I Hunt Killers

A believable teen crime novel!!  You have to read this one.  Click here for my full review. 

As I Wake

This is by far the strangest book I've read ... well, in recent memory anyway.

I usually rate my books in LibraryThing as I read them but I just don't know what to make of this one.

It has the unsettling approach that Grace did -- dropping the reader into an unknown world. And I have to admire the author for trying to explain the world through experience.

But I'm just not sure I understand what happened. Maybe I need to read it again...

Books I read last year, from best to worst

1	Ready Player One	Cline, Ernest	5
2	Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key	Gantos, Jack	5
3	When Zachary Beaver Came to Town	KimberlyWillisHolt	5
4	Bad Boy: A Memoir	Myers, Walter Dean	5
5	Clementine	Pennypacker, Sara	5
6	The Things a Brother Knows	Reinhardt, Dana	5
7	One Crazy Summer	Williams-garcia, Rita	5
8	Ivy Bean, Book 1	Barrows, Annie	4.5
9	Close to Famous	Bauer, Joan	4.5
10	The Penderwicks	Birdsall, Jeanne	4.5
11	The Penderwicks on Gardam Street	Birdsall, Jeanne	4.5
12	Strings Attached	Blundell, Judy	4.5
13	Plain Kate	Bow, Erin	4.5
14	Frindle	Clements, Andrew	4.5
15	Matched	Condie, Ally	4.5
16	Blindsided	Cummings, Priscilla	4.5
17	The Running Dream	Draanen, Wendelin Van	4.5
18	Dead End in Norvelt	Gantos, Jack	4.5
19	Small as an Elephant	Jacobson, Jennifer Richard	4.5
20	The White Giraffe	John, Lauren St.	4.5
21	Rose in a Storm: A Novel	Katz, Jon	4.5
22	Schooled	Korman, Gordon	4.5
23	Touch Blue	Lord, Cynthia	4.5
24	Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto	Luper, Eric	4.5
25	Rot & Ruin	Maberry, Jonathan	4.5
26	Amy & Roger's Epic Detour	Matson, Morgan	4.5
27	Black Radishes	Meyer, Susan Lynn	4.5
28	Project Mulberry	Park, Linda Sue	4.5
29	The Higher Power of Lucky	Patron, Susan	4.5
30	Without Tess	Pixley, Marcella	4.5
31	Ninth Ward	Rhodes, Jewell Parker	4.5
32	Between Here and Forever	Scott, Elizabeth	4.5
33	Between Shades of Gray	Sepetys, Ruta	4.5
34	The Marbury Lens	Smith, Andrew	4.5
35	The Other Side of Dark	Smith, Sarah	4.5
36	The Scorpio Races	Stiefvater, Maggie	4.5
37	Borderline	Stratton, Allan	4.5
38	Daughter of Smoke and Bone	Taylor, Laini	4.5
39	How to Save a Life	Zarr, Sara	4.5
40	The Future of Us	Asher, Jay	4
41	The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin	Berk, Josh	4
42	The Penderwicks at Point Mouette	Birdsall, Jeanne	4
43	The World According to Humphrey	Birney, Betty G.	4
44	Zombies vs. Unicorns	Black, Holly	4
45	The Gardener	Bodeen, S.A.	4
46	Kendra	Booth, Coe	4
47	All The Broken Pieces	Burg, Ann E.	4
48	Stay	Caletti, Deb	4
49	Thirteen Days to Midnight	Carman, Patrick	4
50	Dark Eden	Carman, Patrick	4
51	The Death Cure	Dashner, James	4
52	What Happened to Goodbye	Dessen, Sarah	4
53	Wither	DeStefano, Lauren	4
54	Ten Miles Past Normal	Dowell, Frances O'Roark	4
55	Enchanted Ivy	Durst, Sarah Beth	4
56	Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25	Evans, Richard Paul	4
57	Bunheads	Flack, Sophie	4
58	The Skin I'm in	Flake, Sharon G.	4
59	Where She Went	Forman, Gayle	4
60	Turtle in Paradise	Holm, Jennifer L.	4
61	The Secret Year	Hubbard, Jennifer	4
62	Tales of the Madman Underground	John, Barnes	4
63	Hunger	Kessler, Jackie Morse	4
64	Liar	Larbalestier, Justine	4
65	Savvy	Law, Ingrid	4
66	Where the Mountain Meets the Moon	Lin, Grace	4
67	Rules	Lord, Cynthia	4
68	Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets	Luper, Eric	4
