Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi

Posted on March 9, 2008 by janicu

Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (A Jennifer Scales Novel, Book 1)

MaryJanice Davidson

OK, finished this one a week ago. I liked the first book of the Undead series and this series had good reviews on Amazon so I picked it up through paperbackswap.

It didn't really work for me. The protagonist is a teen girl who discovers that her parents never told her that she's half weredragon. And her race has an ancient feud with were-arachnids and beaststalkers. While I could suspend my disbelief with the paranormal aspects of this story, I had a problem with the characters and their interactions. Jennifer often acted like a brat, lashing out at her parents over everything, for example – her dad not being there because of his job. Jennifer takes out on her mom just because she was there. Okay, teen angst, sure, but more than I have patience for, so when she kept doing it I wasn't enthused. At one point Jennifer said something "insightful" but it backfired, because I thought it was just a backhanded way of telling her mom that she was spineless.

Meanwhile, her parents alternated between saying nothing and just letting Jennifer rant, and snapping back beyond the point I thought an adult should. Her dad got so annoyed, he just dropped Jennifer off at her grandfather's, said something nasty, doesn't let her know what's going on, and leaves. I was thinking: what kind of parenting is this? I also don't understand why they never told her what she was. The "protecting her" excuse seems very flimsy. The communication in this family is disfunctional! Her parents let Jennifer believe what she wanted without setting her straight and then revealed she was very very wrong and should feel bad (is this supposed to teach her something? Becuase I thought it was passive aggressive on her parents part). On top of that some of the other people seemed to act out of character (I couldn't really buy the ending and how forgiving somebody was). And finally; there were people who added nothing to the plot at all - I said to myself - why were they there?

I know. I sound ranty. I think I expected more is why. The writing wasn't bad, the world wasn't bad, but I didn't like the characters. I'm past the young adult audience, but sometimes young adult books transcend age groups. This one is just for teens though, not targeted at practically 30 year old me. So I don't think I'll be looking for the rest of this series. I've been disappointed by quite a few young adult books in the past year – am I maturing? Or maybe I need to stop just trying to read everything willy-nilly and think more about if I'll really want to read books before I get them. TBR is huge anyway. It's at 131..still.

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The Dead Girls’ Dance (Morganville Vampires, book 2) by Rachel Caine

Posted on January 19, 2008 by janicu

The Dead Girls' Dance (The Morganville Vampires, Book 2)

Rachel Caine

This is Rachel Caine's (author of the Weather Warden books) young adult series. It's in the third person but follows the story of Claire, a young college student going to school at what turns out to be a town run by vampires. Claire lives with 3 other teens (Shane, Michael and Eve) in a unusual house. The three others are all older than Claire and grew up in Morganville, and they all know more about the town and it's history than Claire does, but everyone seems to have some secrets and history with the vamps. As time goes on, power plays amongst the vampires (themselves very interesting and complex characters), end up involving these friends who want to be free of vampire control. Book 1 dealt with Claire's move to Morganville, meeting the other teens and learning about the vampires, and book 2 continues with some trouble that they run into when vampire-slayers come to town.

Caine explains a lot of things that I'd question. For example the "Vampires running a whole town? How does that work?" question: not everyone living in Morganville even realize there are vampires there, and through some sort of magic, people forget about the vampires by the time they leave Morganville. The police and mayor are largely controlled by the vampires, but there are rules between human and vamp – who is under protection, who is fair game, what's allowed and what's not. It's a very interesting premise and the story is never dull, one surprise follows another and there is a lot of action going on. I did notice that the author likes to end her books with cliffhangers, so the series is addictive, but if you hate cliffhangers, make sure you have book 2 around if you start reading book 1. Book 2 ends with a much smaller surprise. Meanwhile the heroine is smart and thoughtful while sounding like a teenager. I'm glad this is not another "teen girl with bubblegum brains falling for a vampire" story. The book has surprising depth, and even bad guys seem to have another side (my favorite example of this in The Dead Girls' Dance is at the title dance). There are three books out so far and a forth one coming out in June 08.

