carolina from?' he answers 'my mother's uterus.'

Yeah, I laughed at that too.

Book 188 is Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson, a collection of short stories with a fantastical bent, many of which are retellings or related to fairy tales or myths. It's not a YA book (I thought I ought to point that out since so many fairy tale retellings I read are), and sometimes the stories are disturbing (one of them, Snake, is from the point of view of a pedophile, which freaked me out a whole lot). My favorite stories were probably Money Tree, in which a girl named Silky wants to save her brother, who is missing-presumed-dead after going in search of a mythical table of gold coin that appears bobbing in the ocean, The Glass Bottle, a very creepy retelling of the Bluebeard story, and Precious, which is inspired by a story where the girl spits jewels as she talks. The writing was generally quite good and somewhat poetical.

Book 189 is actually a comic book, Bayou by Jeremy Love, a very good and very creepy story set in Mississippi in the 1930s. The protagonist is Lee, a little black girl, who sets out to save the day by fighting all the scary creatures in the bayou. It actually reminded me a little bit Pan's Labyrinth, with the little girl fighting fantastic and scary creatures with a backdrop of real historical horrors. The whole thing is actually free online here:

http://www.zudacomics.com/bayou

Although I haven't read beyond the one published volume yet, that's not because it isn't good, it's more that I'm saving it.

ETA: To clarify, all of the first volume of Bayou, which is what I checked out from the library (and I believe is all that's in print) is available online, plus some more of the story, but the whole thing is not complete as far as I know.

Lastly, book 190 is The Zanzibar Chest by Aiden Hartley, the memoir of a British boy born into a colonialist family in Africa who decides to return to Africa after being sent off to England to be educated and becomes a journalist there. I thought the sections of the book dealing with Hartley's experiences as a journalist were very interesting, both for the cynical take on what it takes for a story in Africa to get attention in the Western press (he mentions a cynical axiom along the lines of 50,000 African deaths = the death of one white American, as far as news coverage goes), and his own reactions to what he sees. However, the sections of the book in which he tries to learn about the life of a dead friend of his father's after finding his diaries in the titular zanzibar chest were not as interesting to me. Also, sometimes his views on colonialism/imperialism struck me as a little schizophrenic. He at times points out how the European treatment of Africa sowed the seeds for the problems he covers as a journalist, but also speaks of British imperialism in positive, bringing-the-light-of-civilization terms. But I suppose it makes sense that his views would be complicated. At any rate, it's worth reading for the chapters on journalism, but I don't think the reader shouldn't feel bad if they skip chapters that don't seem interesting.

Thanks for the reviews and link. Bayou looks gorgeous so I am going try it out online and Skin Folk also sounds good.

I am impressed! 190 books this year! Wow!

#76, clfisha, Bayou is gorgeous, I'm impressed with just about every aspect of it. I hope you enjoy reading it online, and Skin Folk as well if you end up reading it (though not online, of course).

#77, don't be too impressed, Whisper, there's a fair number of graphic novels and YA books in there.

They count! And, thus, 190 is very impressive!

wayyy back to >45 legxleg:... my daughter loved DQ - thanks so much for the recommendation!!

I took a quick look at Bayou and am going to read through the rest of it later, but what I saw of it looked very good. Thanks for the recommendation and the link.

I am also going to see if I can locate a copy of Skin Folk which intrigues me as well.

#80, Milda-TX, I'm so glad that your daughter enjoyed Dairy Queen!

#81, I'm glad that you looked at and liked Bayou. I hope that you find a copy of Skin Folk and enjoy it as well.

190!!! And I'm struggling to reach 75!

Well, I read a lot of short or YA books or graphic novels. And I read a lot of the time when I should be doing other things instead, so I don't know if it's something I should really be proud of or not! But thank you both girlunderglass and Whisper for making me feel impressive. :-P

OK, I think I've figured out how to add cover images! Hopefully this will break up the text and keep my post from looking long and uninviting.




Book 191 is The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe, a collection of essays on a whole range of fascinating topics, including things like his relationship with Nigera, a defense of his decision to write in English as well as Igbo in response to Ngugi wa Thiong'o's criticisms, some of Achebe's own criticism of the portrayal of Africa in literature from Conrad's The Heart of Darkness to children's picture books, some discussion of his novel Things Fall Apart, and even an essay on Martin Luther King Jr. I thought it was absolutely fascinating, and I think Achebe is a wonderful essayist in that his essays were extremely interesting, completely readable, and not at all stuffy. It left me feeling that I needed to reread Things Fall Apart since it has been so long since high school I barely remember it.



Book 192 is The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley, a nonfiction book loosely structured around the diplomatic trip of William Taft through the Pacific at the behest of then-president Teddy Roosevelt. The book talks a lot about racism and US imperialism, and its thesis is more or less that Teddy Roosevelt viewed the Japanese as pseudo-Aryans, and as such condoned and even secretly agreed to Japan's expanding throughout Asia, most notably the annexation of Korea, and that this policy decision led to the Pacific front in World War II. The book was certainly interesting, but some of the things Bradley mentioned in his Japanese background section struck me as pretty inaccurate (for example, he asserts that the new government that took over in the Meiji Restoration decided to set up the Meiji emperor as a Christ-like figure in order to combat Christianity, even though the notion of the Japanese emperor as divine has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before then, and wasn't just dreamed up by some government officials as a reaction to Christianity of all things). The things that struck me as inaccurate were very minor, background pieces of information that (sadly, imo, since I'd like to know where he's getting this from! I might be wrong, and if so I'd like to know it from an authoritative source!) didn't even merit a footnote. So these issues I had might not be indicative of the accurateness of the book as a whole. Since I know so little about most of the topics the book discusses, I wouldn't be able to judge whether or not they were accurate. However, the errors I did notice really bother me and keep me from feeling confident in the information in the book, which is a pity because it really is interesting.



