March and April Books

Jeran was supposed to be doing the next blog post on an exciting topic but he's taking too long so I'm posting my reading list in the mean time. This covers March and April.


The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Interesting, but not for everyone. This book is told through the dog's point of view, which is undoubtedly why I read it. His owner is a race car driver. 3 stars.

Meowmorphosis by Franz Kafka and Cook Coleridge
Ha. Not sure what to say on this one. It is published by the same people as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies so it is a spoof on Metamorphosis. In Meowmorphosis, the narrator wakes up one day to find he is an adorable, fluffy kitten. I tired of the nonsense of this book and didn't finish it. 2.5 stars.

The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark
This book falls right in line with all her other books. Think Deseret Book fiction, but with non-specific Christianity. This one is about a woman who is a midwife and goes to find out about her family's mysterious past among the Amish in Pennsylvania. It is a little hard to like because she was adopted so much of it involves finding out what the real family relations are. 3 stars.

Invasive Procedures by Orson Scott Card
This is supposed to be a serious book but I found it to be a quite silly book. It's all about this mysterious disease that is killing people and appears to have been engineered deliberately. That premise is all right at that point, but then add in a healthy dose of The Omega Man and cloning and brainwashing via chemicals and you've got a weird book. 3 stars.

Dave Barry Talks Back by Dave Barry
A collection of funny Dave Barry essays. 4 stars.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston LeRoux
By the same author as Phantom of the Opera, we started listening to this while we drove to Florida. It presented a good mystery and followed through with a good investigation and conclusion. I liked it. 4.5 stars.

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
I read this for book club. It was pretty good - definitely more elaborate than many other Young Adult dystopian novels. I won't say too much since we haven't discussed it yet, but I thought it was pretty good. 4 stars.

Pegasus by Robin McKinley
This is about a human kingdom (and the king's daughter) in a land that is shared by a pegasus kingdom. The humans can't communicate well with the pegasus but long ago worked out a treaty with them that assigns a pegasus to a human among both royal families. Then the king's daughter is born and she can talk easily to her pegasus which makes a lot of people uneasy. This is definitely not McKinley's best work. It was a little hard to get into, but then it got better and enjoyable, but then the ending was horrible. Also, she expects you to be able to interpret the significance of some complicated things without later stating it directly or elaborating, which is really annoying if you're not sure you understood. 3 stars.

Shadows of Lancaster County by Mindy Starns Clark
A young woman goes back home to Pennsylvania to try to find her missing brother. A little bit of Amish life, DNA research, and funny lines like, "Of course I'm interested in DNA, you goofball! DNA is the future." 3 stars.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (partial)
I started reading this and realized a few things. After trudging through chapters and chapters about one small event, it was getting too late for me to be easily interested in the book. After being introduced to Quasimodo, I didn't want to read more about him (I think the Disney movie necessarily did a good job in making him slightly less grotesque than Hugo describes so that people could bear to watch the movie).  So I didn't (haven't yet?) finish this book. Part of this may have been that this didn't fit my reading mood, as evidenced by the difference between this and the type of books on the rest of this list. I'm sure it's a good read at the right time. No rating (yet?).

Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
This is the next book in his Shadow series. It is not as good as any of his other Ender's Game or Shadow books. It tells the story of Bean and his three genetically modified children as they embark into outerspace to give the humans time to discover a cure for their condition. There are four characters in the entire book and basically one setting: the spaceship. Good thing it isn't super long! 3 stars.

Crossed by Ally Condie
The sequel to Matched, another YA dystopian book. I think this one was slightly better than Matched. The main character goes in search of her boyfriend who was taken away by the government and she also searches for the secret rebellion group. 4 stars.

Secrets of Harmony Grove by Mindy Starns Clark
This is the last of her books that our library has that I hadn't read. It is about a woman who owns a B&B (formerly her grandparent's house) in Amish country. She finds out she is being investigated by the Attorney General but has no idea what it is about. Come to find out, the B&B manager may not be who he claimed to be. This book was pretty good, but I'm also getting prettttty good at predicting what turns her books will take. 3.5 stars.