2013

Two Cybils SciFi/Fantasy

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I’m kind of ODing on middle grade and YA books. This is what happens when I don’t read enough throughout the year… gah. The end of the tunnel, I can see it. I swear!

Planesrunner, the YA scifi I thought I wouldn’t enjoy, particularly since I had so much trouble getting past the first chapter, turned out to be a lot better than I expected. Physics is not my thing. Neither are books where ONE paragraph is more than a full damn page. Other than that — it turned out to be a pretty fun book. The airships made it great (and the solid female characters, in a boy story, too.)

Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities is Middle Grade scifi/fantasy and I had a hard time getting started with that too… what’s with all of the comic book superhero stuff lately? After about 30 pages, I was in and enjoying it. I particularly liked what happened with Polly, Captain Stupendous and Vincent’s mom. Super female characters in what’s mostly a boy story.

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Three Middle Grade Fiction

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

Still playing catch up on my Cybils blogging but the end is in sight!

Fourmile — I liked it a lot which is unusual since it’s a boy book and boy books don’t always work for me. Watt Key, the author, is excellent though so I shouldn’t be surprised to have liked it. It didn’t feel so much like middle grade but more like YA. The violence seemed awfully violent for middle graders.

Almost Home was very middle grade fiction sort of trouble book. Homeless kid finds herself with a community of awesome adults (and kids). And, she has a cute puppy who seems to not prevent her from landing in a shelter, a group home, or a foster home. (Which would never happen, sigh.) A very feel good book, even though there are places that made me almost cry.

The Adventures of Beanboy was so much fun. I loved it. The development of Beanboy as a character… fantastic.

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Three Middle Grade SciFi/Fantasy Books from the Cybils Shortlist

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Beswitched — I didn’t love it. In fact, for most of the book I strongly disliked it. I did not like Flora Fox at all. Not one little bit. Even as she “grew up” I didn’t find myself liking her much better than on page one. I didn’t like her grandmother either. I’m much more interested in the other Flora — the one who took her place and whose place she took. I’d probably like her better, I think.

The Peculiar is another one I didn’t love. I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Bartholomew – sure, but only a little. I’d have probably liked Hetty more if I’d gotten to know her. It wasn’t a bad book — just not great.

Finally, one I enjoyed — Cabinet of Earths. Pretty cool story. Solid characters. I even liked the ending, which is oh so rare, sometimes. Those three grains of “earth”… I’d be freaked out about that, too, if I were Maya.

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Vessel

2013, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I wasn’t expecting to like Vessel as much as I did — it sounded a lot like another book I read recently… the one where the girl had a gem in her navel and that marked her as… whatever it marked her as.

This book was sort of like that — but better, I think. I do have a little bit of the love/hate with the fables. They were good but sometimes a little mixed up and not quite right in places. But, overall, excellent fantasy.

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4 Middle Grade and YA Non-Fiction

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

More catch up book blogging — Cybil blogging, to be specific.

Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon was the book I didn’t expect to love because how many times can you read about this topic and learn something new or find it fresh and interesting. Or maybe that’s just me because chemistry and bombs are not my thing. However, this was better than I expected — not so much for the spy factor, but for the inclusion of the race toward the bomb that was happening in the USSR and in Germany. That made it more interesting than just a straight how we got the bomb (and used it) sort of thing.

I really enjoyed the Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War. I mean really enjoyed it. Those poor kids. I cannot imagine how confused they, particularly the older ones and not the babies, were.

I liked Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 well enough. It was a little long but Moonbird himself is awesome. Which reminds me, I meant to see if there had been any more sightings since this book was written.

I’m not a big fan of books about the Titanic but I liked Titanic: Voices From the Disaster more than I expected to. It, too, was a little long but not so boring that I didn’t read it straight through.

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The Storyteller

4 Comments / 2013, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

I’m way behind on book blogging. Gah. I am afraid I’m never going to catch up … oh wait, I forgot I’m reading a book that I’m not really enjoying so it’s taking me a really long time, which should give me time to catch up on the books that I (mostly) enjoyed. All Cybils…

First, The Storyteller (on audio). I’m a Jodi Picoult fan except for the book she wrote with her daughter — that one, I did not love. This one… it’s YA but not very YA, if you ask me. Yes, Minka was a young girl when the war began and Anya, the parallel story character was also a young girl, and Sage was also fairly young but… this didn’t seem very YA to me. (Updated: Turns out it’s not YA. I ended up with the Picoult book that has the same title as a YA book I reserved. Total confusion ensued. NOT YA, which is good. I’m short a Cybil, which is not good.)

It also was very very depressing, as WWII books can be when they go into great detail about those who were at Auschwitz.

The ending, I saw coming — though knowing Picoult I expected her to try and double back and make it not be the twisted ending that I saw coming. Nope. It was, as I expected. Now I’m left wondering how Sage is going to deal with this for the rest of her life.

Typical Picoult book. If you like her, you’ll like this. If you don’t, then you will not.

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Quick Escapes Chicago

2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I didn’t have any books on my library cart that I really wanted to read enough to commit to them — not when I’ve got a dozen waiting for me at the library that I really want to red before the end of the year. And, I also want to put in a lot of hours on JMP’s Christmas stocking this month so… what to do last night when I wanted to read something but didn’t have anything I really wanted to spend a lot of time on.

I discovered I did have a very old version of Quick Escapes Chicago sitting on the library cart (huh, I thought I’d read all of the travel guides I reserved back in October but I guess not.) Quick, easy read and now I can move onto stuff that I really want/need to read. And, it was one of the best “beyond Chicago” travel books I’ve read. Outdated, certainly, but a good set of excursion recommendations. It made me want to pack up and head out for a day or three.

I’ll remember that for the next time we decide to take a mini vacation.

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Superman: The Unauthorized Biography

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Non-Fiction /

I’m not a diehard Superman fan. I’ve probably only read a handful of his comics over the last 50 years. I know I’ve only seen a couple of the movies. I liked the old TV show but if I had to choose, I’d always choose Batman.

So the fact that I impulse picked up Superman: The Unauthorized Biography is kind of amusing. The fact that I read every word is just plain weird. It took days — days when I’m way behind on what I want/planned/need to read. I couldn’t help it. Even though it was pretty much the same ole thing for every period of time:

– Origin story.
– Fashion changes.
– Lois/Clark/Lana/Superman angst.
– Bad guys.
– Let’s kill him/reboot.

And do it all over again. And again and again and again and again.

Still. There was something oddly compelling about the book. I kept stopping to watch video or surf comic covers for each of the time periods I was reading about. I kind of want to watch a Superman marathon now… in fact, I might do that next week instead of going back to Dawson’s Creek… maybe. It’s a good thing the STUPID Davis St. project is still only 70% (or something) completed because otherwise I might be tempted to stop at the comic book store next week when I pick up the girls from their father’s apartment. Wait, maybe the construction will be done by then… nah.

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