Book 193 is 193. Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet, which I've been listening to as an audiobook during my commute. I really enjoyed this book! It's a YA book set partially around resistance fighters and spies in Nazi-occupied Holland during WWII, and partially around the granddaughter and namesake of some of those resisters and spies who is trying to learn about what her grandparents were involved in. It's fast paced, which is great for an audiobook, and I thought the reader did a wonderful job. The book managed to get across the pathos of the situation without being maudlin, and even though it skated close to one of my least favorite tropes (I won't say what it is to avoid spoilers, sorry to be annoyingly vague!), it actually pulled it off in a way that didn't make me annoyed.



Book 194 is Liar by Justine Larbalestier, a YA book that got a lot of internet buzz awhile ago because even though the protagonist is a black (well, mixed, but she regularly identifies as black) girl, the cover featured a white girl, much to the annoyance of the author. This controversy is what put the book on my radar and convinced me to read it (after the publisher redid the cover), and in a way I'm glad because this was a really intriguing book that I would have been sorry to miss out on. Micah, the narrator, is a teenage girl and a compulsive liar whose sort-of boyfriend dies. Micah may or may not know something about his death, and swears she'll tell the reader the truth about it, but since she is a compulsive liar and extremely unreliable narrator, the reader is never entirely certain what is true, especially as Micah's story gets stranger and stranger. The story took a turn I wasn't expecting, and even though I still can't decide what 'really happened', I was hooked as I read it.

I felt the same about Liar, I had no clues when I began reading it that it would take that twist. An enjoyable read, all the more so for the ending which left you in the dark - I love that.
Tamar was one of my favourite reads from a few years back. Have you read his football books set in South America - they are excellent. Mal came to New Zealand earlier this year along with MT Anderson and it was great to hear their views on the YA genre.

You've done some interesting reading lately, I really like fairytale retellings, I have Alex Flinn's A Kiss in Time to read at present and Skin Folk sounds interesting. The Achebe book looks good as well, I'll have to start with Things fall apart though.

#85: Nice reading list there! I am adding the ones not already in the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendations!

I also enjoyed The Education of a British-Protected Child, legxleg. Like you, I think I'll also re-read Things Fall Apart, as I barely remember it.

#86, avatiakh, I agree with you completely about the end of Liar. In some books I get frustrated when the ending doesn't wrap threads up, but in this case the ambiguousness of everything worked wonderfully. Tamar is the first book I've read by Mal Peet, but I liked it so much I think I'll look into those South America football books you mention. Thank you for telling me about them! Also, Mal Peet and MT Anderson coming to talk about the YA genre sounds like a wonderfully interesting event. I'm very jealous that you got to see it! I love fairy tale retellings too, although I haven't read A Kiss in Time; I'll watch your thread to see what you think of it.

#87, alcottacre, I'm glad you found some books that seem interesting!

#88, kidzdoc, I'm glad you also enjoyed The Education of a British-Protected Child. When I was a kid I remember always complaining to my dad that I couldn't believe he could forget what so many books were about since I remembered *all* the books I'd read and liked. I have much more sympathy now. ~_~ I felt a little embarrassed as I read the essay about Things Fall Apart because literally all I could remember was that I liked it, and something about a railroad.

Book 195 is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, an interesting enough book set in the very-near-future where technology is used to spy on the US populace. The protagonist is a techie high school student who regularly hacks into or deceives the technology so he can do things like skip class to hang out with his friends. When there is a terrorist attack in his hometown, his activities are considered much more suspicious. As the government's monitoring becomes more intrusive, the boy and his friends decide to actively frustrate the Dept of Homeland Security. I thought the protagonist could be a little obnoxious at times, and the bad guys maybe a bit too mustache-twirling, but in general I thought it was exciting and interesting. Plus, anything that can be described as 'teenagers use LARPing to fight the government' is worth reading just for the sheer weirdness of it.



Book 196 is Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China by Guy Delisle, a graphic novel. I had read Delisle's Pyongyang, a graphic novel about his time working in North Korea to oversee some animation that his company had farmed out to North Korean workers, and found it very interesting. Sheznhen has the same premise - Delisle's same job has taken him to China now - and while there are some entertaining stories (I like his horrible trip to the dentist), overall it wasn't *quite* as interesting as Pyongyang. However, it is so quick to read, I'd say it's probably still worth the time.



