Simple reading & Slowing down

According to Goodreads, I am 10 books ahead of my reading schedule and 55% done with my challenge. I'm really excited about making progress with this years challenge, but right now, I'm going to take a bit of a break.

I still have at least 5 books I need to review to be totally caught up, but I'm not going to do that right now. Right now I'm going to tell you a little bit about my relationship with books.
I already told you a little about how I fell in love with books last year. How that one book and the simple act of rereading it brought me into this crazy world. When I was in sixth grade, I read Gone with the Wind. I was inappropriately proud of this accomplishment because it was HUGE. I mean, seriously. This book is like 800 pages. And I read and understood it, mostly. I think that is when I fell in love with BOOKS. Not just books "oh how I love to read" but "it's huge and I'm gonna read it all and I'M BETTER THAN YOU because I can."
So, okay, a bit of an attitude problem there. I think I'm over that now, but I still get an insane sense of accomplishment when I finish a book over 400 pages. I love detailed stories that NEED that many pages to tell a story. 

Stephen Lawhead wrote a series called The Pendragon Cycle. It is five books long and even though each book is only about 450 pages (as a comparison, books 3-7 of the Harry Potter series are anywhere from 400-700 odd pages), it takes FOREVER to get through. In fact, I still haven't finished. I think I just got my hands on Pendragon (the fourth book in the cycle) around senior semester and didn't get very far.
I hear you saying, "Well okay, Harry Potter is seven books and by your own admission the last few books are huge. How does it take you forever to read a cycle of five books that have fewer pages?"
And this is when I tell you about the brilliance of Stephen Lawhead. He takes the story of Arthur and Camelot and pulls it back at least three generations. Before Arthur, before Merlin--long before any of them. He writes with such attention to detail and story. When I describe his writing, I usually liken it to Old English tales, like Beowulf. Sometimes it is hard to get through, but when you do, it is worth it.

And yet, sometimes, that is not what I need to read. I love ... and the only word I can think of here is "trudging" through a long series. The word choice alone shows that at times it is a bit of a chore. And that is part of the reason why I think I love young adult literature. The writing style is at times simple, (not stupid) but the content is not. Plus, as a rule, I can blaze through them in no time at all. Enter John Green novels. 
But unlike some adult series, young adult novels (especially John Green) speak to the reader in a very real way. The Pendragon Cycle is a good story; An Abundance of Katherines speaks to me about love and loss. I think that by nature, no matter how story driven Young Adult novels are, they always tell us something about ourselves. See also, Harry Potter. I think that is something you tend to lose in adult fiction. 
I almost went this entire post without owning up to my Nicholas Sparks weakness. Oops. There it is. 

At the end of the day, I love reading books that make me think. Books that make me USE the very expensive four year degree I earned. But sometimes, I need a break. And sometimes, that looks like young adult books, Nicholas Sparks books, and lots and lots of TV. 

PS I've finally finished Eureka. If you haven't seen the show, please. Do yourself a favor. Go watch it. It is hilarious. 

Six+ month review

Anyone want to explain to me how it is already August?! 

I have been reading a lot (ok and watching Game of Thrones, too. Have you seen series one?? So good!) but I am still struggling with finishing books. I have so many things going on and sometimes my books end up on the back burner. It doesn't mean I'm reading boring books, or that I don't want to read. Promise. Sometimes stuff gets in the way, life gets in the way, or I just choose to read slowly. 
However, I've just learned a very important lesson: apparently, I can finish a fairly long book if I just put my mind to it and choose to do it.

I check out a book called I am forbidden by Anouk Markovits sometime at the end of June...and didn't get around to reading it until about 4 days before it was due. I was busy reading Good Omens, trying to get through The Wizard of Earthsea and starting a new book was not in my plans. And then I got hooked on Eureka and lost about two weeks of my life.  Not that that is a bad thing...never! It just well...anyway. Back to the book.
I read two nights hardcore. I mean I went to bed early and propped myself up with pillows and just read. During coffee the next morning, I read. I would get comfy and read after work, get ready for bed and read some more. I put such a hurting on that book! I will confess that I was more in a hurry to finish the book than I was to understand the book at times. I did lose my place a few times in the narrative, but I was able to pick it back up. 

I first heard about the book from Goodreads (which tells me that though I am at 54% of my reading goal, at my current pace I am 2 books behind schedule. Thanks guys.). Actually, the Goodreads monthly newsletter accounts for most of my "new" finds these days. I love it. 
At first, the book seemed to be about a couple of Jewish kids during and after the war.  Not quite. It tracks the beginning of a Jewish family who takes in an orphaned Jewish girl, Mila, after the war. She becomes the oldest in the family, embracing and learning the ways of faith while the families natural daughter, Atara, questions the faith in a way that is only acceptable for men in the faith. She is repeatedly told that the questions she asks could be answered if she were a boy learning to be a rabbi. At the time and in culture, girls were raised with "enough" knowledge of the faith in order to raise a family in the proper Jewish way. 
Mila and Atara take different paths once they grow up and the book chronicles more of Mila's choices and legacy than her sister's. One reason I think this really works for the books is because even though Mila is supposedly the "better" daughter in keeping the Torah and the proper ways she is taught in order to raise a family, her choices aren't easy. How often are the stories we read about the rebel daughter picking her way through the tough of life because it is more interesting than the "perfect daughter" doing what is expected and having everything turn out ok? I think "I Am Forbidden" shows us that even the path that is considered right and proper has plenty of trouble and heartache of it's own. No one is safe. 

