Book 11-15: 2011

11. Plain Kate
By: Erin Bow
Genre: Young Adult
Three Words: Witches, Woodcutters, Gypsies
This YA novel read like a retold fairytale (I should know- I've read a lot of them), but no fairytale I've ever heard before. It told the story of Kate, a talented woodcarver, living in a superstitious age in some Eastern European country where anyone strange was suspected of witchcraft. I enjoyed it at the time, but there's little memorable to recommend it two months after my initial reading. I cried when one of the characters died; that's fairly unusual.

12. A Northern Light
By: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Young Adult, Book Club selection
Three Words: It's no 'Revolution'
I suggested this for book club because Donnelly's Revolution was so sublime, and this is the previous book that put Donnelly on the YA map. It was historical fiction based on the sensational murder of Grace Brown, which also inspired Dreiser's An American Tragedy, which I have not read. The main character, Maddie, was sympathetic, as she struggled to figure out her place in a world where women still had very few rights. Donnelly incorporated an interesting gimmick where she had Maddie choose a word of the day everyday, which was defined and anchored the chapter thematically. However, the story was somewhat predictable and nowhere near as compelling as Revolution. It made a poor choice for book club because there simply wasn't that much to discuss.

13. The Virgin Suicides
By: Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre: Literary Fiction
Three words: Narrators watch virgins
If you're reading this blog (and very few people are), you've probably already read this book. I feel I am one of the last people to join this particular party. Like critics before me, I was fascinated by the narrator(s), the unnamed boys giving us a voyeuristic look into the lives of the Lisbon sisters (not all virgins, despite the title). The relationship between the sisters and narrators is the crux of the book.

14. The City of Falling Angels
By: John Berendt
Genre: Nonfiction
Three words: Magical Venetian mystery
My second nonfiction book of the year- huzzah, me! I have had this book on my shelf forever, as my mother lent it to me right after it came out (oops). I found the book less linear than Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but I still envied Berendt's easy assimilation into a foreign culture. It made me want to return to Venice, hang out with rich people, and read Henry James (the latter I did, shortly after).

15. River Secrets
By: Shannon Hale
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: Another Bayern book
I keep reading Hale's Bayern books because Goose Girl was so excellent, but nothing has lived up to it. I felt glad to finish this one, because I believed it to be the last (I was wrong). No matter how much I enjoy stepping into Hale's world, I don't feel like I bring anything back with me. YA can be so much more than cotton candy, but Hale's latest Bayern books are just that. They're fluffy. They dissolve. I don't know, that's the end of that metaphor and this review.