Average Girl Reads

My kids went back to school this past Wednesday: M, a high school senior; my twins C1 and C2, 8th grade; and DJ, 7th grade. This means that the balancing act begins again, not only with homework and chores but also with the kind of books the kids read. The ability to read is a necessary skill for gleaning information, but I want them to also think of reading as an enjoyable pastime. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough time during the week to read the required texts and sneak in books that they want to read.

I think that M and C2 will suffer the most in this area. M really dropped the ball over the past couple years with her grades, so she has to take two English classes this year. She is required to read classics for classwork and earn 60 Accelerated Reader points outside of class. Add in French and marching band and M won't have any leisure time left. C2 doesn't have quite the same load, but she is my reluctant reader. She reads slower than the rest of us even if it is a book that she likes, and her reading slows down to a glacial speed if she isn't captivated by the book. It is a chore getting her through her required reading, so she rarely has time for her preferred choices of manga and mystery novels.

On top of all this, I've set myself a goal of watching less TV during the school week. I don't allow the kids to watch TV on school days, so I thought it would be a good idea if I tried it myself. The first week didn't go so well. I haven't adjusted to the earlier wake-up time yet (I have to get up at 5:30a when school is in session instead of 7:30a) so I ended up getting four hours of sleep a night. I was too cranky to do anything in the evenings but watch TV. Hopefully, I will do better this week.

(Yes, I know this post's title is lame, but it seemed to fit.)

Remember my post about not being able to go to the library for a while? Well, after I wallowed is self-pity for a few days over my book-less existence, my lovely husband reminded that we have other members of the family with library cards and that we can check out books on the other cards. Whew! So we went to the library on Friday to pick up my requested books that the librarian kindly held for us. Once we got in there, ABM mentioned to the head librarian that none of the kids remember there being a booklet in the CD case. To my surprise, she immediately offered to remove the $50 fine and marked the CD case. She said that she knows we are responsible with our library materials so if we say it wasn't in there, then it wasn't. I guess it pays to go to the same library branch every week for several years!

UPCOMING READS: I have two pioneer romances, a YA zombie romance, a Brit chick lit novel, a YA drama geek novel, and a celebrity cookbook. Whatever will I read first?

Dinner for Two by Mike Gayle

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Genre: fiction, relationship book
On my TBR list: no



Synopsis, from Goodreads:

Dave Harding's got a wonderful wife, a beautiful home, and a job he could do in his sleep... So no one is more surprised than Dave when he hears his own biological clock start ticking. Loudly. Unfortunately, his better half, Izzy, has no nine-month plan for fat ankles or a credit line at Baby Gap. With even worse timing, the music magazine Dave writes for folds. Desperate for work, he's forced to become an advice columnist for a teen magazine. But he's about to get a serious wake-up call. Wading through letter after letter of adolescent angst is the last thing Dave wants to do, especially since he could use some help dealing with his own. But one letter is about to make all his little problems disappear -- and replace them with one big one. The letter is from a teenage girl named Nicola. But she doesn't need advice about boys, or friends, or the latest fads. She's looking for her father, whom she's never met. She's looking for a man to call Dad. She's looking for Dave.

Dinner for Two is the book I ended up with when I finished my other book early on vacation. It came from the cruise ship's library. I don't read a lot of books by male authors. It isn't on purpose; it's just that the types of stories I read are usually written by women. A relationship novel written by a man was a pleasant surprise for me. It was like being inside a guy's head and hearing all the thoughts that you suspected men had about love and relationships but that they rarely express.

This novel is written almost like my husband's talking style -- brief and to the point. Some of the chapters are only a page long and chronicle a conversation or an incident that add to the flavor of Dave's life more than furthering the story. This has bothered me before in other books, but it seemed to fit in this one.

I am undecided as to whether I will read another of Gayle's books, but I enjoyed trying out something that I wouldn't have picked up at home.

View all my reviews >>

The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Genre: chick lit
On my TBR list? Yes, since Jun 2010
Recommended by: Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Book 1 of 3

Synopsis, from Goodreads:

Melissa Romney-Jones can bake a perfect sponge cake, type her little heart out, and plan a party blindfolded. But none of that has helped her get far in life or in love. When she gets fired -- again -- she decides to market her impeccable social skills to single men. To avoid embarrassing her father, a Member of Parliament, Melissa dons a blond wig and becomes Honey, a no-nonsense bombshell who helps clueless bachelors shop, entertain, and navigate social minefields. She even attends parties if a client needs a "date." But when a dashing American starts to request Honey's services on a regular basis, it's only a matter of time before Honey's and Melissa's worlds collide....