Book 197 is Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black (between this and Little Brother I had a very nerdy reading week!), a collection of short stories revolving around various geek cultures. I actually really enjoyed it; I thought it was funny and cute, and it made me laugh out loud and think 'what the-?' more times than the usual book does (it is seriously strange, the first story is about a girl who dresses up as a Klingon at Comic book conventions waking up with a guy who dresses up as a Jedi - oh no, will their one-night-stand love survive their rival nerd subcultures?). Enjoyable even when I knew nothing at all about some of the geek subcultures the stories revolved around.



198 is Sold by Patricia McCormick, a YA book about a 13-year-old Nepalese girl who is sold into prostitution in India. I picked it up because my local library has had about twenty copies of this book in a display, and I wondered what all the fuss was about. I thought it was all right, and I can see why teachers might want to use it to teach their students about these difficult contemporary issues (I think that's what the display was for), but I didn't really enjoy it as a book.



Book 199 is a comic book, Fables: Legends in Exile, the first in a series with the premise that some mysterious Adversary has invaded the land where fairy tales live, forcing the fairy tale characters to take refuge in New York City where they run their own little government and try to stay under the radar. For instance the Big Bad Wolf is now a detective, and Snow White is the deputy mayor. When Snow White's sister Rose Red is murdered, the Wolf has to try and solve the mystery. I think the premise is really interesting, but the comic book didn't really hold my interest; I don't think I'll be in a hurry to continue the series. Still, I know a lot of people have really enjoyed it, so if it sounds up your alley, check it out from the library.



Book 200 is Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, a YA (but on the more mature end of YA, I'd say) novel that I mainly picked up because the premise sounded utterly ridiculous and I needed a good laugh (the premise is that unicorns are actually man-eating beasts that can only be killed by the virgin female descendants of Alexander the Great). There were definitely some ridiculous and laughable moments, but for the most part I actually found myself enjoying it. It was fast-paced and entertaining, and then went to some darker territory fairly successfully. I wouldn't buy it, but it might be worth checking out of the library if you are in the mood and can read the phrase 'Astrid the Warrior' multiple times without laughing yourself to death.

ETA: I forgot that I've been meaning to put in pictures of the books! At any rate, it's fixed now.

omg lxl, I'm dying laughing just reading your summary of Rampant! How silly. I'm thinking I need to seek out Geektastic - that sounds fun.

I really enjoyed Little Brother when I read it a few weeks ago. I agree that the protagonist could be a bit obnoxious, but I didn't mind as much as I might have since he ended up in some big conflicts with his friends and family because of it.

Geektastic sounds like fun; I may have to look for that one.

Also, I love your description of Rampant. I had actually heard a lot of good things about that book, and it was recommended for people who like Tamora Pierce, but the description never appealed to me when I actually had the book in my hand in the store. I think I should follow your example and revel in the ridiculousness of it.

#91, Milda, I'm glad I could make you laugh - that way something good comes out of Rampant's silly premise. Well, the book comes out of it too, I suppose. ~_~ Also, Geektastic was fun, I hope you enjoy it if you read it!

#92, Zoe, I wonder if your mentioning Little Brother on your thread is what made me download it (it's been on my TBR list for awhile)...I'm so bad with remembering these things, it's really sad. If so, thank you! And I didn't mind the protagonist being a bit obnoxious too much, it's like you say - maybe I was more annoyed at the people I know that he reminded me of!
As for Rampant, Tamora Pierce wrote some really nice things about it (blurbs I mean), and I was a bit shocked because it sounded just so silly! But when I read it there really was something there under all the (tons of) silliness.

Geektastic sounds like a fun read. I read Little Brother when it first came out and liked it, didn't love it.
edit spacings

Heh, well, if I did happen to do anything deserving of thanks, you're welcome :). I'm really bad at remembering these things too. I've tried to start keeping track of who recommends books that I've never heard of before or wouldn't have read otherwise, but that still doesn't help in situations like this when you're already planning to read the book and just get a final nudge from somewhere.

Okay, I think I've resolved to give Rampant a try. I'll get it from the library, though--I just went and looked at the description on a bookstore website, and I *still* find myself wondering why I would buy such a thing! The only hope for it is to start reading without glancing at the dustcover.

#94, avatiakh, Geektastic is fun; I actually heard of it because a friend's sister got an advance copy at some comic convention and lent it to my friend, who called me up since she knows I like funny, strange books. I'm glad my library finally got a copy! And your reaction to Little Brother sounds sensible.

#95, Zoe, I hope that you find Rampant as entertaining as I did. And I second getting it from the library instead of the bookstore - it was better than I expected, but I wouldn't buy it! And maybe I should start keeping track of who recommends books to me. I never did because I don't much care *who* suggests a book, just that it's suggested, but I suppose if it's suggested by LTer it would be polite to thank them if the recommendation is a good one. Oh netiquette, so difficult.

Oh, but I do really like owning books.... Such a dilemma. Almost as hard as netiquette ;). I don't think anyone would really be offended if you didn't remember and thank them for a recommendation, it's just something fun to note.

This thread is becoming dangerous to my tbr, I also have a need to try Rampant and Geektastic.

It's a shame that Shenzhen didn't live up to Pyongyang, but I guess what I like about the North Korean book was the fact I knew so little about the country. Oh well.

And for what it's worth I gave up on Fables in the end, but then I tend to get series fatigue! I did quite like the Jack of trades spin offs, can't remember how stand alone there are now though.

