Crush

Book 89 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Crush: 26 Real-life Tales of First Love edited by Andrea N. Richesin

Summary (via Goodreads)

Twenty-six bestselling authors return to the teenage bedrooms, school hallways and college dorms of their youth to share passionate essays of love lost and found and lessons learned along the way. Whether heartbreaking or hilarious, their soul-baring honesty reminds us to keep reaching for true love wherever we can find it and for as long as it takes. Their intimate reflections will fascinate and move any reader who remembers her first love.

My Opinion

Aaahhhh, young love. This quick read was a great opportunity to reminisce on the successes and failures of that pivotal first crush.

Out of the 26 stories there were only 2 I didn't like, making it a hit for me.

My favorite story was Olfactory by Catherine Newman. My close second, and winner of 'the most interesting title', was Uncle Greg, a Giant Chicken, and the Murderous Pottery Wheel by Heather Swain.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"I'm older now, so a kiss is great and fireworks sometimes go off and a kiss can take you all kinds of places you don't expect, but there's nothing like those first kisses, the ones where you feel you're going to fall into the other person, when you get dizzy and forget who you are." ~ from When It Was All Brand-New by Rebecca Walker

"I want to remember him as he was, even if that memory's vague, and perhaps wrong. Who he was to me matters so much more than who he actually was." ~ from Creative Writing by David Levithan

Landline

Book 88 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Summary (via Goodreads)

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble;it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.
Maybe that was always beside the point.
Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.
When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.
That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts Is that what she’s supposed to do?
Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

My Opinion

I can see why everyone's talking about Rainbow Rowell. After reading Eleanor and Park and now Landline, I will definitely continue to seek out her books.

She is so good at writing dialogue, which drew me into the story. Even though the premise was a little weird, I was invested and wanted to know how it would end.

I liked, not loved, it because it seemed to take awhile to get to the plot, but overall I thought it was a strong, highly readable book.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"Her mom had turned Georgie's childhood bedroom into the pug trophy room as soon as she graduated from high school - which was irritating because Georgie didn't actually move out of the house until she graduated from college."

"You don't know when you're twenty-three.

 You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten - in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.

 She didn't know at twenty-three."

Not That Kind of Girl

Book 87 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Girl Tells You What She's "Learned" 
by Lena Dunham

Summary (via Goodreads)

From the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO's Girls comes a hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays that establishes Lena Dunham as one of the most original young talents writing today.
In Not that Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one's way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and, most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told.
Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not that Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. "I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you," Dunham writes. "But if I can take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile."

My Opinion

I don't have HBO so I've never seen Girls. Prior to reading this book my only knowledge about Lena Dunham was that she's a strong woman, a good interview - entertaining, funny, thought-provoking -, and she seems to attract negative media attention.

Unfortunately, this book didn't live up to my expectations. It was okay but she wasn't the strong, engaging voice I expected based on her interviews.

She definitely puts it all out there and I absolutely won't judge her for that. She seems self-aware enough to know how exhausting it could be to be her friend or partner. 

One of my favorite things was her ode to NYC. One of my least favorite things was her 10 page list of nothing but the food on her diet, which seemed like overkill. Speaking of overkill, based on the hubbub I was expecting way more than 2 throwaway sentences in a 265 page book. Seriously, that's what everyone was so worked up about? 

Even though I didn't love this book, I continue to look forward to hearing her thoughts in interviews and I still want to watch Girls at some point.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman."

"What a snarky jerk. (Obviously, I later slept with him.)"

"I didn't drink in the essence of the classroom. I didn't take legible notes or dance all night. I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we'd make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened. Then why am I so sad?"

Four

Book 86 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth

Summary (via Goodreads)

Two years before Beatrice Prior made her choice, the sixteen-year-old son of Abnegation’s faction leader did the same. Tobias’s transfer to Dauntless is a chance to begin again. Here, he will not be called the name his parents gave him. Here, he will not let fear turn him into a cowering child.
Newly christened “Four,” he discovers during initiation that he will succeed in Dauntless. Initiation is only the beginning, though; Four must claim his place in the Dauntless hierarchy. His decisions will affect future initiates as well as uncover secrets that could threaten his own future—and the future of the entire faction system.
Two years later, Four is poised to take action, but the course is still unclear. The first new initiate who jumps into the net might change all that. With her, the way to righting their world might become clear. With her, it might become possible to be Tobias once again.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth comes a companion volume to the worldwide bestselling DIVERGENT series, told from the per-spective of the immensely popular character Tobias. The four pieces included here—THE TRANSFER, THE INITIATE, THE SON, and THE TRAITOR—plus three additional exclusive scenes, give readers an electrifying glimpse into the history and heart of Tobias, and set the stage for the epic saga of the DIVERGENT trilogy.

