Wrapping Up #48HBC

So my time is up – this year was not as prolific as I have been in the past, I basically took Friday night off. And I think reading on the Kindle or iPad is a bit slower interestingly enough.  But it was fun to get back into it for a while.  I caught up on some things I missed like the last 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy which I really enjoyed.  I know I ranted a lot on Mockingjay but I did like it.  If I have one complaint it was that the pace of the plot barely gave me time to mourn, and I would have for Finnick at least, and maybe Boggs. I had been saving the Dessen for this weekend as well.  As always it is fun to see what others are saying and reading so I pretty much kept twitter going in the background.  I was exhausted last night when the YA kerfuffle started over the WSJ article  but am following this morning.

l read about 20 hours, and 1821 pages.  I can’t say how much time I spent networking – hard to quantify – an hour maybe?    But I am having a hard time finishing this post as I follw #YAsaves on twitter.

Books read: Catching Fire, Mockingjay, What Happened to Goodbye, Swim the Fly, and Hooked.

Hooked #48HBC

Well, I am not entirely sure what to make of this one, and since I have to officially review (meaning this is an ARC) it I am going to have to think about it long and hard.  My initial reaction is that there is a lot going on here that remains relatively unexamined.

First the basic plot – Thea meets Will and falls in love, maybe too deeply or obsessively.  She gets pregnant, cannot go through with the abortion, has a baby, tries to make it work with Will, and fails – maybe.  It sounds a little like an episode of 16 and pregnant and its basic trajectory follows the common trajectory in that tv show and its follow up, Teen Mom (yes, I have watched both). But because it is a book Thea’s inner life is explored in greater detail.  But the thing is and maybe this is something Catherine Greenman gets right, that examination seems surface to me in many places.  In how Thea thinks of Will, and why the little things that bother her go unexamined, particularly in relationship to her father.  And her relationship with her father.  There are these moments before the pregnancy where I can’t tell if she is more embarrassed by Will or her dad.  I don’t know, something just didn’t “settle” for me.  Thea never really comes into focus.

One other note – the books title a play on her love for Will, and her crocheting (and this is where it might get just a little too cutesy Hollywood in the end) she talks about believe Will will return, being hooked into him – a metaphor throughout the book but really it is Ian, her son that she is “hooked” on, and in a good way I don’t mean that bad – but that little piece at the end undermines this.

I am just not sure….Pages – 276

hours 3.5

Swim the Fly #48HBC

Swim the Fly is like reading a YA Apatow movie, although maybe not quite as crude as say, Superbad.  But there is explosive diarrhea, projectile vomiting, ugly naked people, crude talk about sex.    It is quite funny, the boys dressed up as girls to invade a locker room and see a naked girl sidelined by an unfortunate bout of diarrhea brought on by a fiber drink made me laugh out loud.  It turns out I have a little bit of adolescent boy humor.

352 pg

3 hrs 40 min.

 

What Happened to Goodbye #48HBC

Ahhh….Sarah Dessen.  It is predictable – WHAT is up with her mothers? but it is comfy too.  It is like hearing your best friend tell you a story, the details may be different but you know how it is going to  go.

Usually I have lit crushes on her boys who are damaged perfection (cuz THAT exists in real life but whatever) but in this it is the girl who I really liked.  McLean (or Liz, or Beth, or ELiza)  - well you don’t really meet all of those girls but that is a large point of the book.  Can you lie to yourself, be someone different, run away from yourself?  Well probably not really.  Also if only Coach K turned out to have such poor personal judgment and had a scandal- don’t tel me Defriense isn’t Duke! –  actually it was pretty much  totally fictional and if I wasn’t aware of Sarah Dessen’s rabid UNC fandom (stalking Tyler Hansbrough in the deli dept – its ok if it was a diff. team I might too) I might of not spent half the book thinking Duke/UNC.  And not that Peter the coach who the mom takes up with and has twins (again what is it with her Moms?) was an ass.  It just seemed the adults were a little clueless that is was McLean’s story/life too.  I think it is probably comforting to divorcing people to think that a marriage is between two people and not about the kids but come on!  Then again what do I know?

I do love how SD always peoples her books with people from other stories – Heidi from ALong for the Ride showed up, as did the Last Chance, I caught a glimpse of Annabel and Owen (I think) and Jason from The Truth About Forever seems to have had a life bump and is now a prep cook.  Nice touch.   Probably missed a few here and there.

Pages – 402

Time 5 hours.

Mockingjay #48HBC

GRRRRRR!!!!!!!  I spent most of the time reading this being pissed off at what was happening to Peeta.  I kept thinking of how mad I was when almost all the way through Knife of Letting Go the author killed of Manchee,  I felt like that.  I can’t even freaking believe I finished this because it was relentless until the last 5 pages.  And that is all I have to say about that.

Time: 4.5 hours

Pages : 400.

 

I am still MAD!  I feel bad though because I gave the blogging short shrift.  But I am so MAD!

