52. Blue Monday

Blue Monday (Chynna Clugston-Major)

Vol 1: The Kids are Alright (2000)
Vol 2: Absolute Beginners (2001)
Vol 3: Inbetween Days (2003)
Vol 4: Painted Moon (2005)

I'm counting all four volumes of this comic as one book. I hadn't heard of Blue Monday until SJ included it in her two-part guide to women lead characters in graphic novels at BlogHer last month. Check out parts one and two.

It sounded perfect for me because it's set in the late 80s/early 90s and follows a group of kids into punk and new wave music. The musical references were great, and I liked the characters okay, but I got a little tired of it by volume four. I really think comics are best served up slowly over time. These collections make me gobble up the whole thing at one time because I have no self-control. But I liked it and will probably look for Clugston's other work.

51. Which Brings Me to You

Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions (Steve Almond & Julianna Baggott, 2006)

More Steve Almond. I tend to request several things from one writer at the same time, so my holds often come in as themed batches. I liked this a ton, and think the collaboration worked wonderfully. The story opens on a failed wedding reception hookup between Jane and John. The two, who live in different states, decide to get to know one another through confessions they'll send back and forth through the mail. Except for the first and last chapters, the entire novel is made up of this correspondence. The premise sounds too cute, but the execution was really interesting and unexpected.

This book was devastating. That's overly dramatic, I know. But several passages, especially from Jane's letters, could have been ripped from my head, word for word. It's hard to see thoughts and feelings exactly like my own, laid bare on the page. The confessions are wonderful and terrible, and I believed in these two broken, sad people trying to make a connection. The final chapter let me down just a tiny bit, but don't let that stop you from trying this one out.

50. The Discomfort Zone

The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History (Jonathan Franzen, 2007)

First off, I must confess I still haven't read The Corrections. I bought it when it first came out in trade paper because it was on ridiculous sale at the bookstore in Wallingford Center when I was buying my glasses, but have been resistant to starting it, probably because it was so hyped and can't possibly live up to expectations. Also it's fat and therefore sits unread on the shelf with its fellow weighty and intimidating tome, DeLillo's Underworld. I'm not too proud to admit this.

I ordered this for the library, and when it came in, something made me grab it up off the new books shelf. I was in a bit of a memoir phase at the time. Anyway, I really, really loved it. Franzen mostly sticks to his adolescence, which is of course a period rife with embarrassments and torments. This ground has been covered exhaustively by too many writers to list, but this is a pretty fresh take on a familiar subject. Also, I liked the way Franzen tells his stories in pieces, as interconnected essays. The deviation from a strict, linear narrative made so much sense. The point of memoir isn't to lay out a strict chronology, after all. I care about the feelings and experiences and how they fit together. Now that I've finished this, I think I might be ready for The Corrections in the next few months.

49. The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories

The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories (Steve Almond, 2005)

I fell in love with Steve Almond because of the genius that is Candy Freak and have long vowed to follow up and read more of him. I'm just now getting around to it. Perhaps it's unfortunate that I chose this collection to start with. First, I have trouble finishing short stories. Then I don't know how to talk about them as a collection. I started this while I was in Seattle and finished it up over the weekend, so it didn't drag on as long as some of the other collections still sitting half-finished on my night stand.

The stories here are really varied. I think I was expecting a theme to emerge, but there really wasn't one except maybe that all the stories dealt with relationships of some sort. One particularly strange one is "Lincoln, Arison," which is about a relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass. A page or two into it, I was really tempted to skip it, but I was drawn in by the characterizations of both men. A couple of pieces really didn't work for me, like "The Soul Molecule" and "Skull." But I really enjoyed the rest, especially the title story and "Wired for Life." Almond does well with the female voice, which I appreciate.

48. Dead Sexy

Dead Sexy (Tate Holloway, 2007)

A few pages into this, I realized it was a sequel. I hate reading things out of order, but it's okay. Most authors summarize what's happened before, so it doesn't take too long to get into the story. I can't remember where I heard about this book and why I thought I'd like it, but it came in on request at the library. I'm borrowing so much stuff that it's hard to keep track of it.

Basically, the Garnet Lacey books are chicklit romances with a magical theme. Garnet is a witch and both her boyfriend and ex-boyfriend are vampires. In the previous book, Garnet's coven was murdered by Vatican assassins. Lilith, the goddess who lives inside Garnet (and partially in her boyfriend--yeah, weird) slaughtered the assassins. A year later, the bodies surfaced and the FBI started investigating. I was not buying any of this for the first couple of chapters, but it was such a quick read that I thought I'd give it a shot. I ended up finishing the whole thing last night.

It's not a great story, really, but I ended up liking the characters. I'd like to call it a mystery, but besides the FBI agent, nobody's really investigating anything. It's more like Garnet and her boyfriends are trying to figure out how to keep themselves out of trouble. There's a subplot involving voodoo and zombies, but it doesn't amount to much besides a few extra action sequences. Dead Sexy is a fun, easy read, but I'm not sure I'll stick with the series.

47. JPod

JPod (Douglas Coupland, 2006)

JPod was fun. It's definitely similar to Microserfs, as so many others have mentioned. That was a selling point for me, as I really liked Microserfs, the second best in Coupland's oeuvre. I still maintain that Shampoo Planet is the best Coupland and that Generation X is actually kind of boring. All true.

This time around, I actually enjoyed reading the weird stuff interspersed in the narrative. I'm not sure whether that means my attention span is improving or the weird stuff is getting more interesting. There's no plot worth describing. The characters and dialogue are what kept me interested. It's definitely a lightweight book full of pop culture references and a very odd self-referential storyline. It's like meta-meta. Don't read this unless stuff like that doesn't bug you. I liked it, but can see why it's annoying.

