What I've Read Lately - August

August has seemed to stretched on forever, so I'm wondering why I didn't manage to read more books.  Actually, it's only August 22 right now, so I could, quite possibly, get through a few more before the month is over.  But . . . I'm going to need to include all of the books currently waiting on my bookshelf in next month's post (for reasons you will understand when you read it), so I'll just wrap this one up now and call it good.

The Vanishing Season, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, begins with a poignant little prologue about things that are lost and buried, and the yard of the house being "a graveyard of moments,"and a declaration that their (whoever it is) purpose is to dig and find the pieces of the past.  The simple half page expresses something that any archaeologist can relate to, and I thought, I am going to love this book.  Alas, I did not.  In fact, I did not even finish it.  At page 110 it felt like the author was still trying to familiarize us with the characters and establish relationships between them.  Also, the book was sold to us as being a ghost story (or at least having a ghost who figures prominently in the story), but by the time I quit reading she had only showed up in three tiny little interludes, the first and second of which had nothing at all to with the rest of the story.  I'm sorry, but at nearly halfway through a book the story should have not only started going somewhere, but be well on its way to actually getting there.

Dead Ends, by Erin Jade Lange, is a book about a bully who befriends a boy with Down Syndrome.  It turns out that they have a few things in common, and crazy things happen, and old relationships change and new ones are formed, and the bully tries to teach some lessons to the boy and, of course, ends up learning a few of his own in the process.  It was pretty good.  Interesting, funny, has a bit of a mystery, and moves along at a nice brisk pace.  (Reading Level: 4.6 / Upper Grades)

Hell & High Water, by Tanya Landman, is a historical fiction mystery.  It's not what I thought I was going to get, but after going back and reading the inside of the book jacket about half-way through, I realized that it pretty much summed it all up and I don't know why I thought it was going to be something different.  Overall, I'd have to say that the the book was kind of boring, in a way, I guess.  I'm not sure what the problem was (I suppose I shouldn't even say problem, because that makes the book sound bad, and it wasn't).  The story was mostly believable, the mystery was well done, the characters were like-able enough . . . I think it just didn't have the action I was looking for.  I thought it was going to be an adventure story, but it wasn't.  And the writing wasn't bad, it just didn't grab me and make me want more.  I never once considered putting it aside and not finishing it, though, so I guess that makes it a whole lot better than a lot of the books I've come across.  (Reading Level: ? / Middle Grades +)

As far as books for adults go, A Green and Ancient Light, by Frederic S. Durbin did not fit the usual pattern I come across.  It read more like a Neil Gaiman or C. S. Lewis book than what I usually end up with.  Maybe that's because it is about the Old Folk (as in faery and fauns and the like), or maybe because it is told in first person by a nine year old boy, kind of like Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  I enjoyed it, even though it took what seemed like forever to read.  The story was pretty slowly paced, but it was interesting and different and there was nothing about the writing or characters or plot that I could complain about.   (Reading Level: ? / Middle Grades +)

Do you remember way back when, when I said that I was going to have to find a good pirate story?  (It was here if your'e interested.) Well, I'm pretty sure that Steel, by Carrie Vaughn, doesn't fulfill that quest.  I say pretty sure, because I didn't get very far into it.   After reading three of the last four books that were paced slower than a Sunday drive, I was ready for something with some action.  What better than a swashbuckling adventure?  I never even made it to the swashbuckling.  Simply put, I didn't like the writing.  The author just seemed to throw in too much detail that we couldn't care one bit about.  And I don't mean long rambling descriptions of scenery.  I mean stuff like describing what the mom - who isn't even really a character - was wearing to the beach, and that she already had a good tan after three days on vacation.  This is on top of the relatively simple sentences and paragraphs she throws at us.  If all that baloney filler was taken out, the book would probably be half the length and half as uninteresting.  If you want a good pirate story, with a female lead as well, skip this book and see my mini-review here.

I'm still trying to decide if I actually liked Eve, by Anna Carey, or not.  It is a dystopian action-adventure romance based on the premise that most of the population has been wiped out by a plague and they now need babies.  Lots and lots of babies, and what better way to get them than by forced breeding of teenage girls?  Lots of running and fighting and misunderstanding and even kissing ensues.  It is the first book in a trilogy, but apparently it is either old enough or unpopular enough that my local library system decided it wasn't worth replacing the missing second installment, and I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to try to track down a copy. What did I like about it?  What didn't I?  Read my extended review here to find out.   (Reading Level: 5.2 / Middle Grades +)

Glimpse, by Carol Lynch Williams, is a story in verse.  When I pulled it off my shelf to read it, I saw that and was like Ugh, I don't want to read that.  I don't know why, because the last story in verse that I read was really good.  Glimpse was really good, too.  It's equal parts mystery and equal parts heartbreaking.  The author did a fantastic job choosing and using verse for this story - it was super effective in conveying emotion and making the reader feel like they are getting little hints toward solving the mystery all along the way.  And she also did a great job of developing a picture of the characters and their relationships with one another by switching between present and past (memories).   If you don't mind reading stories that are likely to evoke negative emotions, you should definitely pick up a copy of this one.  (Reading Level: 3.5 / Upper Grades)

Graveminder, by Melissa Marr, was pretty good.  It had an incredibly creepy premise with an incredibly creepy first chapter.  I mean, fantastic stuff you don't come across too often. The concept isn't entirely original; Deathwatch by Ari Berk is based on a sort of similar idea, but it was original enough and well-enough put together to make it amazing.  Unfortunately, the main concept deals with a centuries-old relationship passed down through the generations, and it just so happens that the two new inheritors of the relationship already have had an on-again off-again romance history, giving this novel a little too much relationship drama and not quite enough mystery and creepy stuff.  Had the balance gone the other way, this would have been a solid 4 star book for me.  And, even though it is an adult novel, it reads like YA (except for the fact that the characters are mostly all adults and there is a short, steamy scene), probably because the author wrote YA fiction before she did this novel.    (Reading Level: ? / Upper Grades)