Books I've Finished Since the Last Time I Posted on Here...

The Golden Compass, the Subtle Knife, and the Amber Spyglass.

Fantastic books. I won't say much about them except that I really liked them, and I would absolutely recommend them to anyone.

Austenland.

Kinda cheesy. The genre for last month's book club was romance and this is what Nathalie, Mike's mom, read. I told her I'd been thinking about reading it, so she gave it to me and told me I should. I wasn't ever very interested in reading it, but I figured I might as well, so I did, and it was not amazing, but not the worst either. It was definitely what I'd call "mindless froth," so at least my expectations were right in that. :)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

So good! I just finished it this morning. I read it because I was kind of in a rut--ever since I finished His Dark Materials I haven't been able to really get into anything else, and I've just been reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves to pass the time. I picked up From the Mixed-Up Files a few days ago just for kicks, because I got it from Megan's book order a long time ago and hadn't read it yet. Really fun to read, I love the way it's written. Good times.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

This is a really good book. I started reading Amy Tan a couple years ago and I've really gotten into Asian lit since then. Lisa See writes in a different style, or at least in this book she does. It's a lot more... realistic, I guess--not that Amy Tan isn't, but this book focuses a lot on all the foot binding, the actual day to day experiences, things like that. I've tried several times and I really can't explain what the appeal of this kind of literature is to me, but I just know I really like it.

Next on my list are a couple books I haven't been able to get a hold of: My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Piccoult, and The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak. I'm trying to put a check on my money-spending, so I've been looking for them at the library. I can't find them at any of the libraries around here, though--all the copies they have have been checked out every time I look for them. Megan just got a copy of The Book Thief for Easter, so I'll probably borrow it from her when she finishes reading it.

And for now... I don't know. Maybe Missing, which is the other adolescent book I got from the book order a while ago. It's not really jumping out to me, but my experience has been that adolescent books are good for getting out of ruts because they're so fast and easy to get through.

Character Flaw

Since Baby Bear was born, I've had a lot more time to read. Thanks to Lin and the library, I've found some great books... Libba Bray's series, Austenland, Goose Girl, Enna Burning. Most of which are young adult books, which isn't a big deal to me. They are easy to read, clean and enjoyable. But I'm noticing a common character flaw that is beginning to really annoy me.

In most of these books the main character is supposed to be an independent, strong-minded female - which is great. So why is it that they all come to a point where they are presented with a problem and spend a good part of the book avoiding friends and family or lying about issue? Is this the only way to introduce conflict in YA literature? Do we really want our teenage girls to think that this is the only way to handle a problem? And why does being independent mean you can't trust the people who love you? I don't get it...

Are we all in a reading rut?

The answer for me would be "no," but I AM in a posting slump. I am reading - I finished two books in the last week, in fact, and am starting a new one today - I just don't have much to say. Which is strange for me, right? haha.

So I thought I'd at least put that out there. Maybe this summer we can organize a virtual book club meeting of sorts? Actually no maybe - let's do it! Comment with suggestions of books for us to choose from and we can pick one, read it at the same time, then blog away. We basically read the same books as it is anyway, right? What sayest thou?