46. In Persuasion Nation

In Persuasion Nation (George Saunders, 2006)

Last year at Bumbershoot, I went to the George Saunders reading because my friends Melanie and Ed wanted to go. I hadn't read any of his stuff and didn't really know what to expect. It turns out he's an excellent reader, and his work really lends itself to being read aloud. I read the first piece, "I Can Speak," out loud to my friend the other day, and while I don't think I'm all that good a reader, it was kind of fun. Anyway, after the reading, I was all excited and bought In Persuasion Nation and stood in line for Saunders to sign it. Then I forgot all about it, even though a different friend lent me two more of his books, which sit unread in my living room stack. (That reminds me I need to finish them so I can return them when I go back to Seattle at the end of the month.) I came across my untouched copy of In Persuasion Nation again recently when I was organizing my luggage. It seems I tucked the book into the outside pocket of my littlest suitcase, which I guess I didn't unpack completely. So I decided it was about time to read it.

I found this collection a bit uneven. Some of the stories are great, but others left me cold. I particularly disliked "The Red Bow." Don't get me wrong; the best stories made up for the ones I didn't love. I'd definitely recommend Saunders after reading this and I'm looking forward to Pastoralia and CivilWarLand. Maybe books of short stories just aren't totally my thing. I have a really hard time finishing them. In fact, I've started and stalled on three other collections that sit here on my nightstand, mocking me. I always like reading one or two, but then get hungry for the satisfaction of an entire novel and move on without finishing.

45. We Are So Crashing Your Bar Mitzvah!

We Are So Crashing your Bar Mitzvah! (Fiona Rosenbloom, 2007)

I didn't love this book. It was a really quick read (I read it in fewer than 40 minutes) and was pretty simplistic. All the action took place in the first week or so of Stacy and her best friend Lydia's eighth grade year. The two of them came home from a fun summer at camp to find that their other best friend, Kelly, has officially joined the cool girl group they were all on the periphery of the previous year. The "Chicas" are typical vapid followers with a mean girl queen named Kym.

When Kym's equally assy cousin Eben hands out invitations to his ultra-posh bar mitzvah, the Chicas are invited, but Stacy and Lydia are snubbed. So the crashing plan is born. I think the idea for the story could have worked, but the one-dimensional characters, Stacy's unrealistic epiphany, and the neatly tied up ending made the whole thing kind of lame. There's a lot better YA stuff than this.

44. Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking (Aoibheann Sweeney, 2007)

My daily NYT habit has led me to a lot of good books this year. I read this review and immediately requested AOTITUS. That title is way to long for me to keep typing out. I have a weakness for first novels, even though a good one inevitably leaves me waiting years for the author's next attempt. So maddening.

This one's about Miranda, a kind of weird, lonely girl who lives on a tiny Maine island with her father, who's translating Ovid's Metamorphoses. Her mother died when Miranda was three, in what could have been an accident or might have been a suicide. Ovid's stories are woven into Miranda's in a wonderfully natural way. Miranda's father is withdrawn and interested only in his work and she's actually being raised by Mr. Blackwell, a mysterious friend of her father's. When Miranda graduates from high school, her father sends her to New York City to work at a library he founded years before. There, she meets people from her father's past and starts to realize the truth behind the her parents' mysterious past and how they ended up in Maine.

Coming of age stories can be painful and trite, but this one is lovely. I liked that the novel was separated into three sections (The Age of Silver, The Age of Bronze, and the Age of Steel), each named for parts of the origin of the world according to Book One of Metamorphoses, and each of which represents a different part of Miranda's story. It's clever without knocking you over the head. Sweeney has a real gift for language that's both spare and descriptive, and her facility with allusion is really amazing. I usually don't like books that use one source so extensively, maybe because I haven't read enough of the canon to be familiar with most of what's used, but this time it worked for me. Maybe that's because I've read Ovid more than once, and am pretty familiar with Greek mythology in general. But the book is definitely good, and through Miranda, Sweeney sneaks in enough explanation and interpretation that you don't even need to know the stories before coming to this book.

43. In the Drink

In the Drink (Kate Christensen, 1999)

The New York Times reviewed Christensen's new book, which sounded interesting, so I requested it from the library along with her first novel, In the Drink. The blurbs on the jacket almost convinced me to give it a pass, but I'm glad I pressed on. Several reviews compare Claudia, our heroine, to Bridget Jones, but that's to be expected now that BJ is considered the prototype for chick lit protags. Claudia and Bridget aren't really all that alike except that they're both in debt and prone to making poor decisions.

Claudia's a different kind of mess, though. She drinks too much, has a terrible job she's terrible at, and spends her money on takeout and vodka instead of rent. She's unfortunately too believable. One thing that makes this book a little different from true chic lit is that it's really not a romance. It's kind of lightweight and quick, but it's not dumb. I liked it.

42. The Brooklyn Follies

The Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster, 2006)

Hey, two NYC books in a row. I don't know about you, but I often have amazing affection for authors I studied in school. I took a lot of really amazing classes in college, one of which was on narratives of the city. We read Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, and I've loved him and wanted to read more of him ever since. I just ordered some of his stuff for the library and snagged this one off the new books shelf as soon as it came in.

Read this book! It's all about family, especially the family you create for yourself. It's about having your heart broken, over and over, and figuring out how to go on and finally heal. I loved it. There's no way I can describe it without sounding cheesy. It should have read as cheesy, but it doesn't. Basically, the protagonist/narrator is Nathan Glass, who has survived cancer but has nothing to live for and no real plan for his life. He moves to Brooklyn and starts making re-making connections with other people. I can't describe it. Just read it.

