written word

I've had several friends ask what the best book I read this year was, so I thought I'd just publish the list.  :)  Here's what I read in 2015 (that I remembered to put in my spreadsheet) and what I thought of it!  If you're looking for a good read for 2016, it's a good list.  Keep in mind that I mostly read Juvenile Fiction and Young Adult Fiction, so most of these are pretty light, easy reads.

True (...sort of)	Katherine Hannigan	368	January 2015		yes. good for younger readers, too
My Body Fell Off!	B.J. Rowley	208	January 2015		yes; Mormon-y
Silver Hawk's Revenge	B.J. Rowley	256	January 2015		"
Missing Children	B.J. Rowley	256	January 2015		"
Which Witch?	Eva Ibbotson	231	February 2015		sure, but make sure they know it's kind of weird :) and for younger readers
Ida B. ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World	Katherine Hannigan	246	February 2015		yes. sadder than expected
Savvy	Ingrid Law	342	February 2015		I think I want to buy it.
Say Uncle... and Aunt	Suzy Pizzuti	320	March 2015		sure. silly romance :)
Cinder	Marissa Meyer	387	February 2015		yes
Scarlet	Marissa Meyer	454	February 2015		yes
Cress	Marissa Meyer	550	February 2015		yes
The Wednesday Wars	Gary D. Schmidt	264	May 2015		really liked it
The Baseball Box Prophecy	Bruce Newbold	550	May 2015		yes! especially to people who know baseball
Cloaked	Alex Flinn	341	June 2015		yes! really liked it. Weird but fun premise.
Who Could That Be at This Hour?	Lemony Snicket	258	June 2015		a little hard to get caught up in, as are a lot of his books for me, but better than expected
New Kid	Tim Green	320	June 2015		really liked it; definitely a baseball book; a little disappointed in the ending
The Girl Who Could Fly	Victoria Forester	328	June 2015		really liked it
My Fair Godmother	Janette Rallison	310	July 22, 2015		yes. want to read others in series
Throne of Glass	Sarah J. Maas	404	Jul-Aug 2015		maybe. It's about an assassin, so definitely for a more mature audience.
Crown of Midnight	Sarah J. Maas	418
Heir of Fire	Sarah J. Maas	562
Queen of Shadows	Sarah J. Maas	648	September 2015
Woven	Michael Jensen	352	October 2015		yes; wished it were longer
Made You Up	Francesca Zappia	428	October 2015		It was really fascinating. had swearing and mature content I had to skip
Winter	Marissa Meyer	824	December 2015		yes! whole series
The Gratitude Diaries	Janice Kaplan	320	December 2015		very eye-opening; I think I'll buy it
Tell Me	Joan Bauer	272	December 2015		yes

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It wasn't the circumstances that mattered but how I responded to them.  I could passively wait for the wonderful to occur - and still find something wrong.  Or I could accept whatever events did come my way and try to appreciate them a little more.

Janice Kaplan, The Gratitude Diaries

Gaston, may I have my book back please?

As I was catching up on a couple blogs last night, I read a post whose author is trying to read more.  She ended the post with this statement: "I always have good intentions when I buy a book." 

WHAT?
When I buy a book, good luck getting me to do anything BUT read it.
That's why I don't buy books as often as I want to.
(That, and I'm a sucker for new [not used] books, and new books are expensive.)

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“Do not pity the dead, Harry.  Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Anne of Green Gables

My sister used to be obsessed with this movie.  (At least that's what it felt like.)  I hated it.  I thought it was the most boring movie EVER and refused to believe the book could be good.

Recently, I discovered a website full of free in-the-public-domain audiobooks and browsed around looking for something to listen to.  One of the only books they had that I'd heard of was the Anne of Green Gables series.  I listened to it.  And I gained an appreciation.  I wouldn't ever read it - there's too much flowery description to find entertaining - and I still ended up stopping halfway through Anne's House of Dreams, but listening was good.  If you've ever tried reading a book that you hated, try listening to it!  You might find it easier to finish that way.  :)

Imagination is good.  Encourage it in people.
Let children know you trust them.
Believe them.
When they're worked up, know it's okay to wait to talk to them until later.
Half the fun is in the anticipation.
Don't talk bad about teachers to their students.
Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet.

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"'If there's any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, then let me do it now and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.'"

Anne's House of Dreams

alisonism #16: You don't have to take MY word for it...

I love to read!