Rachel Caine's Morganville page

Excerpt of Book 1 – Glass Houses

Excerpt of Book 2 – The Dead Girl's Dance

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The Hunter’s Moon by O. R. Melling

Posted on December 19, 2007 by janicu

The Chronicles of Faerie: The Hunter's Moon (Chronicles of Faerie)

O.R. Melling

This is a young adult novel was recommended as being along the same lines as Holly Black's Faerie series, so I went to look for it. Findabhair and Gwenhyvar (Gwen) are two cousins (one Irish, one American) who want to believe in Faerie and to have adventures. Gwen visits Fin one summer and they plan to tour Ireland together, centering around famous Faerie related places, but soon after their tour begins Finabhair is stolen by the Faerie, leaving Gwen to seek her. Gwen pretty much gets guided by helpful strangers to chase her cousin, the king of Faerie, and his court across Ireland.

While the writing was really lovely and magical, especially in describing the scenery, the story felt predictable – a quest story, sort of mirroring fairytales of snatched princesses and the brave journeyer who uses their resourcefulness to save them. It started to get repetitious – Gwen catching up with Fin, then losing her again, then following her again to the next site. The characters themselves were also a little flat. I found myself bored several times and putting the book down. What I felt redeemed this book were those beautiful descriptions (especially of Faerie) I mentioned and all the references to Irish myth. You could tell the author knew what she was writing about. Here's an example of a passage when Gwen is asked to dance with the fairies:

"Parting leaf from twig and eyelid from slumber, anyone and everything was awake in the night. To life we wake from the long forgotten dream, the beautiful mystery. The taste of existence is a drop of honey on the tongue. So very sweet and very old, we have gone to seed and run wild in the wind. It ws a dance of stars and flowers and souls. Gwen stepped into the chain to become part of the whole. How long she danced she couldn't know. Time branched like a tree and each bud was eternity. She could feel the world dissolve into myth."

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Out of print

Posted on December 11, 2007 by janicu

Remember when I was all gung-ho about trying to do BTT every week? Well that stopped quickly. Anyway, last weeks Booking Through Thursday question was a good one:

This week’s question is suggested by Island Editions:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again? (I have several…)

There are a few books out of print that I own, so in a way I'm content even though they are out of print because I can go over and pet them and hug them and laugh to myself that they are mine as much as I want. On the other hand, I wish more people knew about and owned them so it would be nice if they were still in print. Also there are some books that are out of print that are so expensive I don't own them and I'm not sure I ever will. I'm not sure these are favorites, but they do make me yearn/burn for them to be reprinted. So two sections:

1) Out of print, but still available used at prices normal non-crazies can afford:

The Adventures of Holly Hobbie – A novel, by Richard Dubelman (about $10?)- ok. I don't know if this book is any good anymore, but I read this when I was 12 or so and it's about that Holly Hobbie girl with the big bonnet around her face who is on a lot of kids toys and illustrations. In this book a girl - Liz, whose parents are archeologists, meets Holly through some time stepping magic type thing, and they go find Liz's missing dad. It involves Mayan pyramids and I remember it being fascinated by the descriptions of that ancient civilization and its beliefs. I vaguely recall some magic involving either light or an eclipse which I thought was very cool at the time. I went to the whatwasthatbook community on LJ to figure out what this book was.

Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (I got it for about $15-$20? but it sells for around $30 on up, eck) – I thought I posted about this book but looks like not. Sherwood Smith, author of Inda and Crown and Court Duel has recommended it on livejournal (http://community.livejournal.com/athanarel/111008.html) and describes it very well, I suggest clicking on that link for a better description than I can give. This was growing pains type of book. You see the silliness of youth and moving away from that and becoming more comfortable in your own skin. It's basically a well written young adult novel. Shannon is the main character – a girl who isn't sure if she wants to go to college instead spends the summer helping her uncle with a case with a will. She spends all summer pretending to be someone she isn't, playing detective, and trying to glean information about the people specified in the will, and along the way she comes out of her shell and also learns a thing or two about relationships.

