Wrapping Up 2009

Both personally, and in terms of my reading, this has been a great year for me. As far as writing, it could have been better, as I made very little progress on my book and kind of fizzled out on the blogs mid-way through. Maybe 2010 will be the year I figure out how to focus on my writing without letting the rest of life go all blurry.

I've been afraid to look at the reading challenges I joined for 2009, but now that I've peeked, I see that I didn't do so horribly. Okay, I tanked on the Dream King challenge, for which all I had to do was read one Neil Gaiman book (The Graveyard Book, done) and watch one movie based on a Neil Gaiman book (failed). And I completely stalled out on the Blog Improvement Challenge, which I read regularly but never acted on.

Let's see how I did on the others.

Diversity Rocks Challenge I said I'd include books by authors of color for every challenge I participated in, and I definitely succeeded in that. I also said I'd review at least two authors of color per month, but then I didn't label my reviews well enough to easily see if I lived up to that. I'll have to do some digging to figure that out. I do know that I read and reviewed more books by authors of color than I would have without the challenge, and that's a permanent change for me, not a one-year thing. The increased diversity in my reading has become a rewarding habit at this point, one that I fully intend to keep.

Graphic Novels Challenge, 2009
I committed to reading 6 graphic novels, and I read 7 plus two that remain unfinished, but only reviewed 5 of them.

1) Embroideries

2) Bone

3) Incognegro (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/01/incognegro-mat-johnson-book-review.html)

4) American Born Chinese (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/02/american-born-chinese-gene-luen-yang.html)

5)Emiko Superstar (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/03/emiko-superstar-book-review.html)

6) Aya (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/06/aya-marguerite-abouet-book-review.html)

7) Kampung Boy (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/07/kampung-boy-lat-mini-book-review.html)

Young Adult Challenge

I committed to reading 12 books. This was no problem. Challenge complete!

1) Night of the Howling Dogs (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/01/night-of-howling-dogs-graham-salisbury.html)

2) Cracked up to Be (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/01/cracked-up-to-be-courtney-summers-book.html)

3) Cricket Man (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/01/cricket-man-phyllis-reynolds-naylor-kid.html)

4) American-born Chinese (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/02/american-born-chinese-gene-luen-yang.html)

5) Flygirl (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/04/flygirl-book-review.html)

6) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/04/boy-in-striped-pajamas.html)

7) Alive and Well in Prague New York (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/06/nerds-heart-ya-bracket-4.html)

8) Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/06/nerds-heart-ya-bracket-4.html)

9) Boy Toy (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/06/boy-toy-barry-lyga-book-review.html)

10) Down to the Bone (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/07/down-to-bone-mayra-lazara-dole-book.html)

11) Back Creek (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/07/back-creek-leslie-goetsch-book-review.html)

12) ADHD and Me (http://worducopia.blogspot.com/2009/08/adhd-me-blake-taylor-book-review.html)


Dewey's Books Challenge
I'm pretty sure I failed this one, but I can't tell because Dewey's blog is down and if there's another list of her books, I can't find it. I did read at least 2 out of the 5 I said I'd read:

1) Looking for Alaska

2) How I Live Now

I didn't read the others I'd planned on reading, but I may have read others? I'm just not sure. I also wish I'd found the time to participate in more of the mini-challenges. I did finish knitting my felted bag for the knit-along challenge (I still have to felt it, though), and I've knit hats for each of my sons since then and am now working on a pair of fingerless gloves for me, so clearly the knitting challenge was what I needed to get me going! All the more reason why I should have participated in more of them. Ah, well.



World Citizen Challenge

I completed the World Citizenship 101 level, which was one book (Kampung Boy). I had a few memoirs that would have worked for the challenge, but I'm disappointed that I didn't read any of the recommended books in the other categories.

Thoughts on Looking for Alaska

I won a copy of John Green's Looking for Alaska in a contest a while back and, having loved his Paper Towns, I was so excited to read it, that . . . well, that I promptly set it on my shelf to languish amongst all my other unread books for several months. As usual. But I left it on top!

Eventually I read the first 25 pages, wasn't blown away the same way I had been by Paper Towns, set it next to my bedside table, and read something else. A couple more months went by. I got back to it this weekend, having finished a book and being too sick and lazy to get out of bed to choose a new one. And you know what?

Once you get to the second half, it's wonderful.

Not that the first half is bad, if you're looking for a Friendless Geek Goes to Boarding School and Makes New Friends story. But, the dullness of protagonist Miles Halter--which is integral to the story--rubs off during the reading. Unlike Paper Towns's Quentin, whose world is irrevocably rocked by his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman right at the onset of the book, Miles kind of putzes around for a while. He makes friends who are mildly entertaining, he has a crush, he studies for classes. It's not boring, exactly, but it's not can't-stop-reading exciting, either.