41. The New Yorkers

The New Yorkers (Cathleen Schine, 2007)

Several years back, I read Cathleen Schine's The Love Letter. I remember liking it, but most of the details escape me now. Of course I remember the love letter the woman found in a book and the affair she has with a very young man, but I don't really remember the tone of the book or the quality of Schine's writing. My lingering impression was that it was chick lit, light and easy.

I thought The New Yorkers would be similar. The conceit, characters linked together through their dogs, was appealing. I was expecting more chick lit, but that's not what I got. The (human) characters are all lonely and fragile, lacking many firm connections to other people. I felt for them even though I didn't really like any of them very much, but it was wearing to keep reading through their sadness. The tenuous connections the characters make with one another are interesting--some grow stronger and some break completely.

These relationships brought back memories of my neighborhood on Capitol Hill, where I knew people on sight, and even talked to them regularly, but we hardly ever even exchanged names. I guess that kind of acquaintance is a pretty urban phenomenon, but probably more so in certain cities. The dogs in the story really add another layer of authenticity. I can't count the number of times I knew a person and his dog by sight, but we only ever introduced the dogs by name.

40. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (Barry Lyga, 2006)

Fanboy is a fifteen year old kid with one friend to his name, who's unhappily living with his pregnant mother and stepfather following his parents' divorce, is alternately bullied and ignored at school, and is obsessed with/writing comic books. Excuse me--graphic novels. Goth Girl is the fellow outcast who befriends him. The teenage alienation rings really true here. Nothing's exaggerated and the characters seem three-dimensional. It wasn't predictable and kept me interested the whole way through. So many YA titles seem to fall apart at the end. So I liked it.

The only problem I had with the book is that I kept comparing it to Hard Love, which features an angsty kid dealing with divorced parents, who has only one friend, and meets a cool and mysterious girl, and is obsessed with/writing zines. And as Hard Love is one of my all-time favorite books EVER, Fanboy and Goth Girl suffer from my comparison.

39. Why Moms are Weird

Why Moms are Weird (Pamela Ribon, 2006)

I started this before bed with the intention of reading a chapter or two, but now it's 4am and I'm finished. I should know better; I can do the chapter-by-chapter routine with heavy, serious books, but not chick lit.

This has been on my list for a while. I was once a huge pamie.com reader, loved Pamie's Gilmore Girls recaps on TWoP, and laughed hysterically through her first novel, Why Girls Are Weird. (I have three words for you: tiny wooden hand.) Maybe my expectations were too high, but I didn't love this. Don't get me wrong, Pamie--er, Pamela--is an excellent writer. She's great at capturing what so many of us have thought or felt, only in a really beautiful and clear way. Like this:

I've been romanced, dumped, caressed, fondled, and destroyed in the confines of my car. It's the shell that protects me when the rest of the world can seem so infinite. When everything in love becomes too chaotic, I can take a man to the smallest place that can contain us, force him to look at me and tell me the truth.

Lovely, no? But wait. Benny, the protagonist, is achingly real. But I hated her family. Hated. I started to hate her for letting them treat her like crap over and over. Yeah, maybe that's real, too. Still, I thought the book was a downer. Not even the love interest, who was kind of an ass himself, kept me that interested. The alternate love interest was a total jackass and I was annoyed every time he entered a scene. I guess I was hoping for more ha-ha funny instead of mean funny. Huh.

38. American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang, 2006)

The graphic novels I've been ordering are coming in, and I keep forgetting to grab and read them. This one was a National Book Award finalist and won a YALSA award, for good reason. I have a hard time describing books like this without making them sound cheesy. Three interconnected stories make up the book, and I really enjoyed the way Yang moved back and forth between them. It took me a while to get how they were related, but I didn't care because I liked it all so much. I enjoyed the story and the artwork are equally, which isn't always the case for me with graphic novels.

37. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling, 2007)

Like eleventy million other people, I pre-ordered this and waited impatiently for the UPS truck to bring it on Saturday. When it still hadn't arrived after 6pm, I was vexed. A Twitter friend of mine told me hers came via USPS, and when I ran to the mailbox, I found that mine had, too. Why didn't UPS's tracker tell me they were handing it off to the (often unreliable in my neighborhood) mail delivery? Grr. In any case, I had an errand to run at dusk, so I was finally able to start reading it a little before 8pm. Interrupted only by an hour long phone call, I finished at 3:20am.

I'm not saying anything about the story, except that it was a really entertaining read that had me hooked from the first chapter.

36. The Black Sheep

The Black Sheep (Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout, 2007)

Another entertainment industry teen story for you. This time, the story focuses on a sheltered New Yorker who's selected to trade places with a girl from a big hippie family in Monterrey and have the whole thing taped for a new reality show. I thought it would be really implausible, but the story grabbed me. It's not genius, but was super entertaining. I have a few problems with the end of the book, but all in all, this was one of the more entertaining YA titles I've picked up in a while.

35. The Posse/Starlet

Starlet (Randi Reisfeld, 2007)

It seems this series was renamed before the first book came out. My galley was called The Posse, which is a better name and more descriptive of the story, in my opinion. Anyway, for a silly story about instant fame, it's pretty good. We follow the winner of an American Idol-like television show for aspiring actors as she hits Hollywood and becomes immersed in the movie industry. She brings two friends and her cousin along for the ride, forming the posse that gets into some of its own drama and conflict. The nasty anonymous blogger device is probably stolen from the Gossip Girls series, which I haven't read, but it worked nicely to create tension. The next installment comes out later this year, so if you can't get enough, you don't have long to wait. Starlet, as it's now called, is the literary equivalent of One Tree Hill. It's entertaining and quick, but you won't remember it in a week.

