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This Week In Reading: Volume IV

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This week was a fun one with the mailbox. I don’t tend to see a ton of books show up at the same time, but this week, I got four or five separate book surprises. Some were duplicates of things I’ve already read (which rarely happens) and I’ve already shipped those off to other people who’ll give them good homes and reads. 
In the mail this week: Hell Hole by Gina Damico, Ask The Dark by Henry Turner, The Perfect Place by Teresa Harris, Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers, Vivian Versus the Apocalypse by Katie Coyle (which I am really, really excited about), Zac & Mia by AJ Betts, The Question of Miracles by Elana K. Arnold, The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner, In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang, Night Sky by Suzanne and Melanie Brockmann, H2O by Virginia Bergin, and Taking Hold by Francisco Jimenez. I also got a copy of Alethea Kontis’s Dearest and finished copies of The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupecho and Blind by Rachel DeWoskin — Kontis’s book went directly to Kimberly, and the other two are books I already read, so they went to other readers. 
As far as reading this week, I finished three books:
Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky: This one didn’t have the same magic for me that Anatomy of a Boyfriend did, but I still liked it. I plan on writing about both books in more depth soon. I’ve had a post about female sexuality in YA brewing in my head for a while now. 
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang (October): I liked, but didn’t love, this graphic novel about social justice, economics, and gaming. I thought the illustrations were fantastic, though, and I want to seek out more of Wang’s work. I will be writing more about this book, and it left me thinking a lot about the metaphor (and non-metaphor!) of gaming in YA. This is the second book this year I’ve read where gaming plays a role in talking about social politics, which is a fascinating concept. 
Kiss of Broken Glass by Madeleine Kuderick (September): A verse novel about a girl who self-harms to fit in and subsequently gets “Baker Acted.” I had no idea what the Baker Act was so I’m glad I learned that, but the book otherwise left me underwhelmed. 
Reading from around the web this week:
  • I didn’t realize the history of TMZ — yes, that TMZ — could be so interesting or engaging. But it is! Maybe the parts I found most interesting were about how bloggers were where the idea began and who the target demographic for TMZ is. 
  • Sarah Dessen’s honesty in 5 fun facts about books she’s abandoned is really refreshing. I think there’s a tendency to think writing books is easy or fast, and it’s nice when authors like Dessen, who are so successful, talk about the very human side of it all. 

  • The US Department of Labor picked “Bartleby the Scrivener” as one of the “Books That Shaped Work in America.” Clearly, they haven’t read it. 
  • I’m not a bookplate user and never have been, but I lived with a girl who loved them and used them in college. This history of the bookplate is worth reading. I never thought about this particular microhistory nor what bookplates represented to readers in previous eras. 

This Week in Reading: Volume III

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When I was doing “Links of Note,” I would get myself oddly stressed out about not having things done and ready immediately with the post. Which is why when it kind of died down, it disappeared more than just became sporadic. Testing out this new format, though, has been kind of fun: I don’t find myself worried about having it ready to go immediately on Sunday morning. It’s more leisurely, and there’s something fun about sharing a wider range of reading from the week. 
I did a great job timing a big book order with a couple other things I’d preordered, so this week I had a ton of books come through my door. Here’s what I bought (with links to Goodreads for further descriptions):
The Portable Dorothy Parker edited by Marion Meade — I’m making my way through this one right now, as I’ve never read Parker before.
Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett 

Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America’s Language by Elizabeth Little

Petty Theft by Pascal Girard — I read this one this week since it’s a short graphic novel.

Dirty Wings by Sarah McCarry — I read this months ago but needed my own copy to sit beside the first book.

The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor by Flannery O’Connor

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

My husband’s started in on the Bonnett and Little titles, since he’s a non-fiction reader, and he’s said positive things about both so far. I’m hoping this week to make a dent in a couple more of these.

Here’s what I read this week:

Total Constant Order by Crissa-Jean Chappel: I’m glad I was able to track this one down. A solid read about a girl dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and how she navigates her world with it. I’ll talk more about this one, I think, but it’d be a great read alike to Heidi Ayarbe’s Compulsion.
Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz (March 3, 2015): I know this isn’t out for a long time but it’s so good. Put it on your to-read list. It’s a story about a black lesbian dancer who wants nothing more than to get out of Nebraska and on with her life. There are some really great threads here about relationships, about friendship, about eating disorders and how they do/don’t manifest, and how people are far more than meets the eye. Etta, the main character, has a fantastic voice and her perspective of the world is great. 
Petty Theft by Pascal Girard: An amusing graphic novel about a man who is getting over a breakup and is unable to pursue any of his passions because of it. He stumbles across a woman who steals from his local bookstore, and he’s determined to catch her and turn her in. Then he happens to sort of fall for her and things get even more complicated. I think I’ll talk more about this one soon — I don’t think I’ve read a graphic novel in translation before, and I’m a bit fixated on that now. 
Reading from around the web this week:
If you missed it earlier this week, I am giving away another copy of It Happens, too.