When I was younger and had "first" things more often (days of school, camp, work; conversations with people at stake dances, etc.), I was always asked what I liked to do.  I was always a little embarrassed to say I liked to read, partly because there are two stereotypes for girls who like to read, and one of those is cool and one is not.  Heaven forbid I be classified by the uncool one!  :)  But I have spent the last two summers remembering just how much I love reading, and that is a lot.   This summer I read 22 books, amounting to 6072 pages, and it was incredible.

I lose track of real life when I read.  Tonight I started reading and didn't realize how long it'd been until I finished my book after midnight.  Last week I was reading at my in-laws' house and had no idea people'd been talking to me for several minutes until they were laughing because I hadn't heard them.

I connect with characters and stories so fully that I have a hard time not finishing a good book in one sitting.  How is everything going to resolve?  Will they be happy?  Will my emotional investment have been worth it?

Then, when I finish a good book, it takes a while for me to get back to real life.  Like, sometimes half an hour to an hour, which seems pretty long to me now that I think about it.  But when you're that invested in something, it's hard to just put it aside for something like eating dinner or going to sleep!

Anyway.  Here's a list of the books I read this summer (between May and August) and which I'd recommend.  Try out a couple!

(sorted by when I read them) (Beware: Several of these are first books of series.  I refer to this summer as The Summer of Sequels because of how many series I unknowingly started.  You might look into whether you have access to the rest of a series before starting the first book of one, just in case your library is also tiny and charges $3 per interlibrary loan.)

The Two Sisters of Bamarre	Gail Carson Lavine	239	yes
Cinder	Marissa Meyer	387	YES
Leverage Point	Gerald N. Lund	288	It's a little tough to stay engaged in, but it was pretty good.
The Body Electric	Allie Duzett	239	YES!
Stork	Wendy Delsol	357	YES! There were a couple parts when I was afraid it would get inappropriate, but it didn't. At the beginning you know something inappropriate happened, but it doesn't say exactly.
The Cupcake Queen	Heather Hepler	242	yes
Tankborn	Karen Sandler	370	yes
The Haunted House Kid	Matthew Gary Milam		NOOOOO! I couldn't even read a full page. Grammar - bad. Layout - bad. Design - bad. Writing - horrible. Doesn't flow at all. Couldn't get past the horrible writing to get to the story. And I have a high tolerance for bad writing.
Prayers for Sale	Sandra Dallas	352	maybe - it depends on who was asking. It's set in Civil War times and has a lot of sadness in it. It also only kind of has a plot. Pretty good, though.
The Goose Girl	Shannon Hale	383	yes. very good.
The Selection	Kiera Cass	327	yes!
Found	Margaret Peterson Haddix	314	yes.
Double Identity	Margaret Peterson Haddix	218	yes. interesting twist!
Sent	Margaret Peterson Haddix	313	yes.
Life As We Knew It	Susan Beth Pfeffer	338	probably. It's sad - the world ends and things never really turn up. decent ending. realistic situations. - good writing.
Glimpse	Stacey Wallace Benefiel	261	no. fascinating premise, but there's too much inappropriate at the beginning.
Every You, Every Me	David Levithan	248	depends on the person. pretty dark - as in, you don't know if he's schizophrenic or something, dark. draws you in, though.
Don't Die, Dragonfly	Linda Joy Singleton	269	yes
The Only Alien on the Planet	Kristen D. Randle	228	Wow. Holy crap. That was a good book.
The Leap	Jonathan Stroud	233	no. boring
First Impressions	Marilyn Sachs	112	how a girl came to appreciate the book Pride & Prejudice - meh. It's fine.
Breaking Beautiful	Jennifer Shaw Wolf	354	yes, to a more mature audience. about the mental after-effects of physical (not sexual) abuse by a boyfriend.

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"If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it."  - Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl

Boy, why are you crying?

Well, I finally finished it!  Yes, it did take me a despicable amount of time:) but I loved it!  It was really fun to reread this book.  It's so different than you expect it to be.  I'd even read it before and was surprised by a lot!  I remembered being surprised at how violent it was; I was surprised this time by how funny it was.  I also love when books' narrators are almost their own character, and there's a lot of that in Peter Pan.  It's really fun :) For example, towards the end, the narrator is talking about how maybe we should tell Mrs. Darling that the kids are coming back, but she'd ruin the fun, or maybe we could do this fun thing, but she'd ruin it, or maybe we could do that fun thing, but she'd suck the fun out, and then he says, 

You see, the woman [Mrs. Darling] had no proper spirit. I had meant to say extraordinarily nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of them will I say now…. However, as we are here we may as well stay and look on.  That is all we are, lookers-on.  Nobody really wants us.  So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt.

