SA Bodeen Reads

Wow. This book. She wrote one of my all time favorites BROKEN FOR YOU, and this one totally measures up. If you haven't read her books, you must.

A couple weeks ago I was out in CT to speak at a library and the librarian told me about this book, written by a friend of hers. I immediately looked it up and the premise hooked me. Once I got my hands on the book, I couldn't put it down. This one is masterfully insidious, in the vein of the brilliant Shirley Jackson. Now my head is full...

This one will break your freaking heart.

Loved this book so much.  It sucked me in from the start, I fell in love with Finn and Petey and got wrapped up in the mystery of Roza. Read it. Seriously.

Read this one. Loved it. 

Just finished this one. It's like if Jack London and Cormac McCarthy had a book child that spent summers with V.C. Andrews. Wow. Brutal at times, but unputdownable.

If you haven't read The Riverman, read it now. Then buckle up for this one, book #2 in a fabulous trilogy. Lamenting that I have to wait until 2016 for the third...

When you read a book and you feel like the main character could just walk into the room. This book does that. Sean is so real he walks off the page.

With the focus on ALS of late, thanks to the ice bucket challenge, I've heard Lou Gehrig's name more in the last few weeks than the entire previous year. Many people know little about the man, other than: 1) He had a horrific disease. 2) He played baseball.

This is tragic, because he was a man who lived a life before the ALS struck. I'm not a big non-fiction reader, but this book made me one. I read it several years ago, and still remember sitting there and getting near the end. I had to set the book down and use both hands to wipe away the tears so I could continue reading. Brilliant book about a man who was far far more than  the disease that killed him.

Ooooh. This one was so good. So annoyed I have to wait to read the next one...

Couldn't put this one down. It was like a mix of The Firm and Deliverance.  Not for wussy readers, some brutal moments...

Loved this book. So much so they actually asked me for a blurb. And here's what they did with it, which was pretty cool.

I keep up with the book deals out there, somewhat. And I know a new trend is books about genies ( as I have always called them, I'm a child of the era of I Dream of Jeannie, so cut me some slack) or djinn/jinn as seems to be the modern slant. This is the first I've read and it was fun: magic, arranged marriages, I mean come on, what's not to like? Enjoyed it:)

Here's the thing. I've been reading a lot of YA.  A lot. And they've been the hyped books, which I don't always do, because I'd rather read the buzzed about books than the hyped ones. Feels more grassroots to me, versus "Big Brother says you should read this..." Despite this one getting lots of hype, I wanted to read Mortal Danger because I think Ann Aguirre crafts brilliant stories, and also because her editor is my editor, who I think is the best in publishing. So I picked this up, knowing it would be a good read, but also thinking I knew how it would go. I WAS SO WRONG. This was not some girl discovering she had cool new powers. Holy shit. I could not have been more wrong. Or more delighted at being wrong. I love Edie, the main character. From the freaking GET GO I loved her. And Kian, the male lead? Don't get me started. (And may I add, best makeover since Mia Thermopolis...) Loved this book, dying to read the next one. So so good.  

A few weeks ago, Ruth Graham lit some fires with her incendiary rant in Slate about how adults should be embarrassed to read YA. She accused YA of escapism, instant gratification, and nostalgia, and claimed YA novels tended to have uniformly satisfying endings. Some do, sure. But the level of YA coming out today tends to adhere to none of those stereotypes. I can't think of a better example than Complicit, which I spent most of the afternoon reading, turning pages as fast as I could. Complicit is complicated and stressful and yes, I found myself craving an easy, happy wrap-up. Didn't happen. Shouldn't have happened. Couldn't have happened. The ending was like the rest of the book, and like life: messy, complicated, maybe a little hopeful, but when all is said and done, maybe not. This is the kind of YA the naysayers need to read. Maybe some minds will get changed.

Creepy. Glad I read it during the daytime.