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Tag: for young people

Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

Well, I have just finished up Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer’s third trashy vampire book.  In case you were wondering whether all the trashy continues unabated, the answer is a resounded and unqualified YES. Basically, in this book, Bella and Edward have lots of anxieties for several reasons, including 1) she misses Jacob and wants to play with him; and 2) he (Edward, not Jacob) wants to get married and she doesn’t; and 3) she wants to have sex and he (still Edward, not Jacob) doesn’t; and 4) a vampire they pissed off a while ago is making a massive army of…

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Wolf Woman, Sherryl Jordan

I swear to God I will try and say some eloquent things about Night Watch which I am really enjoying, but I can’t even be bothered with Wolf Woman.  Sherryl Jordan?  What happened here?  Have you no sense of humor at all?  This is not an interesting story and exhibits a woeful lack of any sense of humor at all ever even a little bit ever.

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The Juniper Game, Sherryl Jordan

“What I want to do,” said Juniper, “is an experiment in mental telepathy.”  She hesitated, waiting for his reaction.  There wasn’t one.  “I know I have some telepathic abilities,” she went on more confidently.  “I can go through a pack of cards, face down, and guess about fifteen correctly.  And I often know who it is when the phone rings before I answer it.  But I want to try mental telepathy with someone else.  I want to try giving someone else my thoughts.  Images are easier to receive than words.  They’re more intuitive somehow, not so tied up in logic…

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Miss Spitfire, Sarah Miller

Recommended by: Book Nut I love Annie Sullivan.  Every time I think about Annie Sullivan it blows my mind.  She was twenty when she went to go teach Helen Keller, and she’d had no proper parenting, and she was twenty, and she must have been just about the most brilliant and inventive person of all time.  Annie Sullivan.  WOW.  There was a woman who knew how to parent. Anyway, I was excited to read this book about her.  I like young adult books, even though I have now become a real adult and can no longer feel smug, as I…

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Emily’s Quest, L.M. Montgomery

A really sad story: One time when I was in England I developed this mad craving to read all the Emily of New Moon books, so I went to great trouble to obtain them.  As things ended up, I had the first two on loan, and the third one I bought at a charity shop, so I read the first two lickety-split and returned them, at which point my yearning to read Emily’s Quest surpassed all imagining.  At this point it was late May, I think.  I was into exams and all.  And I had the bright idea – being…

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Sweethearts, Sara Zarr

Recommended by: God knows.  Some website.  I remember seeing it but I didn’t take note of where and now I can’t remember.  I’m cute but dumb. I actually bought this book mainly out of terror and dismay, as it sounded a lot like a story I’m in the process of drafting, and when I read about it I freaked out immediately and started having depressing dreams in which Sara Zarr (who looked a lot like Scheherazade from the TV movie of Arabian Nights, damn her) came and fussed at me for writing a lamer version of the exact same story…

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Emily Climbs

One of my favorite lines in all of literature happens in Emily Climbs: “Of course,” said Mrs. Ann Cyrilla, “I think a great many of Emily’s faults come from her intimacy with Ilse Burnley. She shouldn’t be allowed to run about with Ilse as she does. Why, they say Ilse is as much an infidel as her father….She swears like a trooper, I’m told. Mrs. Mark Burns was in [her father’s] office one day and heard Ilse in the parlor say distinctly ‘out, damned Spot!’ probably to the dog.” Oh God. That’s as good as anything Valancy says in that…

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The Children of Green Knowe, L.M. Boston

Oh my God this book was boring.  It was so, so, so boring.  It started out boring and it carried on being boring and there was nothing but boring and I kept thinking that something, anything, would have to happen eventually, but nothing ever did. Ever.  Nothing ever happened.  There was some conflict set up; there were suggestions of some kind of mystery; and nothing ever happened.  I was reading this book during one of my classes today (a fairly dull class, as it goes), and the book was so ungodly boring that I actually chose to put the book…

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Emily of New Moon, L.M. Montgomery

When my life gets stressful, I don’t read new books.  Hence I am rereading a bunch of old things.  The Color Purple and now all of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily books. I have to confess that I don’t understand the undying allure of Anne of Green Gables.  I don’t dislike those books or anything, but I can totally live without them – and God, how boring is Gilbert?  Is it just me?  Isn’t Gilbert dull?  Don’t we all sort of want to chuck Gilbert off a cliff?  When I was a little girl I read Anne of Green Gables and stopped…

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The Dollmage, Martine Leavitt

My people, lay down your stones. Before you stone this Annakey Rainsayer, you know it is the law and her right to have her story told. It is my duty as Dollmage to tell it. Each villager has the right to one stone, and no one will forbid you to throw it. But listen to me, and when I am done each of you will decide for yourselves if this Annakey is worthy of execution. That is right. Lay the stones at your feet, keep them close by if it comforts you. So few of you? The stones will get…

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