Another Saturday on the Desk

Dead Girls are Easy, by Terri Garey. This was in there with Davidson's Undead series and Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels: mouthy trashy female main character, decently researched fantasy elements, and a pretty good plot that trips over unnecessary, forced, cliched romantic elements. As a fantasy/suspense novel, this would have been better. If two of the main characters weren't so stereotypical and Avon wasn't the publisher, this could have really been something.

Duck! Rabbit!, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal; illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. Love love love! There's nothing like a good picture book on a crappish day. I got a promo button at ALA MidWinter and have been eagerly awaiting this book ever since seeing the video online. You can still watch the video online through the publisher's site. The excellent thing about the video is that the picture doesn't have the page crease down the middle. In the book, the illustrations are big, spread across both pages. They look lovely, but that dividing line makes me have to work pretty hard to see the duck. The video includes a little less than half the book. I love the back and forth between the unseen characters. Thanks to our children's department! When I went in an couldn't find it, they ordered it for me and even put it in my staff mailbox. I love being the first to read a new book! Rabbit all the way.

Fearless: Rebel, by Francine Pascal. I ILL'ed this, because I'm compulsive and couldn't say no, but I'm definitely going to stop reading these, since they aren't improving. They aren't bad: I like the story, and I rather like the characters, but the action could move along a little bit faster. We're learning very little about Gaia's family, and after 7 books, we still don't have the slightest inkling if her fearlessness is the result of a genetic mutation, a science experiment, alien interference, or something else equally plausible and unexpected. My brain slotted these into the "wasting time" books category, books that are to be read because the reader is comfortable with the characters and knows what to expect, without having to mentally or emotionally confront anything. They are in many ways similar to the Romance genre: no surprises, sticks to a plot outline, requires very little effort (on the part of both the writer and the reader), and a quick read because of those things. I weeded our copies, because we had the first 5 and a random 4 from the 20s; while it's true that not much happens in each book, a gap that big would make it difficult to follow, since the author doesn't relive previous action (as a reader I'm glad of that, but it makes it hard when we can't provide the full series). Circulation was low and they weren't looking too pretty, so they went to the book sale. You might begin plans for the 48-hour book challenge, especially if you haven't been keeping good track of your math or haven't been meeting the 2-books-a-week (or your own equivalent). I will be spending that weekend with my family, many of whom I haven't seen in over 2 years, so I'll be a bit busy, but I'll find a weekend I can do my own book challenge. Someone remind me to tell Monicah about this: maybe we could do a read-a-thon lock in. Leave the teen room open! Graphic novels totally allowed! Hey, this actually sounds like fun!