Fiction

Kit’s Wilderness

Kit’s Wilderness written by David Almond (author of the fantastic YA book Skellig) wrote this one and it was good but not quite as good as Skellig.

Creepy but maybe a little too creepy? Or maybe a little too “much”? I’m not sure what it was about Kit’s Wilderness that made it not quite as good as Skellig – but it was something.

I did love Grandpa and Allie and Kit and even John. It wasn’t the characters – it might have been the dream woman and the baby.

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Bridge of Sighs

Yep, I finished it. Finally. I started Bridge of Sighs months ago and got about 50 pages into it and then it was due back at the library – with other holds on it so it could not be renewed. So, I took it back and then immediately added it to my reserve list again. It’s taken me awhile to get to it but I did. And then it took me a good long while to read it, because it’s been one hell of a long week, but I did finish.

And, I really enjoyed it. Another winner from Richard Russo.

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Barefoot:A Novel

Barefoot is chick lit and it is also cancer chick lit. Always a good combination. What I appreciated about this one was the fact that the other two women, the cancer free women, were in more trouble than the chick with the cancer. Awesome. I mean, in a novel it makes for awesome reading.

You don’t spend the whole book commiserating over the poor mom of babies who has cancer. Instead you’re distracted by the pregnant chick whose husband is a dirtbag, the young professor who not only slept with her student but damaged a Jackson Pollack and the teenage boy whose mom killed herself when he was 12. Awesome.

Also it was a little bit long. And it didn’t have chapters. It was divided by month – June, July and August and then Winter. And those summer months were long, long, long. I need chapters, darn it.

Looking for good cancer chick lit – Barefoot will fit the bill.

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Options: The Secret Life of the Fake Steve Jobs

hahahaha. I can’t even type the title of the book without laughing which shouldn’t really be a surprise because everything about The Fake Steve Jobs has always amused me. I’m so glad Options didn’t disappoint.

I’m not an Apple fan, but I love my iPhone and my big kids love their iPod Touch. I’ve never longed for a MacBook but I have purchased one for two of the big kids because they had to have them. I did have an Apple computer, way back in the late 70s and early 80s and never did switch to Commodore like most of the cool kids. Then the PC explosion arrived and I never looked at Apple again.

But something about The Fake Steve Jobs makes me want to toss aside my Toshiba Tablet PC for a MacBook. (Don’t worry little Tablet, I still love you and I’m not going to give into those horrible urges.) I twittered about that the other day and my friends and co-workers and former coworkers reminded me that it’s because I love satire and sarcasm. Right on.

That’s why I like Gates better than the real Jobs and the Fake Jobs better than both of them.

Whatever.

The book was awesome. You should read it.

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Me and Mr Darcy

Oh brother. Why did I read Me and Mr Darcy? Oh yea, I wanted something quick and easy and light. Well this was all of those things. It was also pretty boring, pretty predictable and pretty ridiculous.

Do Jane Austen or Mr Darcy fans enjoy this sort of thing? Sassymonkey? I am pretty sure you read this but don’t remember whether you liked it or not. I sort of doubt that you did.

Yuk.

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Biting the Apple

Hey! Biting the Apple was good. Surprisingly good. I was a little bit afraid it was going to be like the Mt Joy book I read last month, not that it was bad but imagining that book with a lesbian twist seemed kind of frightening. But wait, now that I’m really thinking about it – there are some strong similarities between the books.

The beautiful high school goddess turned author/personality/inspiration has a guy from high school willing to drop everything when she gets into trouble and help her out.

Interesting. Now that I think about it.

Anyway, it was good. I enjoyed it.

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The Double Bind

Ya know. It’s stuff like this that makes me vow never to read another book by an author again. HMPH. Was that ending really necessary? No. It wasn’t. I don’t care that some people probably loved it. Thought it was the perfect “double bind“. I thought it stunk. Right up until the last 20 pages, I was loving the book.

I like(d) Chris Bohjalian’s books and his blog. It will be a long time before I read either. I don’t trust him anymore.

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May Bird: Among the Stars

For some reason I think Karen’s friend Kit Cat did not like the other books in the May Bird series and I’m wondering why. But I don’t have time to surf her blog to find out if I’m imagining that or why she didn’t like them. Maybe I’ll get caught up enough at work later today and figure it out. Or maybe not. Whatever.

I liked Among the Stars (book two) a lot. I’m so glad her mom ummm would that ruin the story if I said what I’m glad her mom did or did not do? Probably, so I won’t say anything. Very glad mom did what she did. Also glad about Beatrice’s mom. I’m just glad about the moms in the story, in general. Also glad about the good characters who aren’t all good and the bad characters who aren’t all bad.

I just like these books. Enough to stay up far too late in order to finish book 2 just a few hours after I started it. heh.

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Could the title have been any longer for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? I think it’s a little much. I also think the hype for this book is a little much.

It’s a good book. I enjoyed it. But it has gotten a lot of press and a lot of really great reviews from YA critics. I’m very glad the Cybil judges didn’t make it the YA winner, Wednesday Wars was better (though Off Season was not.)

Anyway – it’s about a kid on an Indian reservation who is smart, really smart. A teacher advises him to get off the Rez – now. So he does – by going to the white school in town. This leads to any number of problems, but also a lot of good things. Maybe it gets so many rave reviews because we don’t see a lot of books about teen Indians on reservations? Whatever. It was good but not great. Read it but don’t buy it. And if your kids are assigned the book and don’t fall in love with it, don’t be surprised by that.

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Breathing Underwater

Where did Breathing Underwater come from? I know I saw it on a blog and was pleasantly surprised that my library had it. (Another example of oddness – they have this obscure lesbian stuff but not Lauren Willig’s books.)

Anyway, it was a very fast read and more than a little odd. The drowning thing – crazy. But then again, the whole town is crazy so I guess it only makes sense. I liked Lily, bless her heart. I liked that they brought in the black lesbian to help her sort herself out. I’m glad she figured out that she and Rae didn’t want the same things.

I think I liked the book. But I didn’t love it.

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