What I Read Wednesday

Sigh. I've been so tired and so busy and so everything that reading hasn't been a huge part of my life lately and that's sad.

Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel
I found this on a list of good YA thrillers. I'm always looking for YA books that might appeal to boys and chose this one because of the male character. Mickey Bolitar is not having the best time lately. He witnesses his dad die in a car crash, his mom ends up in rehab, and he doesn't really like the uncle with whom he lives. He does, however, meet a great girl named Ashley, but shortly into the school year, Ashley disappears. Not only does Ashley disappear, but it's almost as if she never existed at all. Following the trail of her disappearance, Mickey encounters a shady strip club, an urban legend named Bat Lady, and some clues that his dad's death is more than what it seems. This is part of a trilogy, and I look forward to reading the rest because the mystery definitely hooked me.

What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

I've been pretty stagnant with books lately. I have a whole stack of non-fiction sitting on my nightstand and zero desire to read anything that isn't an escape from reality.

Innocents and Others: A Novel
Meadow and Carrie grow up together. The two are connected by their love of film-making and forays into documentaries. On the outside is a woman named Jelly, who cold calls men who are connected to celebrities and forges a relationship with them over the phone. The book goes back and forth between Meadow, Carrie, and Jelly. At times, it was disjointed and I had to remind myself of who was where, but I was overall interested in each of the women and how they eventually connected.

See Jane Run
This book came up on a list of ten best psychological thrillers. I love psychological thrillers and this was one of the few that I hadn't read. It did not disappoint. Jane snaps to suddenly on a Boston street, with no knowledge of who she is or what she's doing. She's wearing a trench coat that she quickly discovers is holding stacks of $100 bills and when she removes the trench coat, she realizes that her dress is soaked in blood--blood that isn't hers. After ending up at the hospital, she's diagnosed with hysterical amnesia thought to be brought on by trauma. Someone eventually recognizes her as the wife of renowned pediatric surgeon Dr. Michael Whittaker and Jane is brought home to begin reconstructing. Or so she thinks. What unfolds is a nightmare in which she is unsure what is reality and what is hysteria.

What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

The Passenger
The story opens with Tanya Dubois, a woman whose husband falls down the stairs and dies. Although she had nothing to do with his death, she flees knowing that the police will only bring more questions--as she is not really Tanya Dubois. Nor is she Amelia or Debra or any of the other personas she adopts. As the story unfolds, the reader learns she is fleeing from her past, though it's unclear as to who should be given blame for her past. This one kept me hooked! Great premise and the author did an excellent job of slowly revealing the pieces of the puzzle.

The Forgetting Time: A Novel
Janie is a single mom, after a wreckless night on the beach during vacation. She loves her son, Noah, with all her heart, but he is a very difficult four year old. He suffers nightmares, has an irrational fear of the water, and constantly asks when his other mom will come to get him. Jerome is a psychiatrist who specializes in past life research, believed to be a fraud by some, he strongly insists that some children are born with strong memories of the past life they led and reuniting children with that past life can help ease troubled minds. Janie and Jerome come together to search for Noah's past life, to return him to the mom he claims he had when he was a boy named Tommy. This was really a beautifully written book. I felt the struggles of both Janie and Jerome, but especially Janie as a mom desperately trying to find help for her boy.

What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

Perfect Days: A Novel
This was twisted. I went into the ending thinking, "Oh no, the author wouldn't..." and the author did. Teo is an isolated adult. He lives with his parapalegic mom and is medical school, where his only friend is his group's assigned cadaver. One day, his mom drags him to a party where he meets and becomes infatuated with Clarice. Teo obsessively begins calling and following her, until one night, one thing leads to another and he ends up kidnapping her. You get the sense that Teo didn't exactly intend to do this, but now that he's done it, he has no choice but to keep on with the charade and the hope that Clarice will return his affection. This was GOOD. Discomforting but so good.

Violent Ends
17 different stories tell parts of the story of Kirby Matheson, who on one fateful day walked into his school and shot 11 people, then killed himself. These stories, however, don't really tell you why Kirby did it. Not definitively. Written by 17 different YA authors, these stories tell the aftermath of Kirby's actions. They tell of Kirby's childhood. Of the days before the shooting. They tell the stories of the victims. They weave a beautiful tapestry of perspectives that won't easily be forgotten.


What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

I wanted to finish the book I was reading and took advantage of the snow day to do so before posting this.

Burning Midnight
One day, brightly colored spheres showed up on earth. Much like the Gold Rush, at first they were just there for the taking, but after awhile, they became sparse. At first, no one knew what they did, until it was discovered that burning (placing them at your temples) a colored pair would have certain outcomes depending on the color. Some make you smarter. More attractive. Faster. Give you the ability to function on little sleep. Like most things, the rarer the sphere, the more amazing the outcome, the more that sphere is worth.
Sully is a teen who makes his living dealing spheres at a flea market. He's notorious for finding the cherry red spheres that triggered a second wave of spheres. As the second wave is running out, Sully and his friend Hunter intensify a search for more rare spheres.
This book was entertaining and unique. I loved the idea of something like this just happening, as well as the way different people reacted. It was definitely not without a sci-fi twist to it, too.

