It's Been Awhile

since I have read something like Dry.  The whole dystopian, natural disaster book.  Wait!  That makes it seem like I am putting this book down, just saying it is "one of THOSE books." But it really isn't.  It is quite good.  And realistic.  And it really could happen.  Maybe this whole country is dystopian.  Since we don't have a president anymore.  This is very much worth the read.  Good, good stuff.  Scary. 

Another Good One

Saving Montgomery Soul was good.  What I really loved about it was it is another example (and I am SO excited to see that there are more and more of these out there) where we hear from Christians who know that Jesus doesn't care WHO we love, He just wants us to LOVE. 
Yes, there are people who call themselves Christians like the Rev. White who chose to not follow Jesus on this issue.  And for them, we pray and pray and pray and pray.  Thank you, Mariko Tamaki, whatever your faith may or may not be, for not taking the easy, cheesy and unformed way out and making all "Christians" right-wing bigots who choose to follow someone other than Jesus Christ on this very important issue. 

Relationships are Complicated

especially when someone has been in an abusive one.  When I am Through with You was really good.  It made me think a lot.  I am not sure if the narrator is a reliable one.  It left me with a lot of questions.  I gave it 4 stars, really would have given it 4.5 if I could have, but maybe 4.9 would be better.  I am not sure.  It did make me feel very uncomfortable.  And I think that I wrongly take it down from 5 for that. It was just pretty creepy....

Not What I Thought- So Much More!

Checked is not a sports book.  I mean I didn't really think it would be, just because I don't think of Cynthia Kadohata is a "sports fiction" author, but she is such a great author that she can write anything she wants and you just KNOW she will do it well!
This story just got so down deep, you know?  I don't know how to say it another way.

This one wasn't all I wanted it to be

I really want to love a book.  I mean, I think authors are incredibly talented and disciplined.  I can't even imagine being about to write a book, I have a hard enough time with writing a blog post that makes sense.  So every book I read, I want to give it 5 stars and mean it!  But for me, Lemons was one of the few books that I took a star from after a few days, instead of adding one.  That's not to say that was terrible.  It probably is a 3.5 star.  But it just didn't seem Newbery to me.  Maybe if I weren't reading it for the Newbery group, I would have rated it higher, not holding it to an "is this Newbery-worthy" standard.  But then again, I don't think I would have finished it if not for the group.  Again, not that it's a bad book.  It's a decent book.  A good book.  I am sure people love this book!  It just didn't hold my attention really, sadly. 

Not a Book Review Blog

And my star rating on goodreads, they aren't really reviewing the books, now that I think about it. What they really do is express how I personally felt about the book.  Please Don't Tell was SO a wrong book for me.  But it might be the right book for someone else.  I do love love.  I didn't used to love love because I was never in love before but now that I know that love is real and wonderful and amazing, I am embarrassed by how anti-love I used to be!
The thing is, murder and love and especially serial killers and love don't mix well for me.  And that is this book.
Here is one good thing about the book.  The women in this book are ridiculous about love.  One is a very accomplished doctor in her early 30s or late 20s and the other is 58 years old and also a smart cookie and the other is an experience gal in her 20s.  But they act like middle schoolers when it comes to love!  And at first I was thinking, "no one would act this way!" but now I understand what it is like to feel so young, even when old, when love walks in your life.  Especially when you least expect it.   But feeling validated in my mushy, gushy, head-over-heels, you make me feel so young thoughts that get stronger every day, even as my second year anniversary of it approaches, could make me like this book.

Haunted

I just couldn't rate Ghosts because while I found the sisterly relationship to be super well done the cultural appropriation really bugged me. But I don't think that Raina Telgemeier meant any harm. But yet I really think it is important to make note of it and to recognize that it just isn't okay to do that. For a much better understanding about all of this, please read here.  But man, it is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff in here.