Nameless Magery and Of Swords and Spells by Delia Marshall Turner (about $3 each?)- I bought one of these in college and didn't get the second book till a year or two ago. They can be read in either order but Nameless Magery goes first. Both are in the same universe and involves a futuristic, sci fi world/s where people can also do magic. There are robots and a mage school and smart young women protagonists and hyperspace drives and all kinds of meshing of sci-fi and fantasy and trickery. I don't think I've read anything else like it that blends those two genres so well together. And I think they're the only two books this author has written.

The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman (about $3-$5)- This is an author who has 2 books (I own both), and every year or so I will go and check if she's written anything else. And then I'll cry to myself because the answer is no. I also do this with Delia Marshall Turner but I think she's definitely not writing anymore, I feel more open ended with Katie Waitman. This book is a sci fi-ish story centering around the life of an abused boy (Mikk) who becomes the galaxy's master performance artist. In some ways it feels like a fantasy novel even though it's more sci fi. The description of the alien species, the performing arts school, Mikk's life, growing up, dealing with censorship and the stigma of his lovelife.. it's all great. The book says "discovery of the year" across it, but then.. no more books by her! I sob to myself.

The Night World Series by L.J. Smith (about $1-$10 each? Depends on how well you do on ebay) - ok this is a silly teen series with vampires and true love and whatnot. But I bonded with people who are now my closest friends over these books so I'm adding them here for nostalgia's sake. If I read over these books now, they're not bad but they aren't fabulous. I had to have them all (and maybe extra copies of certain ones) just because. And is book 10, Strange Fate, the last of this series ever going to be printed? I don't know.

2) Out of print and super expensive, maybe I can win the lottery or sell my car/left leg/kidney/soul to afford:

Anima Mundi by Mark Ryden ($300-$1000+)- An art book that has popular low brow art for those who have no idea who the hell Mark Ryden is. Lots of pictures of cute kids, animals, and meat products reminiscent of a child's picturebook. Really detailed work and often on album covers. This was on my wishlist when it was $25 on Amazon. Then three months later it went out of print and went up to $300+ dollars. After that if I saw a pamplet by this artist that I wanted, I got it without waiting around. I have his Bunnies and Bees book that I bought for $20? $25 when it came out which is now going for $90-$150 or so. Josh and my sister have a copy too. My attitude - "ok I know this is going to go up.." - *buy*. I also have Blood (one copy sealed, one unsealed) which I got for $25 each and which is selling for over $100 and it's this TINY thing really. Maybe these prices are less on ebay… Maybe not. OK I think telling Josh this is making him want to sell his Bunnies and Bees book.

Wagner's Trilogy – Tannhauser, Parsifal and Lohengrin by Willy Pogany (from $300 to $2000+ each depending on edition and condition). Pogany was a prolific illustrator in the early part of the last century, mostly of children's books. Some of his best work is in this set of three books. I found illustrations of Lohengrin online several years ago and since then I've been looking for copies that aren't expensive. All I can find for "cheap" aren't first editions, and even those go for $200-$300. I have Tannhauser (reprint), but not the other two. Like this on ebay. I don't remember how much I paid, but it was not over $150 and that was a few years ago. Every book in the trilogy have lovely pages bordered with illustrations and pictures, both black and white and in color and the boards for these books are often gilted and pretty. I once saw pictures of the whole set for sale online bound in white leather going for about the price of a car.. $10,000.. I coveted. I saved the pictures for that sale on my computer but they got lost in hard drive crashes. Oh well. Here's an image heavy link to many gorgeous Pogany illustrations. P.S. I also like his version of Alice in Wonderland.

Masques by Patricia Briggs – This book goes for at least $60 on ebay, $120 to over $600 elsewhere. Which I think is CRAZY. I find that Briggs's earlier work isn't as good as her recent books, but yes there is the compulsion to own everything by an author you like. Masques was her first published book I think. Right now, she's very popular because her Mercy Thompson series is one of the best urban fantasy series out there (in my opinion). Sigh. $60 is too much for an old used paperback book that may not be that good.

