End of August Reading

Here are all the books I have picked up within the last week that are on my "To Read" list. I've started Three Times Lucky and absolutely love it so far. I'm so excited for another great year of reading and can't wait to get started! 

Which should I start reading next?

Starters by Lissa Price

Starters by Lissa Price

Imagine a world where everyone between the ages of 21 and 85 were gone. A horrific chemical war where only the very young and very old were vaccinated and survived. But the average age of death has altered as well. The elderly are living to be two hundred years old. The government, still ravaged by chemical warfare, has created laws that forbid young people to work; to ensure that the elderly are employed and useful. If you are a young person and are lucky, your grandparents have claimed you and you live a healthy, stable, life. If you are like the majority, unclaimed, you are on the streets.

Callie is young and has to look after her younger brother whose lungs are slowly failing. They have no money and live in abandoned office buildings. They are desperate for food and for the will to survive. Callie hears on the street of a new and underground practice that the elderly have created: the ability to rent the body of a young teenager. The Body Bank allows a grandparent to slip their mind into the youthful body of a teenager. They can play sports that their arthritic bodies can't play anymore, they can hop from club to club staying up all night to dance and party, they can fall in love with someone young and beautiful but only for one month. In exchange for the use of their buddies, teenagers minds are put to sleep for however long their bodies are rented. Upon awaking, they receive an inordinate amount of cash. All hush hush and under the table, of course.

But what happens when Callie wakes up mid rental? When she finds her body at a late night club with a cute boy on her arm? When she looks into her purse and finds a used handgun? When her elderly renter is still sharing her body and mind?

Starters was a great book to start a new school year off with reading. The concept is very Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but for teens and with more lip gloss. The book is slow to go in the beginning but as soon as Callie wakes up on the floor of a bar, it get's interesting. Frankly, the best part of this book was the last two chapters. Two huge twists within the last pages makes me want to read the sequel (of course it's a sequel...everything is a sequel). On a vain level, the cover art is pretty cool of this book; definitely very eye catching especially to a young reader.

The creep factor of this book was very similar to the Unwound series by Neal Shusterman. It sort of feels like this could happen. After reading this book, I'm looking at my grandparents in a different light. Frankly, I think middle schoolers and high schoolers should read this book simply to have a different point of view on older generations. Just because your grandma is super cute and loves to knit doesn't mean she doesn't have the secret desire to pour tequila shots into her mouth while wearing sequin booty shorts. Older people don't just have to sit around watching FOX News all day; they want to have a life too! They were young once!

Okay, maybe I'm getting a little too deep on this matter. But this book is worth picking up. It reads quickly and keeps you pretty interested. Plus, the two twists at the end are ones you don't see coming. So often in dystopian set novels, the twists are always: "It was the government the whole time!" or "He was so bad but now he is the hero!". This novel gives a refreshing change to such a popular genre.

Date A Girl Who Reads

Another year, another dollar, another million books to read!

I'm back after a long (but short) summer break and am ready to start reading nonstop. This summer I read ravenously and I'm ready to start reading some of my favorite genres: young adult and children!

I've already pulled out three books to start reading this week and am currently hooked on Graceling by Kristin Cashore (more on that later).

In the mean time, I wanted to share one of my most favorite written works of all time. Like any 20 something, I spend a lot of time mindlessly surfing the internet. This piece caught my eye and I even have it printed out and hanging on my desk (at work and at home). I think it's incredibly poignant to anyone who loves to read.

So to start the year of right, here is Date a Girl Who Reads originally by Rosemarie Urquico and found here on www.goodreads.com 

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

So it's off to a new school year, a new fall, and new things to read. I hope this inspires you as much as much as it inspires me everyday