Not reading lately?

I feel like I haven't been reading lately, but when I think about it, I actually have.  It just hasn't been much of what I really want to read. 

Last month our book club read The Cherry Cola Book Club.  It's about Maura Beth Mayhew, a librarian in Mississippi, who is struggling to keep the library open.  To bolster attendance and impress the city council, she decides to start a book club.  This was a cute book, best read with an internal southern accent.  However, it was a bit too sweet and saccharine for my tastes, with minimal character development.  Very light, fluffy read.  Would recommend for fans of cozy mysteries.

 

I also picked up the graphic novel, Lumberjanes.  Written for a YA audience, Lumberjanes follows a group of teens attending the Lumberjanes summer camp.   The Lumberjanes are similar to the girl scouts in that they earn badges for various activities.  This group of girls ends up getting into quite a bit of trouble, sneaking off in the middle of night and encountering some very strange paranormal creatures.  

 

My favorite books to read are non-fiction, so I picked up The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Phillip Hoose.  The Danish resistance to the Nazi invasion was started by a group of 8th grade boys who formed a club called the Churchill Club.  They would ride around their bicycles and plan ways to sabotage the Nazis.  

 
They started by stealing Nazi weapons and eventually the group planned bigger acts like sneaking into headquarters and burning blueprints, and even destroying vehicles, and train cars.  They were captured, but their small acts of resistance inspired the rest of the country to begin a larger  movement. 

Beat the Reaper

I occasionally will foray into the world of fiction and sometimes I am forced, like when my book discussion group chose Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell.  Most of them didn't like it, but I actually did.

Beat the Reaper is about a man in witness protection who chose to become a doctor.  He is known as Dr. Peter Brown and works at "Manhattan's worst hospital."  Through a series of flashbacks, readers learn of Peter's past as a hitman for the mob.  I found it a stretch to believe that a hitman who killed dozens of people ended up a Dr. in witsec, but I went with it.  The flashbacks were full of violence and action which I don't particularly like, but I tried to imagine the scenes as a movie, like Goodfellas.  For some reason, that made the violent scenes easier for me to swallow.

In the present day, while under witsec protection, Peter walks into a patient's room only to discover that it's his former colleague from the mob.  One that wants him dead.  Peter promises to do his best to keep Eddie Squillante alive, but only if Peter's own life and new identity is spared.  However, chances of Eddie's survival are slim and the mob doesn't always stick to its word. 

This is a fast paced book filled with action and dark humor.  As with most fiction books, I skipped to the end to see what would happen, and still found myself engaged in the story.  I recommend this to readers of action novels, but beware of the graphic violence and strong language.

THE NIGHT GWEN STACY DIED by SARAH BRUNI

The Night Gwen Stacy Died is the story of two young runaways who are modeling their lives after Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. Sheila is 17 yrs old and works at a gas station in Coralville Iowa. She dreams of moving to Paris one day, but then comes to realize how unrealistic that dream is. Peter Parker is a 20-something taxi driver who often stops in at the gas station where Sheila works. He lives with his mother and is still haunted by his brother's suicide many years before. Though Peter and Sheila rarely talk, she finds herself oddly attracted to him.

One night Peter Parker comes in with a gun. He wants Sheila to run away with him. She agrees and they make it look like he robbed and abducted her. They drive to Chicago. Peter has prophetic dreams and feels that they were supposed to come to Chicago. Sheila takes the name Gwen Stacy and they find jobs while Peter tries to figure out why they are there.

The book is kind of hard to explain because there is a lot of symbolism and different themes-- Peter has prophetic dreams, Sheila takes on Gwen's persona, she also has a strange connection to the taxidermy coyote in the University of Iowa's Natural History Museum, and coyotes show up numerous times throughout the book. You can interpret that as you will.

I found the story compelling though I felt it needed a bit more character development. I didn't always understand Sheila's actions. The books switches between voices and I enjoyed hearing situations from both Sheila's and Peter's perspectives. The pacing of the book is a bit slow in the middle but it really picked up near the end and I found the ending to be satisfying, yet I want to hear more of their story.

It's a little offbeat, and won't appeal to everyone. I found it to be a satisfying mix of Jennifer Egan and of Spider-man.      

THE MAZE RUNNER

If you're looking for another exciting YA series to try, check out the Maze Runner by James Dashner.  It's the first in an exciting thriller series and is a finalist for the Iowa Teen Book Award. 

