National Novel Reading Month!
Nov 07, 2010 
My posts have been scarce lately, as I’ve been in a bit of limbo with my writing and, more recently, traveling without steady access to a computer. The up side to this is that I am reading a TON.
I actually have to remind myself to read. This isn’t because I don’t love it, because I do–but I get similar pleasures out of writing and reading, and often when I make time for that in my life, the writing takes over. Especially when I have a project I’m really buckling down on, all my free time goes to writing and my pile of books gets sadly neglected. Something I’ve learned only in the past year or so is that when I don’t read, my writing suffers. My creativity falls. I get sad. Basically, everything starts to slide if I’m not reading enough!
So this month, since I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, I’ve decided to do NaNoReaMo–read as much as I can within the month! I’ll post the books I’ve read here as I finish them, along with little blurbs about them.
I’m off to a roaring start, one week into November and four and a half novels read. The half is Cassie Clare’s CITY OF GLASS, but as I started that at the end of October I can’t count it.
So on with the books!
THE BRIDE’S FAREWELL by Meg Rosoff. This is a beautifully-written book about a girl living in a huge, poor family in 1850’s rural England. She is destined to marry her childhood friend, but seeing her own parents’ unhappiness, she flees that life for the open road, taking with her only her horse, Jack, and her little brother, Bean.
My housemate and CP Amie Kaufman recommended this book to me ages ago, and I never got around to reading it for a variety of reasons. There’s no speculative element in it, and I run the risk of being a book snob in reverse–avoiding books that aren’t fantasy or science fiction in some regard. I brought it on vacation with me so that I’d HAD to read it or face running out of books, and I’m so glad I did. The writing in this book was so beautiful it hurt me, literally forcing me to put it down sometimes to breathe.
WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON by John Green and David Levithan. This story follows two teenaged boys–both named Will Grayson–whose separate lives come together and intersect in the most unlikely ways. The voices in this book are astonishingly real and honest. I don’t read as much “regular” YA (meaning non-speculative) as I should, so take this pronouncement with a grain of salt, but I’ve never encountered such authentic modern teen voices. These characters are so real I find myself missing them still, days after having finished the book.
This is another recommendation from Amie, although I’d been hearing about this book all over the place so I would’ve read it eventually whether she recommended it or not. I’m glad she bought it, though, giving me access to it while I’m living with her, because it made it really easy to pick up this book and fall in love.
EAST by Edith Pattou. This book is a retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Pattou has done an absolutely beautiful job of it. The novel remains extremely true to the original fairy tale, taking very few liberties but somehow managing to weave what is a very far-fetched tale into a real, believable narrative that I ripped through in less than a day.
I LOVED THIS BOOK. This book was basically written for me, folks. Fairy tale retellings are my single favorite subgenre in the entire world. I got it from my friend Ellen, who brought a bunch of books over as a sort of hostess present when she came to visit me and Amie. BEAUTY by Robin McKinley remains one of my favorite books of all time, and EAST has that same quiet magic to it, spell-binding and rare and ultimately hugely satisfying.
THE PENDERWICKS by Jeanne Birdsall. This cute mid-grade book follows the story of four sisters, whose ages range from 4 to 12, who vacation over the summer in the guest cottage of a wealthy and snobbish lady. They get into a variety of scrapes, trying to escape the wrath of the snobby Mrs. Tifton while simultaneously befriending her son Jeffrey.
Another recommendation from Amie–you see, I get most of my books from her library these days, because she has great taste and I have no money with which to buy my own books. In return she gets the satisfaction of me flailing around about how much I loved her latest recommendation. I may be leeching off of her collection, but I promise the relationship is completely symbiotic. I really enjoyed this book. The sisters all had such distinct and entertaining personalities–my personal favorite was Jane, the aspiring novelist, because of course I saw a lot of myself in her. She’s constantly staring off into space while people are trying to talk to her, only to burst out a few seconds later with a non sequitur like “She could rescue him from the tower in a hot air balloon!”
What I also loved about this book was that I could see Amie’s style in it, and knew instantly why she had loved it so much. This is classic mid-grade, absolutely top of the line, and makes ME want to write mid-grade and I’ve always been firmly rooted in YA. It’s tremendous fun, and even though it’s clearly written for younger kids, I’d still recommend it to adults in a heartbeat.
That’s it for now. I’m about a third of the way through the next book, and will post as soon as I finish it! If I’m not stuck in the middle of a rainforest at the time, which may in fact be true. I will have to do a big “WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION” post soon, once I have pictures to share.
