January Recap

Better late than never for a recap, eh? While I've abandoned the blogging a bit in lieu of coaching and (let's face it) Breaking Bad, I still managed to read four books this January. Here they are:

1. Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of her stepmom's car waiting for a prescription when someone else gets in the front seat, turns the keys and drives away. Griffin had only wanted to steal the car, but instead he ended up with more than he had bargained for when Cheyenne raised her head. The big twist? Cheyenne is blind.

This book is one that I think my sophomores will really like- it has drama, suspense, action, and obviously lots of teen angst. It was a great read over Winter Break; a quick read and easy to get through

Similar Titles: Stolen by Lucy Christopher, Panic by Sharon M. Draper


2. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
I recommended this book in my last post. It is an amazing collection of letters from the advice columnist Dear Sugar and will make you grin, weep, giggle, and swoon. A classic for "Books to Read in your Twenties" lists- go read it! Now!

Similar Titles: Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Yes Please by Amy Poehler

3. Columbine by Dave Cullen
This audiobook really got to me. I wanted to write a blog just for this book for a long time, but I never knew how to start it. In short, this book is the quintessential story of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Journalist Dave Cullen was a reporter on the scene in the days and weeks following Columbine, and dedicated ten years to reconstructing every detail from the 18 months prior to the shooting when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris began their plans of destruction, to years afterward, following the lives of victims and families.

Obviously, this was a tough book to handle, but, as often is the case, it is a fascinating part of our nation's history and one that as a teacher I feel bound to read and learn from. The biggest takeway from this book was the newfound knowledge that most of the stories perpetuated by the media and still repeated today were fractions of the truth. The Trenchcoat Mafia, the violence of video games, even Cassie Bernall, the "girl who said yes" are all misconceptions based on misinterpreted stories that have blown out of porportion.

This story, I think, tries to set the record straight, and it was both captivating and horrifying to learn the truth.

Similar Titles: Hate List by Jennifer Brown, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

4. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
Single mother Kate Baron gets a call at work one day regarding her daughter Amelia. She had been suspended from her private high school in Brooklyn. When Kate arrives, she is given even more devastating news: Amelia has jumped off the roof of the school and committed suicide. Reeling from this tragedy, Kate tries to piece together the last events of Amelia's life to discover what really happened to her daughter. This book is told from dual perspectives: Amelia before the incident and Kate afterward.

Reconstructing Amelia is a suspenseful thriller that will leave you guessing until the last page. While not without some holes, I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down!

Similar Titles: Defending Jacob by William Landay, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Happy Valentine's! I have some great titles coming up this month- stay tuned :)

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

I think we all need to have a heart to heart. Let’s all clasp our hands together, look each other in the eyes, take a deep breath, and admit that Rainbow Rowell is one of the best writers of our generation. Can we all agree on that?

I just finished the audio version of Fangirl, the third book I’ve read by Rowell, and it so did not disappoint. (The first book I read was Eleanor and Park- see my post here about how I cried through the last twenty pages- and the second was Attachments, which was adorable).

Cath is our awkward, depressed and nerdy heroine, and her freshman year of college is not going well. Her twin sister, Wren (Cath and Wren- get it??), chose not to room with her, her dad is loveable but manic, and her roommate is a sullen yet in-your-face junior. Her sole love and comfort in life is Simon Snow, a Harry Potter-like character from a fantasy/wizard/vampire/basically Harry Potter series. She even writes an incredibly popular fan fiction blog about Simon and his mortal enemy Baz.

So basically, Cath is the perfect kind of character to groan about, roll your eyes at, yell at and cheer for throughout her first year of college. Will she remain miserable and terrified for all nine months, or will she finally figure out who she is and what she needs to become?

Why you might like this book: Rainbow Rowell is a beautiful writer. She’s the kind of writer that makes me wish I could write. Her characters are perfectly imperfect and you will love them. One stylistic choice I also love about this book is that it alternates between Cath’s life at school and snippets from the Simon Snow series-  a nice change of pace (plus in the audio book, a man with a gorgeous British accent reads the Simon Snow parts- the best!)