Mushroom Girls Virus by Deanne Cheuk – Another art book. This one came out in 2005. I saw this, loved it at first sight and bought it from the author. I'm glad I did, now it's out of print and selling for at least $150. Sheesh. I bought it for $45. Mine's not "mint" because I actually wanted to look at it, but I keep it in a plastic wrap because its got a lovely embroidered cover and I don't want anything to mess it up. I hope it gets reprinted, its lovely and girly and pretty. Click here for illustrations in the book. Also here.

There's more but I'm tired..

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Braced 2 Bite by Serena Robar + Boys that Bite by Mari Mancusi

Posted on December 2, 2007 by janicu

Couple of quick reviews. I read some YA in recent months and never posted about them.

Boys that Bite

Mari Mancusi

Boys That Bite: This one is about a teen named Sunshine who gets mistaken for her goth sister Rayne (yep, Sunshine and Rayne) by Rayne's vampire sponsor. This means that she gets turned into a vampire when she wasn't supposed to and she's not happy about it. Sunshine has to get accustomed to her new form while trying to find a way to get changed back and trying to pretend to be normal. So she goes to school even though the daylight makes her feel very tired and has to pretend garlic doesn't make her want to run away. Meanwhile Sunshine's mom begins to get very concerned about drugs because of her red-eyed, tired look and pale skin.

This one was a mixed bag. There were some things I liked – a chubby, acned slob of a vampire slayer, some slacker Druids, the humor at times. There were others I disliked, but I think some of them had to be because I keep seeing this in YA –

a) Why is the heroine so obsessed with the prom?

b) Why does a two hundred+ or whatever old vampire even like this teen girl obsessed with the prom? Also does not compute. This is a common thought of mine reading vamp books.. At least here there is a matching system to explain it, which helps.

Overall the main characters didn't feel like they really stood out to me. There were a lot of cliches in their characterization. That said – uh, maybe I'm just not in the age range for this book, and maybe I've read a lot of teen vampire books and I'm just jaded at this point. So taking it for what it was – a light young adult novel – ok it manages to be that. This is the start of a series. Book 2 deals with her sister being recruited as the next vampire slayer, even though Rayne is pro-vampire.

Braced2Bite

Serena Robar

Braced 2 Bite (eck, "2" being used instead of "to", but the rest of this series has numbers in the titles as well so at least theres continuity): There are similarities between this book and the one above – besides the word "bite" in the titles. Again we have a teen girl who thinks about the prom/homecoming who did not want to be turned into a vamp but becomes one against her will. Instead of mistaken identity, Colby Blanchard is attacked by a rogue vampire. Written from a first person point of view (also like the book above), we follow Colby as she pretends to be normal and not half-undead. As in Boys that Bite, there is a vamp society with rules, and unfortunately for Colby, one of the rules is no half-vampires allowed. She has been assigned a Vampire Investigator who may become her executioner.

In this one Colby is mostly concerned about proving that she be allowed to live since there is no way for her to turn back. Her character was very proactive about this, and it were interesting twists to it. For example she was popular before her attack but people start to think she's faking it when she recovers quickly and refuses to go to the hospital. Also her family is all in on her secret and rallys around her (including her dentist dad who outfits her with braces to suck blood), but they don't know about her troubles with proving she be allowed to live. I'd say that my one major complaint besides a little sniff of a) and b) listed above is that this book felt rushed, especially towards the end. This too is the start of a series – book 2 follows Colby to college and continues her activities championing half-vampires.

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Red Handed and Blacklisted by Gena Showalter

Posted on November 23, 2007 by janicu

Red Handed (Teen Alien Huntress)

Gena Showalter

Blacklisted

Gena Showalter

These two books by Gena Showalter are from the young adult half of her Alien Huntress series. In this series the focus is on strong women who live in a futuristic society where aliens live amongst us. To protect themselves from some of the more dangerous aliens, humans have A.I.R – Alien Investigation and Renewal agency, which these books revolve around. The list of books so far:

Adult:

Awaken Me Darkly
Enslave Me Sweetly

Young Adult:

Red Handed
Black Listed

I read Awaken Me Darkly first, early this year. This centered around A.I.R. agent Mia and on Arcadians – aliens tha sound like the twins from The Matrix. I liked the action and the aliens but the story lost steam in the second half and the plot became much less tight. Basically I liked the world but it didn't end up a keeper.

