The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is a great book. I've taken awhile to write up this review because there is just so much to talk about. It was recommended highly to my by many friends, and now I recommend it to the rest of you!

It is told from a very unique perspective, Death. During the first part, the style was kind of bugging me, but after I got in about 50 pages or so, I was really hooked. I also hated the violence, especially when it was directed at poor Liesel.

The Book Thief takes place during World War II, so of course it is filled with sadness. And like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, it shows the horrors of war no matter which side you are on. It was very interesting to read about the less obvious ways the character's lives were affected by war, ways you don't usually think of. Thankfully, like Man's Search for Meaning, or Life is Beautiful, it shows the triumph of the human spirit, and the power of kindness. SO that is good!

I loved Liesel and her relationships with Papa, Rudy and Max. The characters are great in this story. Very original and well developed. While you feel terribly for all of them, none of them are pitiful. They have these small victories that make them heroes. For example, one day after finding a coin and buying one piece of candy to share (they count their sucks), the book says, "The day had been a great one, and Nazi Germany was a wondrous place." And you actually feel that way.

I love books that focus on the power of books. Liesel is at least 10 before she really learns to read, and then it becomes central to her life. I always love that. She underlines the words she doesn't know then paints them on the walls of the basement to practice. So great.

I enjoyed Death's narration more than I thought I would at first. He often foreshadows by saying, "the next time I saw him..." or talks to the reader directly about the significance of a moment, like "he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on....You can love Rudy for that, if you like." And again, that's exactly how you are feeling.

One of my favorite parts in the book is when Liesel is reading aloud in a crowded bomb shelter and, "A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordion." Her Papa was an accordion player, and it had brought comfort to many people through out the story. This was such a magical moment when she realizes the gift she has to share and bring comfort to others.

I really liked this book. I've mentioned it tons of times, but I enjoy how novels written for a young adult audience can touch on difficult topics, but still protect you from horrific details or imagery. This book made me cry, and did find its way into my dreams, but I wasn't haunted by nightmares.

What did you love about it?

The May Queen edited by Andrea N. Richesin

subtitle: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling it all Together in Your 30'sAttention: This is in no way a self-help or motivational book (COLBY!)
What this book is, is an interesting collection of essays by women about their 30's. Many of them center on moments of enlightenment or change. Many are about motherhood and marriage. But the editor did a fabulous job of getting a variety of writers. She explains that there was "no single image of womanhood that we are striving for." The subject, writing style, life style, each is refreshingly different. And I think because of that I felt like I was gaining all sorts of different insight and ideas. And you know what? It was motivational for me. I didn't feel unaccomplished, or like I've put my life on hold for the last 11 years since I started my career as a mother, not at all. But it did get my mind going. I love that all these women have lived different lives, but the point is we all have something to say.

I kind of felt like I was reading a literary magazine. The stories are all short and worked great when I only had a few minutes to read here and there. I'm kind of sad that I've run out of them!

Three more things I liked:

1) Each chapter started with a quote. I'm a fan of that.
2) Most of the essays had digressions and ramblings. I'm also a fan of those.
3) At the back of the book is a photo and short bio of each of the women. I flipped back to see the women over and over. I loved that part.

Here are a few quotes from the various authors:

"I could tell her that, in a way, the pressure's off, and that there's a new set of challenges ahead." Jennifer Weiner

"They are friends who have stuck around since I was five and friends who I was smart enough to spot when I was older." Sara Woster

"Thank G-- all those men were just not that into me. They did me a bigger favor than I could have ever known." Veronica Chambers

"I was able to muster the courage to take a step toward my deepest dream while still staying light enough on my feet to follow the path when it took a most unexpected turn." Tanya Shaffer

"No matter what the journey you chose, if you hang on, it will ultimately lead you to discovering your true nature." Samina Ali

"I ran through a roster of all the men I knew. And I realized there wasn't one whose face I wanted to see staring back at me for the rest of my life--except my husband's." Heather Chaplin

"I cried through the mask as John held his dangling body up for me to behold...And from then on, everything up to that point in my life was utterly insignificant." Erin Cressida Wilson

"Twenty years of writing was only practice to do that thing that everyone I went to school with did right away..." Erin Cressida Wilson

"For me, at least, going to the margins was something I had to do as a younger feminist, but to stay there would just be admitting I couldn't handle the rest of the world." Jennifer Baumgardner

I loved this last quote because I think it rings true of any extreme views, including religion. What good is it to set yourself apart if you can't participate in the world? I was thinking of working together for good, sharing opinons, evening influencing people. You can't do that if you ostracize yourself.