Why you might not like this book: Let’s be honest, you probably will though.

Similar Titles: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, Harry Potter by JK Rowling, The Magicians by Lev Grossman (maybe?). Honestly, Rowell has such a refreshing take on real life situations that I just can't compare to anyone but herself!

I would recommend this book to: females, people who have had obsessions with a series like Harry Potter or Hunger Games, anyone who has lost their way at some point or another

If you don’t read Fangirl, pick up SOMETHING by Rainbow Rowell. You won’t regret it! At this point, Landline is the only Rowell book I have yet to read, and I’ll probably add it to my list before the end of the year.

P.S. I absolutely realize I have been AWOL these last two months, and I have no excuse. August and September Review (a two-for-one deal) coming soon!

Thoughts on a Reading Slump and Book Abandonment

For whatever reason, in the month of April my reading hit a slump. I read four books, one of them a reread (In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan- see my last post!). While this is impressive by my 2013 standards, it’s the least amount of books I’ve read in a month in 2014, and I completely ditched audiobooks. Here are some possible causes:

1. The weather has been unusually awful for April and the TV has been calling my name
2. I bought a road bike and have been dedicating some time to a new hobby
3. Grading and school has been getting the better of me

Most likely though, I think I’ve hit a wall because I haven’t been EXCITED about the books I’ve chosen to read. At the beginning of the year, I made a list of all the books I have been recommended or wanted to read and I have been steadily making my way through them. However, my most recent books have just not been making the cut. Here are some books I have abandoned  in recent weeks:

• The Group by Mary McCarthy: this is the book club choice from my college book club (hi guys!). I didn’t get too far into it when I heard many people were either a) not reading it or b) hating it, so I promptly decided not to make it a priority. The incredibly tiny font didn’t help either!

• Cooked by Michael Pollan: I love Michael Pollan and I love food, but I just wasn’t in the mood for this book. I’m much more interested in the process of growing food and eating food (thus, my recent Michael Pollan read), but over 500 pages of how cooking works just was not doing it for me.

• Endurance by Alfred Lansing: I actually do want to read this book still, reading about a ship crew trudging through snow and ice in Antarctica and it was snowing in April this year just made me angry! When I’m sweltering hot and baling hay in July, I think this book will be a much better fit.

• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah: This memoir of Ishmael Beah, who was a boy soldier during the civil war of Sierra Leone, is extremely powerful and fascinating, and I would like to finish reading it. However, I had checked it out from the library as an audiobook. Although the narrator has a strong, calm voice, the contents of the book were so depressing that I hated listening to it in the car. I want to read this book, but I think this is better suited as a “read this and be depressed for one week,” not a “read in short spurts and be reminded how awful the world is all over again for weeks” selection.

So what’s a girl to do with all of this book abandonment and indecisiveness? I feel incredibly guilty when I abandon books, but as I’ve learned from Donalyn Miller, reader and teacher extraordinaire and author of my teaching bible The Book Whisperer, there are too many wonderful books in the world to read ones that don’t interest you. Reading should be fun, engaging, and an escape from your current world; the real world should not be an escape from books you are dreading to read.

So with that, I am picking myself up from April and setting out to salvage my reading in May. Luckily, I have wonderful friends who make my life so much better and have given me books and recommendations. Here are some books and ideas that are spurring me forward:

• What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali: Given to me by a dear childhood friend who also teaches, I have been reading a little of this each night and especially when teaching has been rough recently. A nice little reminder of why we teach.

• Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller: Another gift from a lovely colleague. As previously admitted, Donalyn Miller is my idol in a totally dorky reader and teacher sort of way. Can’t wait to get some ideas for next year from this book!

• Other things I have done: Without too much guilt, I cleaned out books from my list that I do not really want to read and have added in new recommendations after browsing my library website and GoodReads. Hopefully, six new books and two audiobooks will await me at the library soon! On May 22, I will also be attending a Young Adult Literature Conference with some of my buddies from school. Always a fantastic way to get the latest YAL titles and give me a huge summer booklist!

Spring is here and I can’t wait to share with you some of my newest book finds of May soon J