I hope that you enjoy (or at least are entertained by) Geektastic and Rampant.

Well, it's not that Shenzhen was really bad, but I think that Delisle himself thought that his trip in Shenzhen was boring. The most exciting bits for him were clearly when he went to visit other cities. So while there were definitely some good anecdotes, when you add Delisle's apparent boredom to the fact that, like you say, China (or at least the China that he saw) isn't as unknown as North Korea, Shenzhen wasn't as intriguing over all as Pyongyag was. However, I just read his last travelogue, The Burma Chronicles, and I enjoyed it much more.

I know what you mean about series fatigue. The only comic series I've read the whole thing of lately is the Y the Last Man series, and by the end of it I was kind of feeling like I just wanted it to be over already! I didn't really want to jump into another long series right now.

I will look out for The Burma Chronicles, Haven't read much on Burma but what I have has been interesting, thanks. He manages to work in some odd places doesn't he!

I really wasn't sure about starting Y the Last Man, still not keen especially as I am not having much luck with comic series, 100 Bullets ended pretty poorly too. Mind you Bayou is wonderful I am going to track down a hard copy.

Book 201 is Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel, which is about Frances, a British woman who moves to Saudi Arabia to join her husband, who is working there as a contractor. She winds up living on Ghazzah Street, a normal Saudi Arabian street block, as opposed to living on the company's compound with the other company wives, and has a lot of difficulty adopting to her new lifestyle. Some of them are fairly ordinary - she's always been a professional woman, but cannot work now. Others are much more unnerving - she keeps hearing a woman weeping from the apartment above hers, which everyone assures her is empty. Her husband thinks she has been reading too many mystery novels, but Frances believes there is something serious going on. This book does a great job of building up a creepy sense of unease, and for most of the novel I wasn't sure if something really *was* wrong, or if Frances was just reacting to the inevitable fish-out-of-water feeling that comes of being thrown into a culture you don't understand combined with a newly idle mind. I thought it was a very good book, and at 278 pages a much more manageable length than some of Mantel's other books. I'd recommend it.



Book 202 is In the President's Secret Service by Ronald Kessler, a nonfiction book looking at the Secret Service and how they function. I picked this one up from the library on a whim since I thought it looked fairly interesting, and so I didn't read anything about it and didn't realize it was less 'insight into how the Secret Service operates' and more 'tabloid-style tell-all about how messed up various presidents and their families are'. Sometimes this was entertaining, although all the anonymous sources make me feel like this book has the credibility of a National Enquirer article, and sometimes it made me cringe because, as it turns out, there are things I really don't want to know about former presidents. But I suppose it's a good brain-vacation book.



Book 203 is Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle. While Delisle's other graphic novel travelogues follow him as he works in various places for an animation company, and involve a certain amount of Delisle being lonely and confused in foreign lands, this graphic novel travelogue is written about Delisle as a married man with a new baby. Delisle's wife works for Doctors Without Borders, and that is what brings the family to Burma/Myanmar. Because Delisle's adventures include a baby and wife, there was a different sense to the whole story. While his other travelogues involved Delisle trying to find a community in a foreign place with varying degrees of success, he's already got a community here in the form of his family, and because his wife is working for Doctors Without Borders there's another ready-made community of expats. I really enjoyed this book (which is much longer than the other two); I thought it was for the most part very funny, and it still included some insight into the state of Burma for people like me, who are completely ignorant about it. I also liked how he chose to break up the graphic novel into 2-3 page 'chapters'.



Book 204 is How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier, a YA fantasy book set in a world in which a number of people have 'fairies' that help them out - for instance, the protagonist's best friend has a shopping fairy that helps her find great deals. The protagonist, however, has a parking fairy that helps her find good parking spots, and she hates it - she wants to trade it in for something more fun. It was an all right book, but not as good as Liar. An entertaining and quick read, but not particularly memorable.



Book 205 is Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon, a collection of essays that were very fun. The book starts off with an essay in which Chabon defends genre books that left me internally cheering, and continues with a number of essays about some of Chabon's favorite reading (an essay on Sherlock Holmes, and one on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, among others) and about his writing, including a neat essay about his history with gollums. I have a whole stack of library books to read, but when a friend gave me this for Christmas I looked at the first few pages and just had to skip it ahead of the library pile - that's a compliment!



Book 206 is Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice by Pat Lower Collins, a YA historical fiction book about Ospedale della Pietà, a Venetian orphanage for girls that was known for creating excellent girl's choirs and orchestras, taught and playing music written by Vivaldi. The novel follows three girls, Anetta, who loves the Pieta and never wants to leave (even to get married), Luisa, who wants to become an opera singer and finally impress her courtesan mother, and Rosalba, who thinks the Pieta is constraining. While I wasn't a fan of Rosalba's storyline, I really appreciated how music remained a central focus of these girl's lives. In the other book I read that involved the Pieta, The Venetian Mask, the Pieta seemed like a launching pad for the girls to meet husbands, but in Hidden Voices the girls came across as actual musicians.



Book 207 is How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez, the story of the Garcia sisters whose family suddenly relocates to the US in their childhoods because their father was taking part in a plot against the Dominican Republic's dictator Trujillo. I thought the book had an interesting structure - it begins with the girls already grown up, some married with children, and then goes backwards, telling stories about each girl's experiences with marriage, in college, back and back to their childhood in the Dominican Republic. I listened to this one as an audiobook, and I thought the readers did a wonderful job.