34. Fun Home

Fun Home (Alison Bechdel, 2006)

This book will definitely make my best-list this year. I'm a little annoyed with myself for not getting to it sooner. I picked it up for free at Midwinter on the last day, when the Houghton-Mifflin rep was trying to get rid of stuff (other scores included The Worst Hard Time and the latest Best American Short Stories, Essays, and Graphic Novels--worth hauling home). So it's been sitting in my massive, unwieldy pile for months. Damn.

What can I say that hasn't already been said much more eloquently than I'm capable of? I loved this book. The drawings are clever and funny and really descriptive. The dialogue is perfect and heartbreaking. I tend to shy away from stories of family drama, but I'm so glad I read this. It's wonderful.

33. Obsession

Obsession (Jonathan Kellerman, 2007)

Back in the day, I read all the Jonathan Kellerman I could get my grubby, teenaged hands on. They all blend together, and the only title I can actually remember is Silent Partner, because of the creepy twin angle and the graphic sex. Obsession is already blending into the rest of Kellerman's oeuvre, even though this is the first of his I've read in probably ten years. It all feels like a retread: implausible "mystery," waif-like patient with obsessive disorder, creepy psychopaths, hints of incest. I should have followed Nancy Pearl's 50 page rule and bailed on this, but it was a fast, brainless read that got me through a half-day home with an upset stomach. So I guess it was worth it.

32. Flower Children

Flower Children (Maxine Swann, 2007)

I read about Flower Children in the NYT recently, which prompted me to get it from the library. I like Swann's style and the dreamy quality of her prose, but I got kind of tired of the stories by the end of the book. A few of the stronger stories stand out and I'm betting those were the original material she published in lit journals. I'd like to read Swann's first novel, Serious Girls. From what I've read, I gather that Flower Children is almost a memoir, and I'd like to see what Swann does with different characters.

Several memoirs and memoir-style novels are in my vast bookpile, and for some reason I'm digging them right now. I keep starting and not finishing them, though. Maybe my next task will be to go finish all my half-read books or abandon them for good.

31. The Historian

The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova, 2005)

This is the book that really slowed my progress in this reading project. For months it's been sitting in my "to-read" pile and I've been avoiding it like the plague. Several people have recommended it enthusiastically, but it was hard to get in the mood to read something dense. I finally decided to tackle it, but it took me a week to get past the first couple of chapters and then a couple more weeks to finish it.

Basically, this book stressed me out. Once I was almost halfway through part one I was hooked, but it was slow going because the subject matter made me anxious. It's probably good I read this during the summer because it would have freaked me out more during the windy, bleak winter. Now I'm finished and still don't know how I feel or what I think about it.

Kostova is an excellent writer and her story is full of amazing detail. I enjoyed the heavy use of letters and exerpts from the documents the characters were studying, as well as the mystery central to the story. I must say that when Dracula finally appears, I was disappointed. He was kind of a dud, in fact. The other part that bothered me was the epilogue. I think I would have liked the book to just end after chapter 79, which was itself mostly exposition. That last chapter was different enough in tone to almost take me out of the story, but then to add the epilogue seemed like overkill. That's just my opinion. I guess I liked The Historian, but it thoroughly creeped me out for many nights and I'm glad to be done with it.

30. Easter Everywhere

Easter Everywhere (Darcey Steinke, 2007)

I'm not sure how I feel about Easter Everywhere. The first two thirds of the book were really interesting, but the end seemed to drag for me. It feels weird to criticize a book when it's somebody's life story. Steinke is a lovely writer and she tells her story without explaining the backstory or interpreting its meaning. Very unusual. Her relationship with religion is central to the book, but I thought it got a bit tiresome in the end. I'm sure that's my own bias creeping in. I read part one during lunch, then finished it off when I got home this evening, so it definitely held my attention for the most part.

I haven't read any of Steinke's novels and know of her only from her magazine work, which I've always enjoyed. Perhaps I'd have a better understanding or appreciation for her memoir if I had checked out her longer fiction first. I'm definitely intrigued enough to try.

29. Sunstroke

Sunstroke (Jesse Kellerman, 2006)

I had heard about Jesse Kellerman's debut a while back, but only picked this up when I was at the newsstand and wanted something to read over lunch yesterday. Everything--from the blurbs I've read to the cover art--advertises Sunstroke as a mystery/thriller. Dress this up in trade paper instead of mass market and change the cover art, and I bet reviewers would start discussing its merits as a literary novel instead of in terms of the mystery.

It took me a while to warm up to Gloria because I hated her passivity. I was also annoyed that the author began the book with a serving of the standard cliches about single women filling their lives with cats and other "evidence of their solitude." It was the missing Carl who interested me. I wanted to know what happened to him and as his story slowly unfolded, I was hooked. Kellerman's descriptive passages are beautifully written, but subtly so and I think that's what drew me in. The first chapter of his next book was included here as a teaser, and it hooked me.

28. The It Chicks

The It Chicks (Tia Williams, 2007)

Wow, this is an engrossing story. The title is a little misleading because the story focuses on more than just the "It Chicks," including other people in their orbit. In fact, I'd argue that Tangie, the central character, is less concerned with being one of the popular girls than she is with dancing. That's pretty refreshing.