A few of my favorite essays:

Wide Awake by Marisa de los Santos (the reason I found this book)
She explains the feeling of getting up early with your toddler to keep him from waking up the baby, then goes into how she arrived at the decision to have kids. As with everything she writes, it's her words and phrases that get me everytime.

A Hungry Balance by Julianna Baggott
She writes about balancing, or not balancing, being a mother and a writer. How she knew she must have a family and write, if she gave up one she would resent the other. I loved how she didn't tell people she was a writer, but instead told them she was a stay-at-home mom, knowing the sterotype that would occur. I loved this essay.

I'm the One by Erin Ergenbright
She writes about bad relationships, and one particular break-up. She writes about coming out of it and finding herself.

A Random Sampling Age Thirty to Forty by Ayun Halliday
This was creatively done in lists. Lists of things that she did or didn't do in different decades of her life, goals she had, things that didn't happen to her, things that affected her. I enjoyed reading these.

To All the Men I've Loved Before by Amanda Eyre Ward
She writes a series of letters addressed to the men she has loved, like old boyfriends dating back to childhood. They are funny, interesting, and seemed honest. I loved this idea, and think it would be fun to write up my own.

This collection might be one of those things you can only like if you relate to the time of life. I really liked reading them, and reflecting on them. I recently turned 35, and have been reflecting on that quite a bit myself.

I'd love to hear which ones you liked if you pick this up!

The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland

I loved this guide. It had a ton of tips that applied to me, and tons that did not.

My 10-year-old read it as much as I did. I found it very helpful both before and during our Disney vacation.

I checked it out from my library and kept it until it was determined "lost" and I was "charged," but I live in a nice library district and they don't really charge you as long as you return it.

And consider this mini-review an explanation for my blogging absense. Fun family trip, fun out of town guests, not much reading time.

But the children's book blocking my library card was found last night. My husband, my hero. Now I'm back in business.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Oops, missed my Wednesday goal.

For those of you who haven't read Hunger Games yet, I'm going to try and review this carefully.

So, I had to start Catching Fire the day after I finished Hunger Games because it is so intriguing. But, I have to say that the beginning seemed a bit slow for me. Of course I was going on very little sleep, but I just couldn't get into it for a bit. THEN I did not care for the big surprise, and got a little annoyed with the whole thing.

While I'm at it, another thing that annoyed me was Katniss's self-doubt. I just kept thinking, come on, you have to know you're amazing. You know? But sometimes I think that comes with age and that I need to remember that she's just a teenager. Oh and also, I was so annoyed that it took them SOOO long to ask Haymitch how he won his season. It seemed like something they would have asked in the first book. But, they finally do. And it is important, like you knew it would be.

Now that I have my criticism off my chest, I would recommend this book. But only if you liked the first one. Duh. I did like it. I think the characters are very interesting. The plot is strong, and it is cool to see how the events from the first book have affected the second book. Did it seem weird to anyone else that Peeta's mom is never mentioned? I think the way the media handles the events in the story is very telling. I think it is good social commentary.

For some reason I couldn't help but think of the Twilight series when I read this book. Like Gale vs. Peeta. Katniss having self-esteem things. Doing forbidden things, but they seem morally right. Maybe when you are old, all young adult books seem to evolve around related themes.

So, those of you who've read it, how do you think it compares? I did like it, I did. But as I sit down to write this, it's the negatives that are coming to mind.

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

So this is the follow up novel to Love Walked In. You should read that one first. And if you really like it, read this one. I loved the first one, and I loved this one.

Belong to Me begins a few years after Love Walked In ends. I don't want to divulge too many details because I want you to read the first one! But this one continues Cornelia's narrative, and adds two new ones. One is a woman who is Cornelia's new neighbor, the other a young man whose path will cross her's. I missed Clare, but she does play an important role in the story too.

I like these characters. Even the seemingly un-likable Piper is so well developed that you are rooting for her in the end. And she's not un-likable anymore.

I have to say I'm a huge Marisa de los Santos fan right now. I can't wait to see what she'll write next.

Here are some quotes that I liked:

"The fact that I was thus diverted from my self-righteous indignation didn't mean I wasn't still indignant. And the fact that my indignation was self-righteous didn't mean it wasn't also righte
ous. Right?"

"So the rest of the day Dev walked around with the sentence 'What Dev said yesterday made me think of this poem' stretched over him, like a rainbow only he could see." (And his whole experience at his new school make me want to teach highschool, and be that kind of cool teacher--in my dreams.)

There is this perfect paragraph that I have to share even though it is so long.....

