My Thoughts: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

With just 5 days to go till the end of the Once Upon a Time Challenge I still have 2 books to read!!!! Life has been chaotic and I haven't been getting in my normal amount of reads, last week we had an open door week at school - any teacher can go and walk in and observe another teachers lesson (stressful), I had to organise and take 200 kids on a trip and write 26 reports on pupils in my form group (I see them for 15 mins a day and only teach 2 of them). Plus I uped the amount of time I'm spending at the gym.

I have the biggest book pile to tackle, the 6 weeks summer holiday is going to be a book a day mission to try and control the ever growing stack of books.

Over the weekend I finished Inkheart, and boy it was great.
Synopsis: Meggie is wokeon one night to find a strange man standing outside her bedroom window. Awakening her day he invites the man in and they go off for a private chat.
After that night Meggie's life makes a massive change, her and bookloving bookbinding father go off to an book obsessed aunt in the country. Meggie discovers her father can read characters out of a book, and he is hunted down and kidnapped by the very creatures he once read out of a book. And then the adventure begins...

What I liked: The fairy tale style, made me feel like a kid again. It also has a really positive approach to reading.

What I didn't like: It made my mental tbr pile grow, each chapter starts with a quote from another novel, it made me want to read Peter Pan again, The Princess Bride, and The Jungle Book. Seriously, I enjoyed it all.

Challenges:
Once Upon a Time
YA 2009
A-Z (Title)
999 (YA)

My Thoughts: Sabriel by Garth Nix (audio book)

Just spent the last hour and a half playing solitaire on the computer so I could finish listening to Sabriel on my ipod. This is only the second full audiobook I have managed to get through, but unlike the first this was no struggle.
I first picked this up in paperback a few years ago after a friend raved about it and I have to say I didn't get very far. So when I saw this was avaliable as a audio book I thought I'd give it one last try. And I'm so glad I did!

Sabriel, for those of you who do not already know, is an Abhorsen. Well, she suddenly finds herself to be when the previous Abhorsen, her father, is trapped in death.
She has to travel over the wall which protects the world from the Old World and go in search of a way to save her father's life. Once their she is greeted by many things, including a magical cat who once was an evil spirit and has been rendered a slave cat as both a punishmet and a method of control.
She also goes on to meet a handsome youngman trapped as a statue for 200 years who turns out to be King of the country. Romance blossoms. All fairly fairy tale like till this point.
The pace and tension speeds up as Sabriel has to find a way to fight the dark force which threatens to over both the old and new world.
A very dark and pacy novel meant for older teens I would assume 13+ As an audiobook, read by Tim Curry, I was hesitant at first when he attempted to sound the voice of a scared teenage girl, but after this point he is fabulous. The voices of Mogget the cat is particuarly brilliant and resounding. This was my dark bedtime story each night, making me remember being read to as a child.
Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
999 (YA )
2009 YA Challenge

My Thoughts: The Giver by Lois Lowry

I wouldn't normally ahve picked this book up as the cover and size of the font suggest that it is for children of around the age of 8-9, I prefer books aimed at older teens for my YA selection, so I'm glad this come up as a goodreads monthly read.
The novel is based in what appears to be a utopian world, there is no pain, class or races, no hunger, jealousy or need. Yet when you delve deeper you also discover that there is no free will, love or truth.
The novel features Jonas a young boy who is assigned the job of the Reciever of Memories. He is trained by the old Reciever who passes on memories of what the people of the community used to experience. It is only with these memories that you truly realise what this community has lost - great things like love, freedom and playing in the snow and also the things we'd like to abolish from the world like war, hunger and loss. Jonas' job is to keep these memories so no-oe else in the community has to experience pain, but you also wonder if it is so the community remains easy to control.

This is a great read for both adults and those over 11 (there are some big issues to deal with), and highly recommended, it's a book that will certainly leave you thinking.
Challenges:
2009 YA Challenge
999 (YA)
A-Z (Authors)

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey

Pages read total: 938 (+ 66 pages of picture books)
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, An Elgy for Easterly, Mrs Biddlebox (pic book), The Viewer by Gary Crew and Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey
Total reading time: approx 15 1/2 hours.


