Smorgsboard of Books

Here are the books I've started and am slowly but surely working my way through:


Ingrid Law's "Savvy", which is very very cute, but on the bottom of the bookstack because I bought it and Ingrid Law signed it so it isn't going anywhere.

Two historically accurate and interesting but also very very long mysteries. "Speaks the Nightbird" and "Mistress of the Art of Death" are the titles that should have warned me they'd be hard to get into (I've been reading both those since July.)

Emma Bull's "Finder",Someone on a list serve told me it was the saddest book they'd ever read. I haven't gotten to that part yet, but I like the premise so I hope to get the chance.


The Brothers Torres is a great book, but since it is not a part of the Mock Printz group I'm reading I also put it toward the bottom of the pile after getting a few delicious chapters into it.


Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday. I really want to like you, Adam Rex, but you make it so DIFFICULT. Why are the characters so clever, but yet I just find myself putting down the book every time I make it only a few pages in?

Dear John Green,

You are brilliant. Everyone knows you are brilliant. Witty and clever and well read and musically compatible to the point that I believe you and I would make beautiful babies together if I were single and you were single and somehow we were to meet and I was actually able to speak in coherent phrases. But I'm pretty sure I read this book when it was "Looking For Alaska." I still can't put it down. It is the #1 book at the top of the pile. Still, I kind of think it is time to write a book not about a boy lusting and questing after an unattainable ideal of a girl while palling around with quirky friends. Just a thought.
xoxox The Awkward Librarian

Finally I just finished "Bog Child" by Siobhan Dowd which I really wanted to care about because in high school I got really caught up in the sheer dumbfounding craziness of the Irish conflict and also I majored in anthropology, specifically biological anthropology, at Indiana University. The writing was well done, but it felt like two separate stories instead of one coherent life. And the dream sequences were kind of ridiculous.
Also I have the copy with the cover bearing a ridiculous pretend photo shopped shirt. Who are we trying to fool here? And what exactly are we trying to censor?

Stephenie Meyer owns your soul

Okay, Stephenie Meyer doesn't really own any souls. But she does make a lot of money writing about vampires, werewolves, and annoyingly unconfident teenagers. (Seriously Bella, he's too good for you, we get it!) As a Teen Services Librarian I spend way too much time thinking about her and her books.
No real review of Breaking Dawn except to say; thank goodness so much of it is from Jacob's point of view. Generally though, the premise is wearing thin and the characters weren't all that well formed from the start. But, if your library is like mine, you likely can't keep any of Meyer's books on the shelves. Probably you won't be able to until well after December and the movie. Maybe even longer. So my thought was to have some read-alikes ready and for me the ALA's suggestion of their best paperback "dark books" list didn't quite cut it. These are the ones I've found that have some appeal in common with the Twilight series:

Vampire Fiction

Atwater-Rhodes, Amelia “In the Forests of the Night”
This novel was written when the author was only 13 years old! Like Bella, Rachel was a typical teenage girl, but unlike Bella, she was transformed against her will. Now Risika has been a vampire for 300 years and gotten used to the idea. But lately her past has come back to haunt her.

Kagesaki, Yuna “Chibi Vampire”
Karin is normal except she comes from a family of vampires. Kenta is suspicious of all of Karin’s mysterious nosebleeds. This series is a funnier and lighter take on teenage vampire romance in manga format.


Klause, Annette Curtis “The Silver Kiss”
Before there were Bella and Edward there was the intense vampire-human romance of “The Silver Kiss” Zoë would have been a normal teenager if her life had not been torn apart by her mother’s illness. Simon is a vampire. They are brought together at a critical moment in both their lives.

Velde, Vivian Vande “Companions of the Night”
Kerry was like Bella and most other teenagers, until she meets Ethan, an enigmatic vampire, and must help him in order to help her save her family. She must also battle her own dangerous attraction to Ethan.

Westerfeld, Scott “Peeps”
The vampire’s in this novel are a little different from the norm. Cal looks and acts normal, which means he’s a carrier of the vampiric parasite, but it doesn’t drive him crazy like it does all of his infected girlfriends. Cal must track down his most recent girlfriend in this story about vampirism, parasites, and love stories that end very badly.


Vampire Non-fiction (I'll be honest here folks, this one didn't exactly fly off the display, but I still think it is really cool.)

Bartlett, Wayne and Idriceanu, Flavia “Legends of Blood” The Vampire in History and Myth”
Read about the myths and legends where Stephenie Meyer’s got her inspiration for the Cullen clan.

Werewolf Fiction

Cole, Stephen “Wereling Trilogy: Wounded, Prey, and Resurrection.”
In this twist on the paranormal romance Kate is from a werewolf family and Tom is a normal kid on vacation when he is “rescued” by her family. Thus begins their epic (and maybe even slightly romantic) adventure.

