March 2014 Books

OCD, the Dude, and Me by Lauren Roedy Vaughn (library book) - Yeah, I have a lot of issues with this book.  If you are a person struggling with OCD, this book is not going to resemble anything like your life. It's more like "hoarding" and "running away from your problems" than OCD. Also, the main character just never learns anything. I think that this is the teacher in me, but the books is told, in part, by essays the character writes that her English teacher gives her feedback on. And the character is told the same damn thing over and over and over again and she never fixes any of those mistakes. It's maddening.  And there are other things (body issues, stereotypes, blah, blah, blah) that essentially make this book absolutely one of the worst I have read in quite a long time.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell (Kindle book) - This was a slow burn for me. For the first third of the book, I was not really feeling it, but then! Then!  I just couldn't put it down. Look, this isn't high brow Literature. You know how the book is going to end and that's just fine.  The journey to get there is funny and poignant and full of dumb human-like behavior.  Rainbow 4 Life.

Thankless in Death by J.D. Robb (Kindle book) -  It came to my attention that I had somehow missed an installment of the In Death series. How could this happen?  So I promptly ordered it on my Kindle (part of my $39.99 refund from Amazon - woot! woot!). Anyway, this one is incredibly violent and gory and I know I say it with every book, but I am pretty sure these books are getting worse and worse. I will, of course, continue to read them all.

Super Powereds Year 1 and Year 2 by Drew Hayes (Kindle books) - I really, really, really liked these books. They were apparently originally written on a web site, so the chapters are incredibly numerous and short, but I'm quite impressed with what Hayes can do in just a few pages. Anyway, I got the first book because it was free and then I shelled out money for the second book and am now trying to catch up to Year 3 on the author's web page. It's like The Magicians by Lev Grossman, but with nicer characters who have superpowers instead of magical abilities.  I don't know if these books are for everyone, but they are making me happy these days.

The Echo by Minette Walters (paperback book) -  This book was overly complicated. And British.

Looking for Alaska by John Green (library book) -  Eh. I think John Green writes solid books, but I'm not blown away by any of them. Plus, all these kids did was smoke and drink alcohol and that drives me bonkers.