My final book of the read-a-thon (I'm going to read a short story in the last hour).
I saved this book especially for the read-a-thon and I'm really glad that I did.

Beauty Sleep is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Aurore as we know has two spells put on her as a baby, one that in her sixteenth year she will prick herself with a needle and live no more, the second a countering spell that says that the needle will send her to sleep for a hundred years till a prince awakens her with a kiss.
In this version Aurore is a tom boy, not a typical princess. Whe her parents allow her outside into the garden at 10 years old for the first time she immediately falls to gardening. As the years pass she happily (against her mothers wishes) gardens, builds fires, talks to the common people and gets a tan (something a princess isn't supposed to have).
On her sixteenth birthday the kingdom is suddenly plagued with disaster - the sky rains blood, death comes, wolfs hound the streets. Thinking this is all her fault: a result of her fate, Aurore runs away to an enchanted forest where her true fate is to be played out.
A great book to read for those who love fairytales retold.

Challenges:
2009 YA Challenge
999 (YA)
Once Upon a Time III

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: What I Was by Meg Rosoff

Pages read total: 348
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff
Total reading time: approx 5 hours


What I Was is a teenage love story with a twist. Kipper is sent to boarding school in East Anglia (not too far from where I grew up), stuck in a small market town near the sea and a typical (of books) fierce boarding school he looks for an escape.
One dreary morning he abandons the cross country run and meets Finn, a young boy living alone in a shack by the sea. He has that first flush of teenage love - a love of longing and not sexual - and wants to become like Finn, to be free to do as he pleases and to fend for himself.
This is the third Rosoff book I have read and the third one that I have loved.
Challenges:
2009 YA Challenge
999 (YA Fiction)

Well I've had dinner now and it'll probably be dark here soon, can't believe the time is passing so quickly.

Going to decide what to read next and go visit a few bloggers

My Thoughts: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

I came across this novel when I read Raidergirls review and quickly added it to the reservation list at the local library. I seem to be slowing down with my reading at the moment and have a rather large book on the go at the moment, so needed something easy to read to give me a sense of achievement, and this was just the thing.

The City of Ember is a post-apoclyptic novel, set in a largely recongnisable world. The city is a city of darkness, there is no moon or sun, and the electricity across the city is turned out each night at the same time. The food is largely tinned vegetables as there appears to be no animals except for bugs. Once this was a prosperous city, yet the stocks are now depleted, a tin of peaches is now something that can only be savoured in the minds of the elderly, and scraps of paper are saved and deemed as precious.
Doon and Lina, two teens who have just entered the workforce are concerned about the depleted stocks and the power cuts which are becoming more and more recent.
In Lina's flat, a damanged set of instructions are found and the pari set out to discover a new world for the inhabitants of the city.

The City of Ember is written for a 9+ audience, and it is important to remember that whilst reading, as many things seem a little to easy. I will be checking out the next book to see how their lives pan out.

Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
2009 Young Adult Book Challenge
End of the World II

My Thoughts: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman writes another corker. The Graveyard Book manages to draw you back to the childhood sensation of discovering a new world hidden in the depths of a few hundred pages.
The book is about Nobody Owens (Bod), escaping from murder at the age of one, Bod fines sanctuary in a Graveyard. The Ghosts and The Honour guard provide him with a family and a safe place to grow up, away from those who need to come to finish him off. As Bod grows older his obedience frays and he begins to explore the town around his graveyard placing himself in danger. The danger follows his scent, leading to a climactic ending.

Neil Gaiman managed to create a wonderful sense of place in this novel, the creepy graveyard transforming to become a place of warmth, love and security. The book is classified in our library as Young Adult, but this is a book which deserves to faind many many readers.

Challenges:
The Dream King 2/6
A-Z (Title)
The YA book Challenge 2/12
999 (New Fiction) 5/81
NaJuReMoNoMo 5/5

Reviews:
Bart
Stuff Dreams are Made On
Things Mean A Lot

A Neil Gaiman Double Whammy!