Must Be Hard

It has to be hard for Gustavo Arellano to read some of the letters written to his syndicated column Ask a Mexican.  The book of the same name was painful to listen to for a lot of reasons- NONE of them related to Arellano. Wait.  I can't figure out if Ask a Mexican is still going on.  I mean, it is still going on, but I guess Arellano isn't do it?  I am so confused!
Anyway--people ask the dumbest, rudest questions.  And I know that it is great to see these stupid idiots ask these questions and then see Arellano really make fun of them and point out how stupid they are, even though they are probably too stupid to realize that he is making fun of them, because this guy is really funny and smart.  But still, I mean, should people this stupid be allowed to ask the stupid things that they ask?  Yes, of course.  We all have the right to be wrong.  But really.  Blah!

is this the end?

Twice as Nice is the fourth book in the Almost Identical series by Lin Oliver.  I remember I was in love with the series from the first one and they just got better as they went along.  If this is the end of the series, it was a great way to wrap it up, but I will miss twins, Sammie and Charlie very much.

Character-driven Dystopian

I saw someone on goodreads describe The Age of Miracles in this way.  That's why I don't really call this blog a book review site.  It isn't.  I can't review books well at all.  The reader who posted that was right on...this book is about the slowing of the earth's rotation and the way that life changes and all of that, but it is even more so about Julia, a wonderful, wonderful, real character.  Even though the world is changing drastically around her, she must suffer through all of that, PLUS the normal misery of being twelve and thirteen.  I thought at first this was kind of a Last Survivors deal but no, it is a totally different type of book.  Loved the ending.  Loved the writing.  Loved it.  Thanks, Char, for the recommendation.

A Lot Going on Here!

When my car was super messy, which was and is, always, my friend Rachel would politely say, "There's a lot going on here,"  referring to the mess.  In Far from You, there is a lot of mess and there is, for sure, a lot going on in Sophie Winters life.  She's only seventeen and she is already a drug addict in recovery and she has almost died twice.  Her best friend is dead, murdered right in front of her.  And the thing is, her best friend, Mina, wasn't just her best friend, she was love as well.  Her secret love.  But very much her love.
The characters in the book are so real and well drawn.  The story is too, and I didn't figure out the ending.  Great book and I will recommend it for sure and buy it for the library.

Double Crossed in the third Almost Identical book and I think it is best one ever!  At first I had no idea how I missed the March released of this one, but then I remembered I was in the hospital then.  That would be the only reason I can see behind me missing this third book.  I love this series.  It is so perfect for tweens.  Lin Oliver really has a great thing going here!  This one is told from the POV of Sammie, the Truth Teller twin.  In this one, Sammie's friend, Alicia, has two cousins visiting from El Salvador.  Reaction from the SF2s is about what you would expect and really addresses some serious issues.  This series is perfect!

Loving this new series!

Finally I got a copy of the first book in the Almost Identical series by Lin Oliver. It was great. This first book is told from the POV of Sammie, where as the second book was from her twin, Charlie's POV.  I can't wait for the third.  These books are great!

New Series for Young Teens and Tweens.

Two-Faced is the second book in the Almost Identical series which follows the lives of twins, Sammie and Charlie.  I have the first book on hold at my library, but I didn't feel like I was lost when I read this second book.  The girls are junior highers at a high-brow school in a beach town in California.  Their father is the tennis pro in a gated community and so the family lives there as well, even though they don't have the kinda bucks that the read of the families do.  This book is told from the POV of Charlie who is the more "popular" twin.  Great book, looking forward to reading the first and the third, which is due out soon!  It is a book like this that makes me look even more critically upon books like Blubber and AYTGIMM.  Are there bullies in both books?  Yes.  Are the non-bullying kids perfect?  No.  Are there redeeming qualities in all of the characters?  Yes.  The Blume characters aren't characters so much as caricatures.    But in a book like this, you see a more balanced view of each of the kids.  Like in real life.  

Music is His Life!

