Delirium by Lauren Oliver

genre: dystopian ya

So, I know, it's probably my favorite genre, but THIS one, WOWEE. Lauren Oliver has created herself a world - just like our world, really - where love is a disease. A disease that needs to be wiped out. The procedure that makes this a reality is called "the cure" and Lena is ready. She knows all about the crazy things that "amor deliria nervosa" can do to people, people in her own family. To have to live without really feeling? No pain? Sounds just right to Lena, who knows what pain is.

And then, of course, she meets a boy.

And that's all I want to say. Because I enjoyed this journey oh so muchly. Oliver captures the essence of teenage love absolutely and completely. In fact, I think she may have even put into words actual feelings I remember having, when I loved someone so much I thought maybe my heart had actually been ripped out. And she ties it into this society where things are set up to be so controlled, where things you think are keeping you safe are really just tying you up. Even when I thought I had the plot figured out, she twisted it enough to never make me feel like I'd guessed it all.

I finished and was so thrilled to discover this is the first of a trilogy (and remember how sometimes that just makes me mad?) This time I can't wait to read more!!.

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman

genre: children's literature

Prince "Brat" has a whipping boy named Jemmy, whose sole purpose in the palace is to take a beating for the prince whenever he misbehaves (because you can't whip a prince, right?). And Prince Brat misbehaves a lot.

When the prince gets it into his head to run away, Jemmy doesn't have much of a choice but to join him and some serious adventures ensue. There are highwaymen, country fairs and lots of sewer rats. What's not to love?

I read this one out loud to my sons, age 5 and 8 and they ate it UP, I tell you. The "cutthroats" are evil and blundering (just right) and Prince Brat's journey to being a better friend (while a bit swift if you really think about it) was a good, but not sappy or too overplayed, message. While I'm not sure I'd say it was absolutely incredible, I'm glad we read it.

Economic Meltdown: A Family Preparedness Plan for Disaster by Karen McHale

genre: fiction, preparedness

I am a sucker for disaster stories. I love tales of survival and because my church has been telling us for years that we need to have basic supplies on hand so that we can make do on our own for a time during a crisis, I'm also pretty interested in preparedness. When I was approached and asked to read this book about a financial disaster, I was intrigued.

Here's the thing - it's a disaster preparedness manual...but it's a story. It's a fictionalized account of one family's efforts to be ready in case our country plunges into an economic nightmare. So, it's didactic and yet, not. If reading an actual "disaster preparedness manual" puts you to sleep by just reading the title, this may be an interesting way to go. A family of four finds ways to put up food, become more self-reliant, and put aside a reserve of necessities and money. It's full of a lot of good ideas - some I've already done, some I'm in the process of doing and others I hadn't considered that are now on my list.

One thing to keep in mind - it's needs an editor. I found several typos which distracted me and it got a little repetitive at times. Don't read it for the "plot," because it sometimes feels like you're watching an after school special. But, really, I think it serves an incredibly useful purpose - it shows you that becoming more self-reliant CAN be done by people who are NOT wealthy or prepared to move to a compound in the wilderness. People in the suburbs can and should be ready to fend for themselves because counting on the government to help you out isn't good enough. I appreciate that it made me think about a crisis situation that's very different than what I'd been planning for (job loss, earthquake/storm etc.). Hyper inflation and unrest in my own country could lead to crazy high food prices or limited food, period. With all the other calamities and political tension happening for REAL in the world right now, this book sent planning for a disaster to the forefront of my mind.

King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema by Anupama Chopra

genre: non-fiction, biography, history

Yes, I just read a book about Bollywood and one of it's major supastarzzzz. Yes, I enjoyed it. I read it mostly to learn about dear Shah, whom I have watched lately in two VERY different roles and enjoyed both times. The book seems to be a fairly balanced look at his life and how it fits into the incredibly intricate and dramatic (um I'll say it again: DRAMATIC) world of Indian cinema. It's like jumping into an alternate universe, in some ways, with so many unfamiliar people and places, but I found it totally enjoyable. If you don't care about the subject, I'd imagine it would bore you, but since I happen to be a fan of emotional dramas, crazy rocking dance scenes and epic stories involving reincarnation, murder and disco - it was a fun enough read for me. Plus, I have a new list of movies I want to see and songs I want to hear :)

Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay

genre: young adult

What is Saffy's Angel? The story of Saffy, how she finds out she was adopted into her family of two sisters and a brother and how they help her to find a part of herself that was lost.