Book 208 is Venus Envy: A Sensational Season Inside the Woman's Tennis Tour by L. Jon Wertheim. The book follows the women's tennis tour, with special attention paid to some of the bigger stars of the game, during 2000, when the Williams sisters were big news, and so was women's tennis. I thought the book was really enjoyable, but the 'following a tennis season' structure probably didn't make for as cohesive of a book as he might have planned. In the chapter on Wimbledon he'll talk about Kournikova, in the chapter on the US Open he'll talk about the Williams sisters. I think the book would have had more of a sense of continuity if he'd picked a player (the title would indicate Venus Williams as a good choice), and told the story of that player's experience over the season, using that player's interactions with other players to segue into stories about them. But it was still an enjoyable book, if more than a little gossipy. I actually think reading it nearly 10 years later made for an interesting experience since I was able to know what was in store for some of the players (if nothing else, knowing that Jelena Dokic finally got free of her abusive father made reading the section about her much more bearable).



Book 209 is Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough, a YA fantasy book set in modern-day New York. Tamsin is the daughter of a family of witches who has no supernatural talent of her own (in spite of prophecies that she will be fantastically talented), and is jealous of her very talented older sister, Rowena. When a mysterious (and handsome) man mistakes her for Rowena and asks for magical help, she decides to go along with it, and of course drama ensues. I thought that the book was a bit predictable, and I felt that a number of characters were pretty flat. Also, the girl-who-is-sad-because-she-doesn't-have-magical-talent-like-the-rest-of-her-family bit is done much better in The Hero and the Crown - I picked this book up, in part because I felt a bit nostalgic for it, and maybe that was a disservice to this book.



Book 210 is Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner, which I've been meaning to read for awhile, and finally checked out after Ilithyia talked it up on her thread. I really enjoyed it. The protagonist is Helen of Troy back when she was just Helen of Sparta, a tomboy of a girl who wants to have adventures. Helen meets a number of mythical characters, including Theseus, who is a jerk, and Atalanta who is wonderful (I always loved her story when I was a kid). There's also a lot of good-natured mocking of various myths - Helen rolls her eyes because *everyone* claims to be the son of some god or another, Hercules's nephew Iolaus explains that the hydra was really a normal swamp snake, albeit a really big one. I can't wait for the sequel!

wow you had a lot of reviews to catch up on! Great mix of books, as always!

Yeah, I went a little crazy with my reading for this week. The Cybils nominees came out ( http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2009/10/2009-nominations-are-now-open-.html#mo... ) and I decided to see how many of the YA Fantasy and YA Fiction books I could read before the finalists were announced. Of course, being myself, that meant I read about 2 of those books and a whole bunch of books that aren't nominees. I think I read more when it's some sort of procrastination.

#101: Wow! Lots of good reading there, Ashley. I am adding several to the BlackHole.

I'm glad to hear good things about Nobody's Princess. I keep looking at that one, and really should read it one of these days....

I initially thought that Once a Witch was pretty average, but in retrospect I decided that I had quite enjoyed the time spent reading it and gave it another half star. I did like Gabriel.

Ashley...I am impressed by all your recent reading...

It is great to see posts by another reader of YA.

#104, I'm glad that I can contribute to the BlackHole, Stasia!

#105, I had been meaning to read Nobody's Princess for awhile too - it was shelved fairly prominently at my local bookstore - and I'm glad that I finally got around to it since it was a lot of fun. As for Once a Witch, I do wonder if I'm being unfair because when I read the summary I immediately thought of The Hero and the Crown, and it's probably unfair to read a book comparing it to a classic (especially since everything other than the 'untalented girl in a family of talented people' theme is quite different). Still, my reaction was that while it wasn't *bad*, I don't think I'll remember it very well in a few months either. But Gabriel was pretty neat, I'll agree with you there :-).

Ashley, thanks for refreshing my memory regarding your comments on The Concubine. You captured the essence of the book marvelously. Lofts did a wonderful job of allowing us to see the opinions of others. Too often history previously painted Anne as a wicked, vindictive witch. She was indeed a complicated character. Norah Lofts approached Anne in a softer, gentler way without glossing over the difficult, not so nice parts of Anne's persona.

I agree, Lofts did a great job with Ann's character. Sometimes I find that authors either portray her as awful, like you say, or if they want to portray her sympathetically they turn her into this virtuous innocent who is a total victim of her circumstances (I'm thinking of a YA book about her I started back in high school and quickly abandoned when I saw how idiotic (or innocent, I suppose is the nice word) the characterization made her), and thus pretty boring. I agree with you in that I thought Lofts did a wonderful job making her human and complicated.

Adding Nobody's Princess to the TBR list!!! Sounds definitely like my kind of book :)

#110 - Nobody's Princess was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it if/when you read it!

I'm trying to avoid having to do another huge list of books like I did last week, and since I'm still binging on YA books the count might get pretty high, so I'm going to list a few books now.