Catching Fire #48HBC

Oh dear Katniss, you are a bit hard to like some times, so naive and dense.  I can see why everyone is so stunned I hadn’t finished the series.  It is breathtaking (breathless) the action in the story, not to mention as annoying as Katniss can be you really feel for her.  (Although, and I hate these designations I find myself on Team Peeta).   The descriptions are fabulous, particularly of President Snow’s smell, the blood on his breath – pretty chilling.  I am going to download and read Mockingjay – must finish it up now.  No, I haven’t read a single spoiler – that is HOW OUT OF IT I have been.

Pages – 391

Hours- 3.5 (had a break when ten minutes after I started my mom called, an hour or so later I got off the phone).

48 Hr Book Challenge

This blog has languished, I have considered killing it but I still reference it from time to time.  Well, lucky for me I didn’t because I have decided to put away PhD’er guilt for the next 48 hours and read YA (which I miss )for the 48 hour challenge.  Now truth be told it isn’t like I havent been reading some YA, it isn’t all information practices in the modern age reading, but I usually just update my goodreads and not blog after because well, blogging takes time and there is this sense of why exactly am I doing this?  But give me a purpose!  Now I can blog for that.  Can’t say for sure this blog won’t languish after this but for now I am back.  (librarygrl, not cheeky reader who has obviously disappeared as well).  So I am off – promised a friend I’d finish the Hunger Games trilogy so that will be my starting point (see?!?  SEE?!? how behind I am).

Starting time Friday 7:30 am.

Check this out

….. not to let Glee take over this blog but here is some news.

Haven’t read any blow me away books lately – but Joshilyn Jackson’s new book is coming out so I think I will reread Gods in Alabama and then her latest, which focuses on a Gods character.

Holden 2010

Every now and then I hear a yuppie call to her child by the name of Holden.  This always give me pause.  Not because I am a yuppie too.  Not because I’d love to have my own mad tofu-eating toddler running around Golden Gate Park.  But because of the name.  Holden.  Really?  You named your kid after the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye?  The kid who tells his story from an insane asylum?  The kid who gets kicked out of five schools?  Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Holden-hater.  I like The Catcher in the Rye.  But, I am an English teacher — it’s practically a requirement. The novel is an annual favorite, and it’s on every “classics” list.  It is a holy text.  Maybe that’s why South Park decided to slaughter the sacred cow on their episode: The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs.  The no-neck boys from South Park eagerly read the novel after their teacher promises that it is racy, censored and controversial.  Grossly disappointed, they decide to write their own banned book, a book that causes readers to vomit.  Vomit a lot.  

And this brings me back to my English class.  No, the students don’t vomit excessively.  I’m sure they watch South Park, but more importantly, The Catcher in the Rye was chosen by several of them for an independent-book-report-project-make-a-poster-use-the-rubric-you’ve-had-two-months-to-work-on-this-!-!-extravaganza.  Yesterday presentations began.  (My students are AMAZING!)  Does Holden still resonate with today’s teens?  Does Holden transcend the decades of teenage angst?  According to Boy-Who-Should-Wear-a-Bike-Helmet, “Holden is a whiner and a complainer.  He needs to step up to the plate and make something of himself.”  Hmmmm…What could this mean?  Has Holden fallen from grace?  Will the next generation name their sons after Atticus, not HC?!  

Upon further questioning, Boy-Who-Should-Wear-a-Bike-Helmet revealed that he doesn’t think there are any excuses for being kicked out of school repeatedly.  He thinks Holden is spoiled.  And that, no, his relationship with Phoebe does not redeem him.  Neither does anything else. 

It makes me wonder if times have changed.  Do teens identify more with the protagonist who is not an anti-hero, but a true hero?  Maybe in uncertain times, teens want to read about people who can suck it up — stiff upper lip and all of that.  Or maybe Holden hits too close to home and what some dislike about him is that he has qualities they themselves have.

Regardless, Holden lives on.  I expect to teach him — or one or three — in a few years.  

WWJDD?

Yo bro!

Beloved Nephew is only eight years old, but I am compiling YA fiction for him.  I like to plan ahead.  I picked up Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver for his four-years-down-the-line-collection.  It is the first of a series of six books (Chronicles of Ancient Darkness) about Torak, a young boy faced with defeating a hidden enemy, one hiding in the form of a monstrous bear.  Thus, begins Torak’s quest in hunter/gatherer Europe.  Along the way he acquires a wolf cub that has also lost his family.  Torak faces different challenges — surviving in general –, meets a hostile clan and makes a new friend, a girl named Renn.  She helps him as he pieces together an offering of “brightest souls” for the World Spirit.  

For the sake of full disclosure, I must admit that I am a complete sucker for The Hero’s Journey and quests, vision or otherwise, of any kind.  Metaphors for life, all of them.  I’m not surprised that I enjoyed Wolf Brother, but what stands out to me the most is the setting of the story.  Can a genre be historical fiction-ish?  Reading a story set in pre-history appeals to me, as does a forested, wild Europe.  

While I think this is a book that both boys and girls will enjoy, it is definitely a 12-14 year old “boy book.”  It is a coming of age adventure novel that expresses a boy’s worst fear — death of father, while assuring him that with courage, self-reliance and by remembering his father’s wisdom, he too can go forth into the wilds of the unknown.  

Die hard readers might enjoy visiting or becoming part of this online community for Torak fans: http://www.torak.info/index.php?categoryid=1

In 2014, I think this is a series Beloved Nephew will enjoy.