Vacation Wrap Up

I am back from the beach, a little tanner, a little more rested, and a little sadder than 3 weeks ago.  I really need to move to the beach someday!  I got a little lazy about posting, but here's what I read in the final week of my vacation:

First I finished Curse of the Wolf Girl by Martin Millar.  It was a fairly thick book and not the quickest beach read, but it was still endlessly entertaining and I have high hopes that there will be more books in this series.  Plus I now love the name Decembrius.  Millar's characters are not stand up citizens, even for werewolves and fire elementals- they are selfish, they are shallow, more than a few are fashion obsessed.  There is much drinking of whiskey and taking of laudanum.  There are a lot of characters and Millar bounces back and forth, but not in a confusing way.  Would I recommend this book to everyone?  No, I learned my lesson, Millar's books are not for everyone (yes, Courtney, I do mean you and the Lux the Poet debacle),  but if weird and quirky and paranormal is your thing, then Millar's got the books for you.  Start with the first book, Lonely Werewolf Girl.

Curse of the Wolf Girl gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

In order to feel like I actually read a book or two on vacation, my next read was Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

 I actually ended up liking this short, quick read more than I thought I would.  It tries a little too hard to be cool and all hipster, and Nick and Norah can be infinitely annoying at times, but overall it's a fun book.  What saves the book from being cliched is that Nick and Norah, while big on the music and club scene, aren't promiscuous drug users. They aren't lily white or vanilla, either.  It seems that sometimes in YA in order to feel real or gritty, authors tend to go to the extreme. Of course, they all do swear and all of them are having more sex than you are. ;)  I've only seen parts of this movie, but I really want to go back and watch it now.  While I enjoyed this book and would totally recommend it for a Readathon read, I don't know that I'll be checking out more by either of these authors.  I'm glad I rated this on Goodreads right after I read it, because it's already been downgraded a bit in my memory.  So I'll go with my first impression, because it really made for a good vacation read.  Plus it makes a reference to Heathers, which is so awesome and more books should have Heathers references.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist gets a Midnight Book Rating of: 

The last book I actually finished at the beach was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

This is actually my book club's current read, and we'll be discussing it on Saturday.  I don't want to say much about it here, other than to say that I'm very much looking forward to the next book in the series.  Any book that can make chemistry interesting is a winner in my eyes.  And while Flavia de Luce is not your average 11 year old, that's what makes her a compelling character, average 11 year olds are fairly boring in real life and would make very poor mc's for a mystery novel.  I was surprised by how engrossed I became in this book, making it a perfect beach read.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

 The last book of my vacation was Forever by Maggie Stiefvater.  It's the last in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series and I thought it was a good way to end it.  While I like this series, I've never really loved it, and waiting between books made it fade in my memory.  Sam and Grace are sweet, but a bit boring and Sam can be a major emo although he's got a cool job.  What kept me reading this series was Isabel and Cole, and while I'm okay with saying bye to Sam and Grace, I want more of Isabel and Cole although I know I should be a little troubled over their age difference.  Especially Cole. More Cole, Ms. Stiefvater, please!  I am interested in reading more books by her, although right now her only other books are about fairies, which I'm not particularly fond of, so I'll just wait for her future endeavors. I finished Forever after I got back from vacation, but technically I'm still off work until tomorrow so I'll count it as a vacation read.

Forever gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

 So now it's back to the real world and a daily routine that does not include eating ice cream every night and eating my weight in Pizza Tugos.  I did get a chance to visit lots of used books stores while at the beach and of course I had to bring some books home with me.  I have a post planned on some of the book stores the beach has to offer. 

I don't really know what I'll be reading next, although I do need to play catch up on the Gone With the Wind read-a-long.  Right now I'm waiting impatiently for my new cell phone (a HTC Inspire) and the first app I'm downloading will be the Kindle app!  And now that stores are bringing out the Halloween decor and candy, all I can think of is my October Readathon pile- so excited for it once again!    I'm ready for fall!