Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

I love Jane Austen novels.  I love zombies.  Need I say more?

Check out the trailer for the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

https://youtu.be/jAChymiQC-o

You Don't Know Me by David Klass

Testing students’ reading levels is one of the most boring things I have to do as a teacher.  It’s a necessary evil, of course, since I have to have an idea of where to begin teaching each kid, but some of the passages are absolutely painful.  There’s one about dragons that makes me want to shoot myself – but maybe it’s just because I’m not a dragon kind of gal.  There’s another one that focuses on a conversation that I’ve heard so many times that I have it memorized.  Happily, some of the passages are actually really good like The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and Ann Martin’s A Corner of the Universe.

The one I’ve always liked best is from the book You Don’t Know Me by David Klass.  The passage the students read is about 300 words long and highlights the fourteen year old main character’s love of a classmate, Gloria, who, in his fantasies, he refers to as Glory Hallelujah.  Glory seems pretty sweet and accepts John’s invitation to a basketball game and I had great hopes that this really nice kid was about to begin a relationship with the girl of his dreams. 

Then I decided to Google the book while a student was reading the passage.  Let’s just say that, in spite having read thousands of books, I was totally wrong.

You Don’t Know Me is no sweet YA (early YA) novel.  Instead, it is the story of an abused boy dealing with his mother’s cruel and criminal boyfriend and a host of other people who treat him like crap.  “You don’t know me,” is the phrase John uses to protect himself.

Luckily for John, not everyone in his world is a giant jerk and there are people who value him, who care about him, and who actually do “know him.”

I don’t want to give away anything, so suffice it to say that You Don’t Know Me is a touching coming-of-age story with a very likeable main character who makes you want to beat up almost everyone else in his life.  It’s well worth reading – and so much better than that damn dragon story.

LAME FACTOR:  If it were lame, I would have stopped reading it.  0/5

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  I doubt it.

BRAIN POWER:  The story is well written and aimed at late middle school through early high school.  It’s nice to have a story with a male narrator.

Eleanor & Park: A Playlist

To say that I am obsessed with Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell would be an understatement.  In fact, I love it so much, I am having trouble writing a blog post about it.  I think I may need to sit with it a bit more before I'm ready.  I first read the book a few months ago - and immediately read it again to absorb it (the first time I just wanted to see how it ended).

I'm currently nearing the end of my third reading and I still feel like I haven't absorbed it quite enough.  I don't think I've ever felt that way about any book.

In the meantime, music plays a central role in the book and I recently discovered this playlist on Barnes & Noble's website.  I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop.  It's a pretty accurate and complete representation of the music in the book.

Enjoy.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/eleanor-parks-lovely-mix-tape/

The Riverman by Aaron Starmer

Lately, I’ve been reading more for research than for pleasure; that is, I look up the best selling self-published books and try to figure out what makes them sell.  I can’t say I’ve been terribly impressed by the quality of most of these books, but they’ve earned their authors plenty of cash, so bravo for them.  I hope that I will be clever enough to manage the same thing.  That said, I have managed to squeeze in some legitimate reads including The Riverman by Aaron Starmer.

The Riverman is a middle grade novel with a male narrator, twelve-year old Alistair Cleary.  I love this kid – which is most likely why I enjoyed the book so much.  He is sweet and sincere and well meaning boy trying to navigate the world between being a kid and being an adult.  That world becomes much more complicated when a neighbor, Fiona Loomis, shows up at the door with an incredible story and a request to write her biography.

At first, Alistair is reluctant to get involved in the project.  Fiona is pretty weird (wonderfully weird) after all, but as Fiona tells her tale, Alistair finds himself irresistibly drawn to both the story and the storyteller.  As Fiona tells it, she and a select handful of children, all of whom have disappeared, have access to an alternate universe of their own making, a world where everything would be perfect were it not for the presence of The Riverman, a stealer of children’s souls.

And while Alistair isn’t entirely sure that he believes the story Fiona has to tell, he is certain that she needs protection and that he is just the one for the job.  With his friendships with other boys deteriorating, Alistair’s feelings for Fiona grow providing his life with a meaning he hadn’t realized he was missing – which makes her well-being that much more important. 

Suffice it to say the story comes to an end with a fair amount of excitement, some missteps, and a really sweet exchange between Alistair (did I mention I love that kid?) and Fiona.

LAME FACTOR:  I can’t say I’m big on series books, but I’m actually going to read the next one.  Definitely a zero of five.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: Boys will be boys.  Kids will be kids.  There’s nothing that bad in here and if your parents think so, they don’t know what you’re up to.

BRAIN POWER:  While the story is very well written, it is a middle grade book so no problems.

The Scorpio Races

So, as usual, I have been reading plenty of books and blogging about zero of them, mostly because I’ve become obsessed with getting my own book published.  It is a slow, soul-sucking process which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.  Happily, I’m not particularly sensitive, and press on in spite of all the rejection.

