You Know You're Passionate About Books When . . . .

I've discovered that I'm not happy unless I am creating something.  I don't mean all the time, because OF COURSE I'm happy when I'm reading and doing other things that I enjoy, but overall, if I'm not periodically making something, or being creative, I get this itch to do just that.  Several months ago, I got that itch.  It was too hot to make a garden (my garden was currently dying), I had vowed that the fourth mystery I made for my son would be the last (talk about a three month intensive project each time!), my scrapbooking supplies were in such disarray that I was loathe to tackle a new page, and nobody wants (actually, it's more like nobody NEEDS) to eat any of the delicious goodies I could bake.  What to do?

Well, at about the same time, I was reading a creepy kind of book and I thought, I'm tired of using these dumb library receipts for my bookmarks.  Wouldn't it be cool if I had a creepy bookmark to go with this creepy story?  So I started looking online to see if I could find one, and I ended up on Etsy.  I didn't find a creepy bookmark that I liked, but what I did find there was intriguing:  people were making and selling bookmarks that looked like jewelry.  They had ribbons with charms on the ends.  And crystal beads.  They were beautiful.  But they weren't particularly cheap.  Okay, they were pretty cheap, but apparently I'm even cheaper, because I said to myself, hey, I can do that!

I didn't immediately tromp off to the craft store to get supplies.  I decided to look into the box that held a bunch of clues from past mysteries I had made, and I found an old pendant that had belonged to my great great aunt.  It was just costume jewelry, and it was old and worn, but I thought it would be cool to use it on a bookmark, since I certainly wasn't ever going to actually wear it and what good was the keepsake piece doing me sitting there in a box in my closet?!?!

So THEN I tromped off to the craft store to get the needed supplies.  Here is what I came up with for my very first handmade bookmark:

After that, I remembered that I had this really cool locket watch, which is meant to be worn as a necklace, but got in my way whenever I tried so I never wore it.  And I thought, hmmmm.  I bet THAT would make a really cool bookmark.  So that was my second one (see below).

Then I saw a pendant that I liked, and since I don't wear pendants, I said, BOOKMARK!  And then I got the idea, wouldn't it be cool to have a different bookmark for each genre I was reading?  Or even a different one for each time period a story takes place in?  I pretty much lived in the craft stores for the next two months:  I don't have a good bookmark to use with fairy tale books . . . craft store!  Now I need something for the Victorian era . . . craft store!  Greek mythology . . . craft store!  You see how it goes.

My husband thinks I'm crazy.  I was replacing one bookmark for another as I was switching books the other day, and he said, you have more than one bookmark?  He just doesn't get it.  I guess if you aren't passionate about books, you wouldn't understand.

Locket Watch: My Most Versatile Bookmark	My Third Bookmark: Victorian Era	My Everything Uncanny Bookmark
Seashells from My Trip to Greece Inside	Just a Simple Bookmark to Take on Vacation	Pressed Flower Inside from a Camping Trip
My New Fairy Tale Bookmark	Supplies for a Medieval / Fantasy Bookmark	Where I Keep My Bookmarks

What I've Read Lately - August

August was another productive month for me (Well, as far as reading goes. Not so much for cleaning out my pantry and finishing the repainting of the bathroom.)  By using the little bits and pieces of time that I didn't feel were long enough to accomplish a big project, I was able to knock ten more books off of my to-read list.  Here's what I thought about them:

The first book I finished was Drowned, by Nichola Reilly (who, it turns out, is actually Cyn Balog, which makes for a nice mess when you are trying to actually find a copy of the book in the library).  I'm a bit torn about this one.  It is advertised as being an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it type book, but it actually approaches the topic in a completely unique way.  I liked that.  But it seemed to take forever for the story to go anywhere.  I didn't like that.  Once it finally went somewhere, it was pretty interesting, (thumbs up) but the end left the reader kind of hanging - it was like it was left open for a sequel, but (due to certain plot developments) a sequel would probably be more like a stand-alone than a sequel (so thumbs down).  I guess I would give it a about three stars and say, go ahead and read it - it's interesting and unique enough to not be a waste of time. (Reading Level: ? /Middle Grades+)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman, was a quick read, but a perfect gem.  It is told by a man who is remembering a time when he was a  little boy and became involved with some uncanny happenings with the not-quite normal family down the lane.  Wonderfully written, it has that bedtime story feel that I am going to be publishing a post about (hopefully very) soon.  Plus, it deals with that uncanny stuff that I just looooove.  (I think I'll write a post about that, too, because I've got a decent list of great books I can recommend on the topic.)  Back on subject, definitely read this book.  You can probably finish it in a weekend, as long as you don't have friends texting you every other minute or bored little three-year-olds wanting your attention. (Reading Level: 5.3/Upper Grades)

