What makes a book good?

My husband isn't a huge reader, but I read to him a little bit every night before bed. It can take some time to finish a book, reading at most one chapter a night, and we aren't usually super selective when picking our next read, so we've had some pretty mixed results with our choices. There have been some pretty solid highs, but we've also encountered some incredibly low lows. 

At some point, I acquired a copy of We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry (which I've never reviewed, but did mention long, long ago in this post), which I knew NOTHING about, but we picked it as our bedtime book, started reading, and at some point we were both like "man, what the fuck even is this book?" It took us a few months, but we finished it and both agreed that while at no point did we have any idea what to expect, we both really enjoyed it. Then we read it again last year. And now we're reading it together for a third time. The other night, he asked what my favorite thing about the book was, and it made me think...

What is it that makes a book GOOD?

For me, it definitely isn't any one thing. Some books are good because they're fast paced and grip you until you can't stop reading. Others are intriguing and full of subtle details that come together to create shocking reveals. Then there are books with characters so well-written and full of life that they feel like real people. Some of my favorites (like We Ride Upon Sticks!) are weird and unexpected while somehow feeling true to life and relatable. I just love stories, man. They're so GOOD. (Shhhhhh I know I don't love EVERY book, let's not talk about my negative reviews right now)

What do you think? What draws you to a book? What makes you fall in love with one?

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards - Daniel and Eugene Levy

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"This beautifully produced, keepsake coffee-table book is the ultimate celebration of the series, the town, the characters, and the state of mind that is Schitt's Creek. Capturing the essence and alchemy of all six seasons of what is now considered to be one of the most groundbreaking comedy television series of the last decade, Best Wishes, Warmest Regards is a gift to fans everywhere who have made the show their own.

Included are character profiles from the cast of Johnny, Moira, David, and Alexis, and all of the characters that populate the town, major moments from Moira's endorsement of Herb Ertlinger Winery, to Patrick and David's first kiss, to Cabaret and the Rose Family Christmas episode. Also included are special features, such as the complete, illustrated catalogs of David's knits and Moira's wigs, Moira's vocabulary, Alexis's adventures, and behind-the-scenes moments from Dan and Eugene Levy and the cast of Schitt's Creek."

Reading slowly, but reading hard-ish

Back to school means back to less free time and less energy, which means my reading has hugely slowed down and progress has been incremental.

I continue to chip away at Uncommon Grounds, which continues to be interesting. Did you know that during World War II the United States not only put Japanese Americans in internment camps, they also extradited people of German descent from Central America and put them in internment camps until they later traded them to Germany in exchange for American POWs? Some of them were German expats, but many were born in the countries they were extradited from and had never even been to Germany before being sent there in exchange for the release of prisoners of war. Fucking gross, I tell you what.

I also finished The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue, which ended up being a beautiful read, and Wild Beauty, which was...weird, but very good. Very descriptive, beautiful imagery from both books.

Warrior Girl Unearthed and Worst-Case Scenario both remain unread, as does Does My Body Offend You and Algorithms of Oppression from August. I just finished Revolutionary Algorithms, though, and it's very funny to read about things like Skibbety Toilet with scholarly language and big words. I also finished Hear Ye Mortals, which was an interesting mix of historical fiction and supernatural and was very haunting and touching and sad and beautiful.

Mystery Book Review - Our Infinite Fates by Lara Steven

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Evelyn can remember all her past lives. She can also remember that in every single one, she's been killed before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul is tethered to hers. And it doesn't matter whether she kills them first - they both die.

The problem is that she's quite fond of the life she's in now, and more importantly, her sister needs her to stay alive for bone marrow transplants. So now Evelyn has to: a. find the centuries-old enemy who hunts her through each life and break their curse for good, b. figure out exactly why she's being hunted in the first place, and c. try quite hard not to fall in love with them. Again."

When you're feeling overwhelmed, what do you do?

Remember when I talked about all the reading I had to do at the end of July for one of the award subcommittees I'm on? I had to hustle to get a bunch of work done on a deadline I didn't know existed...and then I started back at work right after that and found out two days before school started that I was going to be teaching a second class for kindergarten through third grade, so I've been scrambling since then to pull together a curriculum for that...so surely I wouldn't agree to take on MORE work, right?

Wellllll...

The opportunity presented itself to take over our entire state book award committee, as in chair the whole thing, and y'all, I love our state book award program so much. How could I say no? I mean...I guess I could have, and maybe I should have, but I know they've been kind of passively looking for someone to take it over from the current chair for a couple of years, and truthfully I was a bit worried that if I didn't take it over no one would and then the current chair would officially retire and our state book awards would be no more. Is that a logical fear? I have no idea. But here we are!

So hey, this isn't a book review, it isn't really anything. It's just me, talking about how bad I am at saying no to things. It's book-related, though, so it counts? 

I know agreeing to take this on was probably not the most responsible thing to do to myself, but I'm actually very excited. I think it'll be fun! And hey, I just finished writing up curriculum for the first quarter of school for my new class, which means I'm on my way to getting the second quarter's curriculum done, which means I'm ahead of schedule, which means...I'll be fine. Right?

Don't Be Scared - Saadia Faruqi

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Riz Choudhry lives for two things: movies and anything spooky. His dad? Not so much. While Riz dreams of filmmaking and jump scares, his father dreams of Riz going to med school or law school—and neither one includes ghosts.

But the film club is Riz’s safe haven, a place where other supernatural-obsessed first-gen kids swap scary stories from their cultures. So, when the group decides to film a documentary about the creepy old mansion in town, Riz is all in. But there’s a problem. His dad wants Riz to quit the club. AND the building is about to be demolished. Now Riz and his friends must use the power of filmmaking to save the mansion…before it vanishes forever."

The Trouble with Heroes - Kate Messner

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"One summer. Forty-six mountain peaks. A second chance to make things right.

Finn Connelly is nothing like his dad, a star athlete and firefighter hero who always ran toward danger until he died two years ago. Finn's about to fail seventh grade and has never made headlines...until now.

Caught on camera vandalizing a cemetery, he's in big trouble for kicking down some dead old lady's headstone. But it turns out that grave belongs to a legendary local mountain climber, and her daughter makes Finn an unusual deal: climb all forty-six Adirondack High Peaks with her dead mother's dog, and they can call it even.

In a wild three months of misadventures, mountain mud, and unexpected mentors, Finn begins to find his way on the trails. At the top of each peak, he can see for miles and slowly begins to understand more about himself and his dad. But the mountains don't care about any of that, and as the clock ticks down to September, they have more surprises in store. Finn's final summit challenge may be more than even a hero can face."