Fiction

All the Rage

2016, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Young Adult /

Courtney Summers, y’all. Some of you will know why I say that. Some of you won’t, (sorry!) All the Rage is exactly the right title for this book.

Romy has rage, as she should. And that rage wreaks havoc with her relationships with everyone and especially with herself.

I’m not sure I liked Leon’s character… liked might not be the right word. I liked his character well enough, I’m just not sure it was the right character for this particular book. I get that Romy needed someone sort of like Leon but I am not convinced that the story line between the two of them really worked. Might just be me, though…

Ultimately, this is one of my favorite Courtney Summers books so yay?

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Every Last Word

2016, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Young Adult /

I was really enjoying Every Last Word — very interesting story about a teen girl with Pure-O OCD. I had some questions that weren’t being answered but that was ok, the story was good and the characters were interesting.

And then I got to something like page 282 and wanted to throw the book across the room. (I didn’t, it’s a library book, after all.) I did NOT see that coming and I did NOT think it was good for the story…

Still, I stuck with it and mostly liked it after that, too. Mostly. I’m still not really happy with that little Caroline twist but whatever. It’s not all about me, is it?

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Frog Music

2016, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

I never know what to expect when I read Emma Donoghue – I either love her books or hate them and it’s often the ones everyone else loves that I do not love. Frog Music turned out to be a book that I really enjoyed though a lot of other people seem to have not enjoyed it nearly as much. Whatever.

She did a nice job with the story of Jenny Bonnet and a nice job with Blanche’s story, too. I liked it.

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Blackbird Fly

2016, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

I’m on a reading roll, yay me!

Blackbird Fly was excellent. And, it made me want Filipino food. Why do I have no lumpia wrappers in the house? Or pancit noodles? I guess I could just make chicken adobo but that’s not quite what I want. But anyway, back to the book.

It was a good middle grade fiction book. It read a little younger than I expected it to but I very much enjoyed getting to know Apple and her REAL friends, not those fake friends.

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Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy

2016, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

You guys! I read a book! A whole book. On paper. It had words! How exciting is that?

It’s also a book from the Cybils shortlist and a really good middle grade fiction book. Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy is about a mom who has Bipolar Disorder and a daughter who worries she might “get sick,” too. It also has a character with cerebral palsy, another with PTSD, and touches on child abuse.

I really liked all of the characters and I liked the way the story played out.

Also, I READ A BOOK!! hahaha.

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The Jesus Cow

2016, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

We listened to The Jesus Cow on the way to Florida for the last great house hunt. The worst thing about it was that it was short. We finished it just as we reached our hotel in Manchester, TN on the first night of the trip. The best thing about it was the cow. Born on Christmas. With the face of Jesus on his hide.

I didn’t love the end, but I saw it coming so maybe that means it was the right ending?

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The Woman Who Walked In Sunshine

2016, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I love me some #1 Ladies Detective Agency (on audio) and really enjoyed The Woman Who Walked In Sunshine except… I was afraid AMS was trying to kill off Mma Ramotswe. TW kept telling me I was dumb but I didn’t believe her til the very, very end, lol. Maybe it’s because we had just listened to the “killing” of Dexter? (Though I absolutely wanted him dead – more dead than he was there at the end, actually. Which is possibly a spoiler. Oops?)

I also did not really find the explanation about why Mma Makutse did what she did with Mr Polopetsi… that just didn’t seem quite right. I dunno.

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The Improbability of Love

2016, Books in Bed, Fiction /

TW read The Improbability of Love and enjoyed it. When I was looking for a new (and light?) book to read, TW suggested this one so… I gave it ago.

It wasn’t exactly light. Or heavy, either. It was a little dense and a little dark, in places. (Art and Nazis, both dense and dark topics.) I enjoyed it, mostly. I didn’t like the end, not really. We went all through this story, getting to know all of these characters (and the painting) and then BANG –> we’re told in two sentences what happened to everything? Even Annie’s arrest was rushed and, I don’t know. It just felt like the author had written another 100 pages and then been told to cut that down to 20.

Otherwise — I enjoyed it.

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Dexter Is Dead

2016, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

After the last Dexter (the one I scathingly refer to as Dexter Does Hollywood) I swore I’d never read another Dexter novel. I felt pretty good about that decision until I stumbled across Dexter Is Dead in the library.

Hell.

We needed an audiobook and if Lindsay killed Dexter off, maybe I could gloat about it and be more satisfied with the ending?

Well. Yea. No. It wasn’t a bad book but I really would rather have not read it. Or the one before it.

But now DEXTER IS DEAD, (he’d better be, for godsake), and it’s over.

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