For What It's Worth is a really good book.  I enjoyed it a ton and read it quickly, but I don't know a lot of teens I would recommend it too, because, well I don't know.  There are a ton of references to albums and bands in it, and they are actual albums and bands, not like in the bizarre Why We Broke Up, which references a million movies and movie stars that have never existed.  I knew most of the music that Tashjian mentions, but I don't know if teens do.  Maybe they do?  Maybe they don't, but just like I didn't know much about Rimbaud (okay ANYTHING) I was compelled to find out more after reading Radiant Days.  So yeah, I will recommend the book for sure to teens.  And I know I will recommend it to adults.  The book is set in 1971-1972, when Quinn heads back to school after the summer that Jim Morrison has died.
Judy, Jim and Tupac.  The three most important people in music, ever.
Anyway.
Quinn is fourteen and he is a music fanatic!  He has a sweet record collection, a mom and dad, a sister who is a freshman at Brandeis, and he lives is Laurel Canyon.  His mom is friends with Mama Cass, he actually would see people like Janis and Jim hanging out.   He gets a job helping Frank Zappa.  It's just his neighborhood, you know?  In the right place at the right time.  This year he gets his first girlfriend, so there is the young love part.  He also starts to realize more about the world around him.  Remember this is Vietnam time.  The protests, the draft, Watergate is in here.  This is would be a great book to recommend to a teen having to do historical fiction, actually.  I mean, they would enjoy it and it is also historical!
Anyway, great book!

Stuck on You

I couldn't wait for the second Fame Game book by Lauren Conrad, Starstruck, and it was awesome, just as I had hoped! I loved the LA Candy Series and I love this one, especially the main character, Madison. She finds some happiness in this book and so that made me super happy! Of course she finds drama, too and the ending makes me wish the new book was coming out sooner! Love it! Love the series!

A Nightmare

Not the book itself.  I enjoyed Blackwater.  Eve Bunting is an awesome, diverse writer.  I especially loved Smoky Night and Fly Away Home and In the Haunted House but I don't include picture books in my blog or on goodreads.  If you have read Smoky Night and Fly Away Home, you know that Bunting's books aren't always happy books.  They are real books, that deal with tough topics, but they aren't preachy.  They are just real.  Blackwater was so real it was scarier than Dracula.
Brody is responsible for the death of one fellow classmate and the disappearance of another in the violent river that runs through their town.  The book is set in California, and I know they name another river, but it reminds me of the song, Kern River.  Brody doesn't tell of his actions at first and so he is tortured because everyone keeps calling him a hero, but he knows the truth.  His cousin, a troubled kid from San Fran, has told his heroic story about how Brody tried to save the kids and now Brody believes he is trapped in the lie.
Brody's dad is the town preacher.  As a former church pastor, I feel that Brody's dad isn't as involved as a real pastor would be and he offers terrible theological advice, "God never gives you more than you can handle."  Really?  But the pastoral part of the book is an interesting addition, if not realistic from the platitude said by Brody's dad and the minimal involvement of the local pastor in such a tragic event. This book is great but man it is tough.

Time is Sweet Valley

All of the people who have ripped on Stuart Woods' books need to read Sweet Valley Confidential.  This is so bad.  I mean it isn't the worst book I ever read, because its not a book that is trying to be awesome.  It isn't pretentious.  It is just garbage.  But it isn't dressed up as an "important work" with a message.  So it gets points for that.  It also gets points for the idea of revisiting characters that a lot of people grew up with, even if I didn't.  

Cause Your a Legend in Your Own Time

Man I haven't thought about this song in a long time.  It's a great one.  Legend isn't great.  It isn't bad.  I listened to it as I waited for my audio cd of Robert B. Parker's Lullaby to come in at the library.  It's the first in a new series by the same name.  A dystopian deal where the US is now a very nasty place.
The Republic rules the western coast of the country, their leader has been elected to his eleventh consecutive four-year term.  Rich, smart kids work for the Republic, the smartest of them is a teen named June.  The poor people are well, poor, and a group of rebels is, well, rebelling, against the Republic.
June's is told by the Republic that her loving brother has been killed by the Republic's number one enemy, a teen boy named Day.  Day and June meet and don't know who the other is.  They fall for each other.  Bad things happen.  The book could be a tween book, as the concepts are really easy to follow and the writing is tweenish, too, except there's a lot of violence.  A tween who has no trouble with tons of violence wouldn't be shocked I guess.  There were, of course, a lot of similarities to The Hunger Games.  Even an evil version of Haymitch and a boy with a name that sounds like a girl's, like Gale!  It was a decent book, I don't mean to rip on it so much.