69	The Light (Morpheus Road)	MacHale, D.J.	4
70	The Mermaid's Mirror	Madigan, L. K.	4
71	The Rock and the River	Magoon, Kekla	4
72	Judy Moody, Girl Detective (Book #9)	McDonald, Megan	4
73	Cryer's Cross	McMann, Lisa	4
74	Luminous	Metcalf, Dawn	4
75	Recovery Road	Nelson, Blake	4
76	Throat	Nelson, R.A.	4
77	Delirium	Oliver, Lauren	4
78	This Dark Endeavor	Oppel, Kenneth	4
79	Rickshaw Girl	Perkins, Mitali	4
80	The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen	Perkins, Mitali	4
81	Anna and the French Kiss	Perkins, Stephanie	4
82	She Loves You, She Loves You Not...	Peters, Julie Anne	4
83	The Summer I Learned to Fly	Reinhardt, Dana	4
84	The True Meaning of Smekday	Rex, Adam	4
85	Boyfriends with Girlfriends	Sanchez, Alex	4
86	Okay for Now	Schmidt, Gary D.	4
87	Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines	Sheff, Nic	4
88	The Last Summer Of The Death Warriors	Stork, Francisco	4
89	Pie	Weeks, Sarah	4
90	Dust City	Weston, Robert Paul	4
91	See What I See	Whelan, Gloria	4
92	Miles from Ordinary: A Novel	Williams, Carol Lynch	4
93	Beatle Meets Destiny	Williams, Gabrielle	4
94	After Tupac and D Foster	Woodson, Jacqueline	4
95	All These Things I've Done	Zevin, Gabrielle	4
96	Dream Factory	Barkley, Brad	3.5
97	The Compound	Bodeen, S.A.	3.5
98	First Day on Earth	Castellucci, Cecil	3.5
99	Crossed	Condie, Ally	3.5
100	Low Red Moon. Ivy Devlin	Devlin, Ivy	3.5
101	The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane	DiCamillo, Kate	3.5
102	You Against Me	Downham, Jenny	3.5
103	Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief	Draanen, Wendelin Van	3.5
104	The Absolute Value of Mike	Erskine, Kathryn	3.5
105	The Lonely Hearts Club	Eulberg, Elizabeth	3.5
106	We'll Always Have Summer	Han, Jenny	3.5
107	The Big Crunch	Hautman, Pete	3.5
108	Everything on a Waffle	Horvath, Polly	3.5
109	All Unquiet Things	Jarzab, Anna	3.5
110	Framed	Korman, Gordon	3.5
111	Dust & Decay	Maberry, Jonathan	3.5
112	The Black (Morpheus Road)	MacHale, D.J.	3.5
113	Hold Me Closer, Necromancer	McBride, Lish	3.5
114	The Anti-Prom	McDonald, Abby	3.5
115	You Don't Know About Me	Meehl, Brian	3.5
116	Cruisers Book 1	Myers, Walter Dean	3.5
117	The Knife of Never Letting Go	Ness, Patrick	3.5
118	Trapped	Northrop, Michael	3.5
119	family	Ostow, Micol	3.5
120	The Fox Inheritance	Pearson, Mary E.	3.5
121	Keeper	Peet, Mal	3.5
122	Blood Wounds	Pfeffer, Susan Beth	3.5
123	Following Christopher Creed	Plum-Ucci, Carol	3.5
124	Sorta Like a Rock Star	Quick, Matthew	3.5
125	Bleeding Violet	Reeves, Dia	3.5
126	Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick	Schreiber, Joe	3.5
127	I,Q	Smith, Roland	3.5
128	Empty	Weyn, Suzanne	3.5
129	The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place	Wood, Maryrose	3.5
130	Feathers	Woodson, Jacqueline	3.5
131	The Replacement. by Brenna Yovanoff	Yovanoff, Brenna	3.5
132	Chime	Billingsley, Franny	3
133	Bitter End	Brown, Jennifer	3
134	Rose Sees Red	Castellucci, Cecil	3
135	Dark Song	Giles, Gail	3
136	Just Grace	Harper, Charise Mericle	3
137	Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact	Hartley, A. J.	3
138	Eight Keys	LaFleur, Suzanne	3
139	Saving Francesca	Marchetta, Melina	3
140	Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have)	Mlynowski, Sarah	3
141	Peter and the Starcatchers	Pearson, Ridley	3
142	Virals	Reichs, Kathy	3
143	The Prince of Mist	Zafon, Carlos Ruiz	3
144	You Killed Wesley Payne	Beaudoin, Sean	2.5
145	Violence 101	Wright, Denis	2.5

