YOLO

I am not big on # and I am not good with the cool and hip and now sayings.  I think "YOLO" is an old cool and hip and now saying, as this book was published in 2014, when it was hip and now and cool.  But still, I wasn't big on using YOLO then.  Still, this book, YOLO,  was just as good as the other Internet Girls books, which I really, really enjoyed because it wasn't dated, even though it could have been, given its heavy reliance on technology.  The girls have gone off to college.  Maddie is at UCSC.  Zoe is at Kenyon and her boyfriend Doug is also at a school in Ohio, Oberlin.  Angela is at the University of Georgia.  Lauren Myracle is one of my most favorite authors. She just is.  Angela decides to go the way of the Greek.  So there is that angle.  There is a lot in here that kids face when they start college:  hard classes, roommate trouble, choosing a major, long distance relationships (friends and romantic), family rules, drinking, bi-curious kissing, date rape.  And it is all addressed very well, I think.  I know I am officially old when I saw I wouldn't want to go back to that time in my life.  Not that I think things are harder today.  As I have said, some things are harder and some things are easier, but human nature remains that same.  It's just that every part of life has it's own struggles and I guess those are not ones I would like to relive!

Guard Each One's Dignity and Save Each One's Pride

They'll Know We are Christians By Our Love is one of my most favorite songs.  If I had to pick a song that I try to live by and that I think would be a good one to describe the Christian life, it would be this one.  That is because of the lines, "and we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride."  I just think that is what we need to focus on, in all times.  Missoula:  Rape and the Justice System in a College Town might not be the book that one thinks of when one is reminded of this song, but it should be.  Now Missoula isn't a church, it isn't "Christian" in name or in claim.  And I don't even know if any of the people who are written about in this book are Christians, but they are all God's children.  And we all have a responsibility to guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride.  And we all have a right to be treated with dignity and respect.  That didn't seem to happen in Missoula in these cases.  A very eye-opening book.  It didn't give me an iffy/icky feeling like Three Cups of Deceit.  It just made me very sad/mad/shocked to hear how often sexual assault and rape occur and how cases were handled in Missoula and that this wasn't really all that rare.  The other thing is, how the Missoula situation was tied into sports.  I am just not a sports person, so this was very hard to understand and reminded me of the Penn State horror, in which sports came first.  Sickening.

Another wow....

Not too long ago I finished listening to Eleanor and Park and I've recently finished Rainbow Rowell's latest book, Fangirl.  Man.  Wow.  Yes.  Amazing.  Just super, super, super.  My friend Kelly said it best, "Rowell writes flawed but incredibly decent people."  Incredible characters here.  Original story about twin girls who head off to college.  Just so so so so so good. 

Wow

Ok so I have read a lot of cheesy books in my lifetime. I've read a lot of cheesy books since I started this blog. And I've liked a lot of them. Some I loved! Big time! Then this year I read the whole "return to Sweet Valley" thing and it was bad. But not as bad as Class, aka Cum Laude. This book was beyond bad. I usually give cheesy books points for not trying to be anything other than cheese, but I can't even do that in this case. This book was just that terrible. Beyond terrible. And I don't think it was trying to be terrible. I think it was trying to be a real book! This is like the foster parent of books. It was just horrible.  It is written by the same person who wrote The Gossip Girl Series.  But that series can't be this bad, right?  Because so many people have read them.  So I must read one next to see.  This story deals with five people and their freshman year at a small liberal arts college in Maine.  It is just really bad.