David Small's Stitches: A Memoir

This book, classified as Young Adult literature was my first foray into the graphic novel. For those of you above the age of twenty five and who have no exposure to the culture of young people today, I'll briefly explain. A graphic novel is a story written in form like a comic book.

Stitches: A Memoir is the author's vivid recount of his dysfunctional childhood including a bout with cancer that his parents didn't even tell him he had. Like his childhood, the words are few and far between. However, the images tell a story stronger than words.

I will read this again, probably multiple times - before I return it to the library. I look forward to further discovery and discussion when class finally meets.

Sidebar - Upcoming Reads

Yes, I continue to struggle through The Last of the Mohicans. Unlike other reads I've enjoyed, this novel seems to command my full attention and focus during a read. In other words, I can't simply read while my hubby watches Seinfeld in the same room or catch a paragraph here or there on a slow work day...this is a "weekend away with just the book" kind of books.

Which is why I'm still reading...

But in the meantime, I am gearing up for an intense interim course focusing on National Book Award winners in Young Adult Literature. The class starts in May, but I'm jumping on it now, by getting hold of each of the required texts. My theory? Read now, leisurely and then read again frantically and academically during interim. I want to earn an A - because I am an overachiever - but I also want to enjoy these books...and they each sound interesting. Here's the list:

Jumped - Rita Williams-Garcia
The Disreputable History of Frankie Laundau-Banks - E. Lockhart
Stitches: A Memoir - David Small
Lips Touch Three Times - Laini Taylor
Charles & Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith - Deborah Heiligman
What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blundell

This list presents some interesting topics and challenges. Jumped deals with three teen aged girls and their interactions, involving how one wants to "jump" the other after school. The Disreputable History is (according to another blogger) the story of a teen aged girl at a newly-coeducational boarding school who is working to break through some still-existing "male only" barriers. Stitches is a graphic novel-style memoir of the author's life in an extremely dysfunctional home. Lips Touch... is three stories about how a kiss changes things forever in three fantasy-based worlds (i.e. - vampires, demons, etc.). Charles & Emma is a biography written for young adults about the Darwins. What I Saw...is a coming of age story in post-war America involving the step-daughter of a veteran and some other intrigue.

The library just emailed me - I can pick up Stitches tonight...I'm excited! This one sounded the most intriguing to me. I'll be double blogging, once again!

Book 8, Blog 3

I know...I know...it's been a while since I've posted anything. However, that does NOT mean I haven't been reading...just that I haven't been reading my self-prescribed book. Ok, that's not completely true, either. I have been reading The Last of the Mohicans...slowly.
In the mean time, I've read two more books in the Outlander series and pretty much all of the Sookie Stackhouse books that are in paperback. I'm taking a break from both series for a brief time, though. I must finish Mohicans. (Besides, the Outlander books are starting to run together in my mind.)
I can't even plan my "next" read until I get closer to finishing this one. The language is just so...Oh, I don't know...superfluous? It's great...but the action is interspersed with lengthy descriptions and interior monologues. I need a weekend (or week) all to myself, free from all technology and other distractions to complete it. And I wont be getting that. So I must persevere!
It really is a good book. I'm just lazy!

Book 8, Blog 2

Sigh. Chapters 1-4 are not particularly lengthy, but I am simply slogging though this book. Hawkeye (our protagonist) has been introduced, as have the other players in this tale - the young women, the pale-faced soldiers, the sneaky Magua...

I'm just not loving it! I'm so impatient! Let's get on with this, shall we?!? Perhaps I should have read the first book first (although, this is the most famous in the series). I also do not love the writer being the narrator, making statements like, "let us leave them for a while and go to another part of the woods", etc. etc.

I will press on...but most likely pick up an Outlander or Sookie Stackhouse book to read along with it. I can generally motivate myself to read something I'm not in love with by pacing myself through another, more enjoyable book. For example, "I have to read two more chapters of The Last of the Mohicans before I can read another chapter in Outlander."

James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans - Book 8

Perhaps it is because I've become so accustomed to reading the "easy stuff". Perhaps it is due to the fact that I was attempting to start this novel while my husband watched television in the same room. It could be slow-starting. It could also be the insanity that is the Christmas season. But the fact remains that I am having a hard time getting into this one.

I know the story of Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans because I'm a big fan of Daniel Day Lewis. And if something is a novel before it is a film, I'm much rather get the "real" thing by reading the novel.

Do not worry, faithful non-existent readers of my blog! I will not give up!! I will press on to finish this book!!

Meanwhile, I've read book 2 in the Outlander series (Dragonfly in Amber) as well as the first four books in the Sookie Stackhouse novels. (What? I said they were easy reads!) But I am committed to reading various styles and genres and such. Go, classics!

Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark - Book 7

As I've said once already, this book is the read I was looking for: light, simple, unattached. Sure, there were vampires and shape shifters and murders galore; but really, overall, the book was a quick and easy read. And yet, still enjoyable.

Clearly, it was written with the intent to serialize it. The final page could almost contain "to be continued..."And I think I will. Not because I absolutely must know what happens in the series. Not because I'm in love with the characters. Just because I was lightly entertained for a few hours. Every girl needs a good easy read from time to time.

My next read-and-blog selection is a classic: James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. I am hoping that my limited knowledge of this book (of course, from the film) was correct in assuming that this novel included NONE of the following: vampires, wizards, time-travelers, vivid love scenes or other elements to disdain. My goal with this blog is to read lots of variety...so I have to keep searching for options. Also, I want to be sure and read all those great classic novels I managed to escape school without reading. Let's face it, if you were required to read it in school, you held some (even if it was only a slight bit) ill-feelings for the book, no matter how great.

So, my next book in the Outlander series is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, I've got the second installment of the Sookie Stackhouse series staring me in the face right at this very moment and I've also got a copy of The Last of the Mohicans waiting in my car.

Read on!

Book #7, Blog #1

This book is exactly what I was looking for in my next read. The pages turn quickly. The language is light and witty. The story is engaging enough, but doesn't suck the reader in. I would call it a "light page-turner". I am enjoying reading it and have read more than half of the book in the first day; however, I can put it down and live my life without Sookie Stackhouse.

So the story is that Sookie can read minds and vampires are legally "out of the coffin" and many are living on synthetic blood. Sookie meets Bill (a vamp, of course) and loves that she can't hear his thoughts. She saves his life, he saves hers. This is the stuff love stories are made of, no?

But someone is killing "fang-bangers" in and around their town and Sookie's grandmother ends up killed also. Murder, sex, vampires and Cajuns.

I mentioned this when I chose the book (having not read a page) that there were some similarities between Harris' Dead Until Dark and Meyer's Twilight...now I must admit how eerily similar they are in some ways. First, you've got vamp/human love (obvious - kind of like how many stories are boy-meets-girl...this is an acceptable coincidence). Next, you've got one party able to read minds, but not the mind of the love interest. However, I like that Sookie has the power, whereas in Twilight, Bella is clumsy and fairly normal (but an excellent shield). And of course, it is an attractive thing that they can't read their love interests' minds. There is even a group of "bad" vampires in Dead Until Dark consisting of two males and a female...hum....and they are causing trouble for Bill who wants to live "like the humans"....hum....

Anyway, just some interesting parallels. I'm not sure what I'll choose to read and blog on next (I will most likely finish this quick read today), but I'm thinking I will seek out something non-fantastical...no vampires, no time travel, no wizards, etc. etc. Maybe a classic that I have never forced myself to read. Thoughts/suggestions are appreciated.