Now That's Commitment

I've stopped pretending. I'm just reading kids' stuff, light stuff, easygoing stuff. It's a load off my mind.

I just started a new audiobook, Tomorrow When the War Began, by John Marsden. It's an Australian book, and so is the narrator, which accent takes a little getting used to. But so far it's a pretty good camping story, which is going to turn into a story of some kids who come back from a major camping trip to find out that their town and country have been invaded and taken over. It's very Red Dawn, and so far very good.

I'm coming to the end of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith, which is not a YA book, but is sufficiently light in tone for the state of mind I've been in. It always makes me sad when there's conflict between our main characters in these books, but in this one you really feel the theme of patience and tolerance as being the reason a person can maintain such a pleasant attitude. Sigh, Botswana.

The little pile next to my computer contains New Moon, the second Twilight book, by Stephanie Meyer. I checked it out because it's never on the shelf, but there it was on the shelf, but I knew after three pages that I couldn't read it. At least, with an audiobook, you have the narrator convincing you that her love for Edward is true and real. In print, it's just unbearable. After ONE PAGE. I'm so sorry, Twilight fans, please don't kill me.

The reason I found it on the shelf is because it was next to In the Belly of the Bloodhound: Being an Account of a Particularly peculiar Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber, by L.A. Meyer, which I am absolutely tickled to read. Sometimes, when I can't wait to get started on a book, I have trouble starting it. There's that ramp-up at the beginning when you don't know what's going on yet, there's the little sliver of doubt that it'll be as good as the last three, as good as you hope. There's the dread of finishing it. And there's something else, some other inertia that holds me off.

In this case, there's also the burning question of whether I'll read it before or after The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner, which I'm ALSO thrilled to have before me. I just finished The Queen of Attolia, and I'm so excited for the sequel. How can one resist following the cleverest character around on his misadventures--even when they're sometimes gloomy and dangerous? Gen has the same appeal as Jacky Faber, and they're due around the same time, and I'm going to have a very hard time deciding which to read first.

That should get me through--that and The Nine, the Supreme Court book that I'm still in the middle of. I figure I can get it back to the library on time if I read five or ten pages a day. Assuming I can renew it. Right?

God bless the simplicity and inspiration of young adult writers everywhere. Thank you all so much.