YA Book Reading for September 2009

I'm going to pick up the first book in Angie Sage's Magyk (not sure of actual title) series .

My next books are:
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
and Vols. 1 and 2 of Inyuasha (Manga).

Very excited to start Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins the sequel to the Hunger Games. I'm fighting my daughter for it!

Same here, luv2read97. I'm also waiting for my daughter to finish Catching Fire so I can get my hands on it.

Finally found out the series title , Septimus Heap by Angie Sage .

I am currently Reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

My wife and daughter both want Catching Fire, but I get the honors as the one who first found The Hunger Games. I'm about half way through and loving it.

I'm just starting Catching Fire, as well (EXTREMELY EXCITED). Later I will be picking up Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

"The Name of this Book is Secret" by Pseudonymous Bosch is a fun mystery novel for YA...alot of stuff going on, and a unique way to write the book...
Now reading "Evolution of Calpurnia Tate". So far, wonderful book...lots of science for the Nature Smart student!!!

I ordered Catching Fire from Amazon and almost camping out at the door waiting for it!

I just finished Catching Fire. It ended with a cliff hanger as I thought it would. *sigh* A long wait until the next one...

Hoping to finish The King's Shadow - just to get it over with. The only other YA I'm reading is The Princess and the Goblin.

Just finished Storm Glass by Maria Snyder. Those waiting for Catching Fire might want to check out her Study series while you are waiting!! -If you haven't already discovered this awesome series.

I'm a little ways into Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. I was startled that the first scene is set in Holyoke (about an hour away from where I live) and then I remembered that the author lives (or lived) in Massachusetts.

Loved Catching Fire. Suzanne Collins is creating something very special.

Last week I read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Part 1: The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson. Very interesting to read. An original book I can't think of anything I've read like it.

Now I'm reading: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by Emily Lockhart. This one so far has been a fun read. I love the play on words. And I'm now interested in reading a few books by Wodehouse especially The Code of the Woosters!

Still in the midst of reading a giant book for school (2666 - not exactly YA), but after that I think I will go for My Most Excellent Year or Princess Academy.

kiwiflowa - definitely look into the Wodehouse! I LOVE all of his stuff. So great.

I'm reading The Queen of Everything by Deb Caletti. I've been curious about her books for a while. This book has a clever plotline but also some major flaws. Large things seem to happen with no real explanation (exactly how did Kale become Jordan's boyfriend? Because he threw his hat at her??) and the characters are uniformly obnoxious, stereotypical, or both. There is no depth of characterization. Mom-the-hippie, bad-news-boyfriend. A Bed & Breakfast populated entirely by Characters with a capital C. Whiney best friend who makes fun of fat people and her wifty, musical, disturbed brother.
Basically, it's kind of interesting to have a book where a parent is the one who develops an unhealthy romantic/sexual obsession and behaves incredibly badly (not to give away the plot), but it would be much more interesting if we believed in, or cared about, the main character and those who surround her.

Just got done with Magyk andFlyte by Angie Sage. Getting ready for Physik.

Haven't read much this month. I've been pretty bogged down having started a new job, being three quarters of the way through a semester of uni and as of tomorrow will be begining a practical placement as a part of my Post Grad. Dip. Ed studies.

I read Marcello in the Real World (which I thought was wonderful) and re-read Boy Proof. Other than that, the only book I've picked up this Month is Wings by Aprilynne Pike. I've been working my way through it for the past (almost) two weeks. I'm not overly impressed. I hope to finish it in the next two days so I can start Catching Fire... or one of my three assignments that are due in the next couple of weeks.

PS. For all you Aussie LibraryThingers who may have thought you'd have to wait until November before getting your hands on Catching Fire, thought I'd let you know I found a UK paperback edition at Big W for around $13. I wager you'll be able to find it there (or other similar retail stores) as well.
:-)

I just finished Rob&Sara.com by P. J. Petersen and Ivy Ruckman about two teens who meet in an online poetry discussion board and their ensuing e-mail relationship. Kept me up all night!

I have powered through Punkzilla, The Orange Houses, and Tears of a Tiger. The last by Sharon Draper was fantastic, a Must Read! I am now starting Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, my first by her. We have Catching Fire on order at the bookstore since they sold out before we could get there.

I finalllllly finished 2666 and can now read some YA! I've started Open Letter to Quiet Light and I really don't like it so far. I got it from the Early Reviewers and requested it not realizing it was a novel in verse, which I usually don't enjoy very much. I'm very picky about my verse.

Finished Catching Fire this morning instead of doing my chores. Just as well since The Ask and The Answer (sequel to the Knife of Never Letting Go) came in today for me. Yippee. Just finished listening to The Giver.

>24 curioussquared: I have sent for 2666 three times in ILL this past month--I think we are going to buy it now. Where is everyone hearing about this book? What is it about?

>13 Billion: I loved The King's Shadow :(

>17 kiwiflowa: The second Octavian Nothing book is even better and chronicles a bit of history I had never even heard of--Lord Dunsmore's Ethiopian Regiment. I listened to it on audio--I think the reader did a bang up job.

