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.”

The 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.

This 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Lastly, 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?