I almost peed my pants

This is the best audio book I've listened to in a long time. Jack Gantos has brilliantly written the experience of the awkward 11-year- old boy. Every character is meticulously flawed and charming. It's an obviously personal story.

The wide-eyed look at the quirky town of Norvelt will have you laughing out loud.

The Prom

I'm on a roll with the prom books. I kind of love this whole one-night-story theme.

Au Revoir Crazy European Chick is not high literature but it is an intensely fun read. Perry's family gets a Lithuanian exchange student. His mom forces him to take her to the prom and she turns out to be an international assassin. Naturally. :)

The story that unfolds is a wild ride of violence through New York City (while wearing prom gear) -- kind of like Nick & Norah with guns.

There are a lot of holes in the story line, but if you can suspend your disbelief, it's a fun story. There are some interesting twists and you end up sympathizing with the gun-wielding European chick, but I wish there were more consequences in general.

This will make an adrenaline-rich movie.

I didn't know what to expect when I picked up Anti-Prom. I was pleasantly surprised. This is one of those Breakfast Club type stories with the princess, the wallflower and the scary chick all represented.

The way they're thrown together is a little thin, but once it gets started it's a good story of high school pain and bonding. A different take on the the whole, "we all suffer" theme.

Man Eating Horses & Chocolate

Let's start with dessert, shall we? I read this book because I love Gabrielle Zevin. Elsewhere is one of my all time favorite books. I had no idea what to expect when I read it and was pleasantly surprised.

The premise of this book is brilliant. Set in the near future, all the luxuries of the world are in short supply -- water, paper and phone calls are all rationed. In addition, chocolate and coffee have been banned (much like prohibition). This is the perfect setting for today's caffeine-addicted teens (and teen librarians). :)

Set in this slightly off-putting world, is a story of a mob family that deals in black-market goods. It's the story of a teenage girl who has to find her place in the world and in her family. She makes incredibly difficult choices for and sometimes, in spite of, the people she loves.

I found this novel incredibly powerful. There's nothing typical about this coming of age story. And by the end, you'll feel the pain of her difficult decisions. (The end is fabulous and heart-wrenching).

So maybe man-eating horses aren't the best topic for Thanksgiving, but you'll have to get over it.

I just finished this book and was a blubbering mess by the end. I had some trouble getting into it at first. I'm not very good at keeping track of characters and this story is set in a complicated world of horses, a tight-knit nosy community and family tragedy.

Once I got into it, though, the story blew me away. I'm usually disappointed when authors insert a love story into a science fiction/fantasy, but this one was so much more than that. It's about survival, family, brutality and pushing the limits of what these teens will do for love.

This story will especially appeal to teens who have known the love and loyalty of a horse. It's very touching.

Without Tess

Marcella Pixley is an amazing author. I will recommend Freak to kids for years to come.

Her new book, Without Tess, did not disappoint. Wow.

The entire book reads with a whimsical, almost dreamlike, childhood quality and the poetry sprinkled between the chapters cut right to the bone.

Lizzie is struggling with the death of her sister, Tess. She blames herself for her sister's death... but it's so much more than that. Tess struggled with mental illness masked by fantastical play and a magical connection with her devoted sister. How could her immortal, magical sister perish and leave her behind? It's all too much to take.

The story is told in short chapters going back and forth between memories of the past, therapy sessions and poetry from both girls.

I was pleased to see not only the frailty and flaws, but also the power and strength of the adults in Lizzie's life. This is a quick and satisfying read and will leave you with tears in your eyes.