In the Maze Runner, we meet an unnamed character who wakes up in an elevator.  He has no memories of his previous life, and no idea how he got in the elevator.  When the doors open, he finds himself outdoors crowded by a group of men about his same age, which he guesses is 16.  He slowly learns that all of them are in the same predicament.  Some have been there for several months, but no one really knows where they are or why.  Various supplies and food is sent up in the elevator for them.  They were able to build a farm and a small house but they are enclosed by giant walls.  Every day the walls open to reveal a path that leads to a giant maze.  Several of the boys enlist as maze runners to try to map the maze and see where it goes.  If they get stuck out there at night, they are stung by giant mechanical beasts.

Okay, so it sounds kind of weird but it will really pull you in.  The mystery will keep you turning pages.  The book has two sequels and a prequel, so you won't learn all of the secrets in the first one.  Check this out if you enjoyed Hunger Games!

Marsbound

Marsbound by Joe Haldeman

This is the second novel by Joe Haldeman that I have read. The other is The Accidental Time Machine, which I very much enjoyed. This novel was also very good because of it's readability. Haldeman does not get deep into the science behind his fiction, he keeps it simple and interesting so it will appeal to all fiction readers.
This particular novel follows a teen girl named Carmen, who is moving to Mars with her family. Obviously set in the future, they use a space elevator to reach a station above the earth and then board a shuttle for Mars. The entire trip takes about 8 months. For me, this was the most enjoyable part of the story because I liked imagining what it would be like to live in a space elevator and shuttle for so long. It was also interesting to read how the technology worked.
Once on Mars, Carmen finds herself in a heap of trouble and makes a startling discovery. The second half of the book is quite a bit different from the first, but also very entertaining. I highly recommend it to science fiction and adventure fans. Will also appeal to teens.

Breathers

Breathers: a zombie's lament by SG Browne is a bit of a horror story, but mostly a romantic comedy. It's about Andy, a middle aged zombie who reanimated after a grisly car accident. His wife died and his daughter was sent to live with her aunt. He wandered back home and now lives in his parent's wine cellar.
Being a zombie is a bit shameful for all involved. Andy can't speak because of his accident so he limps around town with a wipeboard over his neck. More often than not, he comes home covered in food and garbage people have thrown at him.
His parents are ashamed of him and hide him away when friends come to visit. Andy really only leaves the house to go to his support group meetings where you meet an interesting cast of characters, some who meet their untimely demise when breathers (aka living people) beat them and pull off their limbs. Rita, a suicide victim with stitches over her neck and wrists, soon becomes Andy's love interest though he struggles with his feelings because he still misses his wife.
Ultimately, this a funny and touching story about what it's like to be an outsider.
Check out "Andy's blog" here.

Eleanor Vs. Ike

Scott County Reads book discussion group just finished a discussion of the book Eleanor Vs. Ike by Robin Gerber. The book is a work of fiction that explores the possibility of an election between Eleanor Roosevelt and Dwight D Eisenhower.
We discussed if the events in the book could actually have happened or not. We also talked about what did happen in the election between Eisenhower and Stephenson, compared to the fictional election between Eleanor and Ike. Gerber did a great job blending facts with the fiction and we all had to do our homework when I came to distinguishing the two.
All members of the group really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to fans of history and historical fiction.

The Accidental Time Machine

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

Matt Fuller is your average guy, a bit on the lazy side, stuck in a dead end job as a lab assistant at MIT. He is building a calibrator when it suddenly disappears and then reappears a second later. He experiments with the machine and realizes that he has built a time machine. This particular time machine only goes forward in time and the interval it travels into the future increases by 12 each time.

If Matt is touching the time machine, he also travels with it. With nothing going in his life, he decides to travel. The first few times, he only travels a little bit, but he keeps ending up situations where his only escape is to jump forward again. Haldeman offers a unique perspective on the world in each of the futures presented. When he meets and falls for a young woman, he must decide what is best for the two of them and what kind of future world he wants to live in.

This book is a fun and fast sci fi read. It will appeal to sci fi fans as well as your average fiction reader. Nothing is too far "out there" or fantastical for the average readers' taste.

Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

A fantastic debut novel from Joshua Ferris about a Chicago marketing firm's employees. Ferris delves in to their work lives with intimate detail on their fears of being laid off, their attitudes towards each other, and how their personal lives affect their work lives. Though many of the characters face depressing situations, the novel is very funny and witty, full of truth about workplaces- how coworkers tease and pull pranks on each other, workplace gossip, and office pariahs. Each chapter could stand alone as its own story detailing the various going-ons in the office, such as the stealing of each other's desk chairs, the rumors surrounding their mysterious boss, and bizarre reactions from the laid off employees.

I breezed through this book, each chapter, though about the mundane and ordinary, seems full of excitement and hilarity. Easily the best book I have read in years.