Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Some New Books for the New Year

Remember me? Just like the little girl from that movie Poltergeist, I'm baaaaaaaaaaack.

The good news? I've actually been reading.

School Library Journal, in its infinite wisdom, has been sending me a bunch of non-graphic novel titles to review. While one of my previous reviews was indeed published this month, check out my first fiction review for their magazine since 2009. At the moment, and to the right of this paragraph, you can see the nonfiction book I'm currently working my way through for professional review purposes. This book, a follow up to the YA semi-hit Tweak from a few years ago is... well, I'm not actually loving the story. And it's not in my crotchety old man it-glorifies-drugs way. I'm just finding the prose kind of all over the place; it's kind of trying to be a love story, but the protagonist is so self-involved and introspective that it really isn't about two people at all. Also, he's not exactly a character you can either identify with or even like. I mean, I'm a third of the way through the story. I'm invested to finish. But still. This is why I don't recommend to anyone that you should continue to read titles you aren't enjoying. I forgot how horrible that can be. I've been kind of lucky up until this point; SLJ has been sending me things I actually like. Law of averages though. Not every book can be as good as the last.