AND THEN, two pages later, he's describing how she much she misses her children and says, 

...I find I won't be able to say nasty things about her after all.  If she was too fond of her rubbishy children she couldn't help it... Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like her [Mrs. Darling] best.  Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep that the brats are coming back.

What in the world?  He goes from hating her to being her biggest fan - in two pages!  Hilarious.  I literally laughed out loud.

Anyway, I'll repeat what I've said before - if you've never read Peter Pan, you should give it a go.  I think you might love it.  :)

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"[Hook] was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord);" - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

books

I'm going to state the "obvious" first and say, the scriptures.

After that, though, there are two.

First, and this may sound silly / obsessed / ridiculous, but I would honestly have to say Harry Potter.  I love Harry Potter, people.  Is it the most inspiring book?  I don't think so.  Does it have the most take-home messages, best plot, and everything else good you can imagine?  Who knows.  I've definitely read books that had something Harry Potter didn't ("can't think of any right now" - name that movie), but I've never read another book / series that has been as life-changing as Harry Potter.  

Without Harry Potter, I wouldn't have nearly as many inside jokes with some people.  I never would've waited for a book at Walmart at midnight or seen a non-High School Musical movie had midnight.  I never would have known who Nicholas Flamel was or pretended to cast [specific] spells at people using sparklers on the Fourth of July.  I would not have had a single impassioned conversation about how Petrificus totalus is the most underestimated and under-used spell of all time.  I don't know if I would have lasted some of the truly boring days at my old job.  Is my life better now?  I would argue yes, but that's not the point.  The point is, my life is different than if I'd never read those books.

The second book on my list is a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales my dad read to us before bedtime when we were younger.  The first time I remember appreciating fairy tales as real literature, more than just Disney movies, was while listening to that book.  It was so interesting and funny to hear the differences between how the stories started and how they've "ended up" (although I'm sure they'll never have a "final" version).  I remember wanting to hear more and more because it was so fun.  And you all know that now I love fairy tales.

So.  If you haven't picked up a Harry Potter book or a fairy tale recently (or ever), you should!  You might be surprised.

What's the most life-changing book you've ever read?

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"The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy.  It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not --.  There is no beating around the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell.  It was Peter's cockiness."  - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

"All children, except one, grow up."

Joel got me this beautiful leather-bound copy of Peter Pan for Christmas, and I love it.  The copy, but also the story.  I learned the "true" story when I was younger and my dad read it to us at bedtime.  I loved it then, and I love it now.  If you've never read it, you should check it out.  J.M. Barrie's writing style is fantastical in a way that seems like it should be real.  It reminds me of other fairytale recorders / writers, like Hans Christian Andersen or Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.  

---

John's [Neverland], for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it..., while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.

The boy who lived

The first person who introduced me to Harry Potter was my grandma.  She sent our family the first book.  I'd heard of it, but didn't know many people who read it and had no interest, really, in reading it.  But hey, free book!  Why not read it?  Since then, there have been four (I think) midnight book releasings and two midnight movies.  T-shirts, hours of conversation, hundreds of hours of listening and reading and watching, Harry Potter food experiments, nicknames, reenactments (with and without sparklers), magic wand finding, and party planning.  Although it may sound dramatic, it is 100% completely true that my life has never been the same.  I owe you big, Grandma.  :)

I may or may not have just spent a lot of time looking at Harry Potter-related videos, interviews, pictures... you get the drift.  I love it, you guys.  Seriously.  I LOVE Harry Potter.  The books, the movies (except #6), the actors, J.K. Rowling... They hold such a huge place in my heart and in my life that sometimes I can hardly stand them not being real.  Get over it.  Yes, I may be obsessed.  Not that weird.  Anyway, if you've never read them, READ THEM.  or LISTEN TO THEM.  and WATCH THEM. (Notice that's not an "or" - you should always read them, whether or not you also decide to watch them.)  And ponder on the greatness that is J.K. and the amazingness that is her creation.

I could keep gushing.  Really, I could.  But I'll allow you to keep the amount of respect you still have for me regarding my love of fictional ideas.  (That should be an insanely huge amount, considering how great these fictional ideas are, but I know some people just don't love them as much as I do.)  So goodnight.  Sweet dreams.  I hope they're about a boy in a scar who finds out he's a wizard.

Books to read...

Well, this little list is going around the blag-o-blag lately and I have been challenged to post it.  Apparently, the BBC made this list and said that most people had only read ten of the books on it.  I have bolded the ones that I've read... They add up to 17.  

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky (and Brothers K)

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo