It's Monday and I am out of here!

Well...I don't think this has happened since I started blogging. This week, I didn't finish a single book. It's been a crazy week. My husband is going to a conference and I am going with him for a few days of couple time. The kiddos will be with the grandparents. That means that this week has been filled with packing and planning. And then we dedicated Rebecca in church this morning, so we were busy planning the service and getting ready to have the family over afterwards. Hopefully I will get a lot of reading done during this time away!


Reading Now:

The World of the End
By Ofir Touche Gafla

Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Top Ten Tuesday - Books We Wish Had A Sequel
Reviews of Songs for the Missing and Lexicon


Up Next:

The Well of Lost Plots
(Thursday Next #3)
By Jasper Fforde


The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession 
By Charlie Lovett

What are you reading this week?

Review: Lexicon

Lexicon

By Max Barry

Penguin June 2013

387 pages

From the library

Emily Ruff is a smart girl. That's important because her wits are the only thing she has as she navigates the tough streets of San Francisco. Emily is performing slight of hand tricks when she is approached by a man. He say that he works for an organization that looks for people with powers of persuasion - people like Emily. With nothing to lose, she accepts his offer to fly to D.C. and go through a battery of tests. If she passes, she will enter a strange world where people are known by the names of great poets and use the power of words to manipulate. 

In places, this book reminded me a lot of Lev Grossman's The Magicians. Both books feature characters who are taken to a school for training in an art they don't fully understand yet. In both stories, the students must harness their powers and attempt to figure out how they work and who they can trust. As often happens to those with a great deal of power, some of the poets are up to no good. The lines are blurry though, especially with the goals of so many characters left unknown to Emily and to the readers. 

The pacing on this story is perfect. Barry utilizes a dual storyline. As we see Emily learning about the power of words and the organization behind it all, we also go on the run with a man named Wil Parke. Parke is kidnapped by the poets, who claim that he is the only person resistant to the power of words. He quickly finds out that the poets are engaged in a war among themselves and he is dragged along for a very dangerous ride. Emily's days of testing and education create a wonderful contrast to the edge of your seat adventure that Wil has unwillingly embarked on. The anticipation of discovering the connection between these two characters will keep you turning pages.

As readers, we are people who love words. Barry plays with that here, creating a book that is both compelling story and a treatise on the way we use words. Although using a string of gibberish to force people to do something is fictional, it doesn't actually seem so far-fetched. With new insights into the brain every day and increased knowledge of psychology and personalities, could words someday be used as weapons? We certainly know that words can be persuasive. That power of persuasion can be used to help and it can be used to harm. In the world of Lexicon, that power can have devastating consequences. 

This book is incredibly imaginative and unlike anything else you will read this summer. Lexicon will grab you from the first pages and not let you go until you reach the end. 

Review: Songs for the Missing

Songs for the Missing

By Stewart O'Nan

Read by Emily Janice Card

8 CDs, 10 hours

Kim spends her last summer before college working at a local store and going to the lake with her friends. One day, she leaves her friends to get ready for work, but never makes it for her shift. She seems to have vanished into thin air. What happened to Kim? Songs for the Missing follows Kim's parents Fran and Ed, her sister Lindsay, her best friends Nina and Elyse, and boyfriend J.P., as they fight for answers, blame themselves and others, and struggle to find a way to keep living without the girl they love. 

Stewart O'Nan writes quiet and beautiful stories. Songs for the Missing is less about what happened to Kim and more about the effect her disappearance has on her friends and family. We think we can imagine the anguish of a family when a child goes missing, but O'Nan looks at the moments that the public doesn't see. Kim's father Ed is spurred to action and spends days driving up and down highways and heading up teams of local citizens, searching for some trace of his daughter. His wife Fran draws upon the composure she learned as a nurse and becomes the family spokesperson. Her life shrinks to updating their website and organizing community events. And Lindsay is left behind yet again - trying to live up to a perfect older sister is nothing compared to a sister whose fate is unknown.

This book does not just look at the days immediately following her disappearance. We follow these characters for years. How does the father feel when he goes to pick up the recovered car? How does the best friend leave town and go to college? Can the sister who was left behind ever escape the shadow of her parents' fear? 

The narration for this audiobook was great. Emily Janice Card reads the book perfectly. She gives distinctive voices to each character and the differences help us identify the characters without falling into familiar pitfalls of narration. The teenagers sound like teenagers without being annoying and she reads as Ed, the father, without resorting to a deep male voice. Card manages to exhibit empathy for the characters while still maintaining the distance of a narrator.

Stewart O'Nan is a master at writing the quiet moments of life. Instead of a flashy mystery, we are treated to a reflective look at fear and grief. While finding out what happened to Kim may keep you turning pages, the real reason to pick up this book is the author's deep understanding of loss. This book is not about the flashy moment when a clue is discovered or a case is solved. Instead, this is about the days after and the painful monotony of having to continue living without answers and without someone you love. 

Ten Books You Wish Had Sequels (Top Ten Tuesday)

Top Ten Tuesday is the brainchild of the ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish. I've played the top ten game once before and it was a lot of fun. Time for round two!

This week, we are discussing the stories that we wish the authors had continued in another book or two. I didn't come up with ten books, but I am happy with the seven I picked. So many books are a part of a series these days that it's hard to find a great standalone. 

1. Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

This is one of my favorite books, possibly ever. The characters are divine and Harkaway sends us whirling around the world to so many places and time periods that I am desperate for more time with them. 

2. March by Geraldine Brooks

March is a retelling of Little Women from the point of view of Mr. March. It got me thinking about the rest of the characters. What does Beth think about while she is sick in bed? Is Meg jealous of the drama and romance her sisters experience? Imagine a whole series from the viewpoints of the different family members...

3. Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

This book is about writing and storytelling and I wrote in my review that "the novel seems to start off traditionally, until we break into the stories created by Fox and Mary. Each one is so engaging that I wished it was an entire novel itself." I'm game, Helen Oyeyemi. Make it happen. 

4. Oracle Night (or any book?) by Paul Auster

Oracle Night has two plots...to start with, anyway. Suffice it to say that in Auster's capable hands, we could have multiple plots going on for a long time, through several books, and continue to be fascinated by each. 

5. The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

This novel, based on the Roman siege of the Jewish fortress Masada, was meticulously researched. More than that, the characters were so compelling that I want to spend more time with them and find out what their lives were like before the events in this book. 

6. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Ok, Erin Morgenstern says she has no plans to revisit the circus in novel form. But I think the world she has created is just begging to be let out to play again. 

7. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

Technically, I suppose I am arguing for a prequel here. This novel uses vignettes to tell the story of the last days of a newspaper staff in Rome. While we get a lot of insight into the end and a bit into the beginning of the paper, I want to know all about the characters and events in the middle - during the newspaper's glory days. 

Which of your favorite books should have had a sequel??

It's Monday and August is here!

Sometimes you spend your anniversary going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Sometimes you spend it walking around a hysterical baby with a tummy ache. Ah, the joys of parenting small people.

On to the books!

Read This Week:

The Shining Girls

By Lauren Beukes

The Illusion of Separateness

By Simon Van Booy

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday

Wednesdays with David: Phoebe and Digger

July Wrap-Up

Reviews of Started Early, Took My Dog and Eleanor and Park

Reading Now:

The World of the End

By Ofir Touche Gafla

Up Next:

The Well of Lost Plots

(Thursday Next #3)

By Jasper Fforde

What are you reading this week? 

Review: Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park

By Rainbow Rowell

St. Martin's Press February 2013

325 pages

From the library

Eleanor and Park is one of the most popular novels of the year. Park is a high school kid just trying to make it through each day. He is used to keeping his head down and staying invisible, but he can't help himself when a new girl climbs onto the bus one morning. Eleanor sticks out like a sore thumb with her bizarre clothing choices and flaming red hair. Park begrudgingly offers her the seat next to him and a tentative friendship is struck over music and comic books. As their relationship shifts from friendship to love, can their bond survive the cruelty of high school and the pain of Eleanor's broken home?

Since I may actually be the last person on the planet (at least among the book bloggers) to read this book, I am only going to write about the book itself for a bit. I liked this book a lot. Rowell effortlessly captures life in the 1980s and life as a teenager. I appreciated that she gave us a multitude of characters - the popular kids, the outcast, and a character in the middle. Too many authors don't create any characters in between the two extremes. Eleanor is mercilessly picked on. Park has a few close friends but isn't one of the popular kids. Rowell succeeds in making even her tormentors surprising and developed characters. I loved that she showed the nuances of every type of high school kid.

I also loved the relationships between Park and his parents. It's so refreshing to see teens having a good relationship with their parents that doesn't preclude disagreements or discipline. This book strikes the perfect balance of a fluffy teen read and a dark look into young love that faces challenges at every turn. Eleanor and Park is charming and heartfelt and I completely understand how so many readers and bloggers have been won over by it.

That being said, I think I fell prey to the "problem of the popular book." When you hear about a book over and over again, you get very high expectations. Everyone seemed to adore this book and I was prepared to join the exclaiming masses. I did really like this book, but I think the best way to read Eleanor and Park is without preconceived nations. This is the perfect story to discover unexpectedly as surprising gift from a talented writer. If you haven't read this book yet, plan to pick it up. The best way to read it will be in a few months when all of the buzz has died down.  

July Wrap-up

So July....

You happened, apparently. I'm not really sure when you happened or what happened within your thirty days. Kids grew bigger. Loads of laundry disappeared into drawers and reappeared in piles on the floor. My aunt came to visit. Our former foreign exchange student/sister for life came to visit for the month from Germany. We swam in my grammy's pool and David showed off his American Ninja Warrior moves on the swing set. We went to the library a million times, give or take, to pick up requested books and check in with our summer reading. That summer reading program is something - I love how they sweetly award your child who won't stop reading with more books he will not put away.

August is looming large and there is a part of me that feels like it is just preparation for September. David will be starting kindergarten. I feel so unprepared for him to go to real school, but I know he is ready and I know it will be good. The knowledge doesn't seem to be making it any easier though!


Books reviewed in July: 8
Pages Read: 2,246
Fiction/Non-fiction: 6/2
Female authors/male authors: 6/2
My books/library books: 4/4
Lindsey's favorite book in July: A Guide To Being Born and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 

Books reviewed with David: 2
David's favorite book in July: Transformers 

And now some pictures for your enjoyment...

Babies, how did you get in the book?!?! I will save you!!

What was your favorite book in July?