July 2015 Books

The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier (library book)- This is the story of a helicoptoring parent who takes  every SAT administration during one calendar year, in the hopes of encouraging her own child to take it seriously. Along the way, she does just about everything incorrectly, from using a variety of test prep options to misusing her test preparation materials.  I have worked in the test preparation industry for well over ten years (gulp) and have done everything from writing questions to tutoring and teaching and proctoring and training.  I appreciated this look at the industry from the outside, but I have to admit that Stier missed the boat - getting a "perfect score" should not be goal of any student - getting the score that's good enough to get them into the school of his or her choice should be the goal. Her son figured that out, but she never did.

Boys Like You by Juliana Stone (library book) - This was perfectly acceptable, but not life-altering. It won't stick with you at all, despite the heavy handed plot.

Bomb: The Race to Build - And Steal - The World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (library book) - Janssen really talked this book up over at Everyday Reading, so I had high expectations, but this is just a non-fiction book with boring boringness. I am not a big fan of memoir, biography, or any sort of "and then this is what happened" narrative about past events because it's all so snoozeworthy and it took me forever to get through this book and I can't tell you anything about it. I guess if you are the kind of person who reads more than fiction, maybe this is for you!

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter (free Kindle book) - This is an old-fashioned style of writing and I found it challenging to feel anything from our main character.  I wanted to like her, to feel bad for her crappy life circumstances, and root for her, but all I could feel was a sort of wooden acceptance from her that led me to feel little more than nothing for her.  But the sentences in this book are delightful - the vocabulary is so dense I found myself looking up words on every page, the appositive phrases are filled with delightful nuggets of description and fancy, and the secondary characters leap off the page with personality and charm.