Red Handed and Blacklisted are in the same world except the protagonists are teenagers. The reader also gets to learn about other alien species that weren't discussed in detail in Awaken me Darkly. Also, these books can be read in any order without missing anything. Characters from past books make appearances but they are not central to the story.

In Red Handed, Phoenix is a recovering drug adult trying to redeem herself in her mother's eyes. She just got back from rehab for an addiction to Onadyn – a drug that some aliens need to survive but deprives humans of oxygen. Phoenix tries to stay away from her friends that still use but misses the companionship, so she ends up at a party in the woods where many kids are high. Aliens attack the party expecting little resistance but Phoenix is sober and fights back with the help of a mysterious boy she meets at the party. Unfortunately for Phoenix, when she gets home her mother only thinks it's more drugs. The people who brought Phoenix home suggest a boot camp to straighten her out, and Phoenix's mom is only too ready to let her go. The twist is that this boot camp isn't a rehabilitation center. It is a training center for A.I.R., the mysterious boy is an A.I.R agent, and Phoenix has just been recruited. The rest of the story deals with Pheonix's training, making friends in A.I.R and overcoming the stigma of being an addict. I enjoyed reading about Phoenix's struggles to prove that she has moved past her addiction and to become more than an ex-junkie. The portrayal of the bitterness from others, especially her mother, for what Phoenix put them through and Phoenix's subsequent shame added depth to the story. This ended up being my favorite book in this series.

Blacklisted centers around an ordinary girl named Camille with a huge crush on Erik, who goes to her high school. She and her best friend sneak into a nightclub that they heard he was going to be. Erik isn't happy to see her because he's involved with drugs, and he needs to lose the tail of A.I.R. agents watching him, so he gives her an empty napkin hoping this would both make her stop following him and distract the A.I.R. agents. Unfortunately Camille proves to be more resourceful than he expected and follows him into a high security area of the club, leading A.I.R. to believe she's involved in his shady dealings. A.I.R. is even more unhappy with Erik than the usual drug-dealer because he used to be an A.I.R. agent himself. Erik has a reason for why he's doing what he does, and he doesn't want to involve an innocent like Camille, but her actions means A.I.R is now looking for both of them. This was an interesting story because it looked at the situation from a different angle – where A.I.R. and laws that condemn the guilty can also condemn the innocent at the same time. In this story the actions of A.I.R. were bullheaded from this point of view. An interesting point and written nicely, but I preferred Red Handed. I think my main issue was that I found Camille to be silly from the beginning for doggedly pursuing Erik, and I just couldn't shake this view of her as foolish and impulsive. Even when she continued to trust and believe Erik, I thought – in real life this would be a parent's nightmare – their daughter romanticizing a drug dealer. In real life he wouldn't really be a good guy. This book also tied up really quickly and easily in the last few pages which I had real trouble with as well. I think I would have felt more satisfied with an ending that was less easy, if that makes sense.

Last point – both of these books had sexual situations which make them geared to a more mature teen. It's interesting how much more of this I see in books now than in my teens (10 years ago). I did notice that both girls were 18, the author is careful about that, and they in what seemed to be serious long term relationships.

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Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

Posted on October 13, 2007 by janicu

Keturah And Lord Death

Martine Leavitt

I sped over to the library to pick up a copy of this book after reading a review of it over at Twisted Kingdom. This reads as a mix of Neil Gaiman's Stardust, 1001 Nights, and some well-known, often-told fairy tale.

Keturah is a young village girl who follows a stag into the forest and gets lost for a few days. Eventually she sees Death come for her, but being the storyteller of the village, she tells Lord Death a story and then refuses to tell the ending unless she gets one more day of life and then, she promises, she will finish the story.