It was a bit of a juvenile read, but not to the point of being immature. There is a whole post I could write about the way Mila interprets the Torah when she is looking for answers, but I won't. If you do pick it up, let me tell you that there IS a glossary at the back of the book. I wish I had known that while I was wading through the many Hebrew & Yiddish words throughout the book.


I forgot to tell you that when it was all said and done, I was a few days late returning I am Forbidden. Oops. I am absolutely rubbish at library due dates. And when I just wasn't making progress on Good Omens, I broke down and headed over to my local used books store. One of the many benefits of Gently Used Books is that they have a search & reserve feature. So I emailed to see if they had Good Omens and The Wizard of Earthsea. They had both and reserved them for me to pick up later in the week. I own both now and was able to return my almost overdue library books without too much of a fuss. I'm trying to grow here, people. Really. 
I am almost done with Good Omens and when I'm done with that, I HAVE to pick up The Journal of Curious Letters...because it is due in 10 days. And I don't want another 3 days of intense reading with the purpose of "just getting through" a book. I want to enjoy and relish in the new adventures and characters without feeling rushed. 

Sorry the updates have been few and far between. I just have been behind on my reading. Though now I know that Goodreads is not-so-silently judging me about reaching my goal, I might just be a little more on top of my goals. 

First Loves

San Diego ComiCon was this weekend. I was not there, but I watched my Twitter stream update every second with pictures and panel updates that made the geek girl in my just about cry with joy. (And, of course, a bit of pain was mixed in there as well. Come on! 10 year anniversary panel for Firefly? Why could I not be there?? Geek girl flail!!!)

But it got me thinking about what first got me into the things I love now. I first started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it was such an iconic show that practically everyone had seen. That was my entry drug to the Joss Whedon universe. I think what I love most about Joss and his work is his ability to create characters that feel real, put them in real life situations and then kill them off without mercy. BUT he does it all for the good of the show. It is something I've noticed other directors and writers shy away from, and I have since learned to love the fact that Joss does not. From Buffy, I turned to Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, and Dollhouse. 

You can also trace my Felicia Day love back to Joss. And, thanks to my exposure to Geek & Sundry, I am now in love with Eureka and Colin Ferguson...right before the series finale. I have perfect timing. 

And of course, all of that love got me thinking: what was the first book that really got me into reading? To start with, when I was in kindergarten I was  anti-reading. I gave my mother so much stress about that! Oddly enough, I remember nothing of that experience. However, I do have early childhood memories of asking my mother, after being told I could take a couple of books to bed, "Is a "couple" one or two books? Or is it two or more books?" I've always had problems with math...

But what I think of when I remember the book that made me love reading is something that happened when I was in 6th or 7th grade. By 4th grade, I was checking out books above my reading level and hiding them in my desk. And reading during class. Oops. By 6th grade, I was reading Gone with the Wind (a book of almost a thousand pages), when others were still reading chapter books that didn't go over 100 pages. But somewhere in there, I discovered a book called Beauty. 

I read it. 

I loved it. 

And promptly forgot about it. Until a year later, when I found it again and fell in love with the magic of it all over again. Beauty is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. I found it to be ten times more magical than the Disney movie. There was something about how blatant but mysterious the magic was, almost as if it could have happened exactly that way. 

It is the story of a father with three daughters who all move out of the city to a small village on the edge of an ancient wood. While her older sisters get married and start having babies, Beauty continues to find more pleasure in books and nature than she does in men. As it happens in every story, a dark and stormy night finds Beauty's father far from home, relying on the mysterious stranger in a dark castle. However, the stranger's help comes with a price--Beauty's father must come and live with him. Unattached to anyone except her father, Beauty volunteers to take her father's place. She finds herself treated like a princess and forced into beautiful gowns, which she tries to tear off her body. She struggles, at first, as she finds that living in a magical castle is more difficult than she ever imagined. Eventually, of course and as all the stories go, she learns to live at peace with herself and the Beast, even counting him a friend. It ends the way you hope it ends, full of magic and love. 

There are some complaints my friends have launched against this book, and to an extent, I agree with them. For instance, some say Beauty whines a lot and is selfish. Eh, sorta. Sure, to the whine. But I think she needs some of the selfishness to surface because without it she would be too perfect a protagonist. 

This book has another special place in my heart. It got my little sister into reading, too! My sister will never be the reader I am; she doesn't crave it or care for it quite the way I do. And that is totally fine. But we share a love for this book and I honestly love the book a little bit more for bringing us together in that way.

What about you? Can you pinpoint a book, movie, TV show or video game or a specific event that was your "entry drug" into something you absolutely love doing today?