And then the Big Thing happens, and all of a sudden it's a completely different book. The minor characters gain depth, Miles gets a backbone and loses it and finds it again, the emotional content grows from dull sparks to a full flame. And on it goes, a race to the finish, an ending that leaves the reader both satisfied and wanting more.

And so, Green did eventually live up to my expectations. It only took him 125 pages (and me, several months) to get there.

Sunday Salon: a review in the post-holiday lull

Christmas is over, the goose is getting fat!

(Wait, that's not quite right...)

We had a lovely holiday chez Worducopia, though not quite complete as I didn't make my mom's stuffing recipe (we had wild rice and mashed potatoes so I decided to cut back on the carbs). Therefore, tonight's dinner will be stuffing, stuffing, and more stuffing! Some may choose to have leftovers with their stuffing; others may just eat stuffing, and my sister's fudge.

The morning cough I'd had for a week finally worked up enough steam to blossom into a full-blown cold on the day after Christmas, so I spent much of the day in bed. I finished Thanksgiving at the Inn, which is less Thanksgiving-ish than it sounds and was the perfect post-Christmas read. I'd been saving it to read with my kids, but our read-aloud time isn't keeping up with our stack of books, so I decided to read it myself for now.

The grandfather Heath never knew has left Heath's father an inheritance with strings attached: Heath and his father must live in and care for the grandfather's inn and its longterm residents. Heath finds himself getting to know his grandfather post mortem, through the memories of this new makeshift family, while his relationship with his recovering-alcoholic father goes from rocky to rockier.

I'd call this a family read. The narrative voice and storyline seems aimed at the 9-12 year old range, but there are more issues (Dad's alcoholism, an autistic neighbor, adults with checkered pasts) than I'd want to hand over to middle grade readers to read alone.

Unfinished Friday: Lady MacBeth's Daughter

Unfinished Friday is a new meme over at The Boston Bibliophile--an opportunity for bloggers to share those books that, for whatever reason, we opted not to finish.

I was so sure that I was going to like Lady Macbeth's Daughter that I agreed to accept a copy for a Traveling to Teens review. I loved the idea of rewriting Shakespeare's Macbeth from the point of view of a lost daughter, raised by the infamous witches of Double-double-boil-and-trouble fame. Author Lisa Klein has a PhD in English Renaissance literature, so presumably the Macbeth angle wasn't just a clever hook. Her Ophelia, based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, was well-received.

As I started reading, my hopes remained high. Lisa Klein's writing has a nice flow, Albia and the other characters were multi-dimensional, and she set up the atmosphere of the setting so well.

Maybe too well.

MacBeth has always been Shakespeare's most depressing play to me, with its ominous prophesies, its corruption, its queen forever trying to wash the guilt off her hands. And, much like the way I can't enjoy a book after having seen the movie, knowing where things were supposed to be heading kept me from engaging with the original aspects of the story. Then there was Albia's "second sight." Mysticism is an important part of Shakespeare's play, so it needed to be in the novel, but it's generally not my cup of tea and in this case it made it hard for me to relate to the protagonist.

Every time I picked up the book, I felt bogged down in the darkness of Albia MacBeth's world. I gave myself permission to put it down once and for all on page 75, when I found myself dreading my reading time because it took me to a place I didn't want to go.

My conclusion? Klein accomplished exactly what she set out to do: convincingly recreate eleventh-century Scotland, and add another perspective to the famous Shakespeare tale that will bring young adults to an understanding beyond required reading. The Compulsive Reader, The Dreamer Reader, and Sarah's Random Musings loved it. It just wasn't for me.

The Sunday Salon

It's a cold, cold Sunday in Oregon--which means it's actually dipping below freezing like a real winter day. The perfect day to either cuddle up with a cat and a book, or to bake cookies. Or to flip through cookbooks and recipe cards, contemplating which cookies to bake until it's time to fix dinner.

I started reading Timothy Egan's The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire the Saved America while waiting to pick up my son yesterday, only to realize--just as Teddy Roosevelt was winning his wrestling match against Gifford Pinchot in Roosevelt's Governor's mansion--that it was due at the library that very day. I returned it last night, and with 143 holds on 24 copies, I'm not likely to get to the three-million-acre forest fire anytime soon. At least I read enough to know that next time my hold comes in, I should put it at the top of the stack.

Okay, now on to the cookies! Except I don't have butter. I need a recipe that calls for no more than 1/2 cup of butter, will make a large batch, and be ready within an hour. Any suggestions? ;-)