[January] What are you reading?


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Just finished Lauren Oliver's teen novel Delirium. Very good! Borderline dystopian, in which a totalitarian govt has cured people of "love" in the name of safety and comfort. One teen girl's experiences lead her, of course, to realize how wrong this is. Nothing unexpected, but with great emotional depth and characterization. I hope there's a sequel, tho there doesn't NEED to be.
 


I've almost bought these a couple of times....the first book and this one are?
The first book, Heat Wave, and this one, Naked Heat, are enjoyable if you're a fan of the "Castle" TV series. In a way, they're like reading alternate-universe "bonus episodes" of the TV show, because each of the characters is a renamed version of their counterparts on TV, so "Rick Castle, crime novelist" becomes "Jameson Rook, magazine article author" and so on. (During the first book, I was constantly "translating" the characters into their TV counterparts to envision the scene in my head.)

Anyway, they're not high classics of literature or anything, but if you like the show you'll probably like the novels. I also got a big kick out of the fact that there's a photo of Nathan Fillion on the inside back cover and a "biography blurb" on Richard Castle and his previous novels (the fictional "Derek Storm" series).

Johnathan
 

Finished 1Q84. Most overrated book of last year. The last book was dull, and had a cringe-inducing ending. At first I thought we were going to see something more interesting; like a doomsday cult with a charismatic leader causing Japan to create a police state, but instead it dissolves into a love story between two leads who had a brief moment together when they were 10. Will make me reconsider picking up any more Murakami books, other than his short stories.

Now reading Warriors, an anthology edited by George RR Martin. Read his story about Dunk and Egg in there, but it was a bit hard to follow with too many characters.
 

Just finished Lauren Oliver's teen novel Delirium. Very good! Borderline dystopian, in which a totalitarian govt has cured people of "love" in the name of safety and comfort. One teen girl's experiences lead her, of course, to realize how wrong this is. Nothing unexpected, but with great emotional depth and characterization. I hope there's a sequel, tho there doesn't NEED to be.

I was not a big fan of it as it was too much like a teen novel for me. I found the ending too up beat and felt it should have ended differently. Pandemonium, the sequel, is due out late February.
 

I was not a big fan of it as it was too much like a teen novel for me. I found the ending too up beat and felt it should have ended differently. Pandemonium, the sequel, is due out late February.

I'm a teen librarian - I read SO much teen fiction, it just takes over my expectations. The end was upbeat? She does discover that someone she loves may be safe (avoiding spoilers), but someone else dies brutally helping her escape, and now she's lost, without any resources, in the wild? If that's upbeat, I'd hate to know what BAD would be... and yeah, I had already researched the sequel, and ordered it for the Library...

Another GREAT historical fiction I just read is by Elizabeth Wein - Sunbird and the Lion Hunter, to be concluded in The Empty Kingdom. Set in the 400's in Africa and the Middle East - the hero Telemakos is a bit too good to be true in the first book, but by the second, he just SHINES! Really good plots, too. And they're short.
 


I'm a teen librarian - I read SO much teen fiction, it just takes over my expectations. The end was upbeat? She does discover that someone she loves may be safe (avoiding spoilers), but someone else dies brutally helping her escape, and now she's lost, without any resources, in the wild? If that's upbeat, I'd hate to know what BAD would be... and yeah, I had already researched the sequel, and ordered it for the Library...

[sblock] With all the talk of Juliet and Romeo I was expecting both to be killed. The book continually seemed to talk about the play so I felt the author kept her main character alive just because when it would have been more powerful and fit and the themes to have them both die.[/sblock]

I read a fair amount of teen dystopian just because that's a big market and there are some good stories there. But I do tend to like the ones that read less like teen books and more like adult ones.
 

[sblock] With all the talk of Juliet and Romeo I was expecting both to be killed. The book continually seemed to talk about the play so I felt the author kept her main character alive just because when it would have been more powerful and fit and the themes to have them both die.[/sblock]

Wow, I guess I'm an idiot. I missed ANY reference to Romeo and Juliet in the book! I can see why that would lead to you expect a different ending. Now I'm gonna have to reread...
 

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