Picking Up the Pace

I have finally managed to begin making better progress with my reading - I've gone from one book a week to averaging one and a half books per week!  (Hey now, even a little bit better is still better.)  Unfortunately, I've been reading, and not writing my lovely little reviews for you, so I have forgotten most of the detail about some of those books (I read some of them like two months ago!)  So here's what I've read since the last time, and hopefully I've come up with enough to say about them that you'll know whether or not you should give them a try yourself:

Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery, by Mary Amato, tells the story of a girl who has died and now resides in a famous cemetery where she and the other deceased residents come out of their graves and hang out together at night.  They aren't really ghosts, though, because they can't do anything other than interact with each other.  Which means that all of the action takes place in the graveyard, and all of the conflict and relationship drama is between only them.  Which, honestly, makes the story kind of boring.  Add to that the fact that the story is written in the format of a play, and there really isn't a lot the author could do to spice things up with the writing.  Well, actually, I guess some fantastic dialogue could have done the trick, but she didn't give us anything special so . . . not a bad book, but not something I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't have a lot of time for reading.  (Reading Level: ? / Middle Grade+)

I almost didn't check this one out when I pulled it off the library shelf, but for some reason I did anyway.  I probably shouldn't have.  And Then There Were Four, by Nancy Werlin, was really not so great.  It was about five teenagers, one of whom dies under suspicious circumstances, causing the others to suspect that their parents are trying to murder them.  Not a bad concept.  The execution, on the other hand, like I said, not so great.  Really, the only thing that kept me reading was the character named Saralinda, who was really original as far as a book character goes, but not actually as far as a real person goes because she reminded me so much of a contestant on the last season of Survivor.  (Watch this clip, and then read this page from the book.)  Anyway, her character was great, but it was balanced out by a character who was just awful, and some of the plot was idiotic, but other parts were interesting and fun, so I guess, now that I think about it, it wasn't really bad, but you should probably not even bother if you don't think you'd enjoy the character I gave you a little preview of above.  (Reading Level: 4.7 / Upper Grades)

I am a big, big fan of Brenna Yovanoff.  Unfortunately, she hasn't written a whole lot of books.  The ones she has written, though . . . she really has a way with picking a unique (and somewhat strange or creepy) subject matter for her stories.  For example, The Replacement was about a changling boy,  The Space Between was about the daughter of Lilith, and Fiendish was about, well, fiends.  This book, Places No One Knows, didn't seem like it was going to be anything like her other ones, so I kept putting off reading it.  Then, I remembered my whole The Scorpio Races experience and told myself, just get it over with already!  Well.  this book was nothing like the others, but I loved it anyway.  It is about a 'perfect' girl who somehow visits an 'unperfect' boy from her school while she is asleep.  Okay, that is a terrible explanation.  She somehow meets him in some other plane of reality or something, because she is still in her bed, but then she is also wherever he's at.  Or something like that! Anyway, they are both highly intelligent but on different ends of the emotional spectrum, with her being so logical-minded that she has trouble with feelings, and him feeling both more, and more deeply, than the typical person.   (For them both, think highly gifted and/or on the autism spectrum).  Anyway, it is an amazing story told in an amazing way and you should all go out and get a copy and read it.  (Reading Level: ? / Upper Grades)

I debated for quite a while whether or not I should put Reign the Earth on my To-Read list.  On the one hand, it was written by A. C. Gaughen (the author of the Scarlet trilogy, which I absolutely loved - see my review here).  On the other hand, there was the cover and blurb - nomadic desert girl with elemental powers (I don't do elemental powers) gets married to foreign prince in an attempt to end the animosity between their peoples.  On the third hand (which I don't actually have and now discover I need), there is the comment on the back about strong women yada yada... which is fine and all (this was a major theme in Gaughen's previous work, which remember, I loved), but something about the wording made it feel anti-men (which I also don't do).  To make a long story short, I read it, but I didn't think the writing came anywhere close to the level of Scarlet.  Pretty much I only kept reading because, before the end of the third chapter it is so obvious that the girl married the wrong man, and I was curious to see how she was going to end up with the one she should have married.  There were some bits here and there that I enjoyed (like the relationship between the girl and her brother and her interactins with her body guards), but overall I was completely bored with the whole thing most of the time.  I checked out the second book in the series on my following library trip, but after mulling it over for a couple of weeks I decided not to bother reading it.  You might like it, though - it just wasn't my cup of tea.  (Reading Level: 4.8 / Upper Grades)