"Good Sir Death," I said too loudly, "I would tell you a story – a story of love, a love that could not be conquered even by you."

"Truely?" he asked. "I have seen many loves, and none were so great I could not divide them."

…

"But my tale, Lord Death, is one that will make even you love, that will heat even your frozen heart." My boldness astonished me, but I stood to lose nothing.

"Indeed," said he in disbelief. "Then say on."

"Once there was a girl -"

"An auspicious beginning."

"-who loved…no one."

"A love story in which there is no love – you have caught my attention now," said Lord Death.

Keturah gets her reprieve for one day to go find love, and to finish her tale, and Death even promises to let her live on if she finds her true love in one day. What follows is a charming story about her village and the people in it, and of Keturah, and her relationships with her friends and family and with Lord Death. A perfect fairytale. The fact that this was a young adult novel doesn't even play into it. It felt like the author wasn't writing for a specific audience – just telling a good story.

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Alchemy by Margaret Mahy

Posted on July 3, 2007 by janicu

I wanted to relaxing weekend so I went for a couple of old favorites (authors I mean).

Alchemy

Margaret Mahy

Alchemy by Margaret Mahy: I really like Mahy's novels – they are about teenagers and strange things happen to them – sort of young adult contemportary fantasy. The Changeover was one of my favorite books in high school because Sorry Carlise, the male witch in the book, was very weird. I felt this was a much more accurate representation of teenage boys than many other YA books in my day.

Anyway, in Alchemy, seventeen year old Roland isn't obviously odd like Sorry. He's a popular young man – prefect at Ault Academy, dating the prettiest girl in school, smart, good-looking and has a good relationship with most of his teachers. But underneath it all, Roland has felt that something inside him is warning him to be "careful", that he has to keep up his wholesome, normal image. His father left when he was 10 and Roland feels he must be a good, strong person that his mother can rely on.Things begin to change for him when one day one of Roland's teachers somehow catches Roland shoplifting some minor items (very unlike his normal behavior), and coerces Roland to make friends with and to keep an eye out for Jess Ferret. Until now Roland never paid any attention to Jess. She's a quiet, unnoticable girl in Roland's classes, but when Roland watches her, he realises she works to keep people ignoring her. Jess is hiding something and Roland wants to know what it is. So he stalks her. Meanwhile Roland has a reoccuring dream about a carnival and a magician that terrifies him. Suddenly Roland starts to catch glimpses of this magician around town and what his has to do with Roland and Jess is another thing he has to find out.

While this is a young adult novel, the writing and plotline have complexity in plot and character that you don't always see in young adult novels. Plus, I really love the way Mahy writes – especially her descriptions of things that are wonderous: "Suddenly, he is suspended in a space that falls away beneath him and yet somehow embraces him too. Roland blinks. Those distant grains of light are really suns. He blinks again, and silence shivers through him. It is all around him, yet he feels it deep inside his head like a song he has not yet sung aloud." Mahy is compared to Diana Wynne Jones and I agree there are similarities, but Mahy's books may have a little bit more of this complexity to life element to it than Jones. I also noticed for the very first time – her writing is really British (or is it New Zealand-ish since that's where she lives?). I also like how well she fleshes out Roland and Jess – they are unique characters, and I liked how relationships between characters, especially family relationships were written (Roland and his mother, Roland and his brothers, Mr. Hudson and his sibling). Yet another interesting relationship – Roland and his girlfriend Chris – I pondered over this one a bit.

9.5 out of 10 (extra points because I feel nostalgic)

This wasn't a re-read but my other book this weekend (Stardust by Neil Gaiman) was. I'll talk about it later. Going to bed.

Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July week.