Book 211 is Initiation by Elisabeth Haich, a book about a middle-class boy who attends a very fancy all-boys prep school in New York City for high school. I think the big problem with this book was that it promised too much. And this is going to be sort of spoilery, so I apologize and I'll try and keep it as vague as I can. Basically, the book promises that someone, maybe multiple someones, is going to die. There's this tie-as-noose on the cover, and a lot of mentioning the students who were no longer there, and the 'survivors'. There's also a part where the study Macbeth in English and the teacher goes on and on about how at the end of a tragedy there are a lot of dead bodies, and the narrator (the now-graduated protagonist looking back on his freshman year) thinks something along the lines of 'if only we'd listened to her.' So basically anything other than a body count is going to be a let-down, and I thought that the big 'scandal' that did rock the school was pretty tame anyway. I also couldn't make up my mind about how I felt about the English teacher character - she was pretty obviously an author stand-in or some other sort of Wise Dispenser of Wisdom (the author was, as her bio explains, an English teacher herself), announcing thins like 'beware unbridled ambition, children', 'at the end of a tragedy everyone dies,' and 'congratulations, protagonist, you have now Come of Age.' (the last one is a pretty loose paraphrase, I'll admit :-P). Not my favorite of the YA books I've read, but I will say for it that, from what I knew of the local all-boys prep school, the book seems fairly accurate in its depiction. I just overestimated my own desire to read about the environment, I suppose.



Book 212 is Nobody's Prize by Esther Friesner, the sequel to Nobody's Princess in which Helen travels with Jason and the Arganauts on the quest for the Olden Fleece. I really enjoyed this book as well. It continued its practice of explaining the 'real', less fantastical, stories behind the Greek myths we all know, which I still really love. The oly odd thing was that they had Iolaus and Herakles do the whole 'the hydra was a swamp snake!' bit again, and Helen acted like she hadn't just heard the real story last book...I found it very odd. But for the most part I thought the book was just as good as the first, if not better, and even though I understand that Friesner doesn't want to get into the actual story of Helen and Paris and all that, I really wish she would! I would love to read about this Helen's Trojan War.



Book 213 is Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund, a YA science fiction book about two teenagers, one a child of privilege and the other a mysterious girl of unknown origin, who are enrolled in Academy 7, the self-proclaimed Best School in the Universe. I actually did enjoy this book, even though I knew there were problems - the two teens were just too good at absolutely *everything*, and the privileged guy's backstory was a little cliche. Still, I enjoyed reading the book anyway, although I wished that the politics of the book's universe that were hinted at were explored a bit more, and that some of Aerin's past had been gone into with greater detail. Oh and even though it's sort of billed as a romance, the romance angle isn't the principle storyline.



Book 214 is more of a novella, The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, a ghost story written fairly recently (80s I think?) but in a Gothic/Victorian style. I love a good, creepy ghost story, so I enjoyed this one as well. The protagonist is an old man who, when his family begins telling ghost stories, recalls his own horrible experiences in the desolate house of a dead woman whose will and estate he had been sent to sort out (he's a lawyer, you see). However, I didn't know what was with the illustrations - there were this black-and-white illustrations that looked more like something you'd find in a happy children's book than a gothic ghost story.



Book 215 is A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper. I absolutely *loved* this book. It's set at the beginning of WWII, and consists of the journal entries of Sophie FitzOsorne, a teenaged princess of Montmaray, a fictional island kingdom in Bay of Biscay. At first the book has a lot of resemblance to I Capture the Castle - gentile poverty in a run-down old castle with a somwhat mad father figure, teenaged girl narrator's journal, said teenage girl has a big crush. However, as the book goes on it has a lot more action and adventure and Nazis. I also enjoyed the way Cooper wove Montmaray into history, mentioning how Montmaray helped Queen Elizabeth defeat the Spanish Armada, etc. The characters are also all lovely, and I especially love the setting. Montmaray was wealthy once, but now there are only a handful of people living on it, and its a dreary, run-down island that the characters love anyway because, after all, it's home.

#112: I am adding A Brief History of Montmaray to the BlackHole since it is not already there. Sounds very good! Thanks for the recommendation, Ashley.

#113: I hope that you enjoy A Brief History of Montmaray, Stasia!

#114: My local library has it 'in processing', so hopefully I will get my hands on it soon.

Merry Christmas Ashley

Thanks for the animation, Linda, it's really pretty! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas (and that people who don't celebrate Christmas had a wonderful normal day).




Book 216 is Sphinx's Princess by Esther Friesner. This one is like the Nobody's Princess series in that it's about a historically famous beautiful woman (this time Nefertiti instead of Helen of Troy), but it's different in that it doesn't include the fun 'real' stories behind myths that I enjoyed so much in the Nobody's Princess series. Or if it did, I'm so ignorant of Egyptian history and myths that I didn't notice. However, the story itself was still really interesting and fast-paced (but, please note, I'm not at all familiar with the story of Nefertiti, so I have no idea what Friesner changed or put her own spin on in the story, and I also don't know if someone more familiar with Nefertiti would have found it so interesting). I'll definitely read the sequel to this when it comes out!