>25 sialia:
Taking a break from my 2666 essay, I will attempt to describe this monstrosity in a few sentences. I heard about it because it was assigned summer reading for my high school senior English class, haha. It's very hard to summarize because it's divided into five very distinct and separate parts which are only tenuously related, but here goes: the book centers around the fictional Mexican city of Santa Theresa, based off the real city of Juarez, where for several years now brutal rapings and killings of women have been taking place in huge numbers. The main characters of each of the five parts of the book are all drawn to Santa Theresa for different reasons. The book also centers on the mysterious German writer Benno von Archimboldi, who is the subject of the last part of the book and was last heard of in Santa Theresa.

And that is all I will say. Sorry for kind of writing a novel...

Hi... I read Beyond my Control by Stuart Ross McCallum a couple of weeks ago. LOVED it! Now I am bogged down with all of lifes other pleasures- raising kids, etc. etc. etc. I am trying to figure out which book to read next. Looks like I may have to pick up Catching Fire.

Finally pried Catching Fire out of my sleeping daughter's hands so I could finish it!!! Still loving Catniss and Co. now have the long wait for book 3!!! Waiting for Sea Glass by Maria Snyder, another excellent series that are companions to her study series.

I have just finished the Night World series by L. J. Smith and am nearly finished The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody.

strandedon8jo, I finally managed to pick up a copy of Catching Fire from Big W after reading your post about it in the group read thread, i've also seen it at _target and today I saw it in a Dymocks store, so much for the bookstores not having it till November. In saying that I will be tossing up between Catching Fire and The Graveyard Book as my next YA read.

I have just finished reading Zen and the Art of Faking It and Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick. I enjoyed both of these books. The subjects and challenges the characters face are very comtemporary. Both stores iclude a small thread of romance without sexual undertones. The issues are true to a middle schools kids life.

I'm reading Shiver right now. Not my normal type of book, but it's interesting.

Just finished Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccoult and to use the word gripping is not descriptive enough. Fantastic! I'll have to read more by her.

Just finished the audio book of Inkheart last night. I've already been to the library this morning to get my hands on Inkspell for the drive up and back from uni this evening. Looking forward it.

In what was probably a bad call academically, I also started The Vampire Diaries yesterday instead of working on my assignment. I'm just over half way through the first book and am enjoying it. Not loving it, but definitely enjoying it. I wonder if I'd have liked it more had I read it when it was first released and I hadn't read so many other vampire novels. All I know for sure is I'm not picking it up again until I'm at least half way through my assessment.

I started Heroes by Robert Cormier today.

Want to read:
The Quillan Games
The Bourne Identity
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
This month...not sure what else.
Only the first one's really YA, but I'm YA, so I hope it counts!

I'm reading the autobiography of Markus Wolf, Man Without a Face head of East German Foreign Intelligence during teh Cold War right now for a paper on him for school.
Suprisingly it's very interesting. It reads like a spy novel!

Just picked up the new Septimus Heap book, Syren, this afternoon at a local Borders. I thought it wasn't going to be out for another week or so, but maybe I was wrong or maybe someone mistakenly put it out a few days early.

Just finished Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, about a tough, honest farmgirl in Wisconsin, and liked it a lot.

Just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower y Stephen Chbosky and Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar. I don't recommend reading them at the same time because they are both about high school freshman boys. "Sleeping Freshman..." is hilarious. "Perks of Being..." is funny at times, but much more serious. Loved them both.

#37: Just a little trivia: Catherine Gilbert Murdock, author of Dairy Queen is Elizabeth Gilbert's sister. In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert refers to her highly accomplished sister quite often.

Great trivia, AnneH, thanks! I had no idea. They're both highly accomplished now.

I just read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and it was one of the most amazing books I've ever read. I read it in a day, and when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about how much I wanted to be reading it. I almost missed my train stop because I was so into the book I forgot what was going on around me.

>26 curioussquared:
yummy, i can't believe 2666 was assigned to high schoolers -- congratulations on finishing it! i picked the book up in Heathrow airport last February during a layover and i've only managed to get halfway through it.

you probably know that the author, who is deceased, had planned to publish the work as five books, but his heirs and publisher posthumously decided to publish it as one work.

anyway, did you like the book?

>42 purplepanther:

That's one of the things I love about my school! The fact that our teachers are willing to assign us books that most people would never read in high school.

I really, really liked it and I'm glad I had to read it for school and was thus required to finish it or I too may have left it unfinished. The Part About the Crimes is particularly hard to get through - very repetitive but also very necessary. It's worth it to get to The Part About Archimboldi, though - that was my favorite bit.

About the whole splitting thing - I guess Bolano intended the book artistically to be read as one whole mass (although it is unfinished, sooo...) and only decided to have it split up when he realized he was dying. He wanted to provide for his family after his death, so he decided to split the book into 5 parts so as to increase revenue. However, after his death, his heirs decided they wanted the book to be read as Bolano intended and thus we have the book as we currently see it.

If you do ever finish the book and are interested, I heard that there is some sort of sequel/follow up novel being released in a few years which you may want to look for!

I just finished Candor by Pam Barchorz, and I really liked it. This is a book that will stay with me for some time, it was both disturbing and thought provoking. I was left hoping for a sequel.

43
yummyfishmeister,
i've picked up 2666 again and have gotten to the part about Fate, and, because of the public nature of this discussion, I have to state my feelings here that this book is, in my opinion, an inappropriate choice for a high school teacher to assign because it's has very explicit sexual descriptions.
don't recommend it for that age group at all
there is so much good literature out there that doesn't get so explicit that i think that high school students can be quite challenged by other books.