How to Hang a Witch was written by Adriana Mather.  If you paid attention in your history (and maybe literature) classes, you would recognize the author's last name.  It is the same last name as the Reverend Cotton Mather, the Salem clergyman at the time of the historic Salem witch trials.  I figured the coincidence was just too much, and that the author just HAD to be an actual descendant.  She is.  Which was enough to get me super interested in the book.  After reading it, though, I am no longer all that excited about it.  The concept was interesting, the writing was pretty good, and the climax would probably make a good scary movie.  So why am I just sort of ambivalent about it?  Maybe it's because the teenagers were just too, well, teenage-ish (which I found kind of annoying).  Maybe it's because the love triangle thing was kind of silly (and at times, annoying).  Maybe because I didn't think it was supposed to be a scary book, but then it tries to turn into one, but doesn't actually scare me after all  (maybe I'm just really hard to scare with the written word.)  But hey, I've probably got unrealistically high standards for what I'd go rush out and buy (you know, a four or five star book), so you might really enjoy this one. (Rading Level: 4.2/Upper Grades)

Wicked Girls, by Stephanie Hemphill, is another book about the Salem witch trials.  I actually had this one sitting on my waiting-to-read shelf for weeks and weeks before I read it.  This is because the first time I sat down with it I noticed what I had not noticed when I checked it out from the library:  it is a novel in verse.  I don't usually care for books where the ENTIRE thing is verse, and I wasn't really in the mood at the time to try another one out.  So I put it back on the shelf and left it there for, like I said, WEEKS.  When I had run through all of my renewals (I know, I told you it was weeks!) and I was going to have to turn it in within a few days, I said to myself, you know, I will kick myself if I've had this sitting here all this time and I turned it in without trying it and missed out on a good book.  So I read it.  And I really liked it.  It went pretty quickly since, being written in verse, there is a lot of empty space on each page not filled up with words.  It took me a little while to get into it, because it was hard to remember which girl was which when it wasn't really a conventional story.  Notice I say conventional, because after a while you see that it IS a story, one that moves along chronologically and develops the characters and reveals the motivations behind their actions.  Which is one of the things I liked so much about the book - it offers an entirely new, yet surprisingly plausible, theory as to why the girls made such outrageous accusations.  You should definitely give this one a try. (Reading Level: 4.7/Upper Grades)

Altered, by Jennifer Rush, is pretty much what you would expect to get when you look at the cover: four guys, genetically altered to be superior specimens of the species.  One girl.  All five of them tangled up in mystery and intrigue and running for their lives.  Absolutely nothing deep, but overall believable enough and well written, so it is quite entertaining and a relatively quick read to boot.  It is the first of a three part series, with at least the first two already out, so give it a try.  (Note:  There are at least eight other book out there with exactly the same title.  If you pick up the wrong one, I am not responsible if the book is absolutely horrible and you don't enjoy it at all.) (Reading Level: 4.4/Middle Grades+)

Evil Librarian, by Michelle Knudsen, was one of those books that takes a few chapters to find its groove.  Or maybe I was just in the wrong mood for it at the beginning.  I read the first two or three chapter in one sitting and I was like, this author is trying to be funny, but she is SO not.  The next day I read some more, and I was like, this author is actually really funny.  Why did I not think so yesterday?!  I guess this book might fall under the category of humor, but it's got plenty of other stuff going for it, too.  I really liked it. Not just the funny parts, but the fact that it had some intrigue and romance and some not-so-evil demons doing evil stuff.  (I mean, they're demons, so they're evil, but they're just doing what demons do, and not being particularly evil as far as demons go.  You'll see what I mean when you read it.) (Reading Level: 5.4/Middle Grades+)

I had Deadly, by Julie Chibarro, on my to-read list for ages, but it was never in the library branch I was going to.  I finally managed to pick it up, and regretfully, it wasn't worth the wait.  I am a really big fan of historical fiction, but this one just didn't do it for me.  Not the writing, not the pace, not the characters, not the way the author tried to address the whole Victorian Era oppression/under-appreciation of women and their intellect.  It was simple, and boring, and it annoyed me to no end that in the author's note about the actual Typhoid Mary case, she doesn't explain anything about typhoid fever, like exactly what is it, and do we have a vaccine now, and did anyone ever figure out how a person could transmit it if they never came down with any symptoms themselves (this was a big part of the story, gosh darn it!)  Anyway, if you don't have a lot of time to read, you should skip this one and read something else.  There are plenty of historical fiction books out there that deal with epidemics. (Reading Level: 6.4/Middle Grades)

Okay.  I know I said I made it through ten books this month, but I am tired of typing and the other three aren't especially great, so I don't feel the need to tell you to hurry up and get down to the library or bookstore or your friend's house (or wherever you get your books from).  Nor are they especially awful, so I don't feel the need to warn you away from wasting that precious time that could be spent on reading something better (heck, or even ironing laundry in the case of some books I've read).  The titles will show up on my book lists at some point in the next six months or so, depending on how long it takes me to update those things.

Besides, in the amount of time it took me to read those ten books, I added more than 30 to my want-to-read list.  (It's like one step forward, two steps back!)  And, when I'm blogging, I'm not reading, and if I'm going to have anything to write about, I'd better get to those other books on my waiting-to-read shelf.  Right?

This is what my waiting-to-read shelf currently looks like!

