The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

So, yeah, book reviewing, I should get back on that. I've been reading a bunch of a winners lately, not exactly anything 5 star knock my socks off awesome, but a few that have had my socks only hanging on by a toe.  ;-)

I think I'd like to start with The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma today, but I'm not sure of my approach because I think the reason I loved this book as much as I did was that I had really no idea what to expect.  I mean, I read the synopsis on the back and everything, but somehow when I actually got into the meat of the book, it was nothing like I expected.

Orianna "Ori" Speerling is a teenage ballet dancer from the wrong side of the tracks.  Her mom left when she was a kid leaving her the daughter of a single dad.  Despite her circumstances, she is unarguably the most captivating dancer in her dance school, possessing a natural talent and flair that cast everyone else in shadow, including her best friend Violet "Vee" Dumont who has the upper class trappings Ori will never have, but can't quite keep up with her friend in sheer talent.  Ori is a more loyal friend than Vee deserves, always holding herself back so her friend can keep up.  The two share everything.  Ori practically lives at Vee's house.  That is, until something happens, something that finds Ori in the Aurora Hills Secure Juvenile Detention Center while Vee dances her last high school recital and prepares to leave for Julliard.  The rest of the story comes via Ori's cell mate Amber, a presumed innocent victim of the justice system, who has found an unexpected place to belong among the inmates of Aurora Hills.

Without saying too much, let me just say how perfect The Walls Around Us ended up being for this autumn time of year.  The story it tells wanders from guilt and crime and grief into the downright eerie, and I loved it.  The Walls Around Us is one of those books that, if the "Young Readers" wasn't attached to its publisher's name, it would be difficult to peg as a YA book.  Suma doesn't sacrifice complexity or artful prose upon the altar of the book's would-be target audience, something I always appreciate in a well written YA book.  Each of her characters are fully actualized from free-spirit Ori, to angry, insecure Violet, to the mild-mannered Amber who brings out the unexpected camaraderie she's found among the fellow inmates of Aurora Hills by narrating her bits with "we" instead of "I."

The Walls Around Us is a beautifully composed, disturbingly rendered picture of the disturbing truth behind a pair of "perfect" ballerinas that goes beyond guilt and innocence to explore the natural and the supernatural.  It easily weaves between past and present, knitting together a story that is otherworldly and unexpected keeping readers on the edges of their seats until the truth is out and justice can finally be served.

(Received my copy in a publisher giveaway.)

Top Ten Tuesday Featuring Bookgenie the Great!

This week at The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday, there is a special guest.  The Bookish Genie is on hand and ready to grant each of us our top ten bookish wishes.  I want my wishes to have staying power, so here are a few reading accoutrements I think would really brighten up my reading life.  Thanks, Bookgenie!  

1. Expandoshelves  - Come on, who doesn't want these?  They look like normal shelves and take up the space allotted to normal shelves, but they have hidden depths that hold zillions more books.  No more double stacking on your shelves!  No more feeling bad about those books that are still stuffed in boxes because you're all out of shelf space.  Expandoshelves, yes.

2. The Reformatter - Okay, so sometimes you want hardcovers because they look pretty on your shelves, right?  But sometimes you wish those same books were paperbacks so they wouldn't drag you down when you stuff them in your purse for reading on the go?  And sometimes you want your paper book to be an ebook and your ebook to be a paperback?  Or even audio?  So without spending lots of extra dough, I want to have the same book in all the versions.

3. The Speedier Readier Experience - I want to be able to read fast without feeling like I'm rushing.  And while I'm reading fast I want to have the same experience as if I were reading slow and savoring.  Is it so much to ask?

4. The Weight Transformer - When you put books in a box, like when you're about to move, could they suddenly become like an eighth of the weight you would expect? You know, so your friends and family will stop ridiculing you when you move?  That would be good.

5. The Eater Reader Forcefield - Some of us like to eat while we read.  Some of us are also slobs.  How about a nice little invisible forcefield to protect my books from their reader?

6. The Annotator Eraser - Sometimes it would be nice to be able to write in my books without feeling like I'm defacing something.  So I can underline stuff and write notes for reviews without leaving a messy lasting impact, once the review is written and I'm ready to send a book on its merry way?  Annotations begone!

