Start Date: Memorial Day Weekend 2008
End Date: Columbus Day Weekend 2008
Goal: To read 50 books in the set time period and post a synopsis of each either on my blog. Goodreads, or both.
List:
1. Boys that Bite by Mari Mancusi
2. Running Back to Ludie by Angela Johnson
3. Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge
4. By the River by Steven Herrick
5. Vampire Knight Manga I-IV by Matsuri Hino
6. (every two Mangas will equal one book)
7. Lord Loss by Darren Shan
8. Vampire Kisses I
9. Downtown Boy by Juan Herrera
10. Vampire Kisses II
11. Eternal Sabbath Manga I-VIII
12
13.
14.
15. Loose Threads by Lorie Ann Grover
16. Society of S by Susan Hubbard
17. Blue Bloods by Melissa DeLa Cruz
18. Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
19. Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Sandell
20. Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
21. Soul Moon Soup by Lindsay Lee Johnson
22. Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems by Mel Glenn
23. Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Wayland
24. One of those hideous books where the mother dies by Sonya Sones
25. What my Mother doesn't know by Sonya Sones
26. Foreign Exchange: A mystery in Poems by Mel Glenn
27. Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer Bradley
28.
29.This title counts as four due to it being 876 pages
30. and the length of time needed to read each page.
31. Vampirre Kisses III: Vampireville by Ellen Schreiber
32. Vampire Kisses IV: Dance with the Vampire
33. Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
34. Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith
35. Year of Disappearances by Susan Hubbard
36. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
37. Empire of the Sun by J. Ballard
38. Mordred: Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg
39. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
40. Vampire Knight #5 by Matsuri Hino
41. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
First Review: Boys that Bite:
Fun! Would be one quick word to describe this teen based vampire story. Mancusi uses the voice of Sunny to tell this light and mostly humorous story of mistaken identity. Sunny, the identical twin of goth loving Rayne, who had signed a contract to become a vampire, was bitten by Magnus instead. Now Sunny understands that Magnus got caught in a case of mistaken identity, but still, she wants out of the eternal agreement (once bitten always a life mate). After awhile though, Sunny gets crushing on Magnus and by the end of the story she’s back to being human, but dating the Vampire King.
Fun, light, easy and quick.
Vampire quality: Mostly the good guys, dark only, blood without killing from volunteers, some relationship to Druids.
# 2: Running Back to Ludie
It read like a first draft that needed more detail. It felt too short for me to connect to it. Basically a young teen wants to know the mother who left her. Finally she is allowed to visit and it isn’t as exciting as it seemed. But she’s happy to have made a connection. Now she won’t think of a blank when someone says mother, now she has Ludie. Ludie is portrayed as dysfunctional from the point of view of the girl, but you have to wonder why she would not only leave her daughter, but never visit? And after completing the book I still don’t know. Did I read too fast? Maybe, it is a verse novel. But if I only skimmed the surface so might young readers whom this book is aimed at. Angela Johnson’s book: First Part Last was wonderful, so I didn’t expect to be so disappointed in Ludie.
#3 Brimstone Journals
I think the hardest thing about this book is the characters. There is an enormous cast! Keeping them all straight is made easier by the author’s kind almost stereotypical behavior of many of them. There’s a lot of anger and ingnorance in this town! It all will come to an explosive finish if one of the characters doesn’t do the right thing! Will he, or not? I’d have to say it would be hard to find a main character and that’s ok b/c the author did this to show everyone is responsible for school violence. And that message did come across. However, the quick end and the sense that no one really learned much made for a bittersweet tale, but then, that’s life.
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