Five!

I knew there was a bad surprise at the end of The First Part Last, by Angela Johnson, so I've been putting off finishing it. Thank you, 48 Hour Challenge, for pushing me along. It does feel like a bit of a trick, though. I'll go request another Angela Johnson book from the library now, probably Heaven.

X has finished Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men on his end of the challenge, and is off reading something else. It looked like the D&D handbook; I'd better put the Dungeon Masters guide on my list so I can run some campaigns this summer.

I think I'm at about 8 hours now; I'm keeping a tally on a piece of paper and will report at the end when I also mess about with page numbers. It's too complicated to keep track; I'm making myself read in fifty page chunks before switching to something else, but that means I'm not sure how much time I spend on each book. And there was the break to clean up the cat pee.

Three! Four! And X Starts off!he

I woke up and finished Snakehead (Alex Rider Adventure)by Anthony Horowitz. This book has been lingering for weeks, mainly because X always steals it to reread when he sees me reading it. Alex Rider continues to use his ingenuity and memory to defeat bad guys at their own games, and this time to also reveal some more of his Tragic Past. In other good news, the next book in the series is almost at the top of our library queue, so I should get to read it at the perfect interval -- not so soon that the formula annoys me, not so long that I've forgotten Where We Last Saw Our Hero.

Then off to piano lesson, dragging my sons, one of whom complained bitterly at leaving the house so early on a Saturday morning (9:55 AM). I polished off the last few chapters of Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson, which I was reading as part of a parenting class but I skipped the final assignment (I passed anyway). This helped me deal with complaining child in a much more mature fashion, and we left in a better mood. We stopped at Target on the way home, but I read through that while younger kid shopped and kept me from walking into walls.

X stayed in the car reading -- he has officially joined in, but only in the 24-hour version I offered to the kids. He is taking his first break, after 85 minutes of reading, starting at 10:30 AM, Saturday. I gave him my stopwatch timer, and hope I manage to keep track of my own time with only the kitchen version. X says his goal is 6 hours, which seems a bit underwhelming to me but Positive Discipline says he gets to make his own decisions even when they are wrong (where wrong is defined as different from me).

My next break will be to clean up a cat pee incident. Bleh.

Two Down!

I finished another book on my currently-reading stack, and pushed a bookmark along in a third. I seem to be pursuing a LIFO policy, partly for convenience and partly because I'm a mental butterfly. I just finished Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Magie Stiefvater, an interesting bad-faerie tale with a musical twist. My son tried to steal it while I was reading it, but I told him he could have it for the kids' 24-Hour-Challenge we are running in the midst of my Grown-Ups only 48-Hour Challenge.

Read:

9:45 - midnight (with occasional short breaks to yell at the kids to go to bed already). Time for some non-fiction before bed.

Begun! 48 Hours of Books

This is my official starting post for MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge. I meant to start around ten tonight, but I realized partway into the choir rehearsal I was hanging around for that I planned to spend the time reading anyway. So my official start time was 7:00.

So far I've read 1.75 hours, and finished one book, Embers, by Laura Bickle, an interesting urban fantasy about arson and fire demons, although I found the hero's connection with the bad guy unbelievable. I'll spend fifteen minutes updating this blog, and then get back to reading at 9:45.

My focus this year is on finishing books I've already started, so I'll have to come back at the end to figure page counts, if those matter. I'm marking the start place in each book for this challenge.

World Whimpers: In a Perfect World

Last year BookNAround reviewed Laura Kasischke's In a Perfect World, and last month I finally got around to ordering it from my library. I am persistent, if not speedy. I read it in a day because it's due tomorrow, and anyway I'm in training for the 48 hour book challenge this weekend.

The book has an SF premise -- the Phoenix flu slowly brings civilization to a halt, but the book is about Jiselle Dorn's new marriage and her life with her three step-children. The eroding of safety in the world, the loss of electricity and reliable supplies of gas and groceries, all seem to echo the eroding of her faith in her marriage and her husband. Jiselle seems as oblivious to warning signs of domestic trouble as of international collapse, and also seems as stubbornly determined to take care of her stepchildren as she is to survive in a world without government.

I was reminded a little of Live as We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeiffer, which also features a mom and her kids dealing with a crumbling infrastructure. But in Kasischke's book the characters don't think to worry about the future; Jiselle concentrates on the present worries and puts her step-daughters unfortunate clothing choices on the same level as the closing of American borders as foreign countries try to stop the spread of disease. I liked how the collapse of the world echoed the collapse of her marriage, and I like to think of the book as metaphorical because I really don't see Jiselle surviving in the long run, and by the end of the book that seems a very sad thing. She manages to build a family out of her angry step-children, one that doesn't need the wayward dad for stability. I'll be looking for other books by Kasischke, hoping for the same lovely language and characters. B+

Careful Prose: Never Less Than a Lady

Although I enjoy Mary Jo Putney's books and seek them out rather quickly, there is always a considerable distance between me and the characters. Her newest book, Never Less Than A Lady (Lost Lords), was no exception. I liked the characters -- Julia, who has been hiding from her life as high-ranking but abused lady of society, and Alexander, a romantic lover of chivalry who is ready to quit the army and settle down, if he can find a cause that is just. I liked the plot -- they meet, decide to marry to help each other (and because they have a lot of mutual friends), and then they confront their fears of a permanent relationship and their scars from previous bad times, as well as trusting in their growing affection.

The book follows Loving a Lost Lord (where their friends met), but I don't think you need to read that one to enjoy this one. What kept me from fully investing in the characters? For one thing, their attitudes and assumptions seemed very modern. While they understood the expectations of their Regency environment, they always seemed to find it antiquated, almost quaint. They talk seriously about psychological issues in ways that didn't really ring true, although it kept the plot moving along. And the sexual problems melted away amazingly quickly -- when they marry, Julia isn't sure she can ever touch a man again, after her brutal treatment by her first husband. But in a week or so she is ready to show off the sophisticated skills she learned from him. Admittedly this made the book much more readable (what kind of romance keeps the main couple from coupling for hundreds of pages?) but it was at a loss of credibility.

Still, I got what I expected -- those are known issues with most Putney books, which is one reason I prefer her books with a touch of magic -- if it's obviously an alternative universe, the transplanted modern people don't seem so out of place. I'll still read her next book in this series. I'm probably more enthusiastic than I sound -- I find my ratings go down a lot when I stay up too late to review things. B-

Gearing Up!

This weekend is the Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge. Once again MotherReader is hosting and setting up the rules. I'm looking at going from Friday night to Sunday night, and I think I've talked my kids into coming along for a 24 hour tour of it.

My theme this year will be finishing books. I'm going to try to mostly read books I'm in the middle of, maybe starting a few new library books. So I'll track hours read, and maybe pages, but my total books read won't really reflect reality. I plan to clock in at least 20 hours, and I hope at least 24. We've set up the Saturday meal plan to involve order-in pizza, and the kids are primed for helping out. I'm picturing meals brought me into bed, but I think they are picturing hours of uninterrupted Wii time as mom ignores all policing duties.

Since the school fundraiser is a Fun Run on Friday, I think I'll target our school library as my charity. I donate $1/book finished + $1/ hour read. I'm looking forward to this!