13 Little Blue Envelopes

Hello,

I apologize for the gap between reviews. I've been writing for most of that time, and as I've mentioned before, when there's an uptick in writing activity, my reading activity plummets. Well, sort of. If you count fan-fic than it kind of stays the same, but that doesn't count (even when it's an awesome one like Unholyverse) and I know that and I'm not proud of my addiction. *hangs head* Okay, properly remorseful, let's MOVE ON.

I finally finished 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson after taking FOREEEEEVER to read it because I'm a total jerk. It's really great, and I was in the middle of reading it when a couple friends and I went on a coffee odyssey and the entire day reminded me of the book. We had no maps only vague ideas of direction, no exact plans to know where we were going next, and a mission to find the best coffee in town. (Which we did.)

Ginny thinks of herself as a very boring person, but her Aunt Peg, a free-spirit artist type, always made her feel exciting. But Aunt Peg disappears and her family doesn't hear from her until they are informed that she has died of a brain tumor abroad. Ginny receives thirteen blue envelopes from her aunt with directions to fly to London and to not open the letters until she completes the task set out in each one.

Without guidebooks, maps, cell phone, computer, or contact with anyone from America, Ginny sets off across Europe, retracing the journey of her runaway aunt, and finding herself along the way.

Awwww, I do love a coming of age story. Ginny is a great heroine. I know I've felt plain and unexciting at times and there are those people in my life who make me feel a little bit dangerous and interesting. Aunt Peg actually reminded me a lot of my sister, but I swear to God, if Sara ran off on me like that I'd freaking hunt her down. Still, I kind of really want an Aunt Peg to send me on a crazy adventure like Ginny's.

Four out of five stars!

Later,
~Emily~

Geography Club

Hello,

I hope everyone is having as much beautiful weather as I am having. My laptop says is 57 degrees, but my body says it's 65ish out here in the sunshine. Gorgeous.

And lucky me, I have a great book to blog about today! I love it when the book is awesome. I know I've loved all of them so far, but that's just because I have yet to finish the ones I don't love.

I've been looking for another Boy Meets Boy ever since I finished Boy Meets Boy. I had about twenty bucks leftover from Christmas on my Amazon account so with some careful planning I knew I could make it count. I scoured the internet and lucked out. I found Lee Wind's blog called I'm Here. I'm Queer. What The Hell Do I Read?. That's how I found Geography Club and boy, am I glad I did. I bought it on my Kindle midmorningish and I had finished it before bedtime. My only regret was finishing it so quickly. I'll be reading the sequel ASAP.

Russell Middlebrook feels like a spy behind enemy lines in the boy's locker room. Any moment, a single wrong look, a wrong word, and the boys will see his secret. He feels like it's' so obvious. Russell is gay. He doesn't know any other gay people, well... some on the internet, but they aren't real. Which is why he's surprised when he notices someone has set up a chatroom for his hometown on a gay website. Russell sets up a meeting with "GayTeen" a boy from not only his school, but his own year. He's shocked when it is baseball star, super popular, and hot Kevin Land. Russell promises to keep Kevin's secret, but he has to tell someone. He turns to his best friend Min and is shocked to learn that she's bisexual. Shortly, Russell is meeting several other gay students and he wonders if the whole school isn't secretly gay. The kids start meeting under the misleading name Geography Club (who would ever want to join something as boring as a geography club?) and sharing about their experiences in life and supporting each other. Things start looking up for Russell, but nothing lasts forever.

I would describe this book as the Gay-Straight Alliance version of The Breakfast Club. It's witty, funny, and the the writing is fantastic.

Five out of five stars and I definitely recommend it!

Later,
Emily

Like Shaking Hands With God

My life has been in a state of flux for about nine months now. I have lived in three (soon to be four) different houses in that time and at some point called each one home. My most recent move has brought me to a new jungle, The City. I really love countryside and natural landscapes so vast you feel at once tiny and gigantic. The City doesn't inspire that dual feeling in me. I've never found cities to be beautiful. However, the great thing about The City is being out of The Bubble of Smalltown, America. Well, yesterday my Mom made a point of reminding me how nice it is to be out of The Bubble by taking me to an indie bookstore. There were a couple used bookstore type places where I used to live, but the area wasn't large enough to support indie booksellers. Well, if you'd care to read about my adventures, I've posted about it on my personal blog, but I am actually here to post a review of a book we purchased yesterday.

I couldn't sleep yesterday, so I took a bath and read Like Shaking Hands With God. It's a little book, only eighty pages, but I loved it. It's two conversations between Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer about writing and their books. Mom is the one who got the book, she read Slaughterhouse-Five recently and this caught her eye, but I couldn't keep my hand off a book about writing. I read a little bit of Slaughterhouse-Five to Mom on a trip while she was reading it, and I loved what I read, but I have yet to read a Vonnegut book. Still, writing is writing.

There was lots of things both writers said that I really loved which resonated with me, but it's such a slim volume that I say "Go read it yourself" if you're interested at all. It's well worth the read. Okay, one thing which really stood out was when Mr. Vonnegut talked about how the act of reading is an impossible feat. He says something along the lines of writers are asking people to look at a bunch of slanting lines and recreate the  Battle of Waterloo in their mind, and it's like expecting a large group of people to be able to play French Horn. It's a specialized skill and it's ludicrous that people can do it at all. It gave me a new sense of wonder about an ability I take for granted all too often.

Five out of five, and bygolly go read this book! It took me an hour. Go. Do it.

I'm not sure what book I'll be reviewing next. I'm reading Isherwood on Writing, Northanger Abbey, Mossflower, (I forgot I had smuggled it to The City with me in the dust jacket of another book. It's my FAVORITE Redwall book, and it's a hardcover. My copy of Martin the Warrior is a musty smelling paperback. Hardcover wins.) a book of literary essays, and a book about a young Sherlock Holmes, called Death Cloud. I read Death Cloud aloud to my cousins last night, and they both enjoyed it, so I foresee more reading aloud in my future.

That reminds me, my eleven year old cousin (secret codename: Ellie) has asked me to compile a reading list for her. Any suggestions for a precocious eleven year old? I have about twenty on the list, but I like to offer up some variety. I can't wait for her to get a couple years older so I can get her hooked on Lois Lowry and Tamora Pierce. Those women were my heroes at her age.

Until next time,
Emily

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

I first stumbled across the work of E. Lockhart during my first reading challenge when I read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. I forget how I discovered Frankie, but I'm very glad I did discover it; it's an amazing book. I quickly read The Boyfriend List, which is book one in the Ruby Oliver quartet. I'm finally now getting around to reading the rest of the quartet, starting with The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them. (Warning: spoilers for book one in the next paragraph.)

Ruby Oliver has issues. There's no way around it really. When it comes to relationships, she's a mess. In The Boyfriend List she lost her boyfriend to her best friend. Ruby started having panic attacks and had to attend therapy. One of the therapy exercises was to write a list of boys in her life, which her best friend distributed throughout the whole school when Ruby tried to get back with her ex.

The Boy Book finds Ruby working to put her social life back together. Throughout the book, Ruby navigates old and new friendships, old and new relationships, and explores several rules and guidelines via The Boy Book, a diary she wrote with her best friends before the boyfriend list debacle.

I love the wit of these books, and Ruby is painfully relatable and freaking lovable. If you've never made a blunder like Ruby, then you know someone who has. There are amazing footnotes (one of my favorite features) and the entries from The Boy Book are hilarious.

I give this a 4 out of 5 and definitely recommend the Ruby Oliver quartet.

I thought I'd mention that I also read The Beauty and the Beast by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. I'm not counting it as a book because it's quite short, but it came up on my Kindle recommendations, and I couldn't help but read it. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Disney princess movies. I mean come on, Belle is an archetypal nerd-girl. Of course there are differences between the book and Disney (when isn't there?) but for being a little morals story, it was absolutely adorable.

Right now, I'm in the middle of reading a few different books. I had an uptick in my writing, which created a downturn in my reading, but I'm getting back into it. I'm very bad, do forgive me. Right now I'm reading Isherwood on Writing by Christopher Isherwood and Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques. I'm hoping to finish MtW quickly, but I anticipate Isherwood being a book I digest more than read.

As you may or may not be aware, Brian Jacques died almost a week ago. He was a great writer and meant a great deal to me. I wrote a eulogy over on my personal blog which you can read here.

Later,
~Emily~

Almost Perfect

I told you I'd catch up! Well, maybe I didn't tell you that, but I told me that. When I wrote the first post here, I was half a book behind. I have since read two books by the fourteenth, so I am on track for the 50 book challenge thus far.

The ALA announced its youth media award recipients last weekend. I love awards season because I get to discover new and notable creations (be it books, movies, or music*) or see things I already love honored and recognized. So, I had some books I was rooting for, but mostly I was excited to see what new books I'd discover. Scrolling down the list and skipping all the younger awards, I ended up going straight to the ALA's newest award, the Stonewall Book Award. Admittedly, I was holding out for one of my favorite books of last year, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan to win, and while it didn't win, it did get an honor. So, I decided to get the winner, Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher, to see what beat my beloved WGWG. I was pretty much blown away.

Logan has lived in Boyer, a tiny Missouri town twenty minutes from Columbia, his entire life. He knows all the kids in his class of a few dozen, and has dated the same girl for three years. Then she cheats on him, sending Logan into a deep depression. Despite the best efforts of his friends, who mostly just advise him to get it on with another girl, nothing gets his mind off his cheating ex until Sage sweeps into his biology class one day, all wild hair and confident smiles. There are never new kids in Boyer, and they never look as cute as Sage. However, as Logan tries to pursue Sage he is met with obstacles. Not only is she not allowed to date, she is not allowed to fraternize with boys. Logan works to solve Sage’s secret, but after they finally kiss he wishes he had never met the girl… boy… it. Logan has to overcome his ignorance and prejudice to learn what it means to be a true friend to Sage.

Okay, enough summarizing. (I hate summarizing.) I’ve been interested in gender studies lately and basically obsessing over the idea of love transcending gender. This book was candy to me. But, I know everyone isn’t me and a book about a transgender teen is a little out there to some readers, so let me say that this book is a great read on many levels. Katcher really breathed life into his characters, wrote amazing relationships, and described the setting in such a way that I could show you around Boyer.

If I have one criticism of the book it’s over the character Tim Tokugowa. Tim is obese and at the beginning of the novel the narrator, Logan, describes him in the largest of terms and gives detailed accounts of his culinary escapades. Later on Tim gets his act together, gets a girlfriend, and stops chewing down so much, but still the narrator describes Tim in those terms. Honestly, it was all a little off putting since Logan is learning to see people for who they are instead of how they look, the description and treatment of Tim was disappointing. I blame Kristin Cashore; on her most excellent blog she highlighted an article about fatophobia in YA fiction and I’ve been sensitive to it ever since. (The article criticizes Will Grayson, Will Grayson for the character Tiny Cooper, and gosh, I cringed. Loyal fans don’t like to see the ugly. I loved Tiny, but the author of the article makes some fair points.)

I give this book a 5.5 out of 5 and hiiiiighly recommend it to everyone. It’s nice to start the year off right.

See you soon when I will be reviewing The Boy Book by E. Lockhart.
~Emily~


*But almost never music. I like what I like and I can't trust award shows to point me towards music of that sort. Sorry, I'm a little snobby with my music.