The story begins with Tangie's first day at Armstrong, a selective performing arts high school in Manhatten, where she is going to major in dance. There's a lot jam-packed into the book, which just covers the first week of school. Tangie's best friend, Skye, got into the school a year before Tangie, and is one of the cool girls. Izzie, another new girl Tangie befriends, is kind of an outsider who the It Chicks find threatening. Tangie is a strong character who stands up for her unique new friend when other girls make fun of her. She also realizes that Skye is really self-involved and not a good friend, but doesn't abandon her. This character is such a nice change from the girls I've been reading about in young adult novels. She makes mistakes and has some insecuries, but is a smart, confident, good person.

The kids in the story are mostly African American, mostly well-off, and all quite talented. The rich kids in private school trope is nothing new, but I liked the change from the blonde barbies and slackers that seem to dominate this kind of story. There's plenty of the standard drugs, drinking, and sex stuff here, but it happens in a way that seems organic to the kids and their varying personalities. Even the peripheral characters seemed real. I was expecting the usual stereotypical competitive meanness and vapid teenspeak I'm used to, but I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing that bothered me is that the book just ended right as everything fell apart. I'm praying for a sequel.

As a bonus, I'll point you to Tia Williams's awesome blog. In addition to authoring books, Williams is Beauty Director at TeenPeople and has written for lots of other magazines, including Lucky. That must be why her name is so familiar to me. Also? She has wicked style and contributes to Glam.com.

27. Flight

Flight (Sherman Alexie, 2007)

This was an impulse purchase at the airport. I knew Alexie had a new book out, but hadn't looked into it yet for some reason. I should just make it a point to go back a read everything he's written, because it's always awesome. Flight is different from anything else I've ever read, really. The main character, Zits, is a half-Indian, half-white foster kid in Seattle. He's always in trouble and has a bad attitude, but is a really engaging, funny character. If somebody described the story to me, I'd think it sounded hokey and wouldn't be interested, so I won't get into much detail. Basically, Zits travels through time, jumping into the bodies of a variety of people in history. It's all fascinating and realistic. Seriously, this is good stuff--I read it straight through on my Seattle-Denver flight and couldn't wait to foist in on all my friends. I've already lent it to one and promised it to another. Read this one!

26. Bleed

Bleed (Laurie Faria Stolarz, 2006)

Bleed is the first set of short stories I've read this year. Each one is a first-person account from a different teen and the stories are interconnected. As you might expect, some stories work better than others. All the kids are messed up and I actively disliked some of them. Nicole, whose story opens the book is pretty sympathetic, and I felt terrible for poor Sadie. I also liked Sean, but the rest of them range from horrible to criminally stupid. I especially hated Mearl, who speaks in an affected and dippy way, talking about auras and calling people "wonderfully crimson." I didn't like this book, but it was all I had on the Denver-Seattle flight, so I finished it.

25. Masquerade

Masquerade (Melissa de la Cruz, 2007)

Hey, look how timely I am. Masquerade is new and out this month! The second in the Blue Bloods series, Masquerade starts up right where Blue Bloods left off. I actually liked it better because the mythology is all firmly in place and Schuyler knows what's going on. There's less of the introductory exposition and more action. And we finally find out who the Silver Blood in disguise, though not before he or she attacks again! The two books are kind of mashed together in my head because I read them back-to-back on Saturday. I read the author's blog and see that she's working on the third enstallment (as well as books in two other series she has going, plus a new one) and it's due in fall 2008. Guess I'll be on the lookout for that one at the Hyperion booth at the next Midwinter. Seriously, Hyperion Teens has delivered consistently good YA stuff lately.

Back to the book. This one has a trip to Italy to find a long lost relative, a fabulous ball, and an exclusive masquerade after party. Schuyler learns more about her family and her link to the powerful family of her nemesis, the nasty Mimi Force. I love the names in the book; Schuyler's last name is Van Alen. Of course everybody is totally fabulous and glamorous, but I like that this is attributed to their vampirism. It's cute how we find out that fashion models are so thin and beautiful because they're usually vampires. It's kind of a sly way of pointing out how unrealistic those images really are.

24. Blue Bloods

Blue Bloods (Melissa de la Cruz, 2006)

I picked up a galley for the sequel to this book at Midwinter, so I decided to start at the beginning. Blue Bloods is the story of teens who find out they're really vampires. De la Cruz created a completely new version of the vampire myth based on the fall of Lucifer and weaves in colonial U.S. history. The religious and historical themes made the story come alive; I really believed in the universe de la Cruz created for her characters and story. These vampires feed on humans, or Red Bloods, but don't kill them or make them into vampires. Schuyler, the protagonist, is sixteen, a misfit at her exclusive prep school, and just found out she's a Blue Blood. I liked that idea that, as in our reality, Blue Bloods are those born into nobility, but with the added dimension of being vampires.

Of course, there has to be a bad guy. We learn that there is an uber-race of vampires called Silver Bloods, who feed on Blue Bloods and kill them. Of course Schuyler decides to try to figure out where Silver Bloods came from and who might be one in disguise. In addition to the vampire stuff, there's a lot on the standard rich teens in Manhattan themes: drinking, fashion, nightclubs, love affairs. It's a fun soap opera with a gothic twist. It's also an ALA Quick Picks top ten book.

23. Sisters of Isis: The Summoning

Sisters of Isis: The Summoning (Lynne Ewing, 2007)

I keep reading the first book in new YA series' with supernatural storylines. This time, three girls find out they're descendants of a line of Egyptian pharaohs, duty-bound to protect the line from the evil Cult of Anubis. The girls get to cast spells, call on Egyptian gods, and transform into animals. It's pretty great. It's a quick, fun read, and I think I'll return to the series.

