What's Going On Here?

There are SO MANY wonderful book review blogs out there and I can't compete with them, that is for sure. So this is not a book review blog. This is just a way for me to organize what I have read so that I can be better at matching the right book to the right person. The blog title comes from the brilliant mind of the most talented woman who ever lived, Ms. Judy Garland. The full quote is, "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else." That is what I hope to do here and in ever aspect of my life.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Not What I Was Expecting...but....Wow.


As I sit here on the couch next to my snoring pug, Emma, the tears are still coming. I just finished A Monster Calls and man, it was something. It is written by Patrick Ness and he writes a forward explaining that the story was inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd. I had never heard of Ness or Dowd, even though I learned that they are pretty big names and now that I have read this book, I will be reading everything ever written by them! Dowd had the idea for this book and had written down some stuff, but she died from breast cancer before she could write it. Ness took the idea and ran with it and created this incredible story of a young teen named Conor and his dying mum (yeah, off-putting Briticism, but once again, here's a book so good it didn't even make a difference) and a Monster who comes to visit with Conor.
The illustrations are in black and white, done by a guy named Jim Kay and they are incredible. The whole book is a soul-touching, powerful work of art. Pretty freaking amazing. Newbery? Probably not. Too good to be a Newbery.

So excellent!

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