My Reading Frenzy

I should have trusted John Green...

...not to give me more than I could handle.  I put off reading The Fault in Our Stars because I knew it would be sad.  I even bought it right when it came out in order to get a signed copy, plus I have become a book snob and prefer hardbacks.  While not giving in to the e-book craze I have gone excessively in the other direction to make sure the books I buy are hefty and solid.  None of those flimsy paperbacks for me...unless I get them used and the price is fabulous. 

So anyway, The Fault in Our Stars did make me cry.  Not quite as much as A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, but close.  Just like many of John Green's other works it is mainly a love story about two really funny teens who happen to have cancer and are obsessed with this book and its author who lives in Amsterdam and have friends with cancer.  The fun in the book is the two main characters know the young cancer patient stereotypes and try to thwart them, but in some way become them anyway because it is difficult to be dying young of cancer and not evoke that pity and sadness in others. 

Hazel and Augustus though are at their most important two teens in love for the first time.  I'd put the level of sweetness in their falling in love up there with Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins.  These stories are important reminders that teen love is just as real as that felt between adults.  Just because adults diminish it because their young relationships did not become "forever" ones does not mean that what they or others felt is not REAL love. 

I love a good love story and the sad part was not more than I could handle because the happy part was so euphoric.  I should have trusted you John Green. 

 

Reading Multiple Personalities

You would think based on my reading choices that I might have a multiple personality disorder; I rarely stick to one particular genre for a sustained period of time.  For this reason you may find my most recent reads to be all over the place genre-cally. 

In my last post I mentioned reading The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields, which is primarily about the extra-marital love life of Edith Wharton, one of my most favorite writers of all time.  While I enjoyed the novel, I was disappointed in Wharton.  While I understand this is a fictionalized account, the author used excerpts of Wharton's letters to Morton Fullerton.  I cannot possibly understand what Wharton's marriage to Teddy Wharton was like, but she allowed for what seems like a great deal of mistreatment from Fulleron in exchange for only small bits of happiness. 

Following that read, I began Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead.  The novel takes place during three days of the wedding weekend of Daphne Van Meter and Greyson Duff on Waskeke Island.  The wedding itself takes up only a few pages, but the two days before are rife with all sorts of turmoil.  Winn, Daphne's father finds himself inappropriately attracted to one of his daughter's bridesmaids.  Daphne's sister Livia is recovering from heartbreak using all sorts of wedding weekend techniques.  And all the other members of the wedding party, including the families, sometimes spectate and sometimes participate in all sorts of other shenanigans.  This novel is not a comedy, or maybe it is a black comedy, but it is the story of a family the reader likes but feels sorry for, roots for, and wants to slap all in turn.  I do recommend this book and enjoyed it quite a lot. 

SHIFT

(to a new genre)

Next I decided to go with Seraphina by Rachel Hartman.   This is a middle grades/YA fantasy novel that takes place in a society in which dragons and humans have forged an uneasy alliance.  The main character, Seraphina, is a brilliant musician who also happens to be half dragon, which as you can imagine is not an accepted species in either society.  When a rogue former General begins to attack humans the fragile peace is in significant danger.  This is clearly the beginning of a series or trilogy and I am eager to read more.  I have also ordered this for my school as I think my kids are ready for a new dragon series. 

 

 

SHIFT

(again)

 

Next I picked up The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean.  I have been wanting to read this ever since I began following the author's blog, which is about the dresses she makes, generally from vintage patterns.  By profession, McKean is a lexicographer, but from what I can see she could go into dressmaking or writing at any time.  The book is a really sweet story about Dora who must come home from college when her grandmother, who raised her, has a stroke.  Mimi runs a vintage clothing shop in which Dora has grown up and she takes over the shop when she is not at the hospital.  Sadly for me I just read Jennifer Weiner's, The Next Best Thing whose main character is also a woman raised by a grandmother because her parents are deceased, but McKean wrote hers first so this is just an unfortunate coincidence on my part.  Foolishly, I thought at the beginning that the story would be somewhat predictable and certainly elements of it were, but there were also some twists I did not see coming.  I was drawn right into the story and was fascinated by all the descriptions of the vintage clothes Dora finds in a closet her grandmother has been cultivating for her for years as well as those in the shop.

 

I have just started The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith, the next in his series of 44 Scotland Street stories.  I would recommend anything by Smith, but I like his Isabel Dalhousie series best but his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books are wonderful as well.