In 2010 I made a goal of reading at least 24 books over the course of the year. I feel like I’m copping out a little by keeping the same goal for 2011 — but at the same time I find enough reasons in life to be self-critical; I want to set myself up for a 2011 success that isn’t going to stress me out too much. So! 24 Books: the 2011 Edition it is.
January started with a light read: City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare. I first encountered the author as Cassandra Claire (and I have NO idea why she changed the spelling on the last name and am way, way too lazy to try to find out), for The Very Secret Diaries, which are a hilarious take on the Lord of the Rings movies. Totally worth reading.
City of Bones, on the other hand… Well. It’s not bad. I just didn’t find it particularly exceptional. I read it right after finishing The Name of the Wind, one of my favorite books of 2010, and it just pales in comparison. It’s a breezy YA read, pretty predictable; throughout Clare tries for witty, bantery dialogue, with mixed success. I would love to love her, because a lot of people do, and she’s a great internet-person-turned-huge-success story, and who doesn’t love those?, but throughout the book I couldn’t shake the knowledge that she did a LOT of fanfic writing before these books (I haven’t read any, but she’s also internet-famous for her Harry Potter fic). I felt like the book was an early draft — there are a lot of good elements, but it could use with some judicious rewriting. There are so many places where it feels like things happen because she wants the story to go that way — someone conveniently overhears another person’s conversation, or just believes something off the wall, or whatever. And a lot of painful, unbelievable dialogue. It’s a quick read, though, and I actually got partway through the next book (City of Ashes) before I just couldn’t stand it any more.
I pulled Deliver Us from Evie, by M. E. Kerr, off my shelf as a break from Clare’s Mortal Instruments trilogy. It’s a slim volume I snagged at the library store a couple years ago, then stuck away and completely forgot. I finished it in two days, and it was fantastic. Set in Missouri, it’s the story of a small farm community, a family, and Evie, who (as the cover says) “has always known what she was.” Though it’s a short, easy read, it really pulled me in emotionally — everything I love about YA lit. I thought it was real and nuanced and just really enjoyed it. It seems to be out of print, though? Lots of them available from re-sellers on Amazon, however. And I’m quite happy to send my copy to the first interested party to speak up, as long as they promise to pass it along in turn!
I still couldn’t go back to the Clare series, so I next pulled Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker off my nightstand, where it’s been sitting, waiting to be read, for god knows how long. The beginning of the blurb on the cover says it all: “A steampunk-zombie-airship adventure.” It was a really fun read; not Great Literature, but I love steampunk and zombies, and Priest has an easy, engaging writing style.
Continuing my theme of fun, breezy reading, I tore through Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins. They’re the second and third in the Hunger Games trilogy, and I found them more or less as engaging as the first. The first was my favorite, and the third pretty bleak and — well, there were some things I didn’t like about it so much, but they all work together, and I’m glad I read them all.
Last up: Specimen Days, by Michael Cunningham, read by Alan Cumming. Cunningham is the author of The Hours, which I own but sadly still haven’t read — but I really loved the movie. I try not to judge books based on their movies or vice versa too much, but there’s a definite sense of poetry in the movie that leads me to believe I’ll really like the book. Anyway, I grabbed this off the shelf at the library on the strength of that guess. It’s actually three interconnected stories — a sort of past, present, future-ish sort of thing, centered in New York, and woven around Walt Whitman. It was — I don’t know. Look, I’m a lit major, I like Literature well enough, but this one just didn’t do it for me right now. It was just a little too — overt. Cunningham’s a talented writer, but this was just too ‘book to be read in class alongside Leaves of Grass‘ for me, and I think he particularly lost his thread at the end. I just didn’t care that much about the characters; I felt like he was using them as vessels for the messages and themes he was trying to hammer out.
And maybe I’m just crankypants because I’ve had a really tough couple of months, and for a while there everything I picked up turned out to be bleak bleak bleak: some of the above (dystopias, terrorists, failing relationships); my request for the dvd of A Single Man finally came in at the library; I’m plodding through the audiobook of The Lovely Bones (it’s good, but damn — I do not need all this rape and murder and family grieving right now); Black Swan, which was fantastic but, again, you don’t so much leave the theater feeling uplifted about life; etc etc. So, there’s some possible perspective on that review.
2011 Book Count: 6
January: 6