My Opinion

This was a very quick read; I read it in one sitting.

It wasn't necessary - I thought the trilogy was enough for the story - but I don't regret reading it. It was nice to briefly revisit the characters.

Quote from the Book

"I have a new name, which means I can be a new person. Someone who doesn't put up with cutting comments from Erudite know-it-alls. Someone who can cut back.

 Someone who's finally ready to fight.

 Four."

Three Minus One

Book 85 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love & Loss 

edited by Sean Hanish & Brooke Warner

Summary (via the book jacket)

The loss of a child is unlike any other - and its impact is devastating. This collection of intimate, soul-baring stories, poems, and artwork by parents who have lost a child to stillbirth, miscarriage, or neonatal death - inspired by the film Return to Zero - breaks the silence about this tragic, earth-shattering experience and offers a ray of hope to the many parents out there in search of answers, understanding, and healing.

My Opinion

The stories were primarily by parents but there were a few by other family members, such as grandparents, as well. I expected the sadness but was surprised by the hopefulness many stories ended with.

There was a pattern for the mothers of children lost in utero. Most had a sentence along the lines of "a good mom would know when it had happened", feeling guilty when they were shocked to discover no heartbeat and/or her baby had passed away between appointments. Hopefully by sharing their stories and seeing they're not alone in their feelings, they can find peace and take that weight off their heavy shoulders.

There is a documentary, Return to Zero, and a blog, The Return to Zero Project, that I plan to look at as well.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"For those of you who are afraid to turn the page - terrified of the horrors that you might find - I hope you will understand that at its very essence this is a book about love.

 Love for our children who we lost but for whom that love endures.

 Love in our hearts for the beautiful lives which were here with us for only a brief time but which left and indelible impression and a lifetime of memories.

 Love for those beautiful ones who are, and will forever be, our precious children.

"Being pregnant is like carrying the future inside you. This collection of cells spinning into life was not merely the tiny blurred body on the sonogram, it was all the things this baby might grow to be: the little blonde girl who looks like her sister; the toddler who stumbles forward on shaky legs; the kindergartner and the college student, the bride, the CEO. Imagination melds into reality the instant the pregnancy test reveals two pink lines." ~ from the story Called to Motherhood by Stacy Clark

Vengeance in Death

Book 84 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Vengeance in Death by J.D. Robb

Book 6 of the In Death series

Summary (via Goodreads)

He is an expert with the latest technology...a madman with the mind of a genius and the heart of a killer. He quietly stalks his prey. Then he haunts the police with cryptic riddles about the crimes he is about to commit--always solved moments too late to save his victims' lives. Police lieutenant Eve Dallas found the first victim butchered in his own home. The second lost his life in a vacant luxury apartment. The two men had little in common. Both suffered unspeakable torture before their deaths. And both had ties to an ugly secret of ten years past--a secret shared by none other than Eve's new husband, Roarke.

My Opinion

This was harder to read because of the nature of the crimes but the personal stuff added an interesting layer to the story and I look forward to continuing the series.

Quote from the Book

" 'Delicate as a rose, my Eve. Fragile and quiet natured.' He grinned himself when he heard her curse, loud and vicious. 'A voice like a flute.' "

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Notebooks

Book 83 of my 2014 Reading Challenge

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Notebooks by Justin Richards

Summary (via Goodreads)

Newly discovered entries and drawings in William Shakespeare’s journals reveal for the first time the astounding relationship between the great Bard and the Doctor.
Since his first adventure in 1963, the Doctor has enjoyed many encounters with William Shakespeare. Now, BBC Books has rediscovered notebooks, long thought lost, compiled by the Bard in which he divulges the influential role the Doctor played in his creative life. Here are the original notes for Hamlet, including a very different appearance by the ghost; early versions of great lines (“To reverse or not to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”); the true story of how the faeries of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were first imagined; stage directions for plays adjusted to remove references to a mysterious blue box; and much, much more. 

My Opinion

Maybe I'm not enough of a fan to get or enjoy it. I really feel I have enough working knowledge of both subjects to have gotten more out of the book than I actually did but it was just weird and confusing.

Unless you're a superfan, skip it.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"Doctor Who? That is the question..."

"Double, double, toil and trouble;

 if we are caught in a time bubble"