First week of the year, and eclectic mix

Bluefish was a heartwarming (non-paranormal or dystopian) story about a 13 year old boy, Travis, who has just moved to a new school. He's made it through his whole life by 'passing' but he can't pretend anymore. You see, Travis has a secret. He can't read. It takes an astute reading teacher and a strange girl named Velveeta to convince him that he can learn. Velveeta has secrets of her own though, and though they don't realize it, Travis is helping Velveeta by letting her help him. This was a sweet story and a very quick read. I finished it in one night. Throughout the book Velveeta is reading The Book Thief which made me want to pick that one up. But I guess I'll wait until we read it for FYA.


Turns out Michael Crichton is still writing from the grave. First, Pirate Latitudes and now, Micro. From what I read, this manuscript was nearly finished at the time of his death. The book begins with a group of grad students traveling to Hawaii to visit a company that has been working with micro-biotics. The students are experts in fields such as spiders, plant pheromones, insect toxins, beetles, etc. Turns out that this company has developed technology capable of shrinking not only robots but humans as well. The students find out things they're not supposed to and end up being shrunk to a height of 1/2 inch and released in the Hawaiian wilderness. The students' trek through the jungle reminded me of Jurassic Park. From the view of the students, ants are as big as their forearms, centipedes are larger than horses, and some spiders are as big as a house! I wouldn't recommend reading this while eating though. I'm not a fan of bugs anyway and some of the descriptions in this book were pretty gross.


I'm not going to say much about this book because I don't want to give anything away. It's set in the possible near future where food is scarce, the weather has gone crazy because of the deteriorating atmosphere, animals are few, and traditional government has collapsed and been replaced by the Reestablishment. Juliette is an outcast, and for good reason. One touch from her skin can kill. This is Tahereh Mafi's first book and both Farrow and I were impressed by her ability and style. I loved, loved, LOVED the ending and I'm excited that this one is going to be a trilogy.



I just happened to catch this one as it came out a few days ago and was intrigued by the concept. The 'book' is set up as a scrapbook and every page consists of only a few sentences of text surrounded by vintage 1920s memorabilia. The picture on the right is an example of what the pages look like. I finished this in an hour or two and the story was obviously not very complex, but I enjoyed every page.