Dessen, Sarah - The Truth About Forever

I started reading this at one in the morning, thinking I would read a chapter or two, then go to bed. I actually ended up going to bed around five, after I had finished the book.

Macy Queen found her father as he lay dying by the side of the road of a heart attack. Since then, her mother has buried herself in work, her sister has moved away, and she has been trying as hard as she can to be perfect. Her boyfriend Jason is goign to camp for the summer, leaving her alone with his library job. But instead of spending her days studying for the SATs and being the good daughter, Macy ends up catering with a fun and chaotic group of people. Most importantly, there's Wes (unrelated to angsty, suffering Wes of the Whedonverse). Wes is the one person Macy's really allowed under her shiny exterior since her father died.

I cried so much during this book, not because of overtly emotional scenes, but because there was so much grief in the background that Macy never allowed herself to express, so much unstated loss. Macy and her mother never talk about her father, really, but his very absence is a giant hole in the book that everything revolves around. And I just felt so very bad for Macy, afraid to get too close to people, and so accustomed to putting her feelings away that she's not quite sure what to do with them.

She actually reminds me of myself back in high school, too afraid to let any cracks show, petrified by the thought that any imperfections would be taken advantage of.

I really liked her relationship with Wes, despite Wes being slightly too idealized. I like that they get to know each other through the game of Truth, that they actually talk and learn things about each other. And I very much liked the portrayal of her family -- Caroline, the previously rebellious older sister, and their mother the workaholic. The small pressures on Macy to be the perfect daughter, as opposed to Caroline's past disobedience, along with the perception of her as the stable, dependable one, are pressures I can sympathize with, and the book really affected me deeply along those lines.

The ending was a little too tied up for me, and there was a rather gratuitous Big Misunderstanding that seems too clunky for Dessen's usually delicate and sure hand. I also wish that the conflict at the end had been more directly caused by Macy's own fears and insecurities, as opposed to the Big Misunderstanding, because that would have fit the book much better.

But this was still really good. And I don't know if it's because I am personally very affected by the story that Dessen is telling, but this book didn't just make me sniffle and tear up. I had actual tears rolling down me cheeks at several points in the book, which almost never happens to me. There's just such a sense of loss in it, and yet, there's still hope within that.

Links:
- gwyneira's review
- oursin's review

Pratchett, Terry - The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

I'm fairly sure everyone can guess why I picked this one up ;).

Rats! How could I possibly resist?

I'm not quite sure why this book is being marketed as YA while Pratchett's other books aren't, but oh well. Marketing is confusing.

I've also only read about two Discworld books before (Wyrd Sisters and Mort), so I'm not very familiar with Discworld. Luckily, this book didn't seem to require too much previous knowledge; though I'm sure some things would have been funnier had I known more.

Anyhow. Maurice the talking cat has got a great thing going with some educated rodents (aka, talking rats). They go into a town with their rather dim-witted boy, the rats go forth and make themselves a nuisance, then the town pays them all a great deal for the boy to pipe the rats away.

I think this is one of the books that might be funnier after I read it the second time. Sometimes it takes a while for this kind of humor to kick in for me. Frex, the first time I read Good Omens, I was thoroughly unimpressed; now I think it's the funniest thing in the world.

That said, the rats were very cool. I was't quite as fond of Maurice, but I adored the rats, from the little nearly blind visionary rat to the big rat leader, and I was particularly amused by the rat army (there's a Light Widdling Squad and a Trap Detecting Squad), and I was actually quite affected by the rat deaths and dangers! Er, ok, I probably would have been even if Pratchett had no skill as a writer whatsoever, just because... rats! But Pratchett makes the rats quite ratty and quite neat. I suspect I come about the book with a rather funny mindset though, given that I think rats are cute and domesticated, with furry, squishy tummies, like my rats ;). But there are some quite ferocious rats in this book! I think Fitz-rat and Fool-rat would do quite poorly here, given that their first instinct would be to run up to the humans to beg for treats.

Uh, yeah, I'm getting a little distracted from the book. Anyway, it's a book on a Pied Piper scam, complete with sentient rats! I was obviously predisposed to like this. (Although the sentient rats of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH are still cooler.)

BPAL: Shadow, Torture King, the Ides of March, and Lightning

I have discovered that I haven't been writing up a lot of BPAL stuff, mostly because I'm too lazy to take assiduous notes on the five bazillion different stages of the smell. But I'm still curious enough to write up impressions, especially when they're weird ones. Anything that turns to powder will probably just be skipped over, because those are really boring.

( Shadow )

( Torture King LE )

( Ides of March LE )

( Lightning )