Book 217 is Hate List by Jennifer Brown, a YA book about a high school girl who was an outsider type who was often picked on, and, together with her boyfriend, created a list of all the people and thins they hated. When her boyfriend comes to school with a gun and starts shooting the people that appear on the hate list before killing himself, the girl has to deal with her own guilt for what happened, other people thinking that she purposefully put her boyfriend up to it, and the fact that she still loves and misses her boyfriend even though he did a horrible thing. At the very beginning I thought that the writing was pretty bad, but after I got into it I was really absorbed by the characters and plot. It was definitely an intriguing book once I got a few chapters in.



Book 218 is Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted, a YA modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, with the 'beast' a teenaged boy who blew off his arms in a chemistry experiment gone awry, and now has hooks. The hooks-for-hands thing sounded a little weird, but I like fairy tale retellings, so I grabbed it from the library. Maybe I would have liked this book when I was younger, but when I read it I didn't care for it at all. If it had been longer, I would have probably abandoned it. A lot of my problem was the writing style. It just sounded so much like something a junior high student would have written on a particularly emo day. A lot of short paragraphs and dramatic statements and repetition. Aside from style, my problem was that I just didn't understand the motivation of the antagonists. Ultimately, not a fan.



Book 219 is Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd, another YA book, this time with a really interesting premise. In 2015, after a devastating storm, England decides that the dramatic step of carbon dioxide rationing is required to fight against global warming. The book is the journal of a teenaged girl during the first year of rationing, and it outlines the response of her family and the larger community to the rationing (a lot of rioting) and a number of ecological disasters (which causes more rioting). Even though I still think the premise is really interesting, the narrative voice really bugged me. I think it must have been British slang or something, and it was tough for me to understand. But that probably says more about me than the book! My other problem was that I felt confused about what was acceptable under rationing and what was not. For instance, at the beginning the narrator says that they are only allowed an hour or two each day of, collectively, TV, computer, and appliances. But then later on she says that she lies around all day listening to the radio. Does the radio not use any carbon dioxide? This is probably something else I wouldn't be confused about if I knew more about what does and doesn't cause a carbon footprint. Anyway, I'd say if the premise sounds interesting to you and you don't think the British slang will be a problem, then check it out from the library (I wouldn't recommend buying it).



Book 220 is actually *not* a YA book (gasp!), it is Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, the memoirs of a woman who was raised a Mennonite, left home to become a modern woman and college professor, and then returns home after being injured in a car wreck and left by her husband (for a man named Bob on Gay.com. She tells us this detail approximately a million times. I was tempted to start a drinking game). I picked it up from the library because I heard that it was supposed to be very funny, and at the beginning it really is. However, the humor lags in the middle (in my opinion), and it even got a bit dull for me at some points. However, the last chapter (it may have been an appendix or something, I think) is funny again - she gives a brief history of Mennonites, complete with bragging about their totally awesome buggies.



Book 221 is Funny How Things Change by Melissa Wyatt, a YA book about Remy, a teenager in the Appalachian region of West Virginia. His girlfriend is excited to attend college out-of-state, and wants Remy to come with her. Remy is not college-bound, and even though the conventional wisdom is his home is a dying town and the only way to a better life is to get out, he can't help feeling conflicted about the prospect of leaving. I thought that the book did a really great job with Remy's conflicts, and his love of his home in spite of all its problems. I sometimes get turned off of books with teenaged boy protagonists because they delve a lot into the 'ooh boobs! fighting! sex!' side of the teenaged-boy-mind, and I'm just not interested in reading about it. This is one book where the teenaged boy protagonist was really wonderful - he has hormones, sure, but he's also thoughtful, conflicted, and comes across as a full and real person.



Book 222 is The King's Rose by Alisa Libby, which I think I first saw over Linda/Whisper's thread. This book is about Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife (the second one to be executed), and I really enjoyed it. I've read a lot more books about Anne Boleyn than Catherine Howard, but of the books I've read featuring Catherine Howard (I think my Catherine Howard count comes to The Boleyn Inheritance and My Lady of Cleves, if anyone is curious), I think this one is probably the best. Catherine is portrayed as a victim of her family's ambition who is pushed into marriage with a dangerous man much older than she is, but not above enjoying the wonderful things that come along with being queen. I found this Catherine more sympathetic than in other books, where she is often portrayed as empty-headed and frivolous. I really enjoyed it!



So I feel pretty cheap about counting this one because it's less than one hundred pages and a comic book, but oh well. Book 223 is The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse by Javier Grillo-Marxuach. To explain, The Middleman was a TV show on about, I don't know, two years ago? One year ago? It was a hilarious (in my opinion, at any rate) show about Wendy Watson, a temp worker who is recruited into the Middleman organization (they fight evil so you don't have to!). There was a lot of clever dialogue and ridiculous scenarios (and I do love ridiculous scenarios. There were vampire puppets!), but it never found an audience, and I was pretty sad when it was cancelled. However! The showrunner made the last 'episode' in comic book form, and I loved it. All sorts of loose ends are tied up, and there is even a little glossary in the back for all the pop culture references and in-jokes. Oh, and despite what the cover might lead you to think, it actually is really good about female characters (imo). At any rate, I loved it and really miss the show.