7. The Ebook Deal Shock Collar - I mean, something has to keep me from pulling the trigger every time I see a half decent ebook priced at $1.99.  When am I ever going to read....even half of them??

8. The Bookstore Equalizer - Wherein we take a few beautiful bookstores out of the cities where they're struggling under the weight of colossal rents and magically move them to places where we're struggling under the weight of having startlingly few bookstores.  Sorry, high rent cities, how come you get to have all the fun anyway?

9. The Series Reader Time Machine - Gone are the days of waiting a year for that next book in the series.  Never again will you forget the details of books one and two while waiting for book three.  Just hop in your trusty time machine, snag copies of the rest of the series, and presto no more of those pesky unfinished series' dogging you through the years.

10. The Reading Time Stretcherator - No longer will the perils of having a job and human relationships keep you from having the time you need to read.  That's because the book genie can magically stretch, the uh oops, only ten minutes you managed to save to read before bed, into as many minutes as you want!  Yay, bookgenie!  How long I have wanted this!

Do you have any wishes for the Bookish Genie? 

Readathon - the Master Post!

Final Update

Reading Now: Charlie and the Grandmothers by Katy Towell

It's been __135__ pages and __150__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 7 hours

Cumulative Pages Read: 359

Books Completed: 2 - The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

Okay, so my dinner break turned into a longer thing than I expected and I got no reading done between hours 10 and like 14 or 15, much to my sadness.  That said I did read until almost 1 in the morning and managed to wake up for the last half hour, too.  I finished two books and put a good dent in Charlie and the Grandmothers, too, which happens to be a fun middle grade horror story that turned into great Readathon fodder after I cracked the first 50 pages.

End of Event Survey

Which hour was most daunting for you?  14.  I had a big interruption and I wasn't sure I could get back into it, but I did.  Phew.

Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? A Long Walk to Water was a great short book, a quick read about a serious topic.  Charlie and the Grandmothers is a fun quick read, too.  Great for the Halloween season!

Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? This is a pretty trivial thing, but back in the jolly good old days there used to be a link up for all those swell Readathon TBR pile/snack pile posts in the days before the event.  I always thought they were tons of fun and always built up my level of excitement.  Can we have the link-up again?
 
What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  Everything, I think?  I'm pretty sure my only problem was me.  Like usual.  ;-)

How many books did you read? I completed two and read a little over half of a third.

What were the names of the books you read? See above.

Which book did you enjoy most/least? Honestly, I'm not sure.  They were all good and very different from each other, so I can't very well compare.

If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? Er, cheer more people than I did this time?  Sorry folks, my cheering was pretty shoddy this time around.  :-/
 
How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Extremely likely.  It'll all depend on my mood, I think!  Sometimes, I swear, it's more fun to just cheer all day than to get wrapped up in my weird Readathon neuroses of not reading as much as I want to be reading.  Sad, I know.  Also, true.  

Thanks again to Andi and Heather for all they do to keep this great tradition not just alive but thriving.  I do think Dewey would be thrilled to see what the Readathon has become! 


Hour 9 Update

Reading Now: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (with a side of Charlie and the Grandmothers by Katy Towell)

It's been __134__ pages and __160__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 4 hours 30 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 224

Books Completed: 1 - The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Eating?: Hot buffalo wing pretzel pieces is just about it, but it's almost time to break for a delicious roast beef sub.

I may have retired to my bed for a little this afternoon, for some more reading....most of which was done with my eyes open.  A timely text from a friend saved me from anything more than a brief power nap.  I started Charlie and the Grandmothers which seems like it's going to be a fun read for this time of the year, but then I got a little sleepy and switched over to something with less pages to keep me motivated.   I'm within a few pages of finishing A Long Walk to Water, a based on a true story novel about a South Sudanese refugee.  Break for cheering and dinner and then back to the books. 

Hour 4 Update

Reading Now: About to start Charlie and the Grandmothers by Katy Towell

It's been __90__ pages and __110__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 1 hour 50 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 90

Books Completed: 1 - The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Eating?: A Luna bar (breakfast of champions and/or lazy ankle break-ees), string cheese, and a celebratory piece of pumpkin pie!

