Good!

One Mixed-Up Night is a book that at first I thought was a fluffy kinda fun story about two kids spending the night in IKEA.  Which I think would be great fun!  And I totally love the way that the kids love IKEA because their reasons are my reasons for loving IKEA.  It also reminds me of the times in my childhood when my brother and I were able to stay all night at Children's Palace, where my dad was a manager who worked so hard, all of the time and would often spend Sundays (when the store wasn't open-- back in the day!) and nights at work just cleaning up.  But it is also a great look at friendship and loss as well.  Good book.

Life is Complicated

Just Under the Clouds is one of those books that reminds me that life is not easy.  This is a very real book in that Cora doesn't just have one complication in her life, she has many.  Like we all do.  As if being a middle schooler isn't hard enough when one's family is stable and intact, Cora is dealing with the death of her father, her family's homelessness, her mom's issues and her sister's exceptional abilities.  Each one of these topics is handled so beautifully and so well.  This was an amazing book.  It is Melissa Sarno's first and I can't wait until her next. 

Prequels, Prequels!

When Kwame Alexander writes a prequel, I have no reason to debate whether or not it is just a money tool.  He is amazing.  And Rebound is amazing and I didn't even realize it was .5 until I had finished it and see the .5 on goodreads.com.  This was excellent.  It is the prequel to The Crossover. 

Whatever After for Older?

The Wishing Spell is the first book in the Land of Stories series and it has been around for a while, but I am finally getting to it and glad that I did.    Chris Colfer  is the author and he is a guy of many talents.  I have never seen Glee, but I know it was very popular.   I just realized he wrote Stranger than Fanfiction which I really loved!  I guess I am not surprised that I really enjoyed this one as well and look forward to reading the next! 

Being from Pittsburgh

Saving Marty just didn't do it for me.  Now keep in mind that I listened to the book and it was read with a southern accent and it wasn't set IN Pittsburgh, but in Southwestern PA and I do know that some people see this region as being part of Appalachia.  Indeed, it is in the Appalachian Mountain region and all.  But I think it was a stretch to say that there was a Pittsburgh Jamboree.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  It just didn't feel "real" to me.  If you live in Southwestern PA and found this to be a correct portrayal, please correct me though! 

I LOVE Jason Reynolds

And I really loved Patina.  I loved it so much that the ending made me so mad!!!!!  Great, great book!  Lots to think about here, especially the pressure that Patina puts on herself.  What a great kid.  I loved this book. 

A Million Holds

There are a million holds on Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, so I just bought the audio and wow, wow, it was so worth it!  What a book.  I just couldn't wait any longer after hearing him talk about his book on Mashreads this morning.  (this is where I want David "I Hate Fat People" Levithan to know that I was running (albeit slowly) while listening.  Oh yeah, also, Mr. Levithan, I am 123lbs now.  Down 215lbs.  Do you like me now?  
Oh my gosh, I digress!
So sorry.  Anyway...
Long Way Down really, really is Printz worthy.  It has bumped The Hate U Give, maybe.  Or maybe it has tied with it.  (But still, Auma's Long Run is my favorite for both Printz and Newbery.)

Iris

I don't think I have ever known someone named Iris.  I mean I know of a gal named Iris, but I have personally never had a relationship with anyone named Iris.  And the book Irises is not about girls named Iris.  Rather it is about two sisters, neither or whom is named Iris.  But the one sister loves to paint and is a talented artist and she is painting Vincent van Gogh's Irises.  The book is by another new-to-me author, Francisco X. Stork and let me say that I want to read more from him because I found this book to be just excellent.  An excellent look at sisterhood and loss and the church and faith and the meaning of life and sacrifice.  I learned a lot, too.  I learned about PVS and the difference between a PVS and a coma.  Many people, myself included (is it me or myself here!) find the term "vegetative" when applied to human beings to be offensive.  It is not surprising that this term is much more common in the UK than in the US!  I mean, to me.  I am not a big UK fan!  Anywaaay...excellent book. 

Keep Wanting to Add an "is"

To Everything, Everything.  I keep thinking it's called Everything is Everything.  Nocola Yoon wrote one of my favorite books from last year, The Sun is Also a Star.  And I really enjoyed this one as well.  Everything, Everything became a movie!  I didn't see the end coming, I really didn't!  And I loved it!

