Possibly the strangest book I've ever read...

Happy New Year, readers!  I hope 2016 is off to a great start for everyone, and that you have all set your 2016 reading challenges on Goodreads!  I was pretty ambitious this year and set mine for 40 books.  If my usual pattern holds, a great deal of these will be read over the summer months!  I read 32 books this year (not counting all the Berenstain Bear, Curious George, Little Critter, etc. books...), so I have a lot of work to do to fit 8 more books in this year.

I am currently reading the book Going Bovine, by Libba Bray.  This book is in my classroom library and I had never read it before.  Since it won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, I had high expectations.  Are these being met?  Not really, and I'm not sure I understand why the book won this award.  

For starters, this book is just bizarre.  The summary on the back cover of the book about sums up the absolute strangeness of this story line:  "Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel / possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit...with the help of Gonzo, a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf, and a yard gnome who just might be the Viking god Balder,...".  Huh.  Just a little too far out there for me.

Libba Bray does have a distinct writing style and sense of humor, which carries over into her characters.  My favorite character is actually Balder, the yard gnome, who comes to life and is immortal.  He gets very angry when people steal him and take pictures of / with him in strange places.  When Cameron first meets Balder, Balder tells him, "You and your friends are not to take any unauthorized pictures of me.  I do not wish to show up on your Internet page posed in front of any national monuments or next to dubious signage with some obnoxious caption underneath.  I've had quite enough of that" (Bray 259).  HA.  A yard gnome with elevated diction makes me laugh.

Would I recommend this book?  Honestly, I'm not sure.  There is definitely some "mature" content and language, so that's certainly not for everyone.  Here is a book review published in The New York Times that may help you make your own decision.
  
Have any of you read this?  What was your opinion?  Do you have any other good recommendations for me to explore this year?  Leave them in the comments below!

How should I read it?

Hello, book lovers!  I hope all is well.  I've been putting off writing this post because...well...I honestly don't know how to frame my thoughts.  I'm currently reading Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, the author of the American classic To Kill A Mockingbird.  The book has been surrounded in controversy since before its July 2015 release, and I didn't know if I even wanted to read it.  After I finished What Alice Forgot, however, I got on our school's ebook library site, and Go Set A Watchman popped up on the screen first.  Since I was home sick and wasn't physically capable of making much of an effort (truth be told), I downloaded it.  I'm currently 66 % of the way through it and need to finish in the next two days, before it disappears from my Kindle.


First of all, if you need background on the controversy, here is a link to an opinion piece published in The New York Times this summer.  Click here for the publisher's write-up of the book (keep in mind they are trying to sell the book).  Perhaps most interestingly, here is an article about a bookstore that offered refunds to customers who felt duped after purchasing and reading the book.  Talk about scandal!

I really wanted to enjoy, like, perhaps just appreciate this book.  Harper Lee herself is such an enigma, having never published another book again after To Kill A Mockingbird.  I'm trying to view it as a first draft written by a young, idealistic author many years ago, but I'm having a hard time getting past some of her most basic errors, such as switching point-of-view between first- and third- person multiple times in the story.   Lee will be referring to Jean Louise by name (the main character) and then all of a sudden, she's in first person, using "I" and "me".  It also took a long, long time to get into the main conflict of the story.  I believe I was over a third of the way through the novel before conflict actually started happening.

One part I did find interesting related closely to our Honors English narratives, and the requirement to demonstrate inter-textuality by including a poem or research.  Lee did just that:

     "An absurd verse vibrated in Jean Louise's memory.  Where had she read it?
        By right Divine, my dear Augusta, 
        We've had another awful buster;
        Ten thousand Frenchmen sent below.
        Praise God from Whom all blessings
           flow.
      She wondered where Hester had pick up her information"  (Lee 62 %).

I'm going to work on finishing it, and I'll post my final thoughts at a later date.  Have any of you read it?  If so, what are your thoughts?  Or do you plan on reading it?  I'd love to know!

Spending time on Mars

Hello, fellow readers!  Welcome back to another installment of Mrs. Bross' reading blog.  I haven't been reading as quickly as I usually do because I have been getting acclimated to a new school year, but I'm currently reading a fantastic book, The Martian by Andy Weir.  I have to start by saying that this is totally out of my reading comfort zone.  I pretty much never choose to read anything science fiction, just because it isn't my genre of choice.  However, many of my students chose it for their summer reading books and they all seemed to enjoy it, so I thought I would give it a shot.  I'm so glad I did!  I'm about 55 % of the way through it and can't wait for the rest.