Anyway, in the past three weeks I’ve finished three books and thought I should blog about at least one of them.  All three, Legend by Marie Lu, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and The Riverman by Aaron Starmer, were quite good in their own way, and I would recommend them all.

In all fairness, though, I should start with The Scorpio Races because Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver was the first YA book I’d ever read (having been born in the olden days, I only had children’s books or adult books available to me) and started me on a seemingly never-ending binge of YA reading.  It is her work, in fact, that inspired me to even think of writing my own book.

The Scorpio Races is set on what appears to be a British/Irish sort of island in an indeterminate time period that seems to be the past – but if you’ve ever been on a British/Irish sort of island, you will realize that this is often the case.  Much like Shiver, the story is told from alternating points-of-view.  Puck (Kate) is the heroine of the story.  She’s a little grumbly and a lot brave, motivated to take on the terrifying challenge of racing her gentle horse against men riding killer water horses because she believes it may prolong her eldest brother’s leaving the family home.  Oh yeah, also because her parents are dead, her young brother is just a tad off, and they risk getting kicked out of the only home they’ve every known. In light of all that, prize money seems pretty tempting.

Sean Kendrick serves as the other narrator.  All angles and silence, Sean loves the island, but he loves the horses even more, particularly his water horse, Corr.  Like Puck, Sean is also motivated to win the Scorpio Races in order to sort out his own variety of issues; that is, until Puck comes along putting a new spin on both winning and on being alone.

As usual, I found the characters extremely well-written, original, and multi-dimensional.  The story, which revolves around the Celtic myth of the Capaill Uisce, water horses who rise from the ocean only to get extraordinarily cranky with anyone who tries to stop them from going back, was also quite original.  The setting, which is complex and multilayered, is generally one of my favorites anyway (i.e., anything Celtic and rainy) so I was pretty predisposed to enjoying that aspect of the story.

All in all, The Scorpio Races definitely doesn’t disappoint in any way and, as with all Maggie Stiefvater’s works, I highly recommend it.

LAME FACTOR:  Maggie Stiefvater doesn’t have a lame bone in her body.  0 of 5.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  I can’t think of any reasons why they would.

BRAIN POWER:  I’m clearly prejudiced, but this is a great author who uses real words, beautiful sentence structure, and metaphors the rest of us couldn’t even begin to imagine.  Your brain might actually grow.

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black

Because you have waited patiently, I give you a video:

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

I can understand where you may have thought I’d given up on this blog.  But no!  I was just trying to build the suspense.  Or maybe I’ve just been very, very busy trying to write my own book - which I’ve managed to do.  Personally, I would give my own book a 0 on the lameness scale.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find an agent who feels the same way.

While I was writing, I definitely did not stop reading.  As a matter of fact, I read so much, that when I finally sat down to write a new entry, I couldn’t remember half of the books I’d finished.  Maybe that speaks to the quality of the books – but I suspect it has more to do with an overfull brain.

The one book that really stands out enough for me to remember is The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.  In fact, I thought it was so great, I immediately read it a second time so that I could absorb the really good parts – most of which involve a lot of blood.

Just when you thought there was no room left for an actually decent vampire book, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown comes along with great writing, a totally original plot, and fascinating characters.  I picked the book up after reading Holly Black’s Doll Bones, a book I assigned my students as a summer assignment, and I was far from disappointed.

Tana is a girl who doesn’t back down from a difficult situation – in fact, difficult situations seem to drive her to act.  Waking up after a long, alcohol soaked evening, Tana finds her friends are not quite in the condition in which she remembered them.  She also finds her sometimes ex-boyfriend, Aidan, tied to a bed on his way to changing after having been bitten by a vampire.  In the corner there sits the most absolutely interesting male vampire character I’ve encountered, Gavriel who possesses a mixture of old world charm and serious bloodlust.  He is a vampire, after all.

When vampires lurking in the house threaten to break down the door, the easiest – and safest – move would be for Tana to jump out the window and make a run for it while the sun is still up.  Tana’s no wuss, though, and she’s not about the leave Aidan – jerk or not – behind; nor is she going to leave Gavriel – dangerous or not to the mercy of vampires who don’t seem to feel any sort of kinship with him.

And so begins an intricate and blood soaked journey in which Tana voluntarily enters a coldtown, a place where vampires, vampire wannabes, and masochists reside, living and dying off of one another’s twisted desires.

It all sounds pretty gross when I look it over, but believe me, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a super engaging read.

LAME FACTOR:  Have I not made it clear that it is a zero of five?

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  Uhh…maybe?  There is quite a lot of “bad” behavior, but nothing overly shocking.  Did I mention there’s lots of blood?

BRAIN POWER:  Holly Black is an excellent writer and this is a well-written story with strong, but not overwhelming, vocabulary. The story is worth the struggles of your little brain.