22. Dangerous Girls

Dangerous Girls (R.L. Stine, 2003)

Keeping with the vampire theme, I read another book I picked up in YA materials class. I'd heard of Stine, but hadn't ever read his books before. It definitely wasn't what I expected. Upon returning from summer camp, Destiny and her twin sister Lizzie begin experiencing strange changes. Destiny sets out to figure out what's going on. The story is really creepy, and fun, so I enjoyed it a lot. It's really dark, and I know that's what I liked when I was a kid, and I see there's a sequel. I don't read a lot of YA series, but I'd probably stick with this one if Stine keeps them coming.

21. Vampire Kisses

Vampire Kisses (Ellen Schreiber, 2003)

The first of two vampire-themed young adult books I read this weekend, Vampire kisses is an engaging teen romance. Raven, the only goth kid in "Dullsville," is obsessed with the mysterious boy who recently moved into the creepy mansion on the hill. While the love interest himself isn't that interesting, I like Raven a lot and really enjoyed her relationships with her family and the other kids at school. The secondary characters are really interesting, and I found myself wanting to learn more about Ruby, Becky, and even little brother Billy (aka Nerd Boy).

During my YA materials class in library school, some YA librarians gave us each a few review copies of books that were reviewed but not selected for YALSA awards. This was one of mine, but I only just got around to reading it. Since I picked this up in 2004, Schreiber has written three sequels, but I'm a little leery of its series potential. I rather liked the unresolved ending of this book, so I might leave it at that.

20. Booked to Die

Booked to Die (John Dunning, 1992)

Cliff Janeway again, this time from the beginning. I liked getting to see Janeway when he was still a cop, and the book industry stuff was interesting. One quibble I have is that so much happened in the last ten pages that it got a little muddled. I was pretty tired by that point, as I read this one straight through last night, so it could have been me more than the narrative that was to blame. I'm definitely to blame for that train wreck of a sentence.

19. Choosing Civility

Choosing Civility (P.M. Forni, 2002)

This is another selection from a book discussion group on campus. It probably wouldn't have been on my radar otherwise. I've always been fascinated with ettiquette and have developed strong opinions on the subject, parsing out rules that I believe in implicitly and those I have no use for. Forni's book isn't exactly a primer on ettiquette; it's more a reminder of how we should treat one another. It's mostly common sense, but bears repeating. I like that Forni calls the book " a handbook for the practical use of civility." The 25 rules are a nice guidelines for all aspects of life, both in the workplace and out. It's nice to see such a well-written little reminder of the ways we can be more thoughtful, or maybe mindful of the ways we interact with others.

18. The Bookman's Wake

The Bookman's Wake (John Dunning, 1996)

I probably shouldn't have started with the second book in this series, but I guess I can go back to the beginning later. A colleague lent this to me because it's not only a mystery set in the Seattle area, but it's by a Denver author. The PNW and MW collide! I liked this a lot, too. Dunning, like most mystery writers I like, writes what he knows and it shows. He's a bookseller and so's his hero, Cliff Janeway. This story reminded me of Johnathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware mysteries a bit, in style more than theme. It's been a while since I read a 400+ page mystery, too. It seems like so many I read these days are half that length.

I'm sure I'll revisit Janeway again. Dunning has a great sense of just how far to take his readers into the intricacies of bookselling and collecting so they remain interested and don't get bogged down in tiny details irrelevant to the story. I dig that.

17. Exile

Exile (Blake Nelson, 1997)

I promise to stop reading Blake Nelson's books for a while. I just got on a roll ordering them from the library and his seem to be coming in faster than others in my queue. Moving on. Exile isn't a young adult novel, but it's similar to Nelson's YA work in theme and setting. Appropriately for National Poetry Month, this story centers around Mark, a spoken word poet from NYC who takes a position as poet-in-residence at a Portland college. I was a little confused because he called it Willamette, but that's really in Salem. It would be pretty difficult to get around downtown Portland on foot if you lived near campus an hour away. But I digress.

Exile is okay. I think it's telling that Nelson calls it his "difficult second novel." Girl was so good that he might have been trying to go in a completely different direction. He's right when he says it doesn't suck. Mark is a seriously messed up guy, and I found him both attractive and repulsive--maybe because I see people I've known in him. Like (too) many of Nelson's protagonists, he stumbles through life not really understanding what's going on around him or how he should behave or react. I guess it's a change from the standard precocious teens or hyper-witty and ironic twenty-somethings in books, but sometimes it goes too far. Mark is also in a state of arrested development, living like a teenager who acts on impulse and does what he wants without thinking of the consequences, while needing a real adult to take care of him. I liked this book, but Mark's realization that he needs to grow up comes kind of suddenly and seems a bit tacked on.

16. Everyone Worth Knowing

Everyone Worth Knowing (Lauren Weisberger, 2005)

Thinking I needed an airplane book, I picked this up at the grocery store when I was visiting my parents over Christmas/New Year. I ended up sleeping and listening to music on the plane and kind of forgot about it. It turned up again when I was trying to consolidate the piles of unread books I have scattered around the house, and I read it last night in an insomnia-plagued fit. While Weisberger kind of follows the same formula she laid out in The Devil Wears Prada, I actually liked this one better. TDWP seemed to drag and was pretty repetitive, but this book had a snappier pace and more interesting characters. It helped that Bette, the heroine of the piece, was much more likable than whatever-her-name-was in TDWP and that the love interest was a great guy. All in all, this is a fun book.

15. A Strange Day

A Strange Day (Damon Hurd & Tatiana Gill, 2005)

I love this comic. The "backward" says it all--that the book is for the teenagers we once were. Basically, it's the story of two kids who meet while skipping school to buy the new Cure album and end up killing time together and getting to know each other a little. Very sweet and well done. I especially love the way Tatiana Gill drew the characters. I hear this team has a new book coming out soon and I'm looking forward to it.