So much for an afternoon marking, I devoured 2 Neil Gaiman books, both for the RIP III Challenge and both were great.

I've read Coraline before, but last time it just kind of passed me by, this time I was in the right mood and I loved it.

Coraline is a modern fairytale. She is a young girl living in a house, with two overly busy and unattentive parents. The holidays are dragging and Coraline's life as an explorer is starting to get a bit boring. In the back of their flat is a locked door which leads to a brick wall. Well, being a fairytale we know that doorways such as these only lead to danger, and that our heroine will have to go and explore.

Behind the locked door, is Coraline's other family, all scarily with buttons for eyes (despite being grown up, one of the pictures I had to cover as I read the page, her eyes were just too freaky!). This alternative world is created by the mother, who appears to steal children's souls. And that's the intention she has for our main character, but as this is a fairytale we watch Coraline in her war against this adult.

I want to get the graphic novel version of this in the near future.

Other Reviews:

Booknut

An Adventure in Reading

The second Gaiman book was a gorgeous graphic novel which I spotted in the library and had never even heard of. Creatures of the Night includes 2 stories, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.

In The Price the narrators home is basically a home for stray cats, all manner of cats turn up to stay in the house, and all settle in fine. Until the Black Cat arrives, he sleeps on the porch but every night he is covered in cuts and welts. Once brought into the house to protect him from whatever is harming him, everything goes wrong for the family, from losing work, to accidents and srguments. When he is returned back outside, his owner sets out to discover just what it is that is attacking him.

The Daughter of Owls is a strange little tale, about an abandoned child believed to be the daughter of an owl. She is feared by the villagers and banished to live in the old convent. As with all feared female children she grows up to be a beauty and her actions cause havoc for the village which rejected her.

The pictures in this book are stunning, not at all like cartoons. The picture I really want to show you I can't find on the net, and I have no digital camera or scanner to capture it with.

My Thoughts: Blankets by Craig Thompson

I picked this up from the library the other day, the cover was too beautiful to leave it behind despite having to carry the big 500 odd pages home (a good 40min walk). I was a bit daunted by the size of it, but I read it in a couple of hours.

The graphic novel deals with two different parts of his life, his childhood and his relationship with his first love. As a child he feels he doesn't belong anywhere, at school he is bullied because of his appearance and his family life. At home he feels secluded, living so far away from town, his parents strive for an unmaterialistic life, leaving the shildren to share a bed in a room which is either freezing or roasting hot. The children, desperate for their own space fight over the bed and the blankets, but also forge a connection in this small space. His devoutly religious parents send him to a Sunday School which seems to work by scaring the beejezzers out of kids.

As he grows older we see him slip into the second stem of the novel, his friendship and later relationship with Raina. Raina is cool, knows her own mind and popular, but behind the facade she is trying to hold together her crumbling family, she has become the person who everyone relies on, and she is looking for someone to cling to.

These two come together in that intense first relationship that I'm sure the majority of people can identify with, romantic and draining. Again the image of the blanket and the shared bed come into play. Of a night their relationship, even before it is sexual is one of security and need, but also one which brings feeling of worry and frustration as he is struggling against the teachings of the church.

The images are stunning, I loved the use of the patterns and dreamlike scenes as well as the scenes with his brother and Raina's family. This would make a great read for older teens and adults alike.

Challenges:

YA Challenge

Around the World

Other Bloggers thoughts:
Athena
Jabberwock

Sunday Salon: A Review - Ruby Red by Linzi Glass

Well, in my earlier post I claimed I would be spending the afternoon starting Gut Symmetries, I had a killer headache but attempted to start it and quickly put it down, it seemed very sci-fi and like it needed a lot of concentration, which wasn't something I could give it this afternoon. So I picked up the next Carnegie short-listed book that I had on the pile, Ruby Red.
I'd picked this book up from the library ages ago and had forgotten what it was supposed to be about, I took a quick glance at the cover and thought it would be something light-hearted. I was definately to be proven wrong. Ruby is a girl living in South Africa during apartheid, her parents are wealthy, white and opposed to the forced division and inequality between the races. Her father is a lawyer, who works to protect Black people who have been treated unfairly as well as a member of the underground political group looking to change the views of society. Her mother owns an art gallery, in which any art, if it is good, is displayed and sold, the colour of the artists skin is not judged just the work they produce.
Ruby, attends a private school and has to keep her home life and school life completely seperate, no friends can come over for tea, no sleep overs etc, it is far to dangerous to let people know about her parents politics.
Two boys enter Ruby's life who affect it forever. The young black artist Julian, who has to move from the black township to live secretly inside her house, and her new boyfriend an Affrikans white boy, whose family believe deeply in the segregation of the two races.
Ruby gains love, understanding and identity but loses friends, her education and a whole lot more.
This YA novel is very thoughtful and well written, the politics surrounding apartheid are shown clearly for a young audience who grew up after it had finished, and who probably have very little knowledge of it aside from Nelson Mandela. Ruby is believable, the only part I felt that could have been stronger was the depiction of her private school, it seemed too cliched.

Challenges:
Unread Authors 5 of 6
YA Challenge Book 8 of 12

If you have read this book please leave a link to your review here and I'll add it too my post.

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts on Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor and Challenge Round Up

This is one of those novels that I've always been aware of but somehow never got around to reading it. I picked it up in a second-hand sale the other day and realised that it would be perfect as the last book for the Southern Challenge.

The novel is about the Logan family, living in Mississippi in the 193o's. Times are hard because of the forthcoming depression, and because of the continuing tension between the black and white communities. The Logan families are one of the few black families with their own land, this is resented by both the black and white families.

The story is centred aroud the four Logan children, having being brought up by indepent parents, who believe evryone should be equal, they have a hard time understanding the unequal society that they are living in. As the novel progresses more and more problems arise between the two communities.

This novel deals with the racism alive in that society, as well as they way the law and politics was shaped to benefit white people.

Obviously as a kids book this was a fairly easy read, and a easy way to spend a windy Sunday afternoon. I'm now of for lasagne, a couple of episodes of 24 and maybe a film for the evening. This week I'm going to finish Theft: A Love Story, Bellefleur and hopefully start Frankie and Stankie. What have you be reading today?

Challenges:

Southern Reading Challenge Book 3 of 3!

Young Adult Reading Challenge Book 7 of 12

Classics Challenge (Kids classic) Book 5 of 6

Unread Authors Challenge Book 3 of 6

20th Century Project (1976) Book 10 of 100

Reading Around the World

If you have read this book, please leave a link to your review, or your comments, I will link in any reviews added.

The Southern Challenge Round-Up

I finished it with 5 days to go, which seemed unlikely this time last week. My intentions (Gone with the Wind, The Awakening, Cold Moutain and The Sound and the Fury), seemed to go amiss during the last few month, with me only managing to read one from the original list. I think I ended up with a good mix though, one classic, one contemporary fiction and a YA classic book (The Secrets We Keep, Gone With the Wind, and Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry). While I enjoyed all of them in their own way Gone With the Wind was by far the best, and a book I definately plan to go back and read again.

Looking forward to next years selection, Maggie!

My Thoughts: The Garbage King by Elizabeth Laird

After the mamouth task of getting Gone with the Wind finished I fancied something dead easy, that I would finish quickly and I would love. I picked this book up for just 10p in the library sale this week and just assumed I would love it because of the topic.

The book is about 2 little boys, whose lives would never had crossed if they had both not run away. Dani, comes from a rich family, his mother dotes on him, but his father is very demanding and Dani just can't live up to his fathers expectations. When Dani's mother travels to England for an operation Dani decides he can't face the punishment his father has given him so he decides to runaway. Having always been rich just one afternoon on the streets has him quacking in his boots.

Mamo, has grown up living in a shack, his mum bringing home just enough money to get by each week. She suddenly dies, and an 'uncle' appears telling Mamo he has a job for him to do. This 'uncle' is really someone who sells children. Faor a while Mamo lives in the coutryside with his new violent employer until he can face no more. He runs back to the city.

