Book report and no SBD
Sep. 26th, 2006 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI missed Smart Bitches Day yesterday...and last week. Normally I think about what I'm going to write on the train ride home, then blurt it out onto the page. But I'm taking this class on Monday nights now, so the train ride home doesn't happen until 11pm; by the time I get home, I just fall into bed, no time or energy left for SBD'ing. Must plan better and post early in the day.
On the book front, I've been on a mini-YA glom lately. Finished Niki Burnham's Do Over, a sweet, frothy YA-romance. Third (and final, I believe) installment. When Valerie's parents divorce, she has a choice -- move in with mom and her new girlfriend, switching school districts, or go with dad on a temporary assignment (a year or so) as etiquette director to the principality of Schwerinborg. Not ready to deal with her mom coming out of the closet, Valerie went off to Europe with her dad, meeting Georg (prince) and falling in love. Teen drama and issues ensue. Like I wrote above -- sweet, frothy, kind of like cotton-candy.
Picked up a copy of Justina Chen Headley's Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) after reading a review of it at AAR. Patty Ho is half-Taiwanese (not Chinese) and half-American/white, and feels like she doesn't fit in anywhere, especially in her very white Oregon hometown. Her father is long gone, and she and her brother are being raised by their Taiwanese mother, who very much wants them to succeed in the traditional Asian way -- excell in math and science, go to Ivy league college, become a doctor or lawyer or accountant. Patty is stuck going to math camp at Stanford, despite trying to tank the test that was part of the application. She dreads going, but once she gets there she starts to figure out that being half-anything doesn't mean she has to exclude or discount any part of herself. Pretty good, IMO. B+.
Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood. Miranda, a Chicago teen, maxes out her stepmonster's credit card and crashes her father's car; as punishment, she is sent off to Bard Academy, a boarding school on an island off the coast of Maine. Sort of a gothic, teen version of Jasper fforde's Thursday Next books, in that characters from books are interacting with the modern world, and the teachers at the boarding school are dead writers stuck in purgatory. Imagine Hunter S. Thompson as a bus driver and Hemingway as a gym teacher. Cute in a novel kind of way. The world building needed some work. Pleasant read. B-.
On the book front, I've been on a mini-YA glom lately. Finished Niki Burnham's Do Over, a sweet, frothy YA-romance. Third (and final, I believe) installment. When Valerie's parents divorce, she has a choice -- move in with mom and her new girlfriend, switching school districts, or go with dad on a temporary assignment (a year or so) as etiquette director to the principality of Schwerinborg. Not ready to deal with her mom coming out of the closet, Valerie went off to Europe with her dad, meeting Georg (prince) and falling in love. Teen drama and issues ensue. Like I wrote above -- sweet, frothy, kind of like cotton-candy.
Picked up a copy of Justina Chen Headley's Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) after reading a review of it at AAR. Patty Ho is half-Taiwanese (not Chinese) and half-American/white, and feels like she doesn't fit in anywhere, especially in her very white Oregon hometown. Her father is long gone, and she and her brother are being raised by their Taiwanese mother, who very much wants them to succeed in the traditional Asian way -- excell in math and science, go to Ivy league college, become a doctor or lawyer or accountant. Patty is stuck going to math camp at Stanford, despite trying to tank the test that was part of the application. She dreads going, but once she gets there she starts to figure out that being half-anything doesn't mean she has to exclude or discount any part of herself. Pretty good, IMO. B+.
Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood. Miranda, a Chicago teen, maxes out her stepmonster's credit card and crashes her father's car; as punishment, she is sent off to Bard Academy, a boarding school on an island off the coast of Maine. Sort of a gothic, teen version of Jasper fforde's Thursday Next books, in that characters from books are interacting with the modern world, and the teachers at the boarding school are dead writers stuck in purgatory. Imagine Hunter S. Thompson as a bus driver and Hemingway as a gym teacher. Cute in a novel kind of way. The world building needed some work. Pleasant read. B-.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 01:10 am (UTC)Jane
YA reading
Date: 2006-09-27 03:05 am (UTC)