 Well, Neal Shusterman has done it again.  If you enjoyed the Unwind dystology, then you will like the Scythe trilogy for sure.  (Of course, I haven't read the whole trilogy because book three hasn't been released yet, but Shusterman is a very reliable writer!)  Scythe is a science fiction dystopian novel based on the concept that A) the cloud has evolved into the sentient "Thunderhead" which watches over and can personally interact with every person on Earth (yes, like God), and B) death has been conquered, and C) in order to curb the exponential population growth caused by nobody ever dying, "scythes" are appointed who "glean" a certain number of people each year.  Once again, Shusterman gives us an original concept with unique characters and all the action and intrigue you could desire, all tied up with a profound ethical question.  Written in the same style as Unwind, with seemingly unrelated characters and events eventually merging into one cohesive story, Scythe is a novel you won't want to put down.   (Reading Level: 6.5 / Upper Grades)

Thunderhead is the sequal to Neal Shusterman's Scythe (as if you couldn't tell from the cover),  and it is jam packed with more good stuff.  The story picks up shortly after the first book ends, with the two former apprentice scythes taking dramatically different paths.  Of course I had to go pick up a copy as soon as I finished the first book.  Unfortunately, when I tried to grab the third book after finishing the second one, I discovered that I will have to wait until November for it to be released.  What was I thinking?!  (I was thinking that the first book had been out for ages so it was safe to start reading.  I guess I have lost all sense of time.)  Anyway, if you choose to wait until all three books are available, make sure to put this on your own To-Read list - trust me, you don't want to miss it.  (Reading Level: 6.7 / Upper Grades)

The minute I saw the title of this book, I was like, I have to read that - it just sounds deliciously creepy, doesn't it?  As it turns out, The Devouring Gray, by Christine Lynn Herman, wasn't super creepy, but it was good.  It is about a town out in the woods whose founders imprisoned a monster in a parallel reality (kind of like Stranger Things, now that I think about it); their descendants must now use their "gifts" to make sure the monster stays where they put it.  The book jacket compares it to The Raven Boys (see my review here), and I can see why they would say that - it's got plenty of weird magical/mystical stuff going down, a solid group of friends with an outsider joining their ranks, teenagers with strange & unnatural abilities, a mystery to solve and secrets being kept, power hungry adults, and both a perfect boy and a broken boy who feel the need to watch over each other.  Despite the similarities, it is different enough to not feel like it is copying Stiefvater's story.  Although it pales in comparison to The Raven Boys (in my opinion, most books will), it is still definitely worth reading.  But be forewarned - I thought it was a standalone, but the last page made it sound like there would definitely be a sequel coming out next year.  (Reading Level: ? / Middle Grade+)

I really enjoyed The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds.  It is about a teenage boy whose mother dies and whose father deals with the loss by becoming a drunk.  The man who lives across the street takes the boy under his wing and gives him a job at his funeral home.  Hence the black suit.  The story is very well written, and the author did a phenomenal job creating each character's unique voice.  With a little bit of humor, and a little bit of romance, a little bit of a surprise twist, and an underlying theme that ties the two main characters together, this is a book that I think most readers will enjoy.  (Reading Level: 4.8 / Middle Grade+)

I should have loved The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos.  And I did love most of it.  It had everything I love in a story:  good writing, original concept, a main character who is not annoying, perfect pacing, family secrets, some so not-normal things going on, and a big OMG twist at just the right place.  It is about the descendants of a Russian BabbaYaga, who fled to America when angry villagers went after the family's matriarch.  Now, a couple of generations later, most of the women in the family only retain a mere fraction of the powers they should have inherited, but every single one of them is gifted/cursed to foresee her own death.  Loved the concept.  So what was the problem?  The problem had to do with the portrayal of the main character and her love interest, who just so happens to be transgender.  Now, I firmly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to read books with characters who they can relate to.  The problem was that the whole scenario was highly improbable - I can't think of a single person I know who is not of the LBGT or Q persuasion who would have reacted the way the main character did in the situation that presented itself - which I think is annoying for some readers, and very unfair for those who might be in the midst of a gender identity crisis.  So, yeah.  Didn't love it in the end.   (Reading Level ? / Upper Grades)