On his first night in the city he spends the night curled up next to Dani. While Mamo clearly understands what he needs to do to live on the street, Dani doesn't have a clue. To help them survive they join a gang, almost a little family, where they beg and work to get money to feed the group.

Now, I was expecting this to be one of those heart wrenching novels, I was expecting tears streaming down my face but the story just didn't grab me. The situation seemed to forced and the characters not fully formed. However, this book got 4 and a half stars on Amazon so it may just be me.

Challenge:

YA Challenge Book 6 of 12

Reading around the World: Ethiopia

My Thoughts: Apache by Tanya Landman

My second read of the Carnegie shortlist, and another fantastic read, another to be added to the recommended reads wall in my classroom.
Apache is a novel about a teenage girl living in an Apache tribe, having seen her young brother killed brutally by the Mexicans and having lost both of her parents, she seeks to avenge her brothers killers. Although female warriors are not the norm, there are no rules governing that a female annot become a warrior if she can pass the tests, so she takes the trials and does well fighting beside the men in bloody and violent battles.
Not everyone within her tribe is happy with her path as a warrior, seeing it as against the nature of women. As a result she comes up against battles whilst at home and away. Keste a local youth is enraged when she becomes a warrior, his battle against her causes rifts and violence, and the unravellings of the secret of her fathers death.
As the novel progresses the Apache tribes no longer have to fear just the Mexicans but with amore brutal degree the white men, who have come to claim the land, and who do not follow the rules when it comes to battles.

Landman tells the tale with a sparse language, she does not jumble the page with countless adjectives and poetic sentences, this created the voice of the character for me, giving her depth. I assume in America the tales and history of the Apache are taught in schools, and a lot of what is in this book about their lives and culture isn't new to an American readership. I, however, enjoyed reading about their culture, in particular their spiritual beliefs. The battles are described from a first person account so may be deemed by some as too violent for a childrens book, but I have read books about life in the treches to kids at school which are just as violent.

Challenges:
Young Adult Challenge Book 5 of 12
Unread Authors Challenge Book 1of 6

Other Reviews
Table Talk's excellent review here
If you have reviewed this book please leave a link to your review and I'll add it in.

My Thoughts: Gatty by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Today had the most stunning weather, I enjoyed it by doing a tiny bit of gardening and sunbathing with this book. I managed to read the whole book in pretty much one go as it was such a good read.
Gatty is a land girl, with no one in the world except for her cow, Hopeless and her 7 chickens. One day she is called upon out of the blue to be a chambermaid to Lady Gwyneth, because of her wonderful singing voice. Lady Gwyneth believes that Gatty's voice will protect her, and those she is taking with her on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The voyage holds many problems, adventures and tales, as well as transforming Gatty from a young restless girl to a well rounded young woman.

This is one of the books I'll be putting up on my wall of recommended reads at school. Its a fantastic tale, well written and well steeped in history. Its full of historical and religious contexts but as Gatty has led a fairly secluded life they need to be explained to her, and thus to the reader who may have little knowledge of this time and of religion (especially in England where RE tends not to focus on Christianity from what I remember of school). Definately well worth a read.
This is the first of the Carnegie shortlist for 2008 that I am planning on reading, then winner has been announced but I like to read as many of them as can. As this didn't win I'm expecting the winner to be great.

Challenges:

YA Challenge Book 4 of 12

July Bookblowout Book 1

If you have read this book leave a link to your post here and I'll put it in my post

Sunday Salon and My Thoughts on Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson

England has been so sunny and hot this week, as its the first week of the summer holidays I've been able to go out sunbathing, go to the beach and spend time in many beer gardens working on my tan, and I've also managed to get some books read. I finished this week: Stuart: A Life Backwards, Persepoilis 2, The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning, The Secrets We Keep and Journey to the River Sea (see below for my thoughts). The heat has definately gone to my head as I also joined 3! challenges!!!

In this coming week I need to finish a couple of bookrings and try and start reading some Joyce Carol Oates stuff.

Journey to the River Sea has been one of those kids books I have wanted to read since it came out as it has a gorgeous cover, won the Smarties Gold Awards and got great reviews.

The book is abpout an orphan who has to move to Brazil to live with her family over there. As with most orphans in books (and there are loads) the adopted family is mean and has taken on the orphan as a way to swindle money. Being set in Brazil we are promised adventures up the Amazon River, and with the two new friends she meets also orphans).

I'm not sure if I expected to much but I just thought this book was okay, it started off fairly slowly and I never got a sense of tension and adventure. I like kids books to take me back to being a kid, but this one didn't do this. If you want adventure in the Amazon you would do far better to read City of the Beasts bu Isabel Allende.

Challenges:

July Book Blow Out book 12

Young Adult Challenge book 3 0f 12

If you have reviewed this book please leave a link to your review here and I'll tag it on.

My Thoughts: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi & a book blowout meme

Last month I had my first introduction to graphic novels with Dream Country by Neil Gaiman, Persepolis showed me what a Graphic Novel can do with a serious topic. Persepolis is about a little girl growing up in Iran during political change. Life goes from being free to having strict rules forced upon the people. Marji's parents generally tell her the truth, she is allowed to hear vivid details about the torture of prisoners, they take her to demonstrations and she reads political and marxist texts for her bedtime stories. Coming from a very political family she finds it extremely difficult to be the obedient little girl which is required under the new regime.

I found this book extremely easy to read and a very powerful look at life in Iran, I have read books about Iran before but this one is very powerful in it's message. I thought that the torture scene was particuarly hard hitting. I'm not sure if this is because the image is below to reiterate what is happening or because it is seen from the eyes of a child.

I shall be reading Persepolis: The Return in the next week.

Other Reviews:

Rebecca's Reads

Corinne

Raidergirl3

Marg

If you have reviewed this book please leave a link to your review and I'll add it on.

Challenges:

The Graphic Novel Challenge Book 2 of 3

Young Adult Challenge Book 3 of 12

July Book Blowout Book 5

Mrs S has set this mini-meme for the July Book Blowout

The Where’s your book set? meme
Here’s how it works - just answer some or all of the following questions about the book you are currently reading (or just finished if you are between books). You can either post your answers on your blog and link us up using Mr Linky below - or post your answers here in the comments.
Here’s the questions:
1. Title and author of the book

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
2. What year is the book set in?

1980-1984
3. What happened on this day in that year? Go to google and type in the date ie 13 July 1952 and see if you can find a news item for that day

July 13, 1980 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
4. Where is your book set?

Iran
5. Have you visited that place before? If yes tell us something about your trip. If no, look the location up on google and tell us an interesting fact about the city/country.

Cyrus the Great's "Cylinder", found during excavations in Babylon, was inscribed with the first known declaration of human rights.

Elam, the oldest known civilisation in Iran, was founded in 1250 BC.

Cuneiform writing, a form of picture writing, was used in Iran over three thousand years ago.

My Thoughts: Mirrormask by Neil Gaiman

I grabbed this book whilst I was in the library today, I then came home and read it all in one go. This novella is about 15 year old Helena, she is a member of a circus and like all teenagers she wants out, she wants to be 'normal' and live in the real world.

When her Mum gets sick, Helena is drawn into a dream world full of flying books, winged hungry cats, police beetles and Valentine her side kick through this world. Quickly Helena realises she much prefers her old life and has to go on a quest to return herself to her family.

This was a strange little book, every page is illustrated with either cartoon like pictures which we would expect in a graphic novel or pictures from the film Mirrormask, it's like it can't quite make up it's mind which it wants to be. Personally I much prefered the graphic novel-esqe pictures. The story was interesting enough, well written, I wasn't gripped though, maybe it was because it was a novella but things seemed to move a bit too fast. One minute Helena has entered a strange world, the next she is a Princess eating tea with the Queen (I actually went back to see if I'd skipped a page).