The Sky Is Everywhere
This is by the same author of I'll Give You the Sun and was so very good. Bailey's sister dies suddenly while rehearsing for Romeo & Juliet. In the wake of her death, Bailey is left reeling and unsure of how to move forward. Lennie attaches herself first to her sister's boyfriend, then to Joe, the new boy at her school. She struggles to connect with her grandma and uncle in the way that she did before Bailey's death and she feels that no one quite understands her pain.
I really enjoyed this book. It was realistic and messy.

All the Birds in the Sky
This book was okay. I felt like it was trying to be dystopian, fantasy, coming of age and sci-fi all at once and that didn't really work for me. However, it has good reviews on Amazon, so it could work for you! It begins with Patricia and Laurence, children who are both misunderstood. Patricia wishes to talk to animals and can't figure out how to handle her abusive older sister. Laurence is scientific minded and resents his parents trying to make him like nature. It then moves onto their teenage years, where Patricia ends up at a school for children with magical powers and Laurence ends up at boot camp, following an assassin turned guidance counselor plotting to get rid of him. It finishes with Patricia and Laurence as adults where maybe the world is possibly ending. It just didn't mesh for me. I was hooked at first, but it started to drag after awhile.

What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

This extended weekend was beneficial to my reading time! I could use more of those.

Front Lines
I love this whole theme of re-writing history from the "what if" point of view. In this case, what if women were allowed to fight on the front lines during WWII? Rio Richlin, Frangie Marr, and Rainy Schulterman all sign up to fight, all for different reasons. Rio signs up with her friend Jenou, Jenou hoping to escape a horrible home life situation, Rio to honor her sister who was killed at Pearl Harbor. Frangie signs up to get money for her family, in a heavily segregated world where black girls don't have many other options, while Rainy signs up because she's Jewish and the disturbing lack of contact from her Jewish family in Europe gives her the drive to kill as many Germans as she can.
Each story is well told and leads up to the moment where all intertwine. I definitely enjoyed this one!

After Tupac and D Foster
Neeka and her best friend (our unnamed narrator) are growing up at a time where Tupac is very much alive and very much an icon. When the girls meet D Foster, the three create a bond that transcends their issues--the narrator and her single mom trying to make ends meet, Neeka's brother in prison and her crowded home, and D's foster situation in which she hasn't seen her mom for years. This was a short book, but thematically heavy. Prison among African-American males. Homosexuality. Abandonment. Racial and societal pressures. It was a powerful read for any young reader.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
I held off on reading this book because I feel like I always struggle with books translated from Swedish. However, I fell in love with this book and the characters pretty quickly. Sara travels all the way from Sweden to the tiny town of Broken Wheel, Iowa, to meet up with her penpal Amy. When she arrives, she discovers that Amy has died of a not entirely unexpected illness. As Sara stays in Broken Wheel and begins to know--and love--the people in the town, she decides to open a bookstore, although it is arguably the last thing Broken Wheel could use. This book was written in a tone similar to Fried Green Tomatoes or other books about small town nuances where you fall head over heels for the characters. I couldn't put this one down, so much wanting to know what would happen to Sara and Broken Wheel.

My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel
Lucy Barton is hospitalized following what should have been a routine appendectomy. Her mother, who she hasn't seen in years, comes to stay with her in the hospital and keeps her entertained from stories of those they knew in their small Illinois town. In the midst of this, Lucy weaves together glimpses from her past, the poverty and abuse that surrounded her, as well as flashes forward to the future she will have beyond her hospitalization. There were points where I wasn't sure if Lucy was an unreliable narrator or if her mother was unreliable, but it was a great narrative.

What are you reading?

What I Read Wednesday

Slow reading this week because I've been too tired to stay awake very long at night.

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley
Andrew Brawley lost all of his family in one night, in a horrible accident for which he blames himself. Since then, he's lived in the hospital where his family members breathed their last. He works in the cafeteria during the day and sleeps in an empty wing at night. His truest friend is a comic he created, about a man named Patient F. His enemy is a social worker who he refers to as Death because she always shows up to when people are dying. Drew is drawn into the life of Rusty, a patient who is brought in with severe burns on most of his body, a victim of a hate crime. I loved this book. There were parts of it that seemed almost surreal, but in the end, the author brought it all full circle.

Orphan X (Evan Smoak)
Evan Smoak was a boy taken out of the East Baltimore projects to become a government weapon. He breaks free from the program and uses the skills he learned to help people who are desperately in need of this help. As good as he is at covering his tracks, he isn't perfect and he soon realizes that someone is after him.
This was a good thriller crime novel. It was an easy read that kept me engaged.

What are you reading?