14. The New Rules of High School

The New Rules of High School (Blake Nelson, 2004)

This one's kind of more of the same Portland teen disaffection from Blake Nelson. It is a little different in that Max, the protagonist, is an overachieving good kid instead of a confused alternateen. The indie rock club element is there, but Max exists in the periphery of that scene. He's kind of a jerk, and there are some consequences for that, but it's not moralistic. Nelson is really good at capturing the awfulness of being a teenager and offering a little slice of a kid's life without making it too plot-driven. The little epilogue was kind of lame, though. I don't need to know what happens after Max graduates. I've always liked being left hanging a bit in Nelson's other books.

13. Heart on My Sleeve

Heart on My Sleeve (Ellen Wittlinger, 2004)

Ellen Wittlinger wrote one of my favorite books of all time, Hard Love. She has a knack for writing really believable characters who aren't perfect kids but make you really root for them to figure things out and grow as people. Heart on My Sleeve is told all in emails, IMs, letters, and postcards, and it works nicely. When done well, I really enjoy the modern-day epistolary device because it's a slick way to do roving stream of consciousness without confusing the reader. This is especially important for younger audiences. Not everybody can create such organic character voices like Wittlinger, though.

This story centers around a boy and girl who meet at an college visit at the end of their senior years and strike up a correspondance over the summer. They each also talk to their friends, sisters, and parents. A lot happens during the summer that I won't spoil here. It's really interesting to see how the relationship affects their separate lives and the people around them, and what happens when they meet again face to face after months of writing and thinking they know each other so well. Read this.

12. First Avenue

First Avenue (Lowen Clausen, 2000)

A colleague lent me this book after hearing I like Seattle mysteries. It's great. I was still a kid in Seattle in the 1980s, but I remember how gritty the 1st Ave area was back then. Clausen, who was a SPD cop himself, writes characters really well and captures the feeling of the rainy city,. A lot of the story takes place in cars or little businesses, giving the action an appropriately claustrophobic feeling. Officers Sam Wright and Kathleen Murphy are equally intriguing and not the typically emotionally damaged nior detectives, though Sam is necessarily a little mysterious. He also takes the lead in the story. All of the storylines--the murder, the lawyer girlfriend, the person from Sam's past--intersect a little implausibly, but the coincidences aren't so outrageous that it bothered me much. Now I have another author to follow.

11. Rock Star Superstar

Rock Star Superstar (Blake Nelson, 2004)

I loved Blake Nelson's Girl, and had been meaning to get around to Rock Star Superstar for a while. Nelson stuck with Portland as a setting, but this time around the protagonist is a boy. Pete is really similar to Andrea from Girl. He's not super cool and doesn't seem to understand what's going on around him most of the time and they seem really self-conscious. That aspect of Nelson's characters bugs me because I don't remember being that naive as a teen. Don't we all judge kids through the lense of how we remember ourselves? I do. What Nelson gets so right are teen relationships. The way Pete's relationship with Margaret begins was so familiar to me. You know how you'd just kind of fall into dating somebody because you sat with them on the bus one day, got seated together in class, or even ran into them at the mall? That part of the story seemed really organic.

The big story here is that Pete's a musician, and because his dad is kind of a hands-off parent, can pretty much devote himself completely to music and skate by in school with no plans for college or the future, beyond playing music. I thought the local-band-makes-good story would be unrealistic, but it worked for me. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by telling you that Pete doesn't get famous by the end of the book, which kept the story grounded in reality. I think this book would appeal to both boys and girls equally. If I was a youth librarian, I'd probably try to sell Girl to a boy if he liked this one. I'll have to check out The New Rules of High School, Nelson's latest.

10. Homicide My Own

Homicide My Own (Anne Argula, 2005)

I went to lunch with a colleague yesterday and, as tends to be the case among librarians, the conversation turned to books. We both read mysteries and were talking about what we like and don't like in a mystery. Neither of us are keen on supernatural elements and would prefer a good nior detective or fiesty female sleuth. It figures that of the two books I read last night, the second made me reevaluate my stance a little.

Homicide My Own follows a pair of Spokane cops to Salish Island to appprehend a bail-jumper. Quinn, the older, female half of the duo narrates the story. I wasn't prepared for Odd, her young, male partner to start channelling a long-dead island resident, but it worked. The two go about solving the cold case, and hijinks ensue. The books isn't perfect and Quinn uses some really irritating slang terms--maybe they're supposed to be Pennsylvanian, maybe they're just made up--and I can't completely fall in love with any character who doesn't like music, but I can truly say this is one of the most original mysteries I've ever encountered. It's offbeat, but not self-consciously so. In fact, I kept thinking it is surprisingly solid for a first book, but just discovered that it isn't: Anne Argula is a pseudonym.

9. Into the Inferno

Into the Inferno (Earl Emerson, 2003)

This is another stand-alone from Emerson. What made this stand out for me is that the mystery doesn't center around a fire, even though it centers around fire fighters. That's not to say there aren't some great fire scenes, of course. Without giving too much away, I will say that Jim Swope, a lieutenant in the North Bend Fire Department, uncovers a vast conspiracy. Six months after working a chain-reaction accident, four of the responders are dead or brain-dead and Swope finds out he likely has six days to live--and solve the mystery of what's killing the fire fighters. Into the Inferno had me hooked from page one and I read it straight through. Emerson has written about twenty books and, unlike some prolific mystery writers, hasn't started repeating himself.

