18. Pretties, Scott Westerfeld
I don't know, you guys. My issues with Pretties are actually quite similar to the ones I had when I read Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - in both cases it felt like the author was basically rehashing the first book in the series with some superficial plot changes. I'm also struggling with the likability factor of the main character; I find Tally kind of...tiresome? Plus Westerfeld is failing to really convince me that his dystopia is a terrible thing. I mean, OBVIOUSLY the world has some problems, but they never seem...totally evil, I guess. I also feel like the divisions between the novels are kind of arbitrary - like, Westerfeld sat down and wrote one EPICALLY LONG story and split it into four even pieces, and then tidied up the ends so they'd have their own individual story arcs (except they don't really). IN SUMMARY: I AM NOT CONVINCED.
I'm taking a break from these for a while so I can read Behemoth.
19. Moon Over Manifest, Clare Vanderpool
My Children's Literature class is doing historical fiction this week, and this was the last book I read for the unit - getting myself to read it was like pulling teeth for reasons I don't really understand. I don't know why, but I was incredibly resistant to reading it (even though it's required reading) but once I started I packed it in pretty quick. It's a fun, tangled knot of a book, about Abilene Tucker, a young girl, coming to the small town of Manifest, Iowa, to wait for her dad. It takes place in (I believe) the early 1940's, and while Abilene is stranded in Manifest she starts unearthing the town's recent past. The town, everyone who lives there, her father, a mysterious boy named Jinx that Abilene reads about in a handful of letters, and the town fortune teller, Miss Sadie, make up that knot I mentioned, and unraveling it with Abilene was more enjoyable than I anticipated. It's a solid young YA or older children's novel.
20. Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld
More fun alternate history lessons with Westerfeld. It was weird to read a couple of the Uglies books in between Leviathan and this one, because the Leviathan books are SO MUCH BETTER. Like, it was hard for me to hear Westerfeld's voice in Uglies. I think the Uglies books came out before Leviathan? I think that's right. So maybe Westerfeld's just getting better the more that he writes. But I'm itching to read Goliath now, and I honestly don't know if I care to bother with Specials and Extras. But anyway: Behemoth continues into World War I with our heroes from the previous novel. There's a gigantic genetically engineered squid that eats ships, a Tesla cannon, some robot elephants, and a loris that imitates human speech. Also an anarchist rebellion in Turkey. Love it.
I don't know, you guys. My issues with Pretties are actually quite similar to the ones I had when I read Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - in both cases it felt like the author was basically rehashing the first book in the series with some superficial plot changes. I'm also struggling with the likability factor of the main character; I find Tally kind of...tiresome? Plus Westerfeld is failing to really convince me that his dystopia is a terrible thing. I mean, OBVIOUSLY the world has some problems, but they never seem...totally evil, I guess. I also feel like the divisions between the novels are kind of arbitrary - like, Westerfeld sat down and wrote one EPICALLY LONG story and split it into four even pieces, and then tidied up the ends so they'd have their own individual story arcs (except they don't really). IN SUMMARY: I AM NOT CONVINCED.
I'm taking a break from these for a while so I can read Behemoth.
19. Moon Over Manifest, Clare Vanderpool
My Children's Literature class is doing historical fiction this week, and this was the last book I read for the unit - getting myself to read it was like pulling teeth for reasons I don't really understand. I don't know why, but I was incredibly resistant to reading it (even though it's required reading) but once I started I packed it in pretty quick. It's a fun, tangled knot of a book, about Abilene Tucker, a young girl, coming to the small town of Manifest, Iowa, to wait for her dad. It takes place in (I believe) the early 1940's, and while Abilene is stranded in Manifest she starts unearthing the town's recent past. The town, everyone who lives there, her father, a mysterious boy named Jinx that Abilene reads about in a handful of letters, and the town fortune teller, Miss Sadie, make up that knot I mentioned, and unraveling it with Abilene was more enjoyable than I anticipated. It's a solid young YA or older children's novel.
20. Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld
More fun alternate history lessons with Westerfeld. It was weird to read a couple of the Uglies books in between Leviathan and this one, because the Leviathan books are SO MUCH BETTER. Like, it was hard for me to hear Westerfeld's voice in Uglies. I think the Uglies books came out before Leviathan? I think that's right. So maybe Westerfeld's just getting better the more that he writes. But I'm itching to read Goliath now, and I honestly don't know if I care to bother with Specials and Extras. But anyway: Behemoth continues into World War I with our heroes from the previous novel. There's a gigantic genetically engineered squid that eats ships, a Tesla cannon, some robot elephants, and a loris that imitates human speech. Also an anarchist rebellion in Turkey. Love it.
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