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from Jemi
Those all sound like great books. I’m definitely going to add the Penderwicks to my classroom wishlist 🙂
Re: from Jemi
You won’t be disappointed! I really enjoyed it, and I think kids would absolutely love it.
Thanks for stopping by!
I haven’t read The Bride’s Farewell, but I absolutely loved Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now, a probably equally beautifully-written dystopian novel. It was one of the best books I read in the year in which I read it.
I soooo want to read that after reading Bride’s Farewell. I think if I loved this book so much, and it’s not “my genre” at all, then one that she writes within a genre I love will be that much better. Will have to hunt for it when I get back.
I am just like you. Fairytale re-tellings are my all time favorite thing. I’ll have to add “East” to my list. I just finished a different re-telling of it titled “Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow.” She’s a fun fairytale author in general.
Yay fairytale geeks! It used to be that every single story/novel I wrote was a retelling. My current WIP is not a retelling, but the one I’m going to start very soon is.
I’ll have to look up that retelling… I really love the East of the Sun, West of the Moon/Cupid and Psyche story.
They all sounds so good. I’m planning to make December my NaNoReaMo, after the insanity that is NaNorWriMo – so thanks for the suggestions. WG, WG sounds particularly my kind of thing 🙂
Ooh, what a fabulous idea. Treat yourself to some good books after all that hard work during NaNo–I love it!
WG, WG was AWESOME. I can highly recommend it on every level. I hope you find a copy and love it as much as I do!
Er, that was me. Clearly. This is what vacation does to me… too many different computers and logins that don’t remember me!
Wow, I love all of these foreign covers! Will Grayson, Will Grayson looks SO cool compared to the American version.
Thank you for these short reviews! You’ve mentioned some fantastic books that are going onto my to-do list right now. Can’t wait to tackle East and The Bride’s Farewell!
Yeah, I had to hunt to make sure I was getting the foreign covers that are on the ones I have. I thought about using the American covers, but when I saw the Will Grayson cover I was just like “Ew, no!” The foreign cover’s just awesome.
I hope you like them! I really enjoyed both books immensely. I’m in the middle of reading Leviathan now… hopefully will be able to post that later today, or tomorrow!
It’s so awesome that you’re dedicating a whole month to reading! 😀
It makes me think of reading as a kid, where we’d get stamps or stickers for every book we read over the summer. I always got a gajillion stamps, because I read for pleasure and couldn’t think of a better way to spend my summer.
Hey there! I read a ton and yet I haven’t heard of several of these, so thanks for the heads up 🙂 Thanks for stopping by my blog today
No prob! I enjoyed it a lot–hope to be seeing you around the intarwebs!
National Reading Month
What a great concept: devoting a month to reading as much as possible. I love ANY excuse to read, and I love recommendations. High on my list of “must reads” now is The Penderwicks and The Bride’s Farewell. Thanks!
Re: National Reading Month
Oops! forgot to sign my name on that message 🙂
*Laura
Re: National Reading Month
No problem! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. If you do end up getting ahold of them, let me know what you think! I love to chat books. 😀
Wow, the cover of A Bride’s Farewell is gorgeous! And, I’ve heard rave things about The Penderwicks! I need to get my hands on it over here. I’m not biased towards boy characters, but I do love the fact that this is a book about 4 sisters!
Ahhh… the way things are going, I think my TBR list is going to outgrow November! Looking forward to seeing what else you end up reading this month!
And the sisters are great–often I feel like groups of sisters (or brothers for that matter) each have ONE distinguishing characteristic. These girls, though, all definitely have their own very distinct personalities.
Hope to be able to post soon, although I’m in a place with no internet, so who knows when next I’ll get access!
Oof. Again, me.
I absolutely love it when you flail around about recommendations of mine you loved. It’s awesome!
You love exactly the same things about these books that I did, which also makes me happy as can be. The Bride’s Farewell is just achingly beautiful. WG, WG has the most amazing voice I’ve ever encountered. I think when I gave it to you I was all “The voice, THE VOICE” and then just waved it around. You’re SO right about missing the characters, that’s exactly what it’s like.
And sigh, Penderwicks love. I aspire to write one tenth as well as Jeanne Birdsall before I die.
So glad you loved them, and you write gorgeous reviews.
Not gonna lie—I passed on the Will Grayson, Will Grayson I saw at the book fair today ($2!) because of cover and non-speculative genre. 🙁
Aww, sadness! If you ever come across it again, I highly recommend it. I think you’d love it, and not just because it’s super good. I think you’d really love the characters.