Why celebratory?  Because I've finished my first book, of course!  Sure, I'm totally cheating because I was already 182 pages into Kelly Corrigan's The Middle Place when I got out of bed this morning, but who cares about that?  It's 11 AM and I've finished a book already.  Shockingly, the book didn't make me cry, though I did choke up a few times.  Oddly enough, the closest I came to spilling tears was while reading the acknowledgements.  Yeah, I don't get it either.  Probably a good thing though, crying makes you tired, and I've got lots more reading to do before I even consider a nap!

Off to cheer on some readers, and then it's on to my next book!

--------------------------

Good morning, one and all!  Surely it hasn't escaped you that today is the day of Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon, right?  I'm going to be participating fairly properly today with the snacks and the books and the Instagramming of bookish pictures.   I do believe I will stack my updates for today in the very post you see before you, in hopes of not alienating my last 2 subscribers (Hi guys!  Long time, no see!).  So on we go with the time-honored readathon tradition of....

The Introductory Meme!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?   My very own living room in Danville, Pennsylvania

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?  Hmm...  The Fill-In Boyfriend?  Charlie and the Grandmothers?  I can't decide.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?  I've got some delicious hot buffalo wing flavored pretzels in the pipeline.  They may be a little sloppy for reading and eating, but I'm still looking forward to them.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!  Let's see, I'm Megan.  I work in Lab IT (well, sort of) for a big rural health system.  This is the first Readathon I'll be participating in from my very own apartment without the distraction of other humans.  Well, until dinner time at least.  Oh yeah, and I'm recovering from a broken ankle and subsequent surgery so I'm stoked to have something exciting to do that isn't something I can't do because I can't really walk so much.  OK, at all.  Believe me, the number of exciting things you can do declines rapidly when you're short a leg and your hands are occupied with crutches.  So this is a good day because today it's exciting to sit around!  Yay!


5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?  Read!  Haha, no, seriously.  For my last few Readathons I've dedicated myself mostly to cheering.  I haven't read for the Readathon in quite a while.  So reading on Readathon day will definitely be different.  I'm an oxymoron.  Or maybe just a moron.  To be determined.

Anyhow, that's me.  I'm off to read!  See you in a few hours!  Happy reading! 

Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell

Phew, there is a tough crowd and Goodreads and LibraryThing both that doesn't seem to think much of Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell, so I was pretty skeptical going in even though I accepted a review copy thinking this book sounded pretty fascinating.  Happily, I think I liked it a good bit more than a lot of people seemed to.  Usually the opposite is true where people looooove a book and I'm thinking, "What's the big deal?" so this was a pleasant change of pace.

Pretty Is tells the story of Lois and Carly May, the grown up victims of a child abductor, struggling to find their ways in the confusing aftermath of their abduction, a strangely idyllic time that was, nonetheless, fraught with fear and left an inevitable impression on the two that trails them into adulthood.  The book alternates between the two women's perspectives, illuminating their lives and their struggles as they mature, somehow always feeling more connected to their abductor than to their own families.  Lois grew from a beautiful studious young girl into a smart college professor who spun her abduction into a famous novel written under a fake name.  Carly May, a brash former child beauty queen, changed her name to Chloe and abandoned her father and wicked stepmother to chase fame in Hollywood.  Though the two haven't seen each other in years, the time of their abduction lingers fresh in their minds, and when Lois's book finds its own way to Hollywood, the two might finally have the chance to revisit their shared past.

Mitchell is a debut novelist, and with that considered, Pretty Is becomes that much more impressive.  Mitchell skillfully weaves together many different stories in one.  She brings her two damaged main characters to life, exploring their upbringings and their leftover traumas both from the abduction and the scars they carry with them from their own family lives.  At the same time, Mitchell is exploring each character's present, and even including a swathe of Lois's novelization of the abduction that proves particularly compelling.  As the novel becomes a movie and Lois starts a sequel and a mysterious student starts unearthing Lois's path, the stories pile up, but not all of them are equally well-handled.  The Sean the creepy student storyline, in particular, seems extraneous to the rest of the novel, a side show perhaps intended to reveal how troubled uber-controlled Lois's thoughts still are. 