Book 224 is Fire by Kristin Cashore, which is billed as a companion novel to Graceling, but really, the two books are barely even set in the same world, and you don't need to read one to enjoy the other. I remember reading and enjoying Graceling, but to be honest I can't really remember details about what I liked. However, from what I remember, I think I prefer Fire. Fire is set in a world that is only tenuously connected with the world of Graceling where there are 'monsters', which appear to be a normal animal only technicolored and strangely beautiful. Fire is a 'monster' girl, and as part of her 'monster' identity she can often control others, and many people become obsessed with her. The conflict of being a good person in spite of having terrible power is an interesting one (and Fire reminds me a bit of Forest Born by Shannon Hale in that respect), and I also think that the romance in Fire worked better than the one in Graceling.



Book 225 is Nana, Volume 6 by Ai Yazawa. Back when I did study abroad in Japan I got into the Nana series, which follows two girls named Nana who move to Tokyo and become roommates, one of whom is the lead singer in a band that wants to make it big. It's been 3 or 4 years since then, and when I was looking at the library catalogue I realized that the series has been translated into English, and that the library has volumes that I never got to in Japan. I couldn't remember where I left off reading the first time, and it turns out I had read this volume before, but it was still fun and nostalgic.

The Freisner, Brown, and Cashore books are already in the BlackHole, but you got me with the Wyatt book.

oh whoops I thought I had already replied to this awhile ago. Anyway, I just wanted to say that that little dart-playing animation is really cute and apt. It's almost like a contest - recommend a book Stasia doesn't have in the BlackHole!

#119: I liked the dart-playing guy myself :) As far as recommending books not already in the BlackHole, it should not be too hard. The BlackHole only has about 10000 or so books in it.

Only!

How annoying, my browser crashed and I lost my post. Basically, here are the rest of the books for 2009.



Book 226 is The Maze Runner by James Dashner, a fast-paced YA novel with strong hints of dystopia. A teenaged boy named Thomas turns up in the Glade, the safe haven in the middle of a maze filled with terrifying creatures, with no idea of who he is or how he got there. Shortly after Thomas arrives, the world of the Maze begins to change drastically, and Thomas and the other boys must try and solve the Maze before they are killed. This book's biggest strength is it's fast pace. It's weakest point is that aside from Thomas and his main antagonist, all the Maze boys felt interchangeable to me, so I wasn't affected if any of them where in danger. Still, I am excitedly waiting for the sequel to find out what happens next!



Book 227 is Radiant Darkness by Emily Whitman, a YA retelling of the story of Hades and Persephone in which Persephone is a girl who feels stifled by her overprotective mother. The concept was interesting, but I felt like the author was sort of stuck between two styles, a modern, gossipy tone ('did you hear the latest about Zeus?') and a more traditional, serious tone, and I wished she would pick one or the other. It was still interesting, though, because I enjoy these reworkings of well-known myths.



Book 228 is Candor by Pam Bachorz, a sort-of dystopic novel (if the dystopia is just one town as opposed to the whole world or country, is it still a dystopia?). Oscar's father founded Candor, a perfect town in which subliminal messages constantly played modify the residents' behavior so that even the most troubled teen can become a model citizen in a matter of weeks. However, Oscar knows about the subliminal messages and counteracts them with messages of his own, embedded in CDs he listens to and gives to some others in town (for a price, of course). The conflict of fighting brainwashing with more brainwashing (Oscar includes some messages that he doesn't tell others about) is an interesting one, and although it gave me flashbacks to a Katie Holmes movie that came out when I was in high school (I can't remember the title for my life, but it's pretty much the same premise), it was an intriguing enough book.



Book 229 is An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. Child prodigy (or maybe former child prodigy; he's a teen now) Colin Singleton has been dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine in his life, and after Katherine XIX breaks his heart he decides to create a mathematical formula that will predict how all relationships (especially those with girls named Katherine) will progress. This was absolutely hilarious, and kind of addictive. Plus there were snarky footnotes, which I loved. Looking at my reading record, it looks like I read Looking for Alaska by John Green on December 28 of last year, while I read An Abundance of Katherines on December 28 of this year. I guess I'll be saving Green's third book for December 28 of 2010!



Book 230 is another kind of cheap one, Nana Volume 8 by Ai Yazawa, in which there is a huge game-changing turn of events for Hachi. It's embarrassing how addictive this series is!



Book 231 is Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, a YA retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon set in modern times. Cassie has been raised by her single father (and homeschooled her whole life) in an arctic research station, which I think is just a fantastic premise for a story all on its own. But one day she learns that the stories her grandmother used to tell her about the Polar Bear King are true, and that Cassie is supposed to be his bride. I really enjoyed reading about Cassie's encounters with the Polar Bear King and the other otherworldly creatures. And trying to get East of the Sun, West of the Moon with a handheld GPS.



And I round out the year with Book 232, Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor, a really enjoyable YA book that is actually a collection of three stories, with illustrations as sort of 'prequels' to each story that I really loved looking at. The writing was the sort that you want to read out loud, just for the fun of it, and the stories were really intriguing (well, the last one was a bit overlong, but the other two more than make up for it).

So that's it, it was a very fun reading year! I didn't make my pie-in-the-sky goal of 250 books, but I did read more than last year, and most importantly I enjoyed my reading. I hope that everyone will follow me to my 2010 thread over here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/79217

And happy new year to everyone!

Happy New Year, Ashley!

Thank you, happy new year to you too :-)