Books in May

This month I was going for quantity over quality and trying to take a sizable chunk out of my to-read pile; I've got books on there that have been languishing for a decade. I read ten books in May but the to-read pile is still towering. Well, it's three piles, all towering together. After each title I've put the length of time the book has been in the pile.

MARKED (5 months), BETRAYED (2 weeks) and CHOSEN (5 months)

Every time I go into Waterstones the books in the House of Night series are there looking at me; the gothy cover models giving me the stink-eye and the one-word titles in their slashy font screaming, "You know you want to!"
They're not awful. Okay they are, but they're also weirdly compelling. Zoey comes to House of Night to learn how to be a Vampire (with lessons like drama and fencing and horses), leaving behind her unrealistically horrible parents and instantly becoming the darling of the school. The books are in first person so we get every nugget of embarrassing nonsense that pops into Zoey's head. She's real complex, one minute she's admonishing people for being rude or for using bad language, the next she's grinding on some dude and murdering youths in the street. Not a girl, not yet a woman, not human, not yet a vampire. So that's the awful part. I'm trying hard to think what I find compelling about the books.

DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD (5 months)

Concerns people being bafflingly fascinated by a group of insufferable ASBO-grannies. The Ya-Yas (I think there were four of them) are just a mess of noise, sweat and alcohol. The main Ya-Ya's daughter has postponed her wedding until she has read their history. The whole book is about her attempts to pull herself together. I guess she's having some kind of mid-life crisis. Grow up, all of you!

THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH (2 days) and THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES (2 weeks)

Forest of Hands and Teeth was great, fresh and fast and exciting. I've read many many books about the supernatural for this age demographic and I think this was the first one about zombies; you can't exactly work up any sexual tension between a spunky everygirl and a crumbly, bite-y zombie the way you can with a vampire or a werewolf. I liked the balance of romance and peril.
With The Dead-Tossed Waves it was a different story though. It's much longer than its predecessor and this is usually bad news in a YA sequel. It's not as long as say the new Vampire Diaries books or the latter Twilight books, and certainly not as terrible, but it's not paced as well as the first book. Still interesting, but not compulsive.

DEVIOUS (5 months)

Another month, another It Girl book. Better than the last one but that's not saying much. I won't forsake the series like I'd originally planned, but I'm gonna lay off for a while.

YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY (6 years)

I just plain did not like this book. It was very very annoying. It seemed pretty long while I was reading it too, like oh my god am I still reading about this ass and his obnoxious friend as they cut a swath of pointlessness across Africa and Europe?

A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN (4 years)

I bought this book for a book club that never happened, which I don't want to think about properly because it seems like it could be a depressing metaphor for my entire life. The book's been lying around ever since, annoying me until I decided to pick it up. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it but I was expecting to finish it in 10 hours or less. I was pleasantly surprised; it's a very short and readable tale of a family unexpectedly brought together by a recent immigrant who has hoodwinked their elderly father into marriage. It was a million times less corny than I'd expected.

4 BLONDES (8 years)

Another book that wasn't as corny as I expected. It's four stories, each told in different ways, I guess I'd describe it as Gossip Girl for grown-ups. The story I remember most fondly is about a model whose fame is one the wane, and who finds it harder every year to carry out her summer ritual of latching on to a rich guy and staying at his beach house. She's trying to find happiness before it's too late and hides her desperation with a kind of appealing aloofness. Anyway I liked it.