Describe it in one word? Delightful

A different one? Charming.

The best part? The characters, their British ways and individual quirks, their love for each other and how they interact. There are no superfluous characters in this book. Period. Each one is well rounded and an integral part of Saffy's journey.

I'm a total fan.

book 2 of Melissa's list for the Book Blogger Swap challenge

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

genre: non-fiction

Michael Pollan has a very specific definition of food.

It is NOT just something that you can put in your mouth and digest.

Food, to Michael Pollan, has a deeper meaning, a definition that involves how that food is made (processed=NOT food) and in what form it is eaten. In his book In Defense of Food, he makes the case that what our Western Culture needs to save itself from all the diseases that are currently plaguing it is a return to eating real food and a much greater awareness of the way that food is produced.

I really like Pollan's writing style - for non-fiction, it's completely accessible and wow is he persuasive. I finished reading this book and wanted to chuck out every processed food in my house. He really makes you think about the true cost of that 20 cent package of orange sandwich crackers and how we arrived at this place of "non-food." I loved the history of our food industry and his take on all the different studies that he sites. What I found most intriguing is the idea of "nutritionalism" and how focused we are (I am) on what NUTRIENTS are in what we are eating instead of the whole picture of that food (or non-food).

While I really loved this book, it was a great read, now that I'm a few days out from finishing it, I am finding myself completely daunted and a bit depressed. I believe the things he tells me. I want to feed my family more whole foods. It's just a crazy huge undertaking in the society where I live. I know it can be done, I just need to write down a series of baby steps and get started - and probably read more about it, too, because I think Pollan's really onto something.

The Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) adapted Joann Sfar

genre: graphic novel

As a child, I was addicted to this bizarre movie of a small boy from another planet. Our Little Prince befriends a pilot whose plane has broken down in the desert. The pilot, while once very frustrated with the unimaginative-ness of adults, finds himself acting like an adult when confronted with the naivete of the Little Prince. The Little Prince has left his tiny planet and its inhabitants to travel the universe, trying to learn about whatever is out there and, in the process, discovers many of the not-so-lovely parts of humanity: our tendency to want to rule over others, our tendency to not see the forest for the trees, our tendency to want to OWN whatever we see. But he also finds out what it means to MEAN something to someone, and how it feels when that someone is taken from us. I love how he puts into words the idea that once we have loved someone, or someone loves us - we are no longer the same. And, suddenly, all the other people in the world are also different, because they are not that person.

My favorite quote?

You can only see clearly with the heart. What matters is invisible to the eye.

It's philosophical yet childish at the same time. I like it for its timelessness and for my image of Gene Wilder as the fox, in my favorite scene. The drawings in this adaptation didn't mesh well with my own image of the story, but beyond that, I did like the adaption of the text and the closeup drawings at the end actually did make me feel teary for a moment. That's impressive.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

genre: young adult

An orphan since nearly her earliest memories, Hattie has spent her life being shuffled from one distant relative to another. And now, in the thick of the first World War, Hattie finally has a chance to make something her very own: an inherited homesteaders claim in Eastern Montana country. With less than a year to "prove" the claim, the learning curve is steep but sixteen year old Hattie is up to the challenge. Of course, there are neighbors who provide help, but more than that, these neighbors give a sense the sense of family that she's always longed for.

At first it was really hard for me to wrap my mind around a sixteen year old girl living in a tiny house, alone, out on the prairie. But, we watch her through her struggles and soon we see that she's not only capable, but that she's willing to accept help. It wasn't an easy life, to be sure, but Hattie found sincere happiness, along with the requisite sorrow. I would've liked to have seen more of a romantic storyline, but I get that it wasn't the story's point - Hattie needed to learn about Hattie. A book of highs and lows, with a large thread of wartime racism and fear, it grabbed my attention from the beginning and kept it until the end.

Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service by Mark Pendergrast

genre: nonfiction

Have you even heard of the Epidemic Intelligence Service? Until my younger sister began getting a degree in public health, I had no idea it even existed. It's a group of people who spend two years going out into the "field" and being, really, disease detectives. When there is an outbreak of bizarre symptoms, EIS officers are there to investigate and try to diagnose. If there are multiple cases of known diseases, such as E. coli or H1N1, they rush to try and determine the source of each case to decide if there is an epidemic and if so, how to stop it. They're like a disease CSI unit, tracing clues and interviewing "suspects".

Seriously, it's interesting stuff. This book is a history of the EIS and is told, almost exclusively, in short vignettes. There is some political stuff in there, of course, because it's an agency that's supported by the government, but mostly it's just stories of diseases! We learn about the discovery of Ebola, the eradication of Smallpox, the Polio vaccination effort, SARS and on and on. Your heart will break at the horrible stories of cholera epidemics and refugee camps - EIS officers literally travel the globe with only one goal: to stop people from getting sick.

After reading this book I feel like we, as citizens of this earth, owe so much to these public health workers. They are on the front lines when all kinds of terrifying diseases are spreading and they put their own lives on the line to try to spare us, spare me, from illness. They fight for clean water for everyone, for food safety regulations and hospital sanitation regulations. I found this book fascinating. Granted, the book is clearly biased towards the organization - it's all very LOOK how amazing this is! But based on the stories, I just can't disagree. I love this new knowledge that I have and I certainly have a greater awareness of how lucky I am to live in a clean, safe place.

I have tried other books on this subject and couldn't make myself finish them, so I'm telling you, if you have any interest in epidemiology, I totally recommend this one.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

genre: middle grade literature

You never know, of course, where a story will take you. You don't know, when you pick up a story and begin to read it to your child, if you will laugh or cry, if you will be struck by the beauty of a phrase or feel actual pain as you have to keep reading the words aloud.

The Underneath is not an easy story to read aloud. For all of its incredible lyricism
- the images practically float above you as the words come out of your mouth - it's a harsh story. It's the story of a cat in the bayou. A cat that befriends, strangely enough, a hound dog, and when the cat has kittens, these lonely animals become a family. They create a space for themselves and even find happiness until one small, seemingly insignificant choice, brings down a rain of consequences that just change everything.

There are really three story lines in this book, one of which felt, for me, far too long and involved for how things tied together at the end. I could tell that the author was trying so hard to make it beautiful and poetic that sometimes it made it hard to read aloud - it felt repetitive and...meandering. Like our plot was in a rut. That's how it felt to me as an adult. I feel like a middle grade reader on his own might feel the same way (but who knows?) To my eight year old son that I read it out loud to, though? It didn't bother him at all. I honestly was afraid for a while that he would just be bored with it, but he never was - all the plot lines were interesting to him and he asked a lot of questions about what we were reading. There are a few incredibly intense and harsh characters in this book - one is a man and one is a snake. When I mean harsh, I mean scary harsh. I had to explain alcoholism and abuse and how a person could get so...rotten on the inside.

But in some ways, I can see how that rotten to the core character was necessary to the story she was telling. There is so much about love, about not giving up on the people you love, about being willing to let go of things that maybe YOU want but that might not be good for someone else - he's the perfect contrast to those ideas.

This book took longer than others to read, but the pictures broke things up nicely and I'm really glad we stuck with it. In fact, I can hardly talk right now because I ended up reading it out loud for an hour and fifteen minutes because we HAD to know how it ended. There were tears (I wasn't the only one) shed, gasps of surprise and at one point near the end my two older children actually shouted and said, "that is an AWESOME ending!" But when I closed it, my darling boy said, 'THAT was a good story."

And I think he's right.