Challenge

Young Adult Challenge Book 2 0f 12

July Book Blowout Book 4

If you have reviewed this book, leave a link to the review in the comments and I'll add it to the bottom of my review

Sunday Salon and My Thoughts on Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Another fairly busy week but I managed to finish 2 books so I'm back up to my average speed. This week is the final week at school before the holidays and rather than helping us teachers relax they shove everything in at once. It's not all bad though, I off to see Twelfth Night at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park (lets hope the weather has improved by then).

I spent my of my reading time on Stardust this week, my first Neil Gaiman of many, I'm sure. It was lovely to come home and disappear into a fairytale world for an hour or so.

Twilight - Stephanie Meyer

Yesterday I started Twilight (it got finished this morning in bed), yes I know I'm probably the last person to read this but at least I got around to it eventually.

For those few of you who haven't read this, the book is about a teenage girl, Bella, who has just moved from sunny Phoenix to dreary Forks, apparently the most rainy place in America. In this small town Bella stands out and everyone wants to get to know her. Everyone, that is, except her lab partner, Edward. Edward and his brothers and sisters are aloof, they stand out, they are stunningly beautiful, they are awfully pale, they don't make friends and they prove a great danger to the curious Bella. And you guessed it, they are vampires! Bella, decides to fall in love with Edward and he with her, and off the adventure begins.

I loved this novel. Yes it's predictable. Yes it's a typical YA romance/Gothic drama. Yes it is like a million other books I read as a teenager. Yet there was something about this book that stood out. It was fairly well written, they avoided too many stereotypes. Most importantly it made me feel like a teenager again - in a good way. It also reminded me how overpowering your first love can be, to the point where it is all consuming.

I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I think this is going to be the first book we read for the reading group I'm setting up at school.

Challenges
Young Adult Challenge 2008 Book 1 of 12
July Book Blowout Book 3

Reading Around the World - American States
I also joined Becky's Stephanie Meyer Mini Challenge, 1 book down 1 to go

Other Reviews:
Me, My Book and the Couch
A Striped Armchair

Marg
If you've reviewed this book please leave you link to your review and I'll link it to the page.

Challenges! Challenges! The Young Adult Challenge

Yes, another challenge but this is one that should be fairly easy to complete as I tend to read a lot of YA books over the summer. Joy has a challenge for the whole of 2008 to read 12 YA books and link your posts to Mr Linky over at her site.
I'm not going to come up with a list as I'll only change it.

Books I've read for this challenge:

1 Twilight , Meyer

2 Mirrormask, Gaiman

3 Journey to the River Sea, Ibbotson

4 Gatty, Crossley-Holland

5 Apache, Landman

6. The Garbage King, Laird

7. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Taylor

8. Ruby Red, Glass

9. Blankets, Thompson (Graphic Novel)

10. Goodbye Tsugumi, Yoshimoto

11. Three Shadows, Pedrosa (Graphic Novel)

12. Varjak Paw, S.F Said

13. Rabbit Proof Fence, Pilkington

My Thoughts: A Pure Swift Cry, Siobhan Dowd

I have meant to read this book for a few years now, but never quite got around to it (like many other books) so when I saw it on the Notable Books challenge I added it to my list of challenge books, and I'm really glad I did.

This book is categorised as young adult fiction but is definately part of the cross over genre.

The book is set in Ireland, in a small rural village. The Talent family are busy coming to terms with their mother's recent death and the relative abandonment of their father. Shell may be only 15 but she is the one left responsibe for running the house, feeding her father and acting like a mother to her younger brother and sister. The occupants in the village mey feel sorry foe Shell and her family but they offer little to help, usually just sympathetic glances. When Father Rose arrives in the village Shell thinks she has found a friend and Jesus, but this relationship is not to last long. Shell then retreats into finding comfort with the local choir boy, Declan Ronan, a child who doesn't quite follow with the rules of Catholicism. A scandal occurs with Shell lft smack bang in the middle of it.

As an adult reading this your able to look on and see the mistake she is making, and see the reality of situation that she is too naive to be able to read herself. A great story about growing up and dealing with what life throws at you.

5/5

If you have read this book feel free to comment or leave a link to your own review.