8. Dying for a Blue Plate Special

Dying for a Blue Plate Special (Beth Kalikoff, 2005)

I'm rolling right along with the PNW mysteries. This one was written by a member of the University of Washington Tacoma faculty. I thought I'd read this when it came out a couple of years ago, but if I did I forgot the whole story. I have to love any story that's affectionate instead of snarky about Tacoma, a city I really like. I really hope Kalikoff writes more mysteries because this one blends two tropes I enjoy: the snarky amateur sleuths and parody of academic culture. This morning I had to read the last two chapters before work, even though that set me behind schedule by 30 minutes. Read this one.

7. Miss Zukas and the Library Murders

Miss Zukas and the Library Murders (Jo Dereske, 1994)

Am I the last librarian to hear about the Miss Zukas mystery series? I'm doubly surprised I didn't know about it because of my PNW mystery fetish. I decided to read these in order, which is part of the fun of discovering a series when it's been out for a while. I didn't think I'd like this book at all for the first chapter or two, but it got better. Librarian stereotypes don't really bother me too much, but Helma Zukas got on my nerves, probably because she's supposed to be in her thirties and acts like she's in her sixties. However, the mystery was suspensful enough and the characters interesting enough to keep me reading. It was cool to recognize the thinly-veiled Bellingham, where I lived for a time when I was little.

6. The Breakup Bible

The Breakup Bible (Melissa Kantor, coming May 2007)

Yikes--it's been a few weeks since I finished this one and I'm a couple more books behind.

The Breakup Bible has a bright pink cover with a breaking heart on it, so it was embarrassing to read it at the airport bar between planes. That's the downside to reading in public. I guess it doesn't bother some people, but I'm the person who, when reading a romance novel for a class, made a little cover for my mass-market paperback because I couldn't stand to have people on the bus think I actually wanted to read it. Is that librarian guilt?

Where was I? Oh, yes: The Breakup Bible. I was kind of excited when I saw that the first chapter is titled, "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" and thought maybe they'd all be named after songs. It was a little disappointing to see that the protagonist doesn't even know/like Wilco and the rest of the chapters are not musically named. Anyway, the story centers on Jennifer, a high school junior and school newspaper journalist whose boyfriend (and editor) breaks up with her. I was annoyed with the character for being so snively about the whole ordeal and couldn't really sympathize with her. Teenage breakups were never so dramatic for me, but maybe I'm an unfeeling robot. In any case, Jennifer's grandmother gives her a self-help book to help her recover (maybe Grandma thought she was a whiner, too) .

I actually did get sucked into the story. The writing is solid and the voices of all the characters rang true. It seems like everything I picked up from Hyperion has been really good, so big ups to them. Some of Jennifer's references seemed a little old for her, but I've found that to be pretty common in YA lit--probably because the people writing this stuff are closer to my age than their characters'. It's a small problem, but one that bugs me both in books and on television.

5. Firetrap

Firetrap (Earl Emerson, 2006)

As I was telling a friend the other day, I'll read just about any mystery set in Seattle, no matter how cheesy. Earl Emerson is one of the best, though. My dad lent me a couple of his books way back when I was still in high school and he always seems to give me the best book recommendations. I've read just about everything in his Thomas Black and Mac Fontana series, but Firetrap is the first stand-alone title I've gotten around to checking out.

Trey Brown, the firefighter protagonist, is a great character who I wouldn't mind meeting again. I was unsure about how well Emerson could capture the voice of an African American character, but I was impressed. Not only did Brown ring true, but Emerson was also able to really capture the complex and tenuous racial politics in Seattle. The story, centering on the investigation following a deadly nightclub fire and the resulting community tension, was gripping enough to keep me up half the night so I could finish the book in one stretch.

The one criticism I have is that Emerson used a shifting narrative, usually moving back and forth between Brown and Jamie Estevez, Brown's co-investigator and love interest. This device was effective when used for witness statements, but I would have preferred a third-person omniscient narrator for the bulk of the novel. Nitpicks about style aside, I really enjoyed the story here and recommend the book. I'm also reminded that Emerson has a few other titles I've missed, so I'll be sure to check them out.

4. Dramarama

Dramarama (E. Lockhart, coming May 2007)

Wow, this is a good book. Sadye and her best friend Demi go to theatre camp the summer before senior year and, as young adults in books always do, learn about themselves and grow from their experiences. Maybe it's because I went to a dance camp one summer--though nothing nearly as competative as Wildwood--but I really bought the story. The auditions, the classes, the end-of-summer performances were very well done and believable. I don't have a lot to say about this one except that I recommend Dramarama to adults as well as teens.

Reading all this teen lit is making me a tiny bit jealous of my YA librarian colleagues. Not that I'd trade my work. I think I'm made to be an academic librarian, but I sometimes wonder if I could have done youth instead.

3. Planet Janet

Planet Janet (Dyan Sheldon, 2002)

This one was a gift from my friend Pete a couple years back. I read the other YA title he gave me at the same time, but somehow never got around to Planet Janet until now. It's tempting to call this a teenaged Bridget Jones' Diary, except that BJ was not much more mature than this heroine. Janet is a self-absorbed sixteen-year-old girl attempting to enter her "Dark Phase," wherein she wears black clothing and tries unsuccessfully to think deep thoughts. She's rather irritatingly self-absorbed, not realizing at all what's going on in her own family. I kept thinking that she was written as a thirteen-year-old because she seemed far too naive and clueless to be in high school. Then I remembered that thirteen is probably the age of the target audience and tweens and teens like to read about kids a few years older than themselves. In any case, the diary conceit works pretty well and Janet's voice rings true.