TBR @ 98

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Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging + On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

Posted on June 26, 2007 by janicu

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Louise Rennison

On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God: Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Louise Rennison

Both of these books are by Louise Rennison, but Vox's subject line won't let me fit all of that in. Anyway, these were two more of the books I picked up at the Greenwich FOL sale. They're about a British teen, Georgia Nicolson and her amusing take on life. Since I just read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I couldn't help comparing the two books a little bit. Its funny how it worked out – both are written as if by the main character – as diary entries in Angus/Bright Side, and as letters in Perks, and both of them are of course from a young adult point of view. Also both of them have their own type of humor, but while Perks has a subversive humor, Angus and Bright Side have a class clown humor. Georgia is NOT a wallflower – not at all. She and her pack of girlfriends spend their days at their all-girls school finding ways to drive their teachers crazy, and the rest of the time talking about boys. For instance – the girls wear a school uniform that includes a beret which the girls hate because it gives them hat hair. Meetings are held to decide what to do with the beret and how to make it appear less visible and how to protest the beret. One of their MANY methods of protest is using the beret as a lunchbox and putting a sandwich between their heads and the hat. Another method is to roll it up into a sausage and pin it under their hair. Georgia always seems to be surrounded by the weirdest people – her cat (Angus) is the size of a small pony and eats floor mats and terrorizes the neighbor's dog, her little sister hides her diapers in Georgia's bed, and her grandfather just speaks in non sequiturs (and that's just her family). Her best friend Jas is sometimes not the brightest girl and sarcasm just gets past her and the rest of the girls are similarly amusing. Georgia herself is rather silly – obssessed with certain features like her eyebrows (she shaved them off by mistake), her nose, her hair. Finally of course there are all the boys – particularly an older boy Georgia calls Sex God who Georgia is always trying to get.

This is probably the least serious couple of books you could find. I'd put them under the category of what to read when you are sick and miserable and need something to cheer you up. They're fast reads and not meant to be serious books. One of the few things I could see as a complaint is that they are incredibly british. A lot of british slang is used in the books, which some people may find annoying (I didn't), but there is a glossary at the end of the book which is amusing in itself to help. Also – humor is subjective. I often don't laugh when other people are snorting through their noses because it's just not that funny to me. Still – these books both had a few moments where I couldn't help myself from laughing out loud.

I don't know what I want to give this. 8 out of 10? Or 7? Can't decide. 7.5.

This series is eight (I think) books long so far and I'm not sure when it's going to end (these are the american titles) – there are 7 in the U.S. now, number 8 is out in July:

1. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging 2. On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God 3. Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas 4. Dancing In My Nuddy Pants 5. Away Laughing on a Fast Camel 6. Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers 7. Startled by His Furry Shorts 8. Love is a Many Trousered Thing

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Posted on June 19, 2007 by janicu

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky

This book is a series of letters written to an unknown friend by Charlie – a quiet young man who lives mostly in his head. These letters span about a year from the start of his freshman year in high school, as Charlie starts to learn how to "participate" in life instead of watching. He makes friends with some seniors who take him under their wing and seem to be understanding about his innocence. Charlie is a very unusual character – quiet, observant and thinks a lot about what he sees, seemingly highly sensitive and prone to crying, and unsure about how to interact with people comfortably. He seems very intelligent and yet strange. I had a feeling like.. something is up here, something I don't know, so I had to keep reading not only to find out about his high school experiences (which were hilarious, sad, crazy, unexpected and wonderful all wrapped up in one), but also to figure him out. I really had a good time reading this book – Charlie feels like a sweet kid everyone knows and is fond of, and I just zipped through this, and I want to go back and revisit.

I think this is a good book to read if you ever felt like a wallflower yourself (probably most people at some point). It had me thinking about the things you think about when you are growing up and figuring people out – watching others and daydreaming and imagining what other people think or see (everyone does this, right?). I think one of the only problems I would say I had with this book is I'm not sure I believe so many people could be that patient and understanding about Charlie and willing to bring him into their group of friends, but it WAS a small group of people who were on the fringes anyway so perhaps I'm being too picky here. The other thing was – ok some of the things that happened made me squint in disbelief - ALL that madness happened in ONE YEAR?! I'm just dying to say something that's a spoiler so I'm just going to comment that in my post on vox and if you want to find out, go there.

9.5 outta 10

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