Funny. Liz saw me reading The Message in the Hollow Oak and said, Hey! That was a good one! And, I didn’t remember it. She’s read very few Nancy Drews and I’ve read them all, most of them multiple times. This one – she liked. This one – I found boring. I’m pretty sure I found it boring as a kid, too, since I don’t even remember reading it.
Ho Hum.
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I vaguely remember the 6 Word Memoir meme that went around the internets, awhile back. It came, it was interesting, it disappeared. After reading I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets, I’m kind of sorry that it did disappear. I found the 6 word memoirs written by teens to be moving, interesting, and funny – all at the same time, sometimes. I found myself remembering how that felt, thankful that I never felt THAT way, laughing because I saw myself or my kids in another six words.
I’m not sure this is Cybil win worthy BUT, it might be. And if it somehow won, I wouldn’t be sad. This is a book I’d like to own. To just have it sitting around the house, to pick up, read, and think about for the rest of the day. It’s that kind of book.
(By the way, the 6 words written by the teen stars were pretty boring compared to the regular kids’ writing.)
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After was the toughest YA book I’ve read in a long, long, long time. 16 year olds who get pregnant are troubling – they’re downright depressing when they throw their babies in dumpsters. Sounds pretty horrid doesn’t it? Well it was – and it wasn’t.
Devon is a good character. The characters around her, also well written. When the book was over, I didn’t hate any of them and I was glad I read the book. It’s hard. Very hard. But it was just about impossible to put it down once I’d made it through that first, horrible, chapter.
I saw The Missing Ink on a blog (I don’t remember which one) – and Sassymonkey mentioned it that same day. I put it on my library reserve list because, it’s tattoos! And while I don’t have any, my kids do. It seemed fun.
The book was waiting for me at the library one Saturday. A Saturday that TW and killed time during Prince J’s flute lesson by going to the local independent bookstore. The Missing Ink was on the shelf. I bought it. I thought it would be a great book to take on our trip to Florida – we could both read it and leave it behind for Michelle. I don’t think either of us ended up reading it on the trip, but we did leave it behind. Instead, we both read the library copy that I’d picked up. And we both enjoyed the book quite a bit.
Brett is a great tattoo shop owner. The people who work in her shop are interesting. Las Vegas is always interesting and the perfect place for Tattoo Shop mysteries to take place, don’t you think? There’s a great character, Sylvia – older woman with maybe a wee bit of dementia. She owned a competing shop before passing it along to her son. I love Sylvia. She needs her own series of books.
Looking for a beach read – try this one. It’s light and amusing. Don’t take my word for it… Sassymonkey liked it too.
Look, more evidence that I did snack while reading Nancy Drew (my mother seems to believe that I did not – err she would be wrong, lol.) Some sort of foodie goo with fuzzy pink hair attached. My bedroom was pink and green (because my grandmother swore that pink and green went together and I believed every word she ever said, which is another story.) I vaguely recall some fuzzy pink pillow was on my bed and I’m pretty sure this pink fuzz is pillow related.
Anyway – The Password to Larkspur Lane – finished it, laughed when Bess said “I don’t want to meet any kidnappers” and George said “Don’t be such a snob!” Umm so you’re a snob if you don’t want to meet kidnappers? Hah. Who knew? Call me a snob because kidnappers are not high on my list of people to mee either.
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First, Neil Gaiman books should be listened to on audio, right before bed. If we listened to Odd and the Frost Giants when I was tired, his voice threatened to put me to sleep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a boring voice – it’s a good bedtime story voice. Next, you should know that this is a super short book – a plus in my opinion. Two cds (on audio) – nice. No chance of this one being overdue at the library.
Now, about the story – nicely written, nicely told. I liked Odd. I liked Loki and Thor and Odin and Freya AND the Frost Giant, whose name we do not know because he didn’t tell us. Everyone should read (or listen) to this one.
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Some observations from Nancy’s Mysterious Letter:
-In my experience, growing up in the 60s and 70s, there were very few dilapidated bridges. (No mom, the Grace bridge wasn’t dilapidated.) So how come there are so many in Nancy’s world?
-People say the world is smaller now, because of the internets. Those folks didn’t read Nancy Drew books in the 60s, did they?
-Mail delivery seems to have gotten significantly slower. A letter from London was stolen. A replacement letter showed up less two days later. Regular mail, not Fedex or even UPS. How is that possible? I can’t get mail delivered from across town that quickly.
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It was awesome to meet Julie Des Jardins (Jory’s sister and Joy’s daughter) last year at BlogHer 09. I’d heard an awful lot about her and seen a lot of photos of her and her children. It was fun to take her photo with Mrs Potato Head. And it was interesting to hear her talk about her book, The Madame Curie Complex.
I’m not a science nerd but is that because when I was a kid, I was discouraged from pursuing math and science interests? Possible but as with any nature over nurture question, impossible to know for sure. I didn’t know exactly what Julie was going to write or who she’d include in her pages but any book that talks about invisible women is my kind of book.
When my signed review copy arrived (thanks Julie!) I was thrilled by the names of the women I saw inside. I have always been interested in Marie Curie, haven’t we all? I’m a huge Roslind Franklin fan, (Watson, Crick and Wilkins… ugh, don’t even get me started… I think I almost drove off of the road the day I discovered The Rosalind Franklin College right next to the Great Lakes Naval Station.) And, I remember wanting to do a report about Lillian Gilbreth way back when and not being able to find enough information, all I could find was stuff about Frank.
I was really looking forward to reading it but work and kids and life in general kept me from diving in. (Imagine Lillian Gilbreth or Marie Curie making those kinds of excuses…hah.) I decided the Readathon would be the perfect time to sit down with it but I planned poorly and didn’t start it until very late in the Readathon day. I struggled with the intro, though it started beautifully, and ended up putting it down in favor of Nancy Drew – hoping to revitalize a bit. It worked because when I picked it back up, I was hooked – exhausted but hooked.
We’ve all heard the reasons why women didn’t enter (or achieve) in math and science, Julie’s book digs in differently. As she placed these women into historical context, right next to their male counterparts, I found myself thinking about the stories I already knew – in a different way.
The pieces about Gilbreth, the Manhattan project, and the “computers” in Astronomy were fascinating – I suspect I’ll go back and re-read those sections again. I’ve also never been very interested in the Trimates – the primate studies of Fossey, Galdikas and Goodall- but after reading about them in The Madame Curie Complex, I’ve begun to regret that. I might just end up with a book or two about Primatology – particularly Galdikas and Fossey. Thanks Julie!
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The last book I finished for the Dewey Readathon was The Clue in the Diary. The most interesting thing(s) about this one were related to Ned. He was “introduced” in this book. He and Nancy met when Foxy Felix’s house blew up and from that moment on Ned became a wee bit stalkerish – he just kept turning up. Someone should have warned her about that boy, no matter how cute or smart he might be. An oddity though is that in a book I read, earlier in the series, Helen teased Nancy about Ned… (maybe in the Mystery at Lilac Inn?), but how would that be possible if Nancy hadn’t met him yet? Oops.
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Alright, I’m calling it done. Here’s how I did….
17 hours.
2 Nancy Drews
1 Graphic Novel
1 Poetry
2 Non-fiction
Total pages 1467