One of the main reasons I like the book so well is the personality of the main character.  When I first considered picking up this book, I thought, there's no way I can read a book about one guy stuck on Mars.  How boring!  Mark Watney is the astronaut stuck on Mars by himself, and the book is written in journal entries (logs) to whomever might someday read them, so essentially, it's like first person.  Watney is sarcastic, witty, and, I'll be honest, uses a lot of language that might be offensive to some readers.  For someone who is stuck on a large planet all by himself, he manages to stay fairly optimistic and hasn't yet stopped trying to stay alive.  

Something that I thought might be a deterrent for me while reading is all the numbers.  I am an English teacher and am much better with words than numbers (unless I am calculating a percent off sale at a clothing store), and I do find myself getting a bit overwhelmed at times by all the numbers.  Here's a sample passage to show you what I mean:

"I hope you like drilling.  The drill bit is 1 cm wide, the holes will be about .5 cm apart, and the length of the total cut is 11.4 m.  That’s 760 holes.  And each one takes 160 seconds to drill. 

Problem:  The drills weren’t designed for construction projects.  They were intended for quick rock samples.  The batteries only last 240 seconds.  You do have two drills, but you’d still only get 3 holes done before needing to recharge.  And recharging takes 41 minutes." (Weir 58%)

Makes my head spin a little, but like I said before, I'm still really enjoying the book and Mark Watney's fight for survival.  I'm also excited that there is a movie coming out on October 2!  Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, and I think he's a terrific actor, so it will be fun to see how he brings the character to life. One thing I noticed while watching the commercial and trailer is that they have given him a wife and a child which, I guess, makes his situation even more dire (he didn't have either in the book).  Here is the commercial for the movie:

Have you ever read a book that's way out of your comfort zone?  If so, how was it?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!  Or have you read The Martian?  Opinions?  Happy reading!

Welcome to English I and blogging!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to your English IA blogging experience!  My hopes for blogging this year are that you will find it a valuable way to share what you're reading, articulate your opinions and thoughts, have meaningful discussions with other readers, and develop your own, distinct writing voice.  Please follow the blog set-up instructions on the "blogger account set-up directions" sheet given to you in class, and please make sure to correctly enter your blog information in the Google form linked right here on my blog, off to the right.  This will ensure that your blog address and info is accessible to all my classes and anyone else who happens to access the spreadsheet, thus increasing your blog traffic and comments.  

You already know a little bit about me from the past few days in class, but I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to me as a reader.  I've been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember, but I occasionally have gone through periods where my independent reading wavered a bit (for example, all four years in college!).  In the past several years, I've made independent reading more of a priority, and I'm a much better person for it.  I primarily read before I go to sleep at night, just because that's about the only time during the day I have to myself (except in the summer, and then I read during my boys' nap times!). When choosing titles, sometimes I choose books that I know my students would be interested in, mainly so I can talk to you about your reading and make recommendations for you.  Other times, I choose titles that allow me just to escape reality for a while, or titles that are on The New York Times bestseller list, or titles that are recommended to me by a friend.  This summer, I read 11 books; not as many as I hoped to read, but respectable considering all factors involved (namely, two little boys running around all the time!).  Here were the books I read, along with the rating I gave each on Goodreads (in parentheses):

• Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani (* * *)
• The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton (* * * * *)
• Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline (* * * *)
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (* * * *)
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (* *)
• The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty (* * * *)
• All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (* * * *)
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (* * * *)
• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (* * * *)
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (* * * *)
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (* * *)

As you can see, there is a good mix of genres, from historical fiction to horror to magic realism, with some non-fiction thrown in for good measure.  Have you read any of these books?  How did / would you rate them?  Add your comments in the comment section below, and please give me any recommendations of books you think I might enjoy!  Happy reading!    

I Love Book Lists!