What I've Read Lately - July

July was a big reading month for me.  My son was off school, so life was just all-around less hectic, and I had a lot of free weekends.  I even took a trip to the library in the neighboring city to check out the list of books that I'd been wanting to read, but are held by neither my own city's library system nor any of the branches in my county system.  Some of these titles had been on my to-read list for a very long time, so I was eagerly anticipating the reading enjoyment I would soon to be experiencing.  Alas, although July was a big reading month in terms of quantity, in terms of quality it was just about the worst month EVER.  Which was really sad, since I had so much time to read and all that.

So here's a rundown once again of the good, the bad, and the ugly, if by ugly we mean it is so incredibly bad the library needs to get it off the shelves to make room for something better (Now I know why the other two library systems didn't carry those books . . . .)

The Plague, by Jennifer Dahme, was the first of the set that I sat down with.  I thought the book sounded really interesting - girl looks so much like the princess that she lives at the castle and acts as her stand-in.  Then the princess dies of the plague and said girl is forced to take her place and continue with the plans of her arranged marriage.  Hmmm.  This is a young adult novel, but it reads like a juvenile fiction book.  A BAD juvenile fiction book.  It was like, girl does this and then does that and then says this and then goes over there and then thinks some small thought and then does this and then her little brother does this and then he does that and she says this and then the little brother does that and then something else bla bla bla.  It was very simplistic and very boring and why does the story have so much about the little brother if it is supposed to be a young adult novel?  I abandoned it by about Chapter 3.

Banished, by Sophie Littlefield, is about a neglected, white trash kind of teenage girl who discovers that she has the power to heal, and even bring people back to life.  And then her mysterious long-lost aunt shows up, and they are attacked by these thuggish assassin types, and there is a long buried secret and running for their lives and all that good stuff.  Should have been a great book.  And it was, a really good book in fact, until about the last 20 percent, when it got kind of stupid and unbelievable (like the super stupid and totally unbelievable ending) and that just ruined the whole thing for me.  Another perfect example of a book running off the tracks and ending up a trainwreck.  (Reading Level: 5.5/Upper Grades)

Ask the Dark, by Henry Turner, was a good one.  Here's the blurb from the book cover:

Billy Zeets has a story to tell.
About being his neighborhood's prime suspect for vandalism, theft, and other kid's bloodied noses.
About missing boys, butchered bodies, and a mysterious, elusive killer.
And about what happens if a boy who breaks all the rules is the only person who can piece together the truth.

The book is nicely paced, interesting, and a quick read.  Still appropriate for upper middle grades despite the subject matter. (Reading Level 4.9/Middle Grade+)

What can I say about Stray, by Elissa Sussman?  I wanted to like this book.  I really did.  And I should have, too, because it goes and puts a unique twist on fairy tales, and I really like that kind of thing.  It is about a royal girl who doesn't control her magic and so she has to become a fairy godmother and serve a different royal girl who is doing a better job of controlling her own magic.  Sounds like an interesting concept, but reads about as interestingly as the words I just typed.  The characters were flat, the plot was flat, the story was slow and at times confusing.  The entire thing was completely underdeveloped and, as I think back about it now, just plain awful.  I could barely finish it and, needless to say, will not be bothering to read the next book in the series.  I don't even care what happens to the heroine, not one little bit (which about says it all). (Reading Level 5.6/Middle Grades+)

Look at that picture there.  The Book of Bad Things, by Dan Poblocki, should have been awesome.  And it might have been awesome if I were twelve years old.  Or ten.  I don't know.  I just can't read most juvenile fiction anymore.  It doesn't have enough depth to keep me interested.  And even though this book was shelved under teen fiction, it is most definitely NOT a young adult novel.  I only had to read two chapters to figure that out.  And I only had to read two chapters before I said, This book is not for me, and quit reading it. (Reading Level 5.4/Middle Grades)

Blackwood, by Gwenda Bond, is a book I had been wanting to read for ages.  It is about the mystery of Roanoke, and seeing how I love history and really enjoy a good mystery, I was really looking forward to this one.  Well, it was just a mediocre book.  It had some very unique and interesting concepts, but it also had its share of unbelievability (you know, stuff that makes you say, what - really?  That is so stupid.)  Anyway, if you don't read very much you might enjoy this one.  Or you might not.  It was definitely better than some of my other July picks, but I am still waffling on whether I really want to recommend it or not.  (Reading Level: ? / Middle Grade+)

I actually had Ashfall, by Mike Mullin left over from a June library trip, but I read it in July so I will talk about it here.  The book is about a teenage boy who goes looking for his family after the fallout from a massive volcanic eruption basically ends life as we know it.  He meets some people along the way, and goes through harrowing experiences and barely survives over and over again.  The book is kinda cheesy at times.  Not just the dialogue, but also the plot.  I mean, how much trouble can this guy get into?  How many critical injuries can he sustain, and then survive?  It is pretty unrealistic at times, but it is action packed and full of suspense.  And it is actually a pretty quick read considering how thick the book is.  So if you like post-apocalyptic literature told from a boy's perspective with lots of harrowing survival stuff going on, you should give it a try.  (Reading Level 5.0/Upper Grades)