The Hysterical Alphabet was an impulse purchase gift for Michelle, yesterday at Women and Children. No idea why I got it… just because I thought she’d be amused by it. When I read it, I wanted to color in the pages. No idea why I wanted to color in the pages, I just did.
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Art of Modern Rock: Mini Poster Girls was not quite an impulse purchase but I didn’t go to Women and Children with the intention of buying it. I saw it, I remembered giving someone (The half child?) a book of rock posters that was really cool and as I flipped through it, I realized this was the “Perfect for Michelle” version of that book. And it is.
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When we started listening to Airborn in the car, the little kids were with us and they were confusded. Airship? They didn’t “get it”. I said “think Edge Chronicles but a little more realistic”. By the time TW and I finished today, I’m thinking it was very Edge Chronicles like. Cloud Cats sound like something you’d find in Edge Chronicles book.
It was a fun adventure book. Good girl and boy characters. Nice ending. Good Printz book that kids might actually read.
Thank freaking goodness I am very, very familiar with the work of women like Judy Grahn, Audre Lourde, Adrienne Rich etc etc etc. If I was not familiar with their work, I would still be reading Chloe plus Olivia well into the new year.
800 pages of lesbian lit. Aye yi yi. Text book style lesbian lit. Oy.
This was one hell of a lesbian anthology and if I had it to do all over again, I’d have read an author a day or skipped around a bit based on what my preference of the day might have been. Trying to read it straight through was not a fun experience and reading lesbian lit SHOULD be a fun experience.
By page 500, I was sick of lesbians… sick of masking… sick of the romantic friendship… sick of the man trapped in the womans body… I did not even want to think about the dangerous flowers or the amazons at that point. I just wanted it done. lol
There are some great writers in this anthology, some I’ve never read and a few I’ve never heard of. Great anthology, really. Just don’t try to read it straight through.
I’m a little disappointed that I saved A Northern Light for last book (in paper, the real last book for the challenge is on audio, and in the car CD player now.) for my Printz Challenge. It was good, really good, but it didn’t leave me excited or thrilled about Printz the way some of the other really great books might have.
I struggled a bit with the story being told from two different points in time, I’m not sure it was necessary. I also think it’s one of those things that causes teens to throw up their hands and give up on a book. YA authors should not do it unless it just really really must be done. And in this case, I don’t think it needed to be done.
I liked the “word of the day”, I liked the “word of the day duels”, I liked all of the characters and for a brief moment I wanted to live somewhere with a “pickle boat” – then I regained my senses. I also liked the end, not happy – not sad – just “right”.
Good book… should have read it earlier in the challenge.
For me, Kaye Gibbons is one of those authors I’m supposed to love… but don’t. As I picked up On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon I said… “I hope it’s better than Ellen Foster… or …whatever the short story was that was in The Awakening etc…”
It was but it was still a slow read, I still didn’t really care about any of the characters and I just kept thinking I’ve heard this story before.
Southern father, daughter likes to read, falls for northerner, everyone lives unhappily yet happily ever after… at least those who fought against slavery did, the rest of the folks just died. It was the civil war, after all.
I have finished it and I’m still waiting for a Kaye Gibbons book that I really love, not one that is just “good for me”.
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I really enjoyed Garden Spells so I was wary of The Sugar Queen… second novels are often not as good as first novels. Even when Sassymonkey said The Sugar Queen was good, I wasn’t quite ready to believe it.
The Sugar Queen WAS good. It might even be better than Garden Spells, which bodes well for future novels from Sarah Addison Allen.
Loved the titles of the chapters, nice touch. Love the books that “find” Chloe. Love the cab driver who has to keep his promises. Love Helena err Marlena. Love them all.
Wicked Witch & Curse caused an awful lot of confusion. TW was confused because all she saw on the cover was “Wicked” and she couldn’t figure out why I was reading Wicked for my From the Stacks Challenge – surely I’d read that years ago… (and yes, I had – I was not reading THAT Wicked.)
Then, I got confused because it turns out Wicked Witch & Curse is actually two books, in one. I was only a little more than halfway through the book and hit the “Epilogue” – huh? After the “Epilogue”… the next book started. Aye yi yi.
What’s really confusing (and also troubling) is that the story didn’t end at the end of “Wicked Curse” – there’s got to be at least one more volume and now I’m left wondering if I care enough about the characters or stories to track it down… I’m not sure.
It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. And in the second “book”… the “familiar” incident was pretty troubling to me, which I find totally odd.
I might read more… but I probably won’t unless I just stumble upon another book.
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First Part Last was not the typical black city kids get pregnant story. Yes they’re black and they live in NYC but they’re not into drugs or alcohol, they’re not super poor, they’re smart kids who take classes like “Brit Lit”. And the 16 year old father raises the baby… but it doesn’t happen the way you’d expect.
** gotta close comments, the spammers won this round.**
I didn’t have high hopes for Fat Kid Rules the World. I don’t usually like the “fat kid” makes good kind of story. In fact, I usually hate that kind of story.
This one, I loved. I chuckled my way through it, I stayed up until almost midnight to finish it, and I loved the ending.
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