I love lists.  I love making my own lists.  I love crossing items off my list (in fact, I will add an item to my list that I have already done, just to cross it off).  I love "Top 10" lists.  And I really, really LOVE book lists.  Imagine my excitement when I came a link on MSN to a list titled "40 Classic Teen Books Every Adult Should Reread".  Here is the link.   Immediately I clicked and was transported back to my youth (far, far back at some points...like, to 1989).  Be forewarned:  there is a very good chance that most of my students probably will not have heard of 80 % of these books.  In fact, the introduction to the slide show reads, "Warning: This ain't your Hunger Games or Harry Potter slideshow. This is a tribute to the forgotten books from your childhood and teen years. The ones that may not have been made into movies, but were just as influential in their own special way."  I personally had read 16 out of 40, which isn't a great percentage, but of those 16, some of them honestly helped shaped my childhood as a reader.



This one actually doesn't need much of an explanation.  This is the second time I can remember crying in school about something I was reading (the first time was during Where the Red Fern Grows, which is also on the list).  This is the gold standard to which I hold all tear-jerkers to this day.



This is the first time I can remember reading about people who were immortal.  Honestly, I don't remember much about the characters, but I have memories of staying up at night, contemplating the ideas of death and immortality.  A little heavy for a sixth-grader, huh?!



I don't think I can put into words how much this book affected me.  Every kid (as far as I know) has either been told by a sibling they are adopted or has pondered the possibility of being adopted, even if it's a completely, 100 % irrational possibility (it usually is).  In this book, Janie is 15 years old and is starting to think about getting her driver's license.  The problem?  She has no birth certificate.  And thus the story begins.  Why doesn't she have one?  Is she really who she always thought she was?

Seeing these books on the list made me want to pick them up and read it them all over again.  Since the title of the list was "40 Classic Teen Books Every Adult Should Reread," I guess the purpose was achieved!  I think it would be really interesting to look at them from my perspective now.

What is a book from your childhood that you would like to go back and reread?  What books do you read now that you think your parents should read?

Happy reading!  :)

It's done...and I'm happy about it.

What's done, you ask?  For those of you who've been following my blog (or listening to my semi-rants in class), you know what I'm talking about.  I finished all three books in The Maze Runner series.  And no, I will not be reading the prequel.  I've had enough.  Why, you ask?  I can't entirely put my finger on it.  Weird, I know....but it just didn't sit well with me.  

Let me start with the positives (and there were several, despite my negative tone in the first paragraph).  The story line was super creative, complex, and well-developed.  After finishing the series, I could tell that the author, James Dashner, knew where he was going to end up when the last book finished, and I appreciate that from a writer.  The characters were round, if not somewhat dynamic, and I especially appreciated Minho's sarcasm throughout.  He and Frypan were my favorites.  The story was overflowing with conflict, which leads me into my biggest problem with the series.  

IT HAD SO MUCH CONFLICT.  I know, I know...stories are supposed to have conflict and lots of it.  A story without conflict is like a picnic without ketchup, Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes, Halloween without Reese's Cups (why am I using so many food references?  I think I'm hungry).  I get it.  But I felt like this book put me through the emotional wringer without a lot of reward or payoff.  I don't want to spoil the series for those of you who haven't read it, so I will say there was a little bit of payoff, but for the most part, it just made me sad.  The world in which they live is so broken, depressed, unhealthy, and cynical.  I had a great quote marked that I was going to put in this post, but unfortunately my digital library loan ended and I lost my highlights (the down side of e-books).  A vast majority of the population has this horrible disease called The Flare, which basically eats your brain and turns you into a crazy, cannibalistic animal.  Ugh.  

Would I recommend this series?  It depends what you're looking for in a book and what type of genre you like.  I think a lot of people would (and do) enjoy reading the story; it just wasn't for me.  

What am I reading now?  A book called The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I really like her other books, especially Speak, which I am sure many of you are familiar with, and this one has been getting a lot of buzz and recognition, so I thought I would try it.  The cheerfulness factor isn't much of a step up from The Maze Runner, as it's about a 17-year-old girl who is trying to deal with her veteran dad's PTSD, but Hayley's voice (she's the main character) is distinct and entertaining.  For example, when she is trying to figure out what kind of text message to send to her friend, with whom she is quite upset, she says, "I sent a simple smiley face, because my phone did not have a smiley face that was wrapping her hands around her own throat and beating her head against a wall" (89).  HA.



What are you reading right now?  Anything good?  Any recommendations for me after this one is done?  Happy reading!