Lone Star Legend

Lone Star Legend, by Gwendolyn Zepeda (January 2010)

I've been reading Gwen's writing for more than a decade, since I "met" her on a message board sometime in the mid-90s and found out she had a blog. She's one of the smartest, most genuine storytellers I've encountered and it's been really awesome to start to see her work published. I loved her story collection, To the Last Man I Slept With and All the Jerks Just Like Him (2004) and was excited to get my hands on an advance copy of this novel.

It follows Sandy, a blogger who ends up writing for a gossip website, Nacho Papi. When she meets Jaime, a friend of her great-aunt Linda's, she discovers a storyline for the website that makes her one of the site's most popular authors. Unfortunately, Sandy starts to cross the line with the stuff she writes and has to deal with the fallout with her friends and family. Gwen's writing is really sharp, and all the characters are fully formed people I'd love to meet. Each chapter begins with an entry from Sandy's personal blog, and sometimes includes reader comments. Read this one.

19.Fearless Fourteen

Fearless Fourteen, by Janet Evanovich

Sometimes, it's nice to read mindless candy. I picked this up at the grocery store in a weak moment when I was sick, then stayed in bed all day reading and eating Popsicles. Stephanie Plum mysteries are the perfect books for that.

I had forgotten where I left off in the series, so I might have skipped right over thirteen (or twelve). It doesn't really matter, though. I vaguely remember being dissatisfied with the last one I read, but I found Fearless Fourteen had just the right mix of trashy characters and wacky hijinks to entertain me when I was flat on my back.

18. If I Stay

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman

I loved this book. It's short and totally engrossing, so you'll want to read it all in one stretch. Even though I read the jacket, I didn't really get what it was going to be about until I read it, and I'm not sure what I should say about it in order not to spoil anything.

The main character, Mia, plays the cello well enough to get into Julliard, has a family she loves, and a great boyfriend. (Isn't it nice to read a young adult book with a functional family?) She's a little serious and nerdy, but she's pretty happy with her life. The only thing stressing her out is deciding whether to pursue her music or stay with her boyfriend after high school. Then, all of a sudden, everything changes and she has a completely different, much more difficult decision to make.

Do not read this in public. Have tissues on hand. Stay hydrated.

17. The Temptress Four

The Temptress Four, by Gaby Triana

This book kept me entertained on my flight to Chicago. After high school graduation, Fiona and her best friends, Yola, Alma, and Killian, go on a cruise from Miami through the Caribbean. Right before they depart, they visit a fortune teller who tells them one of them won't return from the trip. DOOM!

But this isn't really a mystery. The girls fight, make up, meet boys, go dancing, explore the ports of call, and figure out their futures while on the cruise. One of them doesn't go back to Miami, but I won't spoil it for you and tell you how or why.

16. The Big Dirt Nap

The Big Dirt Nap, by Rosemary Harris

This book's okay, but I wasn't that impressed. Paula Holliday is a gardener-journalist-detective, who has an assignment to write a story about a corpse flower at a local hotel. When her friend Lucy doesn't show up to meet here there and a guy she meets in the hotel bar ends up dead in the alley with a bullet between his eyes, Paula starts sleuthing around. The story has some interesting bits, like a subplot about Indian casinos, but still seemed to fall a little flat for me. Maybe I didn't like Paula enough to care about her.

15. Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks

Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks, by Lauren Myracle

I'm on a YA roll here. Carly is about to start her sophomore year of high school and is just back from volunteering outdoors in Tennessee, which is a far cry from her wealthy suburban Atlanta home. Carly doesn't feel like she fits into the country club set and vows to hold onto her hippie girl ways as she returns to her private Christian high school full of preppy kids.

Carly looks forward to her younger sister, Anna, starting high school and joining her and her best friend Peyton at school. But when she returns home, she finds that Anna has grown up and looks hotter and older than she does, and Peyton has a new boyfriend she's obsessed with. All of a sudden, Anna and Peyton seem to have more in common with each other than with Carly. The rest of the story is Carly coming to terms with things changing and learning how to be a sister and a friend throughout all that. This is a fun, quick read, and I will keep a look out for this author.

14. Karma for Beginners

Karma for Beginners, by Jessica Blank (August 2009)

I wasn't sure about this one, but since it was a free ARC from the ALA conference, I thought I might as well give it a shot. Right off the bat, I liked that the book was set in the mid-1980s instead of current day. Tessa is fourteen and lives with her flaky mom, who pulls up stakes and moves them around pretty often. This time, they move to an ashram near the Catskills, where Tessa feels out of control and out of place. Her mom becomes even less interested in her as she becomes creepily close to the guru of the group, and Tessa finds refuge in a wholly inappropriate place--the arms of the twenty-year-old college dropout who works as the ashram's mechanic.

This is definitely one some parents will find troublesome because, with this older guy, Tessa has sex and does drugs. But the story really reinforces how important strong parent-child relationships are and the importance of supervision and care. It can also bridge the generation gap, showing today's teens that the same problems existed when their parents were kids.

