2014

A Survey!

2014, Books in Bed, Library /

We went to the library yesterday to pick up the reserves that were waiting for me. While I grabbed those, TW went over to the new arrivals section. The FICTION new arrivals, obviously. I joined her and was ready to go when I saw a man walk around to where the non-fiction new arrivals USED TO BE. He scratched his head and looked around and muttered to himself.

I chuckled.

Then, he asked a librarian where the non-fiction new arrivals were — I mouthed what she said, as she said it, “Upstairs with the rest of the non-fiction.” I chuckled some more. Not exactly happy that someone else was as annoyed by this as I am but … yea, glad it’s not just me and TW and some of the librarians who think this was stupid.

As I’m chuckling and muttering about this to myself, I hear the librarian call him to the research desk and tell him to fill out a survey… because they are taking a survey about this issue.

What?! A survey? Let me in on that. (And how come they blogged about moving the books but didn’t blog about taking a survey to find out how folks felt about the move? Whatevs.)

I rushed over and asked if I could fill out the survey too. I chatted with the guy and that librarian about how much I hated the nonfiction books being up there. The librarian nodded and said “A lot of people agree with you. That’s why we’re doing the survey.”

I ran back to TW and told her about the survey and made her go take it, too.

I was all giddy about this.

A SURVEY! They are taking a SURVEY! Maybe we’ll get our non-fiction new arrivals back downstairs where they belong. But even if they don’t — at least they’re doing the right thing and asking library patrons how they feel about this. That’s a step in the right direction.

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This One Summer

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Young Adult /

Sassymonkey mentioned This One Summer to me recently on Convo and I decided I needed to read it. Though I didn’t love Skim as much as most people did, I liked it quite a lot and wanted to see how this one compared.

I liked this one even more (though based on some Good Reads reviews I read, I might be alone.)

I liked this one for the reasons that most people did not.

Growing up is hard. Growing up as a girl is really hard. And when your parents are dealing with their own shit, everything is even harder and weirder and confusing.

And you know what? Kids don’t always learn (immediately) from their experiences. I liked that Rose didn’t immediately and obviously learn the hard lessons. I suspect that what she went through that one summer will stay with her and help her become whoever it is she becomes. Kids don’t immediately grok why slut-shaming is wrong just because a friend says it’s wrong. That kind of thing takes time. Kids don’t immediately grasp the complexities of other people’s relationships and their opinions are formed around what they know of the world, so it made perfect sense that Rose might not see things from Jane’s point of view and she certainly would not have understood her mother or her father.

It was just one summer. Kids don’t evolve into complete and wonderfully deep human beings in just one summer. That was the truth, for me, of this book.

Oh yea, the drawings were wonderful — as you’d expect.

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Dollface

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Dollface wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. Chicago during prohibition. Mob madness, etc. etc. I didn’t like Vera enough to really love this book. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t. I liked her best when she was bootlegging but the rest of the time, I just kind of found her annoying.

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Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

1 Comment / 2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Library /

Best book from the Cybils shortlist so far this year! I loved Escape From Mr Lemoncello’s Library and I’m extra glad we listened to it on audio.

We chuckled our way through it and were sad when it ended. Equally sad that Nickelodeon optioned it for a TV movie. Sure wish Pixar would have grabbed it. It would make a great movie — and a great theme park attraction.

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The Supreme Macaroni Company

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Since I’ve read all of the other Valentine books, I figured I should go ahead and read The Supreme Macaroni Company, too. I hate leaving series unfinished (and since one of my goals is to catch up/keep up with series, it seemed extra important to go ahead and read it.)

It was fine. Not my favorite Valentine book but not my least favorite, either. I used to love Valentine and her weird family but now I just love her weird family and she gets on my nerves. Also, the ending was predictable. At least I predicted it a lot earlier than it came about. Both what happened to Giancarlo and what happened to the house.

I didn’t predict either would happen exactly as they happened but it was obvious. Giancarlo did THAT with the house (duh) without telling Valentine (duh) and then… yea. Predictable.

Also very typical of Trigiani, so if you like her books — you’ll like this one.

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Hiding Out At the Pancake Palace

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction /

I was really enjoying Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace until I got to the end. It’s like there were pages missing. We go all the way through this and THAT is how it ends? I keep thinking this morning that maybe I was too tired to finish last night at 11pm and maybe I did skip some pages or something? Maybe if I go back, I’ll like the ending (or feel like it even made sense). If I try and it turns out I missed something, I’ll let you know.

Otherwise, unless you like an fulfilling and dare I say DUMB ending, skip this one. (It’s middle grade fiction, too, by the way.)

And, now I want pancakes.

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The Bintel Brief

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I wonder how The Bintel Brief made its way into my library bag. I don’t think it’s been on the shelf long enough to be an impulse choice, since the damn non-fictions are still upstairs… except, hmm. Now that I think about it, maybe that is where I got it. I wonder how that happened… in the past, graphic novels have always been in a section of the non-fiction (whether they were non-fiction or not… and this is assuredly non-fiction. I bet it was miss-shelved.) Whatevs.

I really enjoyed it.

The art was good. The stories selected were good. I liked everything about this. I am also tempted to track down some more about The Bintel Brief advice column. It’s super-interesting to me.

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The Here and Now

2014, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read The Here and Now… after what Ann Brashares did to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants… I hold book grudges for a really long time. But, I bit the bullet and reserved it. If nothing else, I’d have something to complain about, right?

Well… it wasn’t a bad book. It wasn’t SotTP good but it wasn’t bad. I am not sure I liked how it all went down there at the end. A little too neat and tidy but with a lot of weird twisty things, too. Possibly for a sequel? Which leads me to something I can complain about… does everything have to be a sequel nowadays? Really? Could we just have some stand alone books, please?

Also, mosquitos are bad. Time travel ain’t all that hot, either.

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In the Tall Grass

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

I was looking for audio books to reserve and noticed Stephen King and his son Joe Hill (who I like better than King) had witten a novella (I’m calling it a novella because it’s short!) and I had not read it. So, I reserved it on audio.

In the Tall Grass is holy hell creepy and just as gruesome as you’d expect from something written by these two. Possibly TOO gruesome, particularly for audio. I cringed my way through it.

Warning: It includes the beating of a pregnant woman, her miscarriage and … more. Gruesome!

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