You by Caroline Kepnes

This book was such a roller coaster for me. I kept finding myself rooting for Joe to hit it off  with Beck, even as I was desperately hoping she'd escape his machinations. The second-person POV was perfect for this title of single-minded obsession; it was amazing how Kepnes could put you right in the mind of this totally reprehensible obsessed stalker.

Books 61 and 62: If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday by V. C. Andrews

I haaate leaving series unfinished,but this may be where I say good bye to the Dollangangers. The overwrought adolescent gothiness of the series has its own charm for sure, but it wears thin after so long

Books 58, 59, and 60: The Internet Girls series by Lauren Myracle

Angela, Maddie, and Zoe are the winsome threesome, BFFs, since middle school. The course of the series takes the girls from age 15 to high school graduation, and through various trials and tribulations of high school friendship, including alcohol and drug use, new relationships, gossip, sex, preparing for college, etc. The "thing" for these books is that they're all told entirely through IM chats (although I think the updated versions call them texts; they have screennames, so I don't know who they think they're fooling). I think these books originally came out around the time that I was in high school, although they've recently been updated for ebook and the new decade, which is one of my pet peeves. Even with the pop culture references updated and references to iPhones sprinkled in, the mid-2000s feel is still present enough to make me nostalgic for my days of high school AIM chatting, the inside jokes and BFF group name, the crushes, the worry about growing apart from friends. Myracle hits some of her topics more on the nose than others, but it was great fun to have my hish school experience come rushing back to me with such clarity.

I've heard these books have been banned because of language and the girls' frank discussions of sex. I'm not sure how I would've reacted had I read this when I was a high schooler as well; obviously Myracle's characters will be more advanced than some teens and less than others. In my opinion, these discussions were meant to be more helpful than salacious. Still, something to keep in mind before reading.

Book 57: The Subversive Copy Editor by Carol Fisher Saller

I admit it—I miss studying. Now that I'm out of school, I miss curling up to do assigned reading, taking notes, and trying to remember to apply what I've learned to assignments. Now that I'm out of school and in the workforce, almost like a real adult, most of my learning is either self-guided or of the depressing learn-from-your-mistakes variety. I recently got the urge to read a bunch of books related to my job as a book editor as a sort of less visually stimulating version of a training montage.

Written by the Chicago Manual of Style's online Q&A editor, The Subversive Copy Editor assumes a familiarity with the basics of editing and style and spends the majority of its pages on dealing with authors and coworkers (advice may also be helpful when dealing with self-appointed grammar police). Saller stresses cooperation and flexibility over adherence to any one style, which is a nice reminder if you're in a position in which arguments over comma placement can send you into a rage spiral at any given moment. Saller has a great sense of humor and the book is a surprisingly fun read, given its topic. If you have to deal with writers or editors, or just find yourself frequently mediating grammar disputes, this book's call for compromise makes it a useful addition to your library.

Top Ten Books I've Read So Far This Year

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books I've Read So Far This Year. I expect this list to be vastly different by the time I reach the end of the year, although I'm pretty confident that The Secret History, Ready Player One, and maybe The Rosie Project at least will still be there. We'll see!




1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

2. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

3. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

4. Reality Boy by A. S. King

5. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

6. The Love Affairs on Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

7. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

8. You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle

9. The Doll and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

10. I Am the Weapon by Allen Zadoff

Book 56: The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A. S. Byatt

A. S. Byatt's Possession has been on my to-read list forever, but I found this little gem of a book for only a dollar at a used book store, so I snapped it up. The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye is a book of five stories, like fairy tales for adults.

Each of these stories has a wonderfully dreamlike quality, which makes the book perfect for late night plane rides or vacation readings. The final story, which shares the book's title, is easily the most complex, about a middle-aged divorced storyteller who finds a djinn during a vacation in Turkey. It reads like a love letter to fables and myths.

Book 55: The Doll—The Lost Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier

I love Daphne du Maurier. The House on the Strand, My Cousin Rachel, Rebecca, especially Rebecca. This collection of short stories is incredible.

I had kind of assumed that this collection would mostly be horror stories based on the title story, "The Doll," which is fairly chilling, but most of these stories, the strongest in fact, are about the rise and fall of relationships. A man and woman on a romantic holiday during which feelings change drastically between the ride there and the ride back, a series of letters that reveal the intensity and decline of an affair, it's all so painfully honest and so true to life. She totally captures the odd balance of power that begins and ends relationships.

Book 54: We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt

We Are the Goldens is a book about the strong bond between two sisters, Nell and Layla. Nell has always idolized her older sister and is thrilled to start her freshman year at the same high school at which Layla is a junior. All Nell wants is to follow in Layla's footsteps. So when Layla asks Nell to keep a dangerous secret for her, Nell's loyalty to her sister leaves her conflicted about what to do.