Okay so

Geekerella is NOT my typical book.  It is a romance and a silly love story, but it is very sweet and very funny and the whole paralleling Cinderella really works and both love stories that happen are so cute and funny and yeah, it is just really different and a good, fun read!

Is it just the name?

Once I knew this woman who was really into Mother-Daughter book clubs.  I have to say that this is one woman I have a hard time thinking about because she was someone who pretty much defines the whole "wolf in sheep's clothing" thing!  So I am not sure if that is why I was so against reading a book in the series The Mother-Daughter Book Club.  I can't remember if she actually liked the series, or I just associate all things MDBC with her!  I also wonder if my lower rating of the book has something to do with that.  But I don't know.  I mean, it was okay, and 3 of 5 stars isn't a bad rating at all, it is just low for me.  I think to be fair to the series, I will read another though!

It's Been a Long Time

since I've read a book by Ally Condie.  She wrote the Matched trilogy, the first of which I loved and then I had the feeling that maybe the publisher made her turn it into a trilogy, and so it was stretched a bit too much for me. But this is just a fantastic story.  So real.  Just very powerfully written.  A story of loss and trying to live again after that loss.  Summerlost is really, really well done.

A Tattooed Heart

Right after listening to Messenger of Fear, I downloaded the second book, Tattooed Heart.  And it was really good, too!  It took some turns that I didn't expect and so that was really enjoyable.  Great series and I am looking foward to reading the one in between and the one yet to come!

The Price of Fear

Again I find myself referencing Vincent Price!  Messenger of Fear is the first in a series of the same name by new-to-me author, Michael Grant.  I really, really enjoyed this book.  wakes up in a weird world and soon discovers that she is now an apprentice to the Messenger of Fear.  Who happens to be a good looking dude about her again who seeks to discover if someone should be judged for a death for which he or she may be responsible.  That doesn't make sense!  Read the goodreads blub about it!  And then read the book, because it is really good I am listening to the second one now!  And it is really good so far, too!  I have the 1.5 on my phone, as it is only available for kindle!

Are You Going

Are You Going to San Francisco has to be one of the best songs ever recorded.  I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 was not one of the best I Survived books ever written, though.  But that's okay.  You can't hit a home run or even a double or a single every time up at bat, right?
Whoa!  Do you know what just happened that is interesting!
I googled  "Are You Going to San Francisco" to put in the link above and the add that played before the song was for gun vote. com, which I won't link to, or even put in link form because I am not a big gun fan!  So weird!  I wonder why that particular add is tied to that song?
This is the fifth book in the series.  The backstory just didn't do it for me, I guess I just wanted a little more.  I will keep reading them, though!

Hard to Swallow

I don't think that it can be said, "another book about the Holocaust" because that connotes that we don't need "another book about the Holocaust," or so it seems to me.  And we do need "another book about the Holocaust."  Because it was so unspeakable and so horrible and so inhumane and so-hard-to-believe-that-a-human-being-could-do-this.  That is why we always need "another book about slavery" and "another book about what we did to Native Americans" and another and another and another.  Because racial hate and crime and violence keep going on and on and on.
Anna and the Swallow Man is a VERY different Holocaust novel.  I am not quite sure, no, I am VERY sure, I didn't understand all of it.  I would love to talk to someone who did understand it.  I know it wasn't meant to be taken literally, all of it anyway, but there was just so much that went over my head.  However, it was so well written and the parts that I did "get" were profound.  So I would very much recommend this, even though I can't say I understood it.

"If you can love the whole person

the body, heart and soul, you can be a good mortician." page 44 of Putting Makeup on Dead People, a wonderful, refreshing book by Pittsburgh native Jen Violi. Ms. Violi attended the University of Dayton where my friend Nick is a sophomore. The book is set in Dayton and the main character is Donna, who is a senior in high school when the book begins. Donna is still hurting from the loss of her father to cancer at age 14. She hasn't been able to get over his death, which is quite understandable. She has kind of frozen over and isolated herself.

She has been accepted to UD but then decides that maybe she has another calling, a calling to mortuary school. Something I myself have considered. She talks to the funeral directors who hire her part-time.

Donna has a lot to work out. She has questions about God, herself, life, death, her relationships.

This book is just so well done and doesn't fall into any stereotype traps. Wonderful book. Looking forward to more from Ms. Violi.