The Little Lady Agency is part of my new favorite subgenre: chick lit books set in England. I watch a lot of British TV shows, so I understand the differences in word usage and can almost hear the accent as I'm reading. These books satisfy my appetite for British stories between seasons of shows like Doctor Who.

This was a fun story where the main character Melissa takes advantage of her best assets early on. Browne does a good job of maintaining the suspense as far as which guy Melissa is going to end up with. I don't quite understand why Melissa puts up with her boorish father, but that is a failing of mine and not the author; I've never understood why people put up with mean relatives, even parents.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series and following more of Melissa's adventures.

View all my reviews >>

I was reading the RSS feed from my library which alerts me to new books that will soon be available to borrow and I ran across a book entitled My Life in Pink and Green. The synopsis describes the book's heroine as a "natural problem-solver", and it occurred to me that I lean toward books with those types of characters. You know those stories: they always have a girl who is especially good at cooking or organizing or sewing, and she bails her family and friends out repeatedly with these skills. I also like stories with characters who can do magic or have superpowers, and the natural problem-solver is the closest you get to a magical person in a non-magical story.

This realization is part of my ongoing attempt to be aware of what types of stories and characters I gravitate towards. Recently, I've had this sense that I am reading the same book over and over. Sometimes I think I should branch out and then other times I want to stay in the cocoon of my comfort zone. My compromise at the moment is to at least identify the rut that I'm in.

QUESTION: Do you unapologetically stick to certain genres or styles, or are bent on reading a wide variety of books?

I asked my husband ABM to do the library run yesterday. C1 in particular is going nuts for something new to read, what with the heat wave making it too miserable to play outside. Anyway, ABM called me at work to tell me that a CD language set we had checked out was missing its booklet. The library says we can't check out any more books until we bring the booklet back or pay $50. The kids don't remember there being a booklet with the set, but they scoured the house looking for it, to no avail. I usually examine sets as soon as I check them out to make sure that all the pieces are there because I don't want to get blamed for damage caused by another patron. Unfortunately, I didn't do that this time so I don't know if the booklet was with the set when I picked it up.

What all this means is that I probably won't be doing any reading for a while. As most readers of this blog know, I get 99.9% of my books from the library. If I had to buy all the books I read, I would only read one book every few months. I doubt that we will be able to convince the library that we never had the booklet, so we are stuck with the fine. ABM will probably pay the $50, but he will do it grudgingly and several months down the line when the kids need to check out a book for a school project. I wouldn't want him to pay it too soon, anyway; it is much easier to return a book and get the library to take the $50 off our account than it is to get them to refund the money once it has been paid. So I guess I better get comfortable with reading classics from sites like Project Gutenberg :-).

As I type this, I am enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon on the deck of the Carnival Fantasy. We are docked in Nassau, Bahamas and I have a wonderful view of the colorful buildings of the straw market on my right and the beaches on my left. An episode of Bachelor Pad Radio is playing on my Zune, a cup of coffee is in my hand, and there is food that I didn’t have to cook about 10 steps away should I get hungry. As they say, this is the life!

Some of you may wonder why I even have my computer open on such a day, but this is all I wanted to do on this trip. I wasn’t in the mood to do a lot of running around like we usually do. Although I told my coworkers that I don’t take vacation days unless I have something specific to do, I found that once I got on the ship all I really wanted to do was sleep, read, and stare out at the ocean. Since I finished my book yesterday, I thought I would take advantage of the lack of distractions to get some writing done.

Yes, my book-loving friends, I only packed one book. It was a thick book (The Little Lady Agency – my review will be posted soon) and I truly thought I would be doing too much running around to finish it. Instead, I managed to work my way through most of the book during our first sea day and finished it off while my husband and kids were ashore in Freeport. I have several hidden-object games on my laptop and a few audiobooks at my disposal, but I’m really in the mood to read another book. Next year, I will pay attention to all of you and pack more than one novel!