The sisterhood relationship here is super intense, so much so that I was originally a little creeped out by it. Maybe reading The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs has left me a little suspicious of excessively close family bonds; maybe it's just because my sister and I were never this close (and because I'm the oldest of three either, so maybe I can't relate to the younger-sibling hero worship). But thankfully it never turned Rumbaugh creepy, and the intimacy between the sisters really underlines Nell's conflict. It's so easy for the reader to discern the right thing to do, but her reluctance to shake the foundations of her bond with her sister, which has for Nell become shorthand for her personal identity. Loving Layla means betraying her, and before she can do that Nell has to redefine herself as an individual.

I've never read anything by Dana Reinhardt, but I'm interested to seek out more by her. Despite my initial misgivings, I really enjoyed this book. The major characters were fully developed, I loved how Nell grew and matured, and the writing was lovely. I would've liked an epilogue, though, just some hint as to what happened after Nell's reveal. A

Book 53: Climbing the Stairs by Margaret Powell

Another book to scratch my Downton Abbey itch. Margaret Powell's Climbing the Stairs isn't quite as engaging as her previous book, Below Stairs; it has far fewer tales of serving and more stories about how she spent her free time and married life. Still, if you're interested in the time period, this is a great little memoir. It's like having your British grandmother tell you the stories of her life; it's just so cozy and personable.

Books 50, 51 & 52: The Selection trilogy by Kiera Cass

When The One by Kiera Cass came out earlier this month, I started reading it only to realize that I really needed to go back and reread the first two books to fully enjoy the conclusion to the trilogy. It's all good, brainless fun. The worldbuilding is totally lacking, the dystopia is unbelievable, and the plot beyond the love triangle is flat, but damn if it isn't hard to put down. I'm a sucker for fairy tales. some spoilers ahead...

The conclusion to the trilogy was mostly satisfactory. I enjoyed see America grow to take more of an interest in ruling and improving the country. I hated how America was trapped in a room during the final battle; I get that she was never a warrior, but it was still disappointing to have her miss what  felt like the climax. Also the backlash from Maxon when he found out about Aspen was pretty anti-climactic. The ending seemed super rushed, so I felt a bit jilted. And Aspen and Lucy was just a little too pat. You can't have a love polygon without a few hurt feelings, Cass!

Book 49: Vlad by Carlos Fuentes

In this retelling of Dracula, lawyer Yves Navarro is assigned to handle his employer's old friend's move from Romania to Mexico City. Yves is perfectly content with his middle-class life; he loves his wife and daughter, but he worries that his wife may be dissatisfied and still resents him for the death of their son.

Vlad is a short little novel, only around a hundred pages, but it really packs a punch. The descriptions of Vlad himself are chilling (this vamp is more Nosferatu than Legosi), though Fuentes retains a sense of humor through the horror, and the historical crimes of Vlad Tepes are also explored (if perhaps a bit embellished). Fuentes has distilled the vampire novel down to its purest essence, and Vlad is a macabre look at how the everyday fears and willful blindnesses of middle-class life can leave one vulnerable to unspeakable horrors.

Book 48: The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan

The premise of The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: A Psychiatrist's Stories of His Most Bizarre Cases sounded similar to several other cases of psychological oddities, particularly Oliver Sak's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I enjoyed several years ago. This book wasn't quite as good, but it was still an enjoyable read. The author's connections between his cases and his own life were a bit clunky, but I did like reading about the procedures Dr. Small had to go through to treat his patients, and his thought process when diagnosing. So if you're craving more interesting psychiatric case studies a la Oliver Saks, this book would be worth checking out, but if you're new to the genre, start with Saks.

Book 47: Dave Barry's Guide to Guys by Dave Barry

My sweet boyfriend got me tickets to go see Dave Barry in Austin a few weeks ago, and afterward I got the urge to reread one of his books. I loved Davy Barry in high school, and the Guide to Guys was one of my favorites.This has to have been my fourth or fifth time reading this book in ten years, and I still laughed out loud several times.

Book 46: The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos

Whoooa, this book was dark. I was expecting some slightly spooky middle grade story (I think it was the length and paperback cover that led me to this conclusion), but The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs was full-on, Psycho-level freaky.

The titular love curse refers to loving one's mother to an obsessive degree. No incest here, but it's still pretty disturbing. Lots of creepy imagery involving taxidermy. Definitely good, and nothing overtly horror, just a spooky little fable about mother-love, taxidermy, eugenics, and twins. Maybe not one to read on Mother's Day, unless you're of a gothic bent.

Top Ten Tuesday: Five Books I Almost Put Down But Didn't

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books I Almost Put Down but Didn't. This is a tough topic for me, because I almost never intentionally stop reading a book. Whenever I put a book down, it's always with the intent, however misguided, of picking it back up again. And I will finish them someday! So the books left unfinished have been seared into my brain, whereas the ones I slogged through regardless have just sort of faded into the back of mind. Lately when I come across a book that's giving me trouble, I think of this quote from Doris Lessing:

“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag—and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty and vice versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you. ” 

Sometimes it's best to just put a book down and pick it back up when the time is right, but, for better or worse, I have trouble following Lessing's advice. What if it's just about to get good? So here are five books for which I refused to admit defeat. There are one or two I worry I may have read out of their right time, some that I grew to enjoy once I "settled in," and a few that I suspect will never have a right time for me.

1. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta: I was tempted to abandon this one because the novel seems like such a jumble of different ideas at the beginning, the protagonist herself is so closed off, and there are lots of allusions to events that aren't fully explained until much later  in the book. I'm so glad I stuck with it, though, because part of the beauty of Jellicoe Road is slowly watching the pieces come together.

2. The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon: The aphasic nonsense words just kept giving me headaches! And the pacing was a little too irregular to keep me genuinely hooked, but I'm glad I persevered.

3. A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins: We had to read this for high school, and for some reason I was just a total brat about it. I didn't just put it down and walk away; I would throw it across the room. I really just made it more difficult than it had to be, probably because it was school-assigned. I did actually finish it, and although the writing was a little spotty, I came to really enjoy the memoir of a man's walk (part of the way) across America.And I'm always a sucker for an awesome dog.

4. Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr: I got an ARC of this from a former coworker, and the description sounded awesome, but the book just fell flat for me. I finished it begrudgingly, and I probably remember about as much of it as I would if I had stopped reading it less than halfway through.

5. Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes: I read this when I was fourteen, and I was too young! I'm a little torn on this. On one hand, I was proud that I'd stuck with it and finished it, but on the other hand I wonder if it would've been better to have put it down and come back to it a few years later. I should reread this...

Book 45: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Jellicoe Road is about Taylor, a girl boarding at Jelllicoe School in Australia, the territory wars between the students, the military kids, and the townies, and Taylor's search for her family history and her guardian, Hannah. Interspersed between all this are excerpts from Hannah's manuscript, about a group of friends living on Jellicoe Road.

I was fairly confused at the beginning of the book; I was unsure about the italicized sections, where they came from, who the characters were supposed to be, and how they related to the rest of the story. I didn't totally understand the hierarchy of the school or the rules of the territory wars. And Taylor herself is rather abrasive and hard to like at the beginning. Everything gradually comes together, and it's really beautiful how it's all choreographed. A

Book 44: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire #4)

I adore this series (and the Game of Thrones tv show), so I'm trying to read these books as slowly as possible since it will likely be quite a while before the next book comes out. I read the third book a year ago, so I was a little hazy on exactly what was going on at the beginning.

I don't entirely agree with how Martin chose to split this and the next book; I think I would have preferred including all the characters and separating it by time rather than having each book cover a different group. But maybe I'm just disgruntled because I am sooo tempted to break my one-a-year rule to find out what happens in book five. But then there won't be any left until the new one is finished! It's quite a quandary.

Anyway, it's Game of Thrones: Characters you love die, new characters are introduced and despite your best intentions you get attached.

Book 43: Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

I'd been hearing good things about Maggot Moon, Sally Gardner's dystopian middle-grade novel, for quite a while, and when I saw it on Diversity in YA's list of Diverse Dystopian YA Books, I decided to bite the bullet and download it to my Nook.

I can see this being required reading in middle school classrooms. It was much more confusing than I was expecting for a middle-grade book, so I think it could really benefit from discussion. I was so eager to find out what was happening in the book, I completely missed that the narrator was dyslexic! And that the story took place in an alternate-history Nazi controlled England. There's a lot here, and I should've slowed down to take it all in, and I should've enlisted a friend to read it along with me.

I liked the alternate history, and all of the space race discussion was pretty awesome. The narrator's POV was unique, and I could cry for how brave he was at the end.

Book 42: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

I went into The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender expecting really great things, so it was probably inevitable that I came away a little disappointed. Normally I love magical realism, and this book, with its protagonist born with wings and its generations of women who turn into birds and bake their feelings, has magic in spades. That might be part of the problem. It just didn't feel entirely genuine to me; the improbable events didn't draw me further into the world of Ava Lavender and her family, instead they alienated me from it. They were just so heavyhanded. I felt like I was just skimming of the surface of the book, but every time I tried to get my hair wet something would slap me back up and out of it.

I want to try to read this book again in a few years, to see if something has shifted and I finally "get it," but I worry that the time I would have truly loved this book would have been limited to when I was sixteen and in love with sobbing over heartbreak and ill-fated love.

The writing is lovely, if a little purple at times. I was a bit surprised at first that the book went so far back into Ava Lavender's family history before getting to her story, but I actually really enjoyed hearing about her mother and grandmother.

Maybe my problem was reading this so soon after Like Water for Chocolate; I was too overloaded on magical realism to begin with. Maybe all of the excellent reviews I read beforehand gave me unrealistic expectations that this book would be one of those few that can read your soul and upend and enhance your understanding of the world. Sadly, it was not that book for me, but I can see how it might be that book for someone else.

Book 41: Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

This book was incredibly engaging. After her daughter, Amelia, throws herself from the roof of her school, lawyer Kate Baron devotes herself to sifting through her daughter's texts, e-mails, and social media posts to reconstruct the events leading up to her daughter's death. The book is told through the dual perspectives of Kate in the present and Amelia before her death, and it's absolutely gripping to watch the  story unfold through the twinning stories. It reminded me quite a bit of Gillian Flynn, though not as gritty. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but that's a small complaint. A