Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 20th, 2017 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Randa Abdel-Fattah’s The Friendship Matchmaker. Lara Zany is the benevolent dictator of Potts County Middle School. She finds friends for new kids, settles disputes between old friends, and writes down her rules in her Friendship Matchmaker Manual (which she’ll be selling to Harry Potter’s publishers any day now). But her undisputed reign over the school is interrupted by a new girl, Emily Wong, who is all about things like “being yourself.”
You can probably guess the plot of the entire story from this description, but it’s nonetheless a charming and breezy read, largely because of Lara’s voice. In fact I picked it up in the first place mostly to scoff at the obviousness of the plot - a conflict between “crushing your individuality in order to follow strict social guidelines” and “freeing yourself from cruel social restraints in order to be yourself” in a modern middle grade novel, hmmm! WHICH ONE COULD POSSIBLY WIN? - but then I read the first few pages and Lara won me over with her strange cynical brand of compassion. School is a bloodthirsty jungle but she really, really wants to help everyone succeed and be happy there!
Seriously, though, I’m so tired of be yourself novels. I was so much happier when I stopped being myself all the damn time and made an effort to be pleasant instead. Maybe some people are blessed with warm and generous natures from birth and really can just stand around radiating the glorious light of their own natural selves, but the rest of us are going to have to put a bit more work into it.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun The Summer Before the War, which is shaping up to be more of a romance than I was really hoping for - but I’ve only just begun, so I might be quite wrong about where it’s heading.
I was definitely wrong about which war it’s referring to. It’s set before World War I, not II.
I have also continued on in The Enchanted Wood, and now that I have ratched my expectations way, way down, I can see the charm. Definitely the idea of climbing a tree and finding a different world at the top every single time is going to appeal to a lot of kids: it’s absolutely the perfect premise for a game, isn’t it?
What I Plan to Read Next
2017 is almost over and I still haven’t read one of the Newbery Honor books! Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow. (I believe there are no literal wolves, which is too bad. Most novels would be improved by literal wolves.) So that’s next on my list.
Randa Abdel-Fattah’s The Friendship Matchmaker. Lara Zany is the benevolent dictator of Potts County Middle School. She finds friends for new kids, settles disputes between old friends, and writes down her rules in her Friendship Matchmaker Manual (which she’ll be selling to Harry Potter’s publishers any day now). But her undisputed reign over the school is interrupted by a new girl, Emily Wong, who is all about things like “being yourself.”
You can probably guess the plot of the entire story from this description, but it’s nonetheless a charming and breezy read, largely because of Lara’s voice. In fact I picked it up in the first place mostly to scoff at the obviousness of the plot - a conflict between “crushing your individuality in order to follow strict social guidelines” and “freeing yourself from cruel social restraints in order to be yourself” in a modern middle grade novel, hmmm! WHICH ONE COULD POSSIBLY WIN? - but then I read the first few pages and Lara won me over with her strange cynical brand of compassion. School is a bloodthirsty jungle but she really, really wants to help everyone succeed and be happy there!
Seriously, though, I’m so tired of be yourself novels. I was so much happier when I stopped being myself all the damn time and made an effort to be pleasant instead. Maybe some people are blessed with warm and generous natures from birth and really can just stand around radiating the glorious light of their own natural selves, but the rest of us are going to have to put a bit more work into it.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun The Summer Before the War, which is shaping up to be more of a romance than I was really hoping for - but I’ve only just begun, so I might be quite wrong about where it’s heading.
I was definitely wrong about which war it’s referring to. It’s set before World War I, not II.
I have also continued on in The Enchanted Wood, and now that I have ratched my expectations way, way down, I can see the charm. Definitely the idea of climbing a tree and finding a different world at the top every single time is going to appeal to a lot of kids: it’s absolutely the perfect premise for a game, isn’t it?
What I Plan to Read Next
2017 is almost over and I still haven’t read one of the Newbery Honor books! Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow. (I believe there are no literal wolves, which is too bad. Most novels would be improved by literal wolves.) So that’s next on my list.
