I like that show where they solve all the murd3rs ([info]cedarlibrarian) wrote,
@ 2007-03-07 10:35:00
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Current mood: anxious
Current music:tell me baby, what's your story, where you come from and where you gonna go this time
Entry tags:2007, angsting, books

I been away a long time
Trying very hard not to crack up from all the stuff going on with work and writing and fandom and reading and attempting to have a life.

What I've been reading, with reviews in ten words (or fewer):

1. Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins: Funny, also sad look at humanity via a demon.

2. The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock: Worth the fuss that Dairy Queen got. Incredibly well structured.

3. The Black Sheep by Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout. Cool concept, kind of convoluted, needs streamlining, too many plotlines.

4. Hex Education by Emily Gould and Zareen Jaffery: The Clique meets The Craft. Gothy and gossipy.

5. Impulse by Ellen Hopkins: Fast read, but should be registered as 666-page weapon.

6. The Decoding of Lana Morris by Laura and Tom McNeal: Quiet, thoughtful, not overbearing. Recommended.

7. Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill. Completely brilliant. Biographical poems styled after and about Sylvia Plath.

8. The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan. Just when I thought the series couldn't get any better...

9. Harmless by Dana Reinhardt: Thought-provoking, but not as emotionally resonant as Brief Chapter.

10. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Blew me away. Minimal writing; sinister yet sincere. READ IT.

11. Flush by Carl Hiaasen. He should switch to writing children's books permanently. Humorous mystery.

And what I'm carrying around in my bag:

Now You See Her by Jacquelyn Mitchard, How to Take the Ex out of Ex-Boyfriend by the always-fun Jannette Rallison, Fragments by Jeffry W. Johnston, Betwixt by Tara Bray Smith, Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah, Beastly by Alex Flinn, and What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones.

I need to carry a smaller bag. This is getting crazy.

Writing: Working on [info]remix_redux fic, horrible horrible fic for Paintbrush & Quill at Phoenix Rising, also presentations for same. To say that I have felt less than inspired to write fic these days is somewhat of an understatement.

Work: Writing twenty booktalks, twenty sets of discussion questions, stuff for the upcoming countywide summer reading program. I put together 120 forms with "please return to me by Friday, March 29th" and this year, March 29th is a Thursday so now I have to reprint them all ARGH.

Thank you: To those who wished me a happy birthday last month. I did have a very happy birthday except for the getting-older-and-have-accomplished-nothing-in-life part. Mr. Cedar took me for a day of shopping and dinner and bought me, among other things, The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel.

Oh, damn, I had new pictures of Henry to post and I forgot to upload them. Next time.


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[info]tartpants
2007-03-07 04:06 pm UTC (link)
Weird! I'm teaching an Amy Hemple story tomorrow, and Never Let Me Go in a few weeks.

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 12:55 am UTC (link)
YOUR ICON!!

And Amy Hempel! I first heard of her when I read Stranger than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk. He's a huge fan of hers, but at the time, all her books were out of print. Then her collected stories came out last year and was an NYT Best Book of the Year, so I have it now but I need to actually read more than one of the stories.

NLMG is shiver-giving. Kathy's whole, "Yeah, organ donation, that's just the way things were, ho-hum," narration KILLS me. I think the most amazing thing about the work overall are the themes that don't seem to be there and aren't explained in depth (and shouldn't be, because it's in first person), but drive the entire work.

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[info]silvana
2007-03-07 04:27 pm UTC (link)
I did have a very happy birthday except for the getting-older-and-have-accomplished-nothing-in-life part.

Hon, either you and I need to sit down and discuss the meaning of the word "nothing" - or YOU need to re-examine your standards.

I mean - having found both a career and a job that you're interested in and care about is not exactly "nothing" - and it's a lot more than a lot of people 20 years your senior have...

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 01:00 am UTC (link)
See, I know that on paper. It's when I see all those "hottest writers under 25" lists or thinking about all these people who are winning Oscars and being gifted with Louis Vuitton handbags and can afford to buy houses and things like that that I feel, "Shit, I've wasted my life!" I KNOW I'm completely irrational. Which gets me nothing, of course, but...you know what I'm talking about.

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[info]silvana
2007-03-08 01:52 am UTC (link)
Yeah, believe me, I know...

We all go through the "what am I doing here?" crazies once in a while. I just thought you might need another reminder of how awesome you are. :-)

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 02:30 pm UTC (link)
*giant squeeze* You're pretty awesome yourself.

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[info]yachiru
2007-03-07 08:14 pm UTC (link)
Gonna have to mem this as my YA lit class has not left me any more room for YA. I am burnt out. o_0 Darn that Chris Crutcher.

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 02:31 pm UTC (link)
Are you a Crutcher fan? I keep trying to like his books and I'm not succeeding. I've read *thinks* four or five of them, plus King of the Mild Frontier, and I only liked the first one I read.

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[info]yachiru
2007-03-08 02:41 pm UTC (link)
I liked Ironman, but only because I was forced to read it like three times. Actually, I prefered the Creech (Redbird) and John Green (Alaska) we've read to Crutcher.

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[info]praetorianguard
2007-03-07 11:31 pm UTC (link)
While I've already squealed to you about The Off Season, I wanted to concur on The Titan's Curse, too. I really liked both The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters, but this was much better put together and had much better character work. Yay, Rick Riodan.

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 12:50 am UTC (link)
Agreed! I loved the way he used the Hunt to give Annabeth more dimension, and Thalia's moral ambiguity. And with the whole sixteenth-birthday thing coming up in...three, four books? he'd better get crackin' on the character development.

I think, also, I need to reread it. Oh THAT'LL be a hardship.

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[info]unfinishedch80
2007-03-08 03:09 am UTC (link)
Happy belated birthday, Cedar! Wow, I am your third commentor on this thread who's teaching YA lit this semester. Lots to fill you in on - we still have to hang out one of these days.

As to "accomplishing" something: I was talking on a panel discussion about career choices just tonight, and mentioned how most of the folks in my program have long since rejected the whole life-script thing (I think you were the person I got that term from a while back). That it's not a question of not measuring up, it's a question of not finding that particular measuring stick a relevant object. (Come to think of it, though, I have a Big Birthday coming up this year, so there's some potential for me to start itching along those lines as well...)

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[info]fasterthanlight
2007-03-08 12:52 pm UTC (link)
Accomplished nothing in life?????

Are you freaking KIDDING me?????

Don't make me come over there and set you straight, girl. If nothing else, you led me to library world. That alone should get you a medal. Or a death sentence in Metropolis. Whatever. Do you not realize how fabulous you are?

End rant. Now stop being silly.

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-08 02:32 pm UTC (link)
Will it guarantee my first book a review in PW? ;)

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[info]fasterthanlight
2007-03-09 12:55 pm UTC (link)
Ah, if only. Your heroine was disqualfied due to a conflict of interest - namely, writing for LJ. Oh well.

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[info]cedarlibrarian
2007-03-09 02:02 pm UTC (link)
Oh, right, because Reed Elsevier does both publications, yes? Boo!

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