Good grief, Mortal Heart was LONG. It seems like it was almost twice as long as the first two books and they were long, too.
I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first two — the whole errr relationship thing was a little weird. A lot weird. I liked having the three girls back together, that was good. I liked the solution to the problem with France. That was smart. Errr, the relationship thing was weird. I said that, right?
The first part of While We Run was confusing. When we left Abdi and Tegan, they were casting the info about The Ark project and when we pick up, Abdi and Tegan are spouting all sorts of pro Ark project madness.
I’m not sure I liked this one as much as the first book — I liked Tegan quite a bit less and I liked all of the supporting characters more. It all worked out, (mostly), though.
Is there supposed to be another book? I’m not dying to read another but I’ll probably give it a try if there is one.
Oh boy. Pointe was a problem book with all the problems. ALL OF THEM. TOO MANY PROBLEMS.
But, errr, I didn’t put it down once I got past the second chapter. It was compelling — trying to figure out how all of this mess was going to come together to make an ending to the mess. Sheesh.
Yay for diversity in YA but boo because another ballerina with anorexia? Really? Along with the sexual abuse and the over-privileged drug use and it turned out to be just another typical YA novel, really.
I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it, either.
Yep, I finally read Brown Girl Dreaming and it was awesome. It also made me kind of homesick.
Definitely the best of the bunch in the cybils shortlist for poetry.
Brown Girl Dreaming Read More »
I really wish the Cybils didn’t put children’s poetry in with the middle grade/YA poetry. It seems… not right. Whatever. It is what it is and we’ll just go with it, I guess.
So I read six. Finally.
– Dear Wandering Wildebeest and Other Poems From the Water Hole was fine. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It was fine.
– Firefly July was a cute seasonal poetry book. Nice mix of poetry from typical favorites and lesser known poets.
– Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons was fun. It was haiku but not the traditional haiku, which I appreciated. I was also amused by the hidden A, B, Cs — though that’s probably not super useful, I was just amused by it.
– Santa Clauses was better than I expected it to be. More haiku, which I wasn’t thrilled about but ended up liking quite a lot.
– Voices From the March on Washington was super interesting. (Again, why this and Brown Girl Dreaming are in the category with these younger children’s poetry… ugh.) I liked it very much. Kids who aren’t into poetry might like this. I highly recommend it.
– Water Rolls, Water Rises Water Rolls, Water Rises was excellent. I was surprised by how much I liked this one. I think it might have been my favorite of the bunch.
6 Poetry Books from the Cybils Shortlist Read More »
I have to give the author props for writing this one. This is just not a story we see very often (ever?) and certainly not for YA. The problem is, I’m not really sure how kids would feel about reading Girls Like Us.
Teens are pretty savvy and it’s all a little neat and tidy in ways that it shouldn’t be neat and tidy. That’s what bothered me about the book.
Greenglass House is from the Cybils shortlist and we listened to it on audio.
I had a little trouble settling into the story in the beginning because I didn’t particularly like Milo. Also all of the folks arriving at the Inn all at once made for a bit of confusion. Weird names, hard to keep people straight, but it all settled down and started making sense.
Even the ghost part. (Oddly, TW didn’t realize the ghost was a ghost until Milo did. I was surprised by that.)
I liked the mystery. I liked the role-playing game aspect. I liked the adoption storylines. I did not love the storyline that had Clem and Georgie trying to steal the guy’s heart. That bothered me. Which is probably the reason why I didn’t give the book 5 stars (TW asked me about that a couple of days ago and I couldn’t really tell her why… now I can. I really loved both of those characters until the reason they were both at Greenglass House came out. I didn’t like that. I didn’t think it was necessary. I don’t particularly want kids to read that and think that this is how young women behave. Or should behave. Or even consider behaving. That’s now how relationships work…)
Anyway. Good book. I enjoyed it.
I impulsed selected Alice + Freda Forever because I liked the font on the cover. I was also interested in reading more about this case. I’ve heard about it in passing but knew very little about it, really.
It was interesting. A little dry considering the subject matter. There was a lot of crazy going on back in the late 1800s and it wasn’t all just the Alice kind of crazy. Just sayin’.
Alice + Freda Forever Read More »
I read When We Wake (the first book in the series) because another of the books from the series is on the Cybils shortlist and I hate reading series books out of order.
This one wasn’t bad. Interesting premise. Also interesting ideas about what the future looks like. I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next book.
First… OMG I read a book. A real live book with pages and stuff! Yippee! It had been so long, I wasn’t sure I actually liked reading anymore. (Kidding. Mostly.)
Anyway, Boys of Blur is from the Cybils shortlist and it was good. Also creepy, as books set in the swamps of Florida can often be. It was a quick read and exactly right for my still not quite back from vacation/caught up at work attention span.