69: A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Book 1), by Libba Bray (2003 paperback)

Sent to an English boarding school after witnessing the death of her mother under mysterious cicumstances in colonial India, Gemma Doyle gets caught up in the occult. The first in a series, the plot is somewhat interesting, but the overall premise wasn't enough to make me pick up the next volume. Those who enjoy magic and the paranormal may fare better. And, check out Bray's more contemporary novels, Going Bovine and Beauty Queens for some quality satire written for a teen audience.  

68: Flip, by Martyn Bedford (2011 hardcover)

A teen boy wakes up in the body of another, more popular and wealthy teen boy. He struggles to find what has happened to his own body while also struggling to maintain appearances and play a new role. This is an interesting and well-paced read which will be enjoyed by girls and boys alike.

67: Eli the Good, by Silas House (2009 paperback)

I've seen this book listed as a top pick in a number of places, but I kept putting it down each time I came across it.  I'm less compelled to read TweenLit than TeenLit, and Vietnam-era references aren't my favorite either.  It's hard to ignore such regular recommendations, though, and I finally broke down and bought Eli on a visit to my local bookseller. And, the critics were right: this is a charming and compelling novel--a wonderful look into the summer of 1976 and the life of a young boy grappling with the effects Vietnam had on his country, his veteran father, and his family.

I turned nine the August after America's Bicentennial celebration, which gives me a natural affinity for the book's 10-year-old author.  While Eli's family and community are different than the one in which I was raised, the period details in the book--fashion, music, social norms--are genuine and richly developed.  It's a rare book that can make you feel as if the sun is beating on your back, the strains of Cat Stevens and Van Morrison are ringing in your ears, and the scent of evaporating summer rain is invading your nostrils.  House does all this and more, though. I'm reminded of another of my favorite books in recent years, The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman, which also focuses on Americana, celebration, and turmoil.

In a nutshell, Eli the Good is an immersion. Take a dip in this wonderful book, swim through its pages, and emerge both tired and exhilarated.

66: Why Jane Austen, by Rachel Brownstein (2011 hardcover)

Currently reading.

65: Blackout, by Connie Willis (2010 paperback; hardcover published 2010)

Over the summer, NPR put out "Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Reads."  It's a decent list, although lacking a bit in female authors (Octavia Butler is noticeably and disappointingly absent, for instance.).  One female author on the list with whom I was not familiar is Connie Willis, whose Doomsday Book came in at 97.  While scavenging the close-out sale at Border's, I came across Blackout and decided to give it a try.

At first I had quite a hard time with the book, and I couldn't figure out why.  It wasn't because of the content or premise, as its storyline of time-traveling historians appealed to me.  I was a bit less interested in the WW II focus, but that still didn't explain it.  Finally, I realized that the author's extensive use of dialogue--both external and internal--was putting me off. This may have been exacerbated by the fact that the language is British English in the early 1940s, a vernacular similar enough to mine so that I felt it should seem comfortable, but different enough so that it really wasn't. Things felt stilted and formal, which I suppose was true of the time itself as well as the language, when compared to today.

Ultimately I grew to enjoy the book and the opportunity to peek into 1940 London during the Blitz. Because the narrators are historians, traveling back in time to study particular events, it seems natural to have historical information and a narrative storyline jumbled together.  And, this is really the way I like my history lessons: fictional and story driven. I'm taking a bit of a break from the war, but I'll be back sometime with a review of the follow-up book, All Clear.

64: Delirium: The Special Edition, by Lauren Oliver (2011 hardcover)

It's probably not fair to this book that I (temporarily, I'm guessing) reached my fill of teen dystopian romances midway through reading it.  It's a genre I generally like, but this one leaned a bit too far toward the romance end of things for my taste; I can tolerate the romance as long as the world developed behind it is interesting and compelling.  In this book, however, the romance is center stage.

Why this took me by surprise, I don't know, as it's basically stated on the jacket cover.  After all, 17-year-old Lena lives in a world where love is considered a life-threatening disease, where 60+ years earlier scientists came up with a surgical "cure" to relieve people of its symptoms.  The surgery to prevent delirium takes place at age 18, though, and any reader of TeenLit knows what will happen in those circumstances--especially after learning that Lena's mother's cure just never took, even after three attempts, and she ended up committing suicide when Lena was a child.  And then she meets a boy from the wilds: the areas outside the highly policed and controlled cities, where people don't get the cure and still choose their own mates, ways of life, etc.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Delirium, I must admit I'll likely read the sequel; writing about it now makes me consider some of the story elements and concepts I did like, such as making me reflect in how quickly a culture can be changed due to revolution/technology/chaos.  I think I just read myself into a genre rut here and need a bit of a break.   

(By the way, if you were wondering what is so special about the Special Edition: there's a Q & A section and the first chapter of the sequel. I actually chose it because I liked the cover better.) 

63: Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (2009 paperback)

A novel about a teen stoner and misfit being diagnosed with Mad Cow Disease doesn't sound particularly funny or inspiring, but in the hands of Libba Bray it becomes just that. After racing through Beauty Queens (reviewed earlier), I knew I had to read more of Bray's work. The fact that this book--with a completely different narrator and premise than Beauty Queens--was equally entertaining leaves me convinced of Bray's gifts as a writer and observer of American society.

One of Bray's talents is to take unlikely protagonists, such as sixteen-year-old Cameron, and turn them into mock-heroic figures.  Rather than accepting the limitations of his fatal illness, Cameron embarks on a cross-country journey with a punk angel, a teen dwarf, and a yard gnome/Viking god as companions.  The mission?  To find the man with a cure for Cameron's illness by searching tabloids, billboards, and random matchbook covers for clues, while also avoiding fire demons and surviving a stay in a cult of happiness.  It's a rollicking ride with a surprising conclusion, and it left me wanting more Libba Bray.

In fact, I just picked up the first volume of her Gemma Doyle trilogy, featuring a teen girl in Victorian England.  The series looks to be of a completely different genre--light horror, historical fiction--from the books I've already read by Bray, so I'm curious to see how her skills play out. This entire enterprise is a big departure for me, too, as I usually like to read an author's books in the order they were written/published, and this series predates either of her two books I've already read. Stay tuned to see how the experiment works out--and let me know if you've read Bray's work and what you thought.