Creedon, Catherine “Blue Wolf” (Again, not a big hit on the display. But I think it sounds totally interesting. Maybe I need to change my blurb.)
Similar to Bella’s experience, Jamie Park’s life changes drastically when he moves to Washington State. Only instead of find another family with a big secrets Jamie starts finding secrets in his own family.

Klause, Annette Curtis “Blood and Chocolate” (Do librarians like this book so much because of Klause's other occupation?)
For older readers there is “Blood and Chocolate.” Vivian, a sixteen year old werewolf, sets her sights on a normal human boy, Aidan, probably because he is as forbidden to her as Bella was supposed to be to Edward. And much like Edward and Bella, there is another werewolf who is intent or winning her.


Overall my display worked out pretty well for the release of Breaking Dawn. I'm thinking about revamping (haha)it and bringing back something similar for the movie in December.

Next review: The Mysterious Benedict Society audiobook: SO MUCH FUN.

Videa games and robots.

A brief non-book related recommendation post.
So since I just got access to STL's public library system as of today (and boy, I was super impressed with their collections and super unimpressed with the level of service the employees provided) I have not been reading much in the past week. This week though I start my YALSA class on RA for teens so I've got to pick some books tomorrow and I'll be back in the reading groove.
In the meantime though I bought my first ever video game for the PS3 and I saw Wall-E. I am super dooper extra into the video game, Folklore.
The graphics and story are amazing and the general play/battles are easy enough that someone like me (read: someone who only plays Rock Band) can actually play without feeling inadequate and undergamed. The cutaway scenes have a couple of formats, some are little movies, and some are like lightly animated comic books, but as I said, all of the graphics are amazing. And the story is a mystery that you, as two different main characters (also an interesting twist, you get to go through the plot as two different characters)get to unravel. It is so similar to getting to actually be a character in a book I have completely fallen in love. With a videa game.



As I mentioned I also saw Wall-E and I absolutely loved how much character Pixar fits into robots, which are by our definition lifeless automatons. The storyline is great and has a wonderful cautionary tale feel to it, but not in a bad or condescending way. Rediscovering the joy of living on earth, of seeing with your own eyes instead of through a screen is never a bad plotpoint IMHO. I can't really say too much about it. It is cute and entertaining and funny and smart.

Making up words

I wonder if I should start calling this a "recommendation blog" instead of a "review blog". But who wants just lists of know it all recommendations and no room for badmouthery. I am opening this up to say that I will take recommendations or even just reading suggestions and add them to my giant list of books to read, movies to netflix, video games to play, and cds to listen to all the way through (at least once.I am the queen of listening to one song six times and then skimming through the rest of the cd.) There is debate about audiobooks being reading, and rightly so, listening to an audiobook is something that can be done while driving, working, mowing the lawn, and reading is not. Audiobooks can't be skimmed, they can't be put down for a moment while you babelfish that entire Spanish paragraph to get the gist of what the characters are saying (ever notice that authors most often switch languages while cursing or insulting or, on the other end, being extremely tender? Are they all saying that English lags in these areas? I tend to agree.)And audiobooks, when read well, give you voices for the characters you may never have come up with on your own and bring the story to life in a way that reading can't. But, when audiobooks are bad, they will kill the story faster than I can put down the latest Meg Cabot atrocity. Anyway since I'm averaging something like 500-1000 miles a week in the car over the past month I will say that audiobooks can save me from the mind numbing boredom of farmland scenery any day. I'll have more audiobook reviews coming up in the near future. In the meantime though I think I'm going to make some blanket and blatant recommendations with very little reviewing because it will only take you a second to check them out online.

First up a vegetarian/vegan food blog written by my favorite roller derby playing librarian. X libris does her best to show that English has its fair share of impressive curse vocab. She also makes a delicious sorbet and you can find out how at Cookcrazy

Second up is my only non-web 2.0 blogstyle entry: online banking. I don't know what bank you use, but I have two very local banks and both of them offer it. I love not having to find a stamp myself to pay my bills. And I also love knowing I can check my statement wherever the internet can be found.

Third we have Podrunner Intervals. These are great for the couch to five k program. The cues are easy to follow and the BPM are perfect for each point in the interval.

More Dead Cats is the blog of poet who wrote my favorite poem ever, Secret Playdate. I sent that poem in a letter that helped to win my boyfriend's heart and I find myself reciting it sometimes when I'm nervous or stressed out.

Similar to More Dead Cats there is Mimi Smartypants who tells stories about her intrepid superhero wannabe daughter Nora.More importantly Mimi writes everything with a heavy dose of the good funny.