What We're Reading Wednesday...summing up

It’s been a while since I did a reading post, and Jessica decided to do the link-up again, so here we are!

Let me tell you, pregnancy is good for the reading part of my life. I read 8.5 novels in January, even while homeschooling my girls, writing a picture book, and revising 75 pages of my novel. Guess what didn’t get done? Well...let’s just say I’m grateful my 15-month-old is past the “eat every speck of fuzz off the floor” stage.

So, “let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

5890The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins--recommended by my dear friend Sister Emily, who has exquisite taste in stories and has been trying to get me to read it for years.
But...it’s like 700 pages.  My wrist can’t support that at this stage in my life. Solution: audiobook. Problem: 27 hours long. Solution: there’s always laundry to be folded...almost 27 hours’ worth this month, apparently.
Summing up: I loved it. It’s a romantic mystery that feels like Dickens, Austen, Gaskell, and Conan Doyle all mashed together in the best possible way. Like a Classics smoothie. Mmm.

The Glass Magician, by Charlie Holmberg--from Netgalley.
The Glass Magician by Charlie N. HolmbergThis was the sequel to The Paper Magician, which I liked better. TGM is still fun, sweet,entertaining, and very, very clever--and happily clean in a world of not-very-clean adult romantic stories. But the magic needed a little reigning in, in my opinion. A world with that much magic and that few consequences would turn very quickly to madness. Still, like I said: fun!

Fuzzy Mud by Louis SacharFuzzy Mud, by Louis Sachar--also from Netgalley.
I do love Louis Sachar. Holes is...the best ever. The Cardturner, an unfortunately overlooked YA novel from a few years back, was super. Fuzzy Mud, the story of a girl’s battle against a mutant microbe about to take over the world--plus the usual fight for friendship, dealing with bullies, finding oneself middle grade fare--could have been awesome. It was pretty close. The main character is so, so lovable--finally, someone like me as a kid, who thinks it’s good to follow rules and who doesn’t understand why bad is cool! The plotting is perfectly paced and downright scary, in a way still appropriate for younger readers. But I took great offense at a few lines of text which clearly implied that the fault for the declining resources in our world (and thus the mutant microbe, a result of experimenting with alternate energy sources) lay at the feet of “overpopulation.” I’m not going to go into a long rant here, but let me say this: new people aren’t to blame for the declining resources in the world. Selfish people are. In America, where the population isn’t even at replacement level, we use more and discard more STUFF than anywhere else in the world. Americans (and other privileged world citizens) need to learn to be good stewards of the earth, instead of focusing on themselves and their wants. The “average American” is a single child, who may have one child in his life. He consumes and wastes and expects the world handed to him on a silver platter. The average large family teaches its members to be unselfish, to care for one another, and to consume less--for financial reasons, if no other. The large families I know are overwhelmingly ecoconscious. It’s a whole big family thing: the cloth diapers, the reusable sandwich bags, the local produce, the hand-tended garden, the spending time with one another instead of sucking through gasoline to get somewhere interesting.
So, please, authors, start preaching to the selfish people about taking care of the world. You don’t realize that the choir singing the same cantata as you is the very one you’re attacking.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodsonbrown girl dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson--from the library, since everyone said it was going to win the Newbery.
Undeniably, Woodson is a brilliant storyteller. I loved the flow of events in her memoir, and her crystal clear characters. What I couldn’t get past was the style of the free verse, with seemingly erratic punctuation and capitalization. I’m willing to bet Ms. Woodson had a system, but I couldn’t figure it out, which made the book less enjoyable for me.

Lizzy and Jane by Katherine ReayLizzy and Jane, by Katherine Reay--from the library, since I enjoyed Reay’s first book, Dear Mr. Knightley.
Real sum-up this time: fun, clean adult fiction with heart and flavor. Made me so hungry, though...

The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. HolmThe Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer Holm--from the library, since it was on Newbery prediction lists.
I expected vivid historical fiction from Jennifer Holm, but this was a contemporary science fiction tale. I suspect Ms. Holm may suffer from my absolute love for the past which makes the present seem less vivid, because I can’t say the world came to life in this story. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the fun premise, the message, and the quick pacing, if not the overly quick resolution.

Egg & SpoonEgg and Spoon, by Gregory Maguire--a Christmas present from Mark, who knows that books are the best presents ever.
I couldn’t get through more than a chapter or two of the first adult book by Maguire that I tried--not my cup of Earl Grey. But I loved this! Part Russian folk tale, part historical fiction...all parts brilliant. Despite how long it was, I didn’t want the story to end. Despite the middle grade aged characters, I’d recommend this for the early YA crowd (or very advanced MG reader), as the context of world history in the early 20th century would be better appreciated with more knowledge and maturity.

Blue BirdsLastly, the first book I finished in January: Blue Birds, by Caroline Starr Rose--won from the author’s blog.
You can read my interview with Caroline--and a little about how much I enjoyed her book--here!

What have you been reading?

Comments

  1. Ooh! Thanks for the lovely list. I really enjoyed Fourteenth Goldfish and so did my boys. I want to read Lizzy and Jane, because Dear Mr. Knightley was a lot of fun. Yay for clean romance for adults! And I have to read Egg and Spoon, since I love Russian folktales. Your description of Woman in White made me think of Mary Barton by Gaskell, which I adored. Have you read it?

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    1. No, I haven't--I've still only made it through Wives and Daughters (which I LOVED), thanks to a great audiobook. Thanks for the recommendation, Jenni!

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  2. Brown Girl Dreaming and Bluebirds are both on my TBR list. Sometime this year, I hope. There are so many!

    Love the Princess Bride reference!

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    1. I'm so glad you noticed it. I was wondering... :)

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  3. The Woman in White: I bet it will fit on my Kindle. I listen to Serial podcasts when I fold laundry, and then only when little pitchers cannot hear...Yay for TGM and Lizzy and Jane! I have not read TPM, so there's 3 for me. Brown Girl Dreaming, I have a hold on it. But I adore the Langston Hughes poem of the same name which I listen to HIM READ on the cd that comes with the book Poetry Speaks to Children. I enjoyed The Fourteenth Goldfish too. The Cardturner was THE BEST! And not just because I love to play bridge with my grandmother. Shame about the lame resources vs. population lies. I very much enjoyed hearing you on your soapbox, as always. I had a lovely liberal social justice minded priest teach my sophomore theology class and my one takeaway was "The problem is distribution not population." More than 20 years later, it's the same problem. Hear! Hear!

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    1. So glad to hear from someone else who loved The Cardturner! I thought it was super, and made me want to have a bridge club. :)
      Thanks for not minding the soapbox. And what a wise statement from your teacher. I agree.

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  4. Oh, My! That's quite a long list of books you've finished. Wilkie Collins? Seriously ... I hate to admit it, but I think I read a short story that I promptly forgot.
    Oh dear, I don't like when little falsehoods like that of overpopulation creep into our stories and for children, who do tend to believe things they read. They deserve better. Yes, the poor in India are certainly better conservationists than I am. And your family does better than mine too.
    I've been re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird and thoroughly enjoying it. I hear Harper Lee is going to have a new book out (the one she wrote first, with Scout as a grown up).

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    1. I know! So excited about that! I didn't read TKAM until a couple years ago, and couldn't believe no one had forced me to earlier. SO good!

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