Sunday Status

Sunday Status is a weekly (ish) post where I let you know what I'm reading and what I'm thinking about it as I go along.

~At Home~

The Forbidden Orchid

Sharon Biggs Waller

Viking, 2016

Source: I won this copy from Brittany at Please Feed the Bookworm

Genre: historical fiction, young adult

I'm not too far in, just about 70 pages or so, but I'm enjoying this book.  Set in the 1860s, Elodie's father gets paid to travel to far off places in search of rare and expensive plants and flowers.  But now he hasn't come home. Something terrible happened to him on his last trip and although they know he is okay, Elodie and her family have not heard from him.  The last thing he ever gave them was an orchid, beautiful and enticing, but also not appropriate for a young woman to set her eyes on and now Elodie is in danger of losing it--her one last connection to her father.  I don't know what happens next, but I do know (based on the Goodreads synopsis) that she will travel to China to help her father find another rare flower.  I really like Elodie so far and have already laughed out loud a few times at her wit and her fire.  She's smart and realizes that the men of her time are not as smart as she is, but she's being forced to play dumb and innocent in order to help her family and keep them together.  But at times it all just slips out.  

~At School~

Since You've Been Gone

by Morgan Matson

Simon & Schuster, 2014

Source: purchased

Genre: realistic fiction, young adult, friendship

Where have I been?  I'm absolutely loving this book.  I was going to bring it home and try to finish it this weekend, but I forgot it as school!  ARGH!  I am loving how the main character Emily is so anxious.  Okay, no that came out wrong.  I don't love that she's anxious--I don't wish that on a person.  What I love is that I can completely and totally connect to her anxiety.  Emily barely speaks to others because she's so shy, and the thoughts that run through her head during a conversation (which are painful most of the time) could have been my inner monologue as a high schooler and college student.  And even now, when I'm 34.  I hope my conversations aren't as painful as hers, but the inner monologue of "What in the world did I just say?" is dead on.  

I'm loving this book.  Can't wait to finish it this week!

Goodreads synopsis

~Listening To~

Orbiting Jupiter
Gary D. Schmidt
Narrator: Christopher Gebauer
Recorded Books, 2015
Source: purchased
Genre: realistic fiction, young adult, family

Audiobooks usually take me a bit longer to get through because I save them for when I walk outside, but I've been doing a lot of walking as of late due to the lovely weather.  Thank goodness because I haven't had to wait too long to find out what's going on with Jack and Joseph.  Jack's family has decided to foster an 8th grade boy named Joseph, and for sixth grader Jack, this is a big change for him.  He lives on an organic farm and has always been an only child.  He's a good kid.  No one would say that for Joseph, who was kicked out of his first home for trying to kill a teacher after he took some drugs, got in many fights in his detention center, and is the father of a little girl named Jupiter.  And the way most adults treat Joseph is that he's already so bad that he doesn't deserve their time.  MOST adults.  There are some absolutely wonderful adults that come into Joseph's life when he moves with Jack's family, most importantly Jack's parents.

I only have an hour left of this audio and it's breaking my heart.  I have so many thoughts and feelings about it already and it's only building more and more.  I'll have to save more of my thoughts and feelings for when I write a review.  Absolutely heartbreaking.

Goodreads synopsis

Book Review: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness

by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Little, Brown and Company

2011

Rating: **

Warning:  There are some minor spoilers--nothing big, and honestly I think it’s obvious, but just in case, stop after the second paragraph!

As the second in a series, I don’t have a lot of hope for later books.  Beautiful Darkness was rather difficult for me to muddle through.  We follow Ethan Wate again as his pines after Lena Duchannes, the Caster whose ultimate choice in Light or Dark will determine The Order of Things.  Now, Lena is mourning the death of her beloved uncle and pushing Ethan away as she becomes closer with her already Dark cousin Ridley, and new boy in town, John Breed.  He has to figure out a way to convince her that she still has a choice in her own life, that it’s not too late, but only if she’ll stop running from him.

Ethan spends most of this books on a quest to find Lena.  He’s following her.  He’s having visions of her and John Breed.  He’s going to save her.  He is her only hope.  Commence the eye rolling.  The amount of time spent searching and wondering about Lena could have been spent actually moving the story forward.  There were snippets of time when something truly interesting was happening, and the at the end things finally started moving, but overall, I felt like this journey to find Lena must have taken them weeks--months even.  It was dragged out so much that it felt like it took me months.

In addition to the new boy that Lena has taken up with, a new girl arrives in town--Liv, a Keeper In Training.  It gave me a little hope that maybe the book would take a twist and Ethan would find some happiness with her and just stop moping around and trying to save someone who could just make her own decision if she wasn’t such a wuss.  Liv is more interesting than Lena.  I wanted to know more about her and I didn’t understand why Ethan wouldn’t have made that decision as well.

I haven’t decided if I will read the next book in the series, Beautiful Chaos.  The only thing that would really convince to me read it is if Liv is also there.  I want more of her.  I care about her more than I care about the others, but from what it felt like at the end, I’m doubting she has much of a role--if any--in the next book.   

Book Review: The Fever

The Fever

By Megan Abbott

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

June 2014

Stars: *

I read some really great reviews on this book and put it on my to-read list fall of last year.  It sounded great.  A story about a mysterious disease that is sweeping through a school, affecting only girls.  The hysteria caused by the unknown, and the swooning, dramatic symptoms that seemingly affect all the girls in this school, but one—the one girl who finds herself at the center of all the crazy.

The girls in this book were painted to only be weak, mindless drones, content with following the latest craze; they were all sex-starved and a little crazy. It made me uncomfortable reading it—not because they were teenagers having sex.  What made me uncomfortable with this book was that, for most of the book I felt like this was a warning tale to all girls that as soon as they have sex, they’ll go crazy, the world will go crazy around them, and it’ll be their fault.  There was that underlying vibe, even if it wasn’t intended.

So putting the negative view of girls aside, the males in book aren’t much better.  The father just seems like an idiot—when it comes to understanding girls, because girls are crazy and don’t make sense as soon as they hit puberty.  The brother was also a mess—because having sex with all those girls who just appear at his door, offering themselves up to him, has finally made him feel uncomfortable.  Girls are confusing.  We’re still focusing on how girls are confusing and, underneath it all, awful because they are girls.  Let’s be honest, it’s not girls who are confusing—it’s teenagers in general!  How can they not be confusing?  They barely understand themselves and are struggling to get a firm grip on who they are, what the world means to them, and how they fit into this world.  Heck—life in general is confusing and people are confusing.  Even though blame was at one point thrown haphazardly at the boys, the girls came out looking like terrible people--because they were girls.

All in all, I was interested in finding out what started the illness in the first place, but was disappointed in  the revelation, although it was somewhat obvious (see above: negative view of crazy teenage girls, who are terrible people because they are girls).  I had been hoping I was completely off base.  I wasn’t.  The characters for the most part are flat and unbelievable, fitting nicely into clichés that help to explain part of their characters.  The worst is the father and I found myself skimming over much of his section (which was a lot).  

I don’t recommend this book to anyone and I will not be reading anymore of Meg Abbott’s work—unless you can convince me that it’s worth it.