Saturday, October 7, 2017

September 2017 Wrap-Up

The beginning of September feels like a million years ago, but then again, September has always seemed the longest month of the year. September and June. By contrast, February and March always fly by, but September and June feel endless. I usually get back into reading this time of year, and this past month was no exception. I mean, sure, I reread a lot because I wanted to read for fun and not critically, mostly to remind myself why I love reading. But I'm babbling. Here's what I read in September!
  I reread Unwind this month because I missed it. This book was to me what The Hunger Games or even Harry Potter was to others, a book I feel in love with when I first read it and that love has stayed with me. Don't be put off by the YA dystopian label, it was written three years before The Hunger Games was published, and was actually meant to make you think the way dystopian novels were before The Hunger Games and all the cheap mimickers that made dystopians more of a fantasy genre than anything else. Despite the fact that the social issue at focus here is abortion, Shusterman cleverly does not revel his own opinions about it, forcing readers to draw their own conclusions. And he never lets those weighty things get in the way of the story, which is dark and warped and wonderful. This book follows primarily three people, Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, and Lev Calder, who are AWOL unwinds, teenagers whose parents (or the state) have chosen to retroactively abort their child when he or she is between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Connor is a problem kid whose parents can't control him, Risa is a ward of state who was unwound due to budget cuts, and Lev is a tithe, meaning his parents had him unwound at the age of thirteen for religious reasons. This is a smart, action-packed, and heavy hitting novel that has been my constant book love since I first read it back in 6th grade.

  This is another reread, and not the last one on this list because I did a ton of that this month. And I think I like it even more now than I did when I read it the first time. I mean, I still liked the first side more than the second, but I found a new appreciation for the stories I wasn't crazy about, most notably the one about wolves (name escapes me at the moment). But the beginning and the ending stories totally completely knocked it out of the park, with both bringing me damn near to tears. As did the middle "interlude" in fact. In fact, just read the damn collection. It's one of the closest to perfect books I've ever read. 

  First new book of the month and wow, was it not a good one. What is with me and new releases this year? Anyway, this was one of the most poorly written bad books I've read so far. I mean, reading this book was like slowly getting your fingernails pulled out- tedious and painful. The characters were bad and unoriginal, and the only thing that might be a little redeeming is that the plot is pretty interesting, though you could probably play a Nancy Drew game and get the same basic idea with a more rewarding experience. In case you're still interested in The Rattled Bones, this book is about a girl, Rilla Brae, who, with the help of university researcher Sam, attempts to uncover the secrets behind this old abandoned island where she keeps seeing ghosts. And it's bad. Really bad.

UnWholly by Neal Shusterman 9/10 (reread) (402 pg)
  UnWholly is the sequel to Unwind, but not really. In fact,  like to think of this book as being the first book in the Unwind spin off series. That's not me saying I didn't like the book, on the contrary as this was probably my favorite book in the series (not counting Unwind), but it's just that Unwind had such a definitive end that it could have been a standalone and UnWholly takes place a year or two later and greatly expands the world of Unwind and there are other elements that make this book feel more like someone could read the entire series excluding Unwind and still know what the books were about. But anyway, I still love this book because it has Connor and Risa and Hayden in it and I love Connor and Risa and Hayden. Mostly, I love Connor and Risa together. There are other new characters too, like Cam and Miracolina and Starkey and that's another reason why this book feels like a spin off because these characters were not in the first book at all and are huge presences in the rest of the series. Unfortunately, I hated both Cam and Starkey, but I don't think I was supposed to like them anyway. UnWholly is the perfect series opener, with characters that are diverse and fun to follow around, violence, and fantastic intrigue, and rereading it reminded me why I love these books so goddamn much.

  Being a bit of a masochist, I picked up another one of SM Parker's books (she really should have thought twice about going by her initials by the way). Her debut novel to be exact, which oddly enough was a little bit better written than her sophomore attempt. Still, the characters are moronic and the plot is easy to predict and the dialogue and things that happen in the book are theatrical in a cheesy way, and one that dilutes the impact of moments that should be scary, like the ending of the novel, the B horror effect if you will. There are a million better books on the topic of abusive relationships, which is what this book is about (fairly basic abusive relationship story, too, like the author just read the Wikipedia page on it) and I'd recommend any one of them over this one.