"As she performed these tasks, Piper had a sense that they were more than tasks, that they were the edge of something large that would unfold, pushing its way into the future. As Piper tidied Emma's ponytails, wiped peanut butter off Peter's chin, assembled potatoes and wedges of onion around the chicken, she understood that she would go on to fill days and weeks with helping, would wake up mornings feeling the day's emptiness, how it stood waiting to be filled with duties the way you'd fill a jar with coins." (It makes me want to cry having just re-read it because a) I've felt exactly that way, and because b) it is written so beautifully.)

There is a great excerpt from a letter written to Cornelia by her sister that says while men operate on the "fight-or-flight" response in a new environment, women cope with stress through "tend-and-befriend" behavior. I love it.

"Whenever Dev remembered that night, and he'd remember it for a very long time, what never stopped amazing him was how normal it felt. Not everyday, no-big-deal normal. More like extragalactic, superradiant, night-in-a-million normal. " I think this is a good description of how you feel after spending time with a new friend or group of people that you just know are going to be important to you for a long time, but that feel completely natural to be around.

And just like the comments Teo makes in the first novel about mental illness, he has some great insight on to suicide on page 276. "Maybe she wasn't even really thinking about death, but just about ending how bad she felt right at that particular moment." (Spoiler--she didn't die, and she's not a character from Love Walked In. Just in case you are worrying.)

I'm so happy to have read this book. Don't you love the title and the cover art? They work perfectly for me.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

So many trusted friends recommended this series to me, that I knew it would be worth it. Even my husband, who knows me best, thought I would like this book that centers on a cruel game where teenagers fight to the death. I was nervous. I'm glad I finally dove in. I think that because the book seemed so far removed from real life, I didn't really register the deaths. It wasn't as horrific as I would feel if it was closer to something I could relate too. Make sense?

I did read this book almost non-stop until I finished it. It's not difficult to read. At my last book club a friend of mine mentioned the term "plot-driven." I think The Hunger Games is a great example of a plot-driven book. I didn't feel compelled to read because I was loving the story, so much as I was dying to know what would happen next. The story is captivating.

I thought of a few different books as I was reading this. The first was City of Ember. The whole post apacolyptic genre and bright teenagers that are going to save the day theme was similiar. I also thought of Lord of the Flies. It's been ages since I've read it, but the Careers' mentality seemed similar.

So I really like The Hunger Games, but I didn't love it. I think the story is good, if not a little bit predictable.

Here are some quotes I liked:

"I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong."

"The saltiness reminds me of my tears."

"When I fully awaken, I'm momentarily comforted. I try to hold onto the peaceful feeling of the dream, but it quickly slips away, leaving me sadder and lonlier than ever." Such a bittersweet side effect of dreams. This has happens to me a lot.

The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo

I recently discovered that there was a novel by Kate DiCamillo that I hadn't read yet, so I did, and I liked it. The Tiger Rising feels more like a short story to me. Obviously it's longer, but that's just the feel. I read a quote about DiCamillo when I was researching the order of her novels (I'll get to that in a minute,) that said she was "opting for the economy of poetry over elaborate prose." I agree.

The Tiger Rising is Kate DiCamillo's second novel. Because of Winn-Dixie was her first. Which I also didn't know. I think it remains my favorite. I read The Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Tale of Despereaux back to back awhile ago, and while I liked them, they were dark and tragic. The Tiger Rising is too. Rob is the 12-year-old main character, and is treated horribly by many characters. He has recently lost his mother and his father is distant and harsh. He discovers a tiger in a cage in the forest, a new friend at school, and gets great advice from a woman who works as a maid at the hotel he lives in. I especially liked his imagining and dreaming.

I have been trying to think of the target audience for this book. I love that DiCamillo's books all seem to have a magic element. Part fairy tale, part morality tale, and full of symbolism and metaphors. They seem like children's books, upper elementary I'd guess, but have such meaningful themes and layers of meaning that I think kids of that age would miss a lot of what I think is great. With this book in particular I could see high school students studying it and looking for meanings within the different symbols.

The writing is so nice. Here are a couple excerpts that I like and I think represent the book.

"He imagined himself as a suitcase that was too full.....He made all his feelings go inside the suitcase; he stuffed them in tight and then sat on the suitcase and locked it shut....Sometimes it was hard to keep the suitcase shut."

"And the whole way home, while his brain doubted what he had seen, his heart beat out the truth to him. Ti-ger. Ti-ger. Ti-ger."

"That sounded right. If God was going to talk though somebody, it made sense to Rob that he would pick Willie May."

"That was another truth he had known without knowing it, the same as he had known that Sistine's father was not coming back. He must, he realized, know somewhere, deep inside him, more things than he had ever dreamed of."

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

I read about this book in last month's Costco Connection. I'm glad I did.

This is a story about a family that lives on and owns a horse ranch in the desert. The desert is in Colorado, which I never knew had a desert. It is told by a 12-year-old girl. Their situation is sad, even desperate sometimes. But good things happen too, and the ending isn't the happiest, but it is hopeful.

I liked the writing style, and I appreciate that there are no angels in the book. Every character has flaws. I even struggled with Alice (the 12-year-old), who, although I felt sorry for her, wasn't always super likeable. I do think that is nice, making your characters realistic. I liked the characters she created, and I appreciate that she stayed away from common stereotypes.

I'm not the kind of person who keeps her emotions and feelings bottled up. I don't have a dad that did that, so I was frusterated by the interactions between these two. Sometimes I just wanted to scream, "give her a hug and tell her you love her," or "just tell him your clothes are too small," you know, stuff like that.

Here are some quotes to give you a feel for it:

"Tomorrow, in the honest truth of daylight, our own private swimming pool would be only what it was: a rusty bucket made for watering livestock."

"(I) wondered how I could have believed I was protecting anyone from anything. The world was what it was. There were no secrets. There were only things that went unsaid."

"The places we come from don't leave us as easily as we leave them."

I really liked how the weather was a reflection of the events in the story. For so many months they are enduring a heat wave and drought, then the moment something amazing happens for Alice, the rains come. At the end the snow comes at the onset of their grieving.

I liked reading this book, it's an unintimidating 300 or so pages, but does have obscenities. The story is creative and the characters original. It gave me a glimpse into a life much different and much more difficult than mine.

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos

I loved this book. The first chapter was a little too filled with explanations, disclaimers, and asides, but get through that and the writing was superb. The author is an award winning poet, and this was her first novel, so maybe she had trouble reigning it in. Just as a heads up, she also uses the f-word. It's interesting to me that when she does, it seems to be clustered with other ones, then go hundreds of pages with out any obsenities. Just so you know when you come to them, that they aren't going to appear on every page.

I couldn't put this book down. Do I say that too much? But it was exactly what I was in the mood for. I guess celebrating my anniversary, and then Valentine's put me in the mood for a book about LOVE. This book covers so many different kinds and stages of love.

The story is told in alternating chapters. The first character is Cornelia. I loved her. I'm not an expert in cinema, so many of her references were lost on me. That being said I really liked her point of view, and clever remarks. But the whole thing isn't too clever if you're getting worried it will be one of those over-wordy, over-scripted stories.

I also loved Clare, the 11-year-old co-protagonist. Her chapters are equally well-written, and while she is brave and smart, she is written as an 11-year-old. There were several moments when she didn't understand what was going on, and the conversation she has with Teo walking down the street at the end is exactly what I think a girl her age would try to do.

This book was perfect for me. It is definetly an adult book (there is S-E-X), but the adolescent insight and coming of age aspects were exactly what I like to read. And did I mention how much I love this author's writing style?

Thanks to Betsy and Amy for reviewing this on GoodReads!

Some quotes:

"She put her faith in the crunch of bread, in the saltiness of butter on her tongue; she took their goldenness into her body and, afterward, felt that her soul had been restored."

"In my experience, people love what they love. They just do." This is in explanation about why it's useless to argue about which Shakespeare is best.

"Clare understood suddenly. She's the main character in her story, just like I'm the main character in mine."

"There are people whose deaths make you ache with sadness. And then there are people whose deaths prevent the sun from rising, deaths that turn the walls black in every room you walk through, deaths that send storm clouds and a wail swirling through your head so that you can't hear music and you can't recognize your furniture or your own face in the mirror."

"There are facts and then there is knowledge that has nothing to do with fact."

"I think things out by talking." ME TOO!

"I've always been on the side of love."

The Candy Shop War by, Brandon Mull

Edit: I had a complaint that I didn't explain enough about this book. So, this book is about four 10-year-old kids who make friends with the owner of a new candy shop in town. She provides them with magic candy in return for strange favors. See how they are flying on the cover?

This book was scary for me! I'm not exactly sure what the target audience is. I'd guess 10-14. It's definetly only PG-ish, but I have to admit after reading late at night, it was hard for me to fall asleep! But the scariness came from the magicians, so if you're more of a realist, you will laugh at me, and not be scared.

I was super impressed with this author's creativity. I haven't read the Fablehaven series, but now I'm going to! Several times while reading I couldn't help but wonder how he came up with these ideas. The candy and all the effects were crazy!

I was a bit worried at the beginning when Mrs. White had them keeping secrets. That always makes me nervous, but then of course, the lesson was learned. This is an adventurous story, with lots of twists and suspense. I liked it. I'm glad I read it, and I can see why my 10-year-old enjoyed it so much.
I recommend it for a quick, exciting read. It is very different from the books I've read lately, and that was good.