Books read in June 2012

Ah-hah!  Only 3 YA (and younger) books this month!

Read
Gay Romance Novel #1
Jan Wilson
My friend gave me a draft of her novel to read.  I loved it!  I'll let you know when it becomes available for all of you to read.

Pretties
Scott Westerfeld
This is the second book in the Uglies series, we follow along with Tally's adventures and moral quandaries.  The ending had me reserving the next book in the series.  Unfortunately, there is a line, and it's proving to be quite long.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Read aloud.
I've not read this since Junior High and I greatly enjoyed revisiting the story.

The Sisters Brothers
Patrick DeWitt
I did not like this book and I spent a lot of time wondering why.  I liked the main character, he was quite sympathetic.  The plot was interesting, and the writing quite good.  The San Francisco Gold Rush setting was  to my liking.  But I never took to it, though I read all the way to the end.

Chloe and the Lion
Mac Burnett & Adam Rex
Funny!  This was recommended by my friend Sara and I got it from the library even though it was a picture book and I don't usually spend time reading them.  I read it and spent ten minutes laughing out loud alone in the house. Laughing out loud while reading by myself is always an odd pleasure for me.  There's the laughter, which is great, but then the kind of creepy feeling that I might be a little crazy. After I enjoyed it, I insisted that Matt read it.  Now I'm insisting that you do too. It will take 10 minutes.  Laughter is good for you. Maybe you can read it aloud to someone so you can both laugh together and avoid the creepy feeling.  Just do it.

Women of the Silk
Gail Tsukiyama
Read for Kenton Book Club
This was okay.  I liked that it had a setting that was foreign to me.  I liked that it was about women.  The silk work was interesting.  Other than that, the book never grabbed me.  What was interesting was that during the book group discussion, most of the women did not like the book and most of the men did.  Several people in book group (men and women) had read Samuri Gardens by the same author and recommended that book over this one. I shall perhaps see what that is all about.

Arcadia
Lauren Goff
I greatly enjoyed the author's earlier works, the Monsters of Templeton, and was happy to read this new novel about Bit, a child growing up on a commune during the 1970s.  The book is divided into four sections, checking in with Bit at four different ages.  I found the first two to be the most compelling.  The last two sections were not as magical as the first two, but that might have been by design.  It was still a good read, with some quite funny observations of 1970s hippie culture.

Sister
Rosmund Lupton
Gripping mystery set in London.  A friend at work read it, recommended it to myself and another friend at work and we all read it within a week of each other so we could have a mini book discussion group.

Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins
Matt and I read aloud.
As before, the gripping ending to the story.  In the end, everything works out.  It's just rough going getting there.

Dear Photograph
Taylor Jones
This is a great concept that became popular because of the internet, but which I discovered in the book store.  The discovery in a bricks-and-mortar store over the bits and bytes cheers me.  At any rate, some of the entries are incredibly moving.  This is also one of those good books where you needn't read much to read it, as it is mostly photos.


Started and did not finish.
I finished everything I started this month.