  Every so often, YA mysteries redeemed themselves for me (you know, before I remember this is the same genre that gave us Missing and Natasha Fucking Preston and I remember why I regularly resolve to give the genre up). And Little Monsters was that book. That one in a million YA mystery. I haven't felt this positively towards one of them since last November, when I hit the jackpot and read two in a row. But I really want to pick up Darkest Corners now, just to see if I'd have a new favorite YA mystery writer. But what is this book about? Basically, it's about a girl whose friend just went missing, and she's trying to find out whodunnit. It keeps you on the edge of your seats and does everything every good mystery novel should do. Highly recommended.
  I've been averaging about one nonfiction a month and this was my September one. And it was a really great one, too. This is in the tradition of In Cold Blood in that it focuses not only on the crime itself but who committed it, develing into the past of the criminal to see how his past affected what happened to him. This is also a memoir, following Marzano-Lesnevich's history of sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather. While the true crime parts were more interesting to me than the memoir parts, this book is sure to please any fan of both categories and is extremely skillfully written. Highly recommended.

   Another poorly written bad book, encountering a few of them this month. It's written like a YA cash grab novel with swear words and sex every few lines to make it more adult so you don't think this is a YA novel. It has very basic, annoying characters, a ton of melodrama, and a plot that could have been so much better had it been in the right hands. I'm no Gillian Flynn fangirl or anything, but this would have been one hell of a book if she had written it, for instance. But she didn't, Amy Engel did, and she wrote it like a soap opera instead of the creepy, American Gothic novel it could have been. The Roanoke Girls has nothing to do with Roanoke Colony but it is about girl whose mother killed herself and so she goes to live with her grandparents and cousin in Kansas. Over a decade later, she goes back home because her cousin is missing. And a lot of other stuff happens. Skip it unless you want to be disappointed.
  A Little Wanting Song is probably my least favorite Cath Crowley book to date, but that's not saying much because this book still gets a high score for me mostly because I still liked this book just fine. It wasn't as good as Graffiti Moon or Words in Deep Blue but it was fine. The book is about two girls, Charlie Duskin and Rose Butler. Charlie is visiting her grandfather, who lives in Rose's town, and Rose wants to escape her town and go to school in the city and become a marine biologist. It's about music, love, and all those touchy-feely things Cath Crowley writes about. It's not really my taste, because of the author I gave it the score it got and I'm ridiculously loyal.
  This is an odd little book, though what's even odder is that I can remember very little about it. Normally, books like this would stick in my mind and yet, this one didn't at all. Interestingly, the book itself was better than On the Jellicoe Road, at least in my opinion, but On the Jellicoe Road stuck with me more. Of course, that was probably because I was disappointed by the latter and had no expectations going into the former, so while I ended up really liking it, it still didn't have as big an impact on me as it could have. Anyway, this book is about a girl named Friday Brown (she may or may not have an actual name that isn't Friday, I can't remember), who encounters this band of street kids and their crazy leader Arden who initiates Friday into the group. It ends up being surprisingly messed up, and a pretty good read. I'd recommend it if you can get a hold of a copy.
UnSouled by Neal Shusterman 8.5/10 (reread) (404 pg)
  I find in book quartets, the third book usually suffers the most from Middle Book Syndrome, and UnSouled is no exception. This is my least favorite out of all the Unwind books (excluding UnBound). I'm not sure why I disliked it, maybe because compared to Unwind and UnWholly, this book had the least action. While there were some great parts, like Risa killing the parts pirate with a pitchfork or Connor getting high with Argent and then smashing him over the head with a bong or Una and her chainsaw, as well as Connor hitting Lev with a car, a cathartic scene for those like me who still had some residual anger towards that little shit from the first book, though he did grow on me in the second book to the point where I actually liked him. I find Lev to be a frustrating character because he seems to always waffle on everything, or at least he says one thing and then does something else when he realizes he doesn't actually want to do the thing he said he's going to do, but he's not that bad in small doses. That might have been another strike against UnSouled, entirely too much Lev. And also not enough Hayden. Hayden always makes any scene he's in better. And also no cute/sad Connor-Risa moments until the end. So really, I liked this book for what it is and I liked this book as a transitional novel- also it has the best cover- but it's not my favorite Unwind book.
My Last Lament by James William Brown 4/10 (DNF)(90/335 pg)
  The main reason for the lack of historical fiction on this blog lately is that I haven't really found much I've been inspired to read lately. All the new releases for this genre have been pretty monotonous lately. I was interested in My Last Lament primarily for two reasons- 1. It's about Greece and 2. It's got an attractive cover. I didn't mind that it was about WWII because it seemed different than other WWII novels that are all trying to be The Nightingale at the moment. Unfortunately, this one was so slow moving and, hate to say it, boring that I couldn't imagine sticking with this book for an extended period of time even though it was only 335 pages. And I'm the same girl that stuck through the 700 page behemoth that is We, the Drowned. I think the final nail in this book's coffin were the endless puppet show stories that I just couldn't bring myself to care about. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood to read it at the moment, especially given that I usually have a lot of patience for slow, history steeped, character-based stories, but this really didn't work for me. I'd skip it if I were you.
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (reread) 7.5/10 (423 pg)*
  If you looked up Women's Lit in the dictionary you'd find a picture of Jodi Picoult next to it. This is the second time I've read My Sister's Keeper and frankly, only really picked it up because it's a really good PMS read. Seriously, when I read this book I just want to curl up with tissues and chocolate and wine and have a nice hormone induced cry. Picoult's books (including this one) plot- and character-wise are firmly in the mediocre category even before the infamous Picoult twist in the last 25 pages, but she is a very skillful writer and does create some beautiful sentences as well as funny moments. Even so, my end rating hasn't changed, but it is nice once in a while to revisit the oft-melodramatic world of Jodi Picoult.
  When picking my favorite book of the month, this was a serious contender but in order to do that I'd have to change the rating and I still have to remind myself that the reading experience wasn't the best what with the confused narrative and all. This is one of those novels that grew on me simply due to its inability to let me go. Days, weeks, even now it is still a presence in the back of my mind, and it is a strangely mesmerizing novel. It's one of those books that's almost impossible to write a synopsis of- I mean, it's about three people in Athens in the 80s, two guys and a girl, who have this strange little family being a bunch of addicts and con artists and all that jazz, but there's so much more to the book. The only thing I can say is read it and form your own opinion on it. 
UnDivided by Neal Shusterman 9/10 (reread) (384 pg)
  And, that's how you end a book series. I'm serious. This is one of the best final novels I ever read. This series didn't go completely downhill like The Hunger Games or so many other YA dystopians. It was the kind of finale you'd expect from a series as dark and twisted as Unwind, with violence and some really messed up moments and other fun things like that. As a whole, this series just worked, it was smart and thought-provoking and action-packed and balanced all that out with humor and and a really great and diverse cast of characters. This series is the reason Neal Shusterman is one of my favorite authors ever. And one more thing- please tell the "gardening accident" bit was a reference to This Is Spinal Tap.
Menorahs and Minarets by Kamal Ruhayyim 7/10 (224 pg)
  This isn't a reread but I still didn't write a full review for it because, eh, who cares? I had to read this (yes, just this book) for a class and found it unimpressive. I didn't hate it, but it was confusing (mostly because it's part of a three book series), though the characters were likable and the writing was nice (the translator was okay, though it was obvious that English wasn't the language this book was originally written in). I don't really have much else to say about it. 
  Honestly, this book surprised me simply because it made me realize that, you know what, Margaret Atwood isn't as good a writer as I thought she'd be. I'm not saying she's a bad writer by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn't blow me away the way I expected a writer of her reputation to. That being said, Hag-Seed was enjoyable enough, and I did think there were some really nice moments, like most of Felix's moments with his daughter. Hag-Seed, being a The Tempest retelling set in a prison, would probably appeal more to someone both a fan of Shakespeare and Margaret Atwood, and while I found this novel enjoyable it didn't work as well for me as it could work for others.

Answered Prayers by Truman Capote 8/10 (150 pg)
  Answered Prayers is one of the few works of Capote's I haven't read, this and Music for Chameleons, which is still on my list. If you have never read anything by Capote or have only read In Cold Blood, I'd advise you to steer clear of this one. Start with one of his short stories (may I suggest Children on Their Birthdays? Miriam is also good, very Southern Gothic, as is A Christmas Memory- that one made me ugly cry) or perhaps Breakfast at Tiffany's or Other Voices Other Rooms. This work is only really for the already established Capote fans, those who wouldn't mind much the unfinished nature of the work. And I admit, it's not his best. It's obvious the book was written by Capote at the end, something that made this a little hard to read at some places. Hate to say it, but Capote is the warning story to all young hopeful authors, one of the brightest stars in the literary world at one time, until the publication of his magnum opus In Cold Blood and then his subsequent downfall into self-destructive alcoholism. Nowadays, few known him as anything other than the In Cold Blood guy, with Breakfast at Tiffany's sustaining itself in popular conscious only due to Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly- how many know it even was a novella in the first place? But enough about the tragedy of Capote. What of the work here? Answered Prayers started out strong, very strong. I was invested in the character of PB Jones, a character who is causally unlikable and a bit deluded and just self-aware enough to understand that he is both deluded and unlikable. There was some very darkly humorous passages that got me laughing and the descriptions and Capote's way of setting up scenes were so vivid I could perfectly picture everything going on as if it was playing on a movie reel in my head (for some reason, I pictured it in Wes Anderson's film style, don't really know why). So if it had just been Unspoiled Monsters, this would be an easy 9 book. Unfortunately, the book declined as it went on. The second chapter, whose name I'm blanking on for some reason, wasn't my favorite, as I wasn't too invested in the relationship between PB Jones and Kate McCloud. However, in that chapter's favor, it at least followed Unspoiled Monsters nicely. The last chapter, the infamous Cote Basque, was the weakest in my opinion. I wasn't that invested in what was going on and I wished it had more of a connection to the first two chapters. Alas, if only this book was completed. As it stands, Answered Prayers is interesting only to those who are familiar with him and his works, since, like most books by famous authors, it is heavily autobiographical (PB Jones is a fairly obvious author surrogate, and interestingly enough, one that says that Capote was at least a little self-aware by the writing of Answered Prayers and wasn't entirely a victim of his own narcissism). Answered Prayers is a shadow of what it could have been.

  John Belushi Is Dead is a decent book, don't get me wrong, but not a very memorable one, and one that I wished I liked more than I did. It's one of those books that I thought would be a slam dunk on my favorite books ever list, due to the fact that it's about a girl who is obsessed with death and there are some mystery elements and one of my favorite movies ever is referenced throughout the book. But alas, it was only okay, mostly due to things like the writing not being that great and the main characters lacking and the fact that if you've ever seen the movie Harold and Maude than you know the end message of the story. But that end message is a good one, and the book was fun enough to read with some pretty dark parts. Recommended, kind of. 

  The Language of Thorns was probably the most disappointing new release ever and I think the only thing that came of it was that it reminded me how little patience I have for fairy tale retellings and how much I am baffled by their popularity- don't you people get bored with the same story told over and over again? Not terribly original, especially given that this was the same chick that gave us the Grishaverse. Of course, part of this could have been my expectations- I was expecting this to be a series of short stories that took place in the Grisha Universe like UnBound or other short story collections and maybe even following side characters, not a bunch of goddamn fairy tale retellings with nothing to do with Grisha magic. The only things in this book's favor were the beautiful illustrations, the wonderful writing, and the fact that it is now living a happy life on my younger cousin's bookshelf. 

 Page total: 5,973
Average rating: 6.5/10 (rounded up by not much) (not counting rereads)
Genre breakdown: 7 contemporaries
                 4 historical fiction
                 4 dystopians
                 2 mystery-thrillers
                 1 nonfiction (true crime/memoir)
                 1 paranormal
                 1 fantasy
Of those, 9 were adult and 11 were YA

 I read 20 books last month and couldn't be happier, especially considering that this is the most I've read since March. It looks like October's also going to be a good one, since I usually read a ton this month. I'm not going to get my hopes too high though, but I do have some fun plans for this blog in October so stay tuned for that!

 *e-books
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