Dick and Jane are here no more.

THIS BOOK. I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER THE NAME OF THIS BOOK FOREVER.

It is such a good book. I can’t quite remember if it is actually fantasy or not but I’ll tag it as such anyway.

23 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

(via books-to-the-ceiling)

My words cannot do justice to this book. It is simply astounding in its beauty, clarity, and truth.

David Levithan captures a great deal of what high school is about beyond academicsin a story and character-study in free verse of 20 high school students, their lives, their loves, and their struggles.

This book almost requires you to read it twice. In the first go-through, you get to know each of the characters and their styles, and in the second, you can start to make more connections, once you have a bit of a grasp on everybody. Here are three of my favorite parts.

Not only is all of the writing beautiful and spot-on, but the construction of this book as a whole was clearly a thoughtful process. The order of the pieces seems just right, especially the choices of first and last poems, and how those worked.

I saw my own high school self and even some of my college self in more than one of these students, and I highly, highly recommend this book not only to high schoolers themselves, but to parents and especially to teachers, who often seem like they don’t remember what high school was like at all, navigating the difficult social web and balancing all sorts of responsibilities outside the classroom.

Another reason, too, that this is important for teachers or parents to read is that issues of LGBTQ identity, mental illness, teenage sexuality, problems of home life, and other things touched on in this book are so much more open and recognized now than they may have been when teachers or parents were in school themselves. These are critical for adults who care about teens to understand and be mindful of.

As alluded to above, I would provide content/trigger warnings for drugs, eating disorders, and other mental illnesses.

22 / 50 Books in 2013

Somehow this book never made it when I was first posting Tamora Pierce’s works! I can’t figure out why. Anyway, it was a charming reread, though the romance still feels a little rushed. *shrug* it’s all good though :)

21 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

!!!!!! look how many I’ve read and it’s only April! It helps that most of TP’s books are so short, but still! I may have to set a secondary goal for myself of at least 30 new books, or something.

20 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

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19 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

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So on this reread, having learned a lot more about synesthesia in the last few months, Daine’s description of how she perceives animals sounded very synesthetic to me. Very interesting!

18 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

(via books-to-the-ceiling)

The tone of writing in this book was awesome, and the characters were a lot of fun. The math was fascinating but “optional” to the reader. I am assuming that the Arabic involved was correct, as I don’t speak Arabic but there was an Arabic-consultant just as there was a math consultant, I think. I was disappointed with the ancient Greek citations though… (#ClassicsNerdProblems)

Also I love this redesigned cover. I think it captures the spirit of the book really well. I love all the footnotes. I have a thing for footnotes, especially in fiction.

17 / 50 Books in 2013

So. A few months ago, my friend was livetweeting this book, and it sounded pretty cool. Then my sister got it for Christmas. Lucky me ^_^

First of all, this is a fantastic book. It is a perfect marriage of technology and old-school bookstores, very meta on the whole topic without sounding cheesy at all. A very quick, light-hearted read. I do agree with and recommend the NPR book review listed as the content source of this post, and if you’re interested in reading my livetweet of this book, click here.

(Also the cover, as pictured here, glows in the dark. Good choice, publisher.)

16 / 50 Books in 2013

d0wntime:

“I still think that maybe the “afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe we are just matter, and matter gets recycled”

Obviously the actual cover of the book isn’t animated, but this gif was too cool not to use as my LfA post.

15 / 50 Books in 2013

(via commander-cosmo)

14 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

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Also Raoul. I need a Raoul in my life, too.

13 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

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Guys, Kel is the best. Also Neal. I want a Neal in my life.

12 / 50 Books in 2013 (reread)

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