**As a Missourian, albeit a little farther south than the book setting, I can attest to how real the setting and the mindset felt. Plus, I felt like I was in on some of the jokes. My favorite was when Logan describes the decorations at Sage's house as "the gaudiest display of Christmas decorations this side of Branson." Having lived near Branson all my life, I laughed my butt off. Another good passage with a podunk Missouri vibe was "Winter was over. The last of the snow was gone, turning half the roads in Boyer into muddy, impassable swamps. The county ambulance district stopped pulling burn victims out of meth labs and started scraping them off the highway again. The girls at my school, and the middle-aged women who dressed like teenagers, would break out the halter tops and Daisy Dukes before too long."

Hello, My Name is Emily and I Am a Bookaholic.

Hello,

It all started when I was a toddler, three or four years old, in the car with my family. We passed a sign which I pointed to and then asked, "Mommy, does that say 'president?'" She covered my eyes and told me not to look. She gets a little red when I tell the story now, her only defense being she was afraid I would learn to read incorrectly. As if there's a right or wrong way. Well, many years have passed and I'm now an eighteen (almost nineteen) year old with bifocals and a collection of vintage dictionaries and thesauri. Books have been my ever-present companions, my dear friends, and my faithful teachers. I love the old, familiar tales, and I thrill in discovering a new yarn. I hope to share that joy with other people through this blog.

Kindle 3: Three-thousand-five-hundred books worth of capacity. 

1942 Webster: Two-thousand-six pages of dictionary, several hundred more of reference.

Two of my most prized possessions.

I plan on posting reviews of the books I read, as well as just talking about books in general. Along those lines, I want to talk about which books I'm excited to read this year. I'm going to do a fifty book challenge this year. I did one a year and a halfish ago (I didn't start at the beginning of the year) and was successful, by following attempt was foiled by excessive school memorizing. And then graduating. And then college. So yeah, time to take another crack at it! If you do the math, fifty books in a year comes out to about one book a week. (I am about a half a book behind right now. I know how to start it off right.) The thing I found most helpful while doing my last fifty book challenge was a list of books to read for the year. I'd love any recommendations as well.

To Read (in no particular order):

1. Until We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
2. The Dragon's Apprentice, by James A. Owen
3. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
4. Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud, by Andrew Lane (The US release is next month, but I really want it for Kindle, but the Kindle version doesn't come out until Dec 2012. Seriously.)
5. Prince Ombra, by Roderick MacLeish
6. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
7. Isherwood On Writing, by Christopher Isherwood
8. The Berlin Stories, by Christopher Isherwood (I started it last year, but I have yet to figure out what the plot is supposed to be, but I'll power through. It's excellent writing, I just have no clue what is supposed to be happening.)
9. Christopher Isherood: The Sixties, by Christopher Isherwood (And if I find a decent copy of the first set of his diaries, I'll add that to the list too.)
10. 13 Little Blue Envelopes, by Maureen Johnson
11. The Last Little Blue Envelope, by Maureen Johnson
12. Lola and the Boy Next Door, by Stephanie Perkins
13. The Boy Book: A Study Habits and Behaviors, Plush Techniques for Taming Them, by E. Lockhart
14. The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon -- and Me, Ruby Oliver, by E. Lockhart
15. Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, plural. If my life weren't complicated I wouldn't be Ruby Oliver, by E. Lockhart (Don't begrudge me the long titles.)
16. The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel, by David Levithan
17. Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan (I definitely need to do a re-read. It was SO AMAZING.)
18. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (It's not a fifty book reading challenge without reading TPB for the millionth time.)
19. The Bermudez Triangle, by Maureen Johnson
20. Looking for Alaska, by John Green (Don't tell the other Nerdfighters, but I haven't read this yet! :O!!)
21. Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales, by Tamora Pierce
22. The Sable Quean, by Brian Jacques
23. Going Bovine, by Libba Bray
24. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
25. Freddie Mercury: His Life In His Own Words, edited by Greg Brooks and Simon Lupton

Okay, half a year is enough to get started, methinks. Leave me a comment with a suggestion.

Happy reading!

~Emily~