April 23, 2008: Books: I’ve been meaning to do this for 3 months! I’ve been trying to read more even while school is in session and I’ve also been curious just how fast I go through books (John claims I’m a slow reader, mostly because he has no patience as I browse and flip through books happily in Barnes & Nobles, Bookman’s, and Border’s). I love to read and here’s just what I’ve been reading in the last few months. After this I’ll try to do a monthly summary. My goal is 48 books this year (four books a month — do-able). 
January:
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I love this book and it’s one of the few books I can still say I love even after all these years. I first read it when I was a young adolescent (I graduated to YA books pretty early) and I’ve always liked fairy tales. I admit that when Robin McKinley writes specifically for a YA audience, her books seem to lack the magic that her other books which she wrote with no audience in mind (or with an adult audience) and was later labeled as YA have. This book is a take on the fairytale “Donkeyskin”. I remember being pretty shocked at the incest and rape in it (they aren’t overt or violent or gratuitous, but it does happen), so be warned. However, the way the character heals herself from her trauma makes for a wonderful story.
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I really enjoy Charlaine Harris’s books. I’ve found the shelves littered with urban fantasy nowadays (says the author who likes writing urban fantasy herself) and many of them seem like clones of one another. Charlaine Harris’s books really stand up above the rest. Her Sookie Stackhouse series is one of my current favorites. This one deals with less supernatural stuff, but there’s plenty of steamy romance. 
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I have been trying to get into Mercedes Lackey’s books for about 8 years now. I’ll pick one up, read it halfway, get bored, and move on. This one is probably the closest I’ve gotten — I finished it, and it was interesting, but…meh. But this was definitely better than the last book I read with “Knight” in the title (that one had the weakest-willed, most annoying heroine ever). In One Good Knight, the knight is a bad ass girl.
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February:
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Audio books are like the best thing ever. This time the audiobook saved my sanity when I was driving to Scottsdale to visit my Mom and there was construction on the highway system and I was stuck on the highway for 2 hours (the worst thing is that I was on one of those — what do you call it? — it connected I-101 to I-202, and it was one of those really tall, above-the-ground highways so there were no exits to take and I was just stuck on it waiting for the traffic to move), so I got to giggle at the narrator doing a Scottish accent for the Nac Mac Feegles. If you like audiobooks, I suggest this one. The Scottish accent is so worth it. 
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John would always turn off my audiobooks in favor of 80’s rock when he got into the car. After battling over the radio for a couple of weeks and deciding if I hear Queen and Abba one more time (and I actually don’t mind their music, but again and again, anyone would go crazy.  ) I had better seek an alternative. Terry Pratchett is one of the few authors that both of us like, and I remember John saying he liked the Johnny books when he was younger (go figure ), so when I found Only You Can Save Mankind at the library, I did a happy dance. Out of the three in the trilogy, which can be read in any order (although the bag lady that’s important in Johnny and the Bomb first makes an appearance in Johnny and the Dead) this one is the one I liked the least, though.
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I first was introduced to Philip Pullman and the His Dark Materials series by my best friend in middle school. And as a middle schooler, I loved these books. Re-reading them now — prompted by the movie that came out — I don’t see what I loved about them. There are a lot of things that annoyed me now that I breezed through when I was younger. I could either see this as “growth” or the fact that I’ve become jaded after going through a Creative Writing degree and working on my own fiction for so long. However, even when I was younger, I remember liking his Sally Lockhart series much better, so if you’re in the library and you see Ruby in the Smoke, pick it up. You may like it. I did.
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March:
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This is my favorite Johnny book.
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Yeah…well, I finished it. I usually really like renditions of Beauty and the Beast, one of my favorite fairytales. Robin McKinley’s Beauty is my favorite thus far. But, I just couldn’t get into this one.
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I have to admit that Philip Pullman’s idea of dimensional travel and dark matter and all that is really interesting. It’s one of the things that still strike me about the His Dark Material’s books.
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2:59 pm | Category: Books, Journal |  | 
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I’m waiting (impatiently) to get it from the library.