Reading as of Late

As you might expect for a person who is in grad school for literature, I read a lot. But this semester, I'm reading for fun while I'm reading for school. How often does that happen? For me, not often.

I just finished another amazing novel. I want to read it to my nieces, but I don't know if they will get scared by it or not.

I have loved Neil Gaiman since roughly 2006 or 2007 when my mom and I took a road trip to AZ, where I was going to live for the summer. We gathered a slew of books on CD for the car ride and headed out. One of our favorites was Coraline by Gaiman. We loved it so much we would sit in the car when we reached our hotel to finish the chapter, wishing we had a way to take the CD in and listen as we rested prostrate on the beds. After being in a car for 10+ hours, this is a miraculous occurrence, to stay in the car for a second longer than needed. But we loved it. We both wanted to listen to it again after we finished it, but we were done road-tripping at that point.

Fast forward many years and a plethora of grad classes later and I haven't gotten back to Gaiman, though I smile every time I hear about Coraline, book or film. Graveyard is a similarly awesome book; a must-read and phenomenal.

I have also read, up to this point, the following other books:

 While Looking for Alaska was very deep and moving, it is not for everyone. There is a lot of adolescent delinquency in it, and while I believe the ultimate message is one of redemption and hope, conservative readers will not make it through to find the phenomenal ending.

True Diary is another well-written and surprising YA novel. Although Alaska was Green's debut novel, Sherman Alexie has been around for quite some time and has established a firm reputation. There is so much tragedy in this novel and yet, similar to each book listed above, there is much to gain, as well. Hope and redemption are necessities and are well-woven centralities in the life of young Junior.

One book of the four so far covered in my course has been terrible, and thus I'm not mentioning it here. I was sad to read it, as my course is Award-Winning Young Adult Fiction of the 21st century. How did it win an award? Well, it was a minor award and the book is lame. Enough said.

I'm excited to move on to the final two novels and to have time to explore the common themes in today's young adult fiction. This is my favorite grad class ever--and it just so happens to be the last one ever. A fabulous combination!