13. Heist Society

Heist Society, by Ally Carter (out February 2010)

Ally Carter is the author of the Gallagher Girls series, which I have enjoyed. At ALA this year, the Hyperion rep was out of the third GG book, but gave me an ARC of this one. It's so early it doesn't even have priliminary cover art. It's similar to GG, except this time, instead of a teenage girl spy, we meet a teenage girl thief. Katarina Bishop is part of a family of master thieves, though she's trying to live a normal life after grifting her way into an elite boarding school. Then her friend Hale drags her back into the heist life in order to save her father from a powerful mafioso. It's good fun.

12. Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah

Firefly Lane is a lovely story of a friendship that lasts a lifetime. Kristin Hannah is an excellent writer, and I'm so happy the EarlyReviewer program introduced her to me. Both Tully and Kate seem real and true to me, though I had a hard time sympathizing with Tully a lot of the time. Kate, who seemed kind of boring and unambitious in the beginning of the story, really grew on me and I eagerly looked forward to "her" chapters.

I'm also sucker for novels set in western Washington state, since that's where I'm from. Kristin Hannah gets a lot of the little details right, dropping in both local favorite hangouts as well as the important news of the day. It makes sense for a book that follows a journalist through the years to include the major events of the day, but it also helps set the tone for the various decades the characters inhabit.

The only criticism I have is that the story dragged a bit and the book is overly long (and I like long books). Especially toward the end, there seemed to be a lot of repetition. I'm trying not to spoil anything, because I do recommend you read the book, so this might sounds vague. The final section was kind of dragged out and there seemed to me to be too much of the "resolution" after the climax, if that makes sense. Still, I loved it and look forward to reading more from this author.

11. Any Given Doomsday

Any Given Doomsday, by Lori Handeland

I've been gravitating toward fantasy more and more lately, but this book was not for me. It's a huge red light for me when every character is impossibly gorgeous, but I was willing to try to overlook that. The mythology wasn't well-built--I felt like the author tried to cram every supernatural being in too early. If she would have focused on vampires and skinwalkers and then brought in the fairy and werewolves in subsequent books, she might have been able to flesh out the back story.

There's also lot of sex that's very clumsily woven into the plot. Elizabeth can take on the powers of the Nephilim she has sex with? Sounds like something out of a bad porno. I'm not opposed to well-written sex scenes, but these aren't it. If you're into supernatural romance, this might be worth a shot, but I'm not likely to read the rest of the Phoenix Chronicles.

10. Take Your Shirt Off and Cry

Take Your Shirt Off and Cry, by Nancy Balbirer (2009).

Memoirs aren't always my thing, though I do go through phases where I read them.This one didn't work for me. Some of the stories, particularly those about David Mamet, were kind of amusing, but the author's life is just not that compelling. A good memoir makes the reader care about the author, but this one just irritated me. Balbirer is pretty candid about some of her own mistakes, but she comes off as bitter and jealous to me. I found myself unsympathetic to her struggles because I didn't particularly like her.

9. Motif for Murder

Motif for Murder, by Laura Childs (2007)

Whenever I visit my parents, I raid their bookshelves. Mom's gotten into Laura Childs' scrapbooking and tea shop mystery series' lately. If you're not familiar with the scrapbooking series, it's set in New Orleans, post-Katrina. The scrappy (I can't resist) heroine is Carmela Bertrand, who in this book, is trying to reconcile with her husband Shamus, the scion of a wealthy family. Shamus is kidnapped, his uncle is murdered, and Carmela sets out to solve the crimes.

While this was kind of a typical amateur sleuth story, I liked the characters and the settting a lot. Usually, my taste in mysteries runs toward those set in Seattle, Sweden, or England, but I'm branching out a bit lately. I'd read more of these, probably when I next go see my parents.

8. Breaking Dawn

Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer

I can't believe I never blogged the final episode of the Twilight Saga. Maybe I was so burned out on it by the time I finished the fourth book that I mentally blocked it out. But I'm committed.

This book is terrible! I hated, hated, hated it. Now, I'm not the first person to point out the terrible messages in Stephenie Meyer's books. And I'm not going to repeat myself and talk about the clunky writing--after all, I was entertained enough by the first three books to read the fourth. But the story here is CRAP. I've hated Bella's choices from the start, so I should not be surprised that she marries Edward at age 18, births a demon baby, and becomes a vampire. Just because she can't see the point of life without her perfect stalker lover. Grody.

I refuse to read any more Stephenie Meyer! Besides, Host just sounds creepy.

7. Along for the Ride

Along for the Ride, by Sarah Dessen (2009).

How have I not discovered Sarah Dessen before? Probably because she writes for teens, though I assumed from the cover that this was adult chick lit and nothing inside the book made think otherwise until I was halfway though it. I remember thinking that more writers should try out protagonists Auden's age, because the summer after high school/before college is such an interesting time.

After her parents' divorce, Auden lives with her college professor mother, who treats her like an adult. She decides to get away from her mom and go stay with her dad, new stepmother, and new baby sister. Her dad is just as absentee as her mom, but Auden starts to develop a relationship with her young stepmother, who she previously though was a dumb blonde. I really liked how Auden begins to see her parents as people with flaws, rather than just parents who don't live up to her expectations.

I'm wishing I posted about this when I first read the book, because some of the details are getting fuzzy. The romance between Auden and Eli is really nice, and starts out so realistically for the age of the characters. The beach town setting also helps show how much waiting around and hanging out teenagers do in real life, which is so different from the urban jet-setting teens in a lot of books.