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the "excerpt" from Lois's novel that fills out the middle of the book is so much more compelling that it makes the rest of the novel pale somewhat in comparison.  The pages in this section flew by in a way that Carly May and Lois's more introspective narratives do not.  That said, Mitchell's story layering style is ambitious and, on the whole, successful.  While I didn't love the characters, I was taken in by their stories and eager for the two to meet again and unpack their shared psychological trauma.  If you're looking for a page-turning mystery/thriller sort of novel, look elsewhere.  If you're looking for a deeper, more literary effort that does a fascinating job of illuminating the confused aftermath of an abduction, definitely give Pretty Is a try.

(I received a free copy of from the publisher in exchange for review consideration.)

Top Ten Tuesday: My Fall TBR

It's time again to engage in that futile effort of trying to predict what I may read in the next season that is presently coming upon us.  This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic brought to us by The Broke and the Bookish is, of course "Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR."  Since I read from my own stacks almost entirely at random, this seemed like a good opportunity to share 10 review books that I'm particularly looking forward to and hope to get to this fall.  Here they are!

Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam - "A vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, Bright Lines follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past."  I received two excellent-looking books from Penguin earlier this summer that are set to help me read more diversely.  I read the first one which was excellent, but I've still got this one to go! 

 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks - This one just rolled into my mailbox.  I loved Year of Wonders, so I can't wait to see what Brooks does with the story of King David, you know...of Biblical fame?

Love and Other Ways of Dying by Michael Paterniti - I won this one from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers months and months and months ago, but it only just came.  In other news, this book of essays just got a longlist nod for the National Book Award, so I'm that much more excited to read these "ultimately uplifting" essays that "turn a keen eye on the full range of human experience."

Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade - Debut historical fiction - "In 1919, four-year-old Rachel Rabinowitz is placed in the Hebrew Infant Home where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research on the children. Dr. Solomon subjects Rachel to an experimental course of X-ray treatments that establish the doctor's reputation while risking the little girl's health. Now it's 1954, and Rachel is a nurse in the hospice wing of the Old Hebrews Home when elderly Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Realizing the power she holds over the helpless doctor, Rachel embarks on a dangerous experiment of her own design. Before the night shift ends, Rachel will be forced to choose between forgiveness and revenge."  Yes.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters - Here's a good token ghost story for the ghosty season of the year.  "
Ivy’s life-long gift—or curse—remains. For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother’s chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy’s older brother Billy in the Great War."

The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra - I'm not always the biggest fan of short stories, but something about these interconnected ones that start with a 1930s Soviet censor caught my eye.   

Early One Morning by Virginia Baily - World War II historical fiction in which a woman in occupied Rome rescues a boy from being deported, and the aftermath of that event.  

Marvel and a Wonder by Joe Meno - A man and his biracial grandson come together while chasing down the thieves that stole the horse that was willed to the man by mistake.  Sounds different, right?  And good!

A Master Plan for Rescue by Janis Cooke Newman - Historical fiction is apparently my thing this fall.  Set in 1942 New York and Berlin "A Master Plan for Rescue is a beautiful tale, propelled by history and imagination, that suggests people's impact upon the world doesn't necessarily end with their lives, and that, to some degree, we are the sum of the stories we tell."  I kind of dig stories about the power of storytelling, too.  This sounds like a winner.

Under a Dark Summer Sky by Vanessa Lafaye -  Because I'm not ready to let summer go, and also, more historical fiction!  "Huron Key is already weighed down with secrets when a random act of violence and a rush to judgment viscerally tear the town apart. As the little island burns under the sun and the weight of past decisions, a devastating storm based on the third-strongest Atlantic Hurricane on record approaches, matching the anger of men with the full fury of the skies. Beautifully written and seductive, Under a Dark Summer Sky is at once a glorious love story, a fascinating slice of social history, and a mesmerizing account of what it's like to be in the eye of a hurricane."

What are you looking forward to reading this fall?