Book Club

There is too much work/life cross over going on right now.  I need a break.  You know the type of break that lets my chin heal from its adolescent explosion of stress acne.  Yeah, yowzas.

One thing that keeps me sane is making time for reading.  There is something so calming about letting my mind wander into a book that does all the thinking for me.  Why is it that when you feel overwhelmed or busy it's impossible to find time for reading?  Anyhow, here is one of the last books I have read.

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo is the sequel to the teen fantasy novel that I read over the summer.  The last time I read a few books in this genre, it almost made me mad about how predictable it was.  This book had more action and took more turns than I expected.  This is really one of my favorite teen fiction series that I've read in a long time.  Yet again I must give this warning:  The third book of this trilogy is not yet published!  If you don't like waiting in between books, don't pick this one up until next year or so!

hours that shine

I'm currently reading I only mark the hours that shine by Edith Bouvier Bealy.  If you are a fan at all of Grey Gardens, then you know exactly who I am talking about.  This is little Edie's journal from 1929, when she was 11 years-old.  I've barely cracked the spine, but the anticipation is almost better than the book.  I love imagining what kind of life little Edie led in the late '20s.  The white image I created above is a copy of a self portrait sketch she drew in her journal; Monday March 4th, 1929.  

Monday Book Club

Shards and Ashes is a collection of short stories by a group of dystopian teen fiction writers.
Some I enjoyed very much, and some I skimmed.
I did enjoy reading short stories that I didn't have to invest a lot of time in.  I think it allowed me to stretch my imagination and let me be open to more unusual settings.  I enjoyed Veronica Roth's story (the author of Divergent), as well as stories by Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Beth Revis, and Carrie Ryan.
This would be a good beach read.  I'd recommend it to the casual reader interested in dystopian teen fiction, who has nothing better to read.

Monday Book Club

I listened to this book last week.  It got recommended to me by the Lawrence public library.  "If you liked Hunger Games you'll like Legend."
Well, the more I read teen post apocalyptic fiction, the more silly and predictable it is.  Legend has an interesting setting, yet the characters where underdeveloped.  It was a fun listen and relatively short.  I listened to it while editing photos.  I'm glad I didn't invest the free time it would have taken to read it.

Monday Book Club

I've been reading some graphic novels.  It is something I have had almost no exposure to and just walked in the library and picked some.  I also looked at some lists on goodreads.com.  Here are the ones that I actually liked.  There are a lot of weird ones....

This graphic novel is by Jim Henson!  I just watched Being Elmo a few weeks ago and now have a new found respect for all things Jim Henson.  It's a fascinating story told with very few words.  It seemed like a dream.

I've always been a fan of the movie Great Expectations, but had never read the book!  I found that in the graphic novel section of the library there are a lot of classic books adapted into comic books!  I love the story.  The illustrations are haunting, which is so fitting for the book.

This is a famous graphic novel, that was even made into a movie.  (I still need to see it)  It's basically a coming of age story about a girl who grows up in war torn Iran.  I like that she is a girl who was interested in the world around her, yet still wanted cool shoes and talked back to her mom.  It was a very real story.  Great for upper elementary school girls!

secrets of the library

I have seen The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean, get a lot of hype on some fashion blogs I read but I never read what it was about or why it's a big deal.  I just saw the picture of the cover over and over again.  So I had the time and tried to find out some more information about it.  It comes out on the 10th and was written by the creator of A Dress A Day; a blog I read occasionally.  I tried to look it up on my local library's database and this is what it showed me...

There are a lot of things that have secret lives!  Anyhow, I read the little overview that is on amazon and it's not really my style of book but I'll probably read it anyway.  I just have to wait a little long before I can request it.

I know this post didn't really have a point but you're a little curious about the secret lives of soil creatures aren't you.