Karen Sandler

Tag: favorite book

  • RTW – Best Book in June

    YA Highway‘s blog prompt for the last Road Trip Wednesday of the month is always about the best book you’ve read for the month, in this case, What was the best book you read in June? When I took a peek on my iPod and saw the prompt, I thought, Hah! An easy one! because my mind immediately went to a fabulous book I read in June, the only one I read in paper form.

    Then I took a peek at my Kindle list to see what else I’d read and realized, Dang! There’s a second one!

    So I’m afraid I’m going to have two favorites again this month. First is Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld, the second book in his steampunk Leviathan series. As I mentioned, I read this one as a trade paperback rather than e-book. I had dropped into a fabulous indie bookstore in Davis CA, The Avid Reader, to ask if they would order in my YA science fiction book, Tankborn. I made a point of buying a book that day (a Jasper Fforde novel), then when I returned later to autograph the copy of Tankborn that they’d ordered, I again wanted to support the store by buying a book. I spotted Leviathan, a book I’d been wanting to read, and realized the trade paperback cost the same as the Kindle version, so why not buy it in paper?

    It turned out to be a smart decision because the book is loaded with wonderful illustrations that I’m sure would not have been so beautiful on my Kindle screen. Once I finished Leviathan, I desperately wanted Behemoth, but I was determined to support the Avid Reader next time I was in Davis by buying the book there.

    Finally I made it back to Davis, bought Behemoth and devoured it in just a few days. Both Leviathan and Behemoth are great on-the-edge-of-your-seat adventures, with a mondo cool steampunk world that meshes beautifully with actual history. I’ve been a Scott Westerfeld fan for a while, but these two books just up the fan gush.

    You might think these are the two books I mentioned earlier. But no. I read Leviathan a couple months ago. The second fave book that I read in June is The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. I follow Maureen on Twitter (is she a hoot, or what?), so I’ve known about the book for quite some time. But I avoided it because I’m pretty squeamish when it comes to gore and I feared this book would be full of it (the Jack the Ripper angle clued me in).

    But although there are some pretty ick scenes that made me cringe, they don’t dominate the book. There’s such a great story here, I couldn’t stop turning pages. Plus, I loved the characters, the setting, and Maureen’s trademark humor (yes, many funny bits even in a book centered around Jack the Ripper).

    So if you haven’t checked out the Leviathan series and The Name of the Star (also slated to be a series), I suggest you do, forthwith.

  • RTW – Favorite Book in May

    Today, YA Highway wants to know What was the best book you read in May? I checked my Kindle list and found I downloaded four ebooks in May (I’m not as prodigious a reader as some). Of the four, I read and very much enjoyed two, had to struggle through one and never finished it and barely peeked into the fourth (it was a freebie that turned out to just not be my cup of tea).

    But of the two I read and enjoyed, the Latte Rebellion especially turned out to be my cup of, uh, coffee. It was such a fun book with a great multi-cultural cast. What starts as a money-making lark for the main character, Asha, turns into a full-fledged cause for mixed race kids. Her relationship with her best friend, Carey, gets dented along the way, but Asha’s character arc is believable and powerful.

    Although the tone of this book is light and the opposite of angst-ridden, it covers some pretty significant topics. One of the other characters, Roger, keeps asking Asha, Why don’t you just join the Asian club? In other words, although Asha is a mix of ethnicities, Roger wants to pigeon-hole her into just one so she can be categorized. But that’s the whole point the Latte Rebellion (the movement within the book) is trying to get across. That people can’t always be easily pigeon-holed.

    It occurs to me that there is another book I might just have finished at the start of May and it really deserves mention. Vodnik from my fellow Lee and Low/Tu Books author, Bryce Moore, is a YA boycentric adventure so unique I doubt you’ve read anything quite like it. Unless, of course, you’re steeped in Slovak and Roma fairy tales. It’s an exciting, page-turning read, full of the unexpected.

    So there you are, my reads for May. What have you been enjoying?

  • RTW – The Best Book Read in February

    YA Highway‘s prompt for today’s Road Trip Wednesday is What was the best book you read in February? No ties this month. The answer was easy-peasy.

    I read three books in February: Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races, M. T. Anderson’s Feed, and Beth Revis’s Across the Universe. I might have finished Stardust in the early days of February (I started it in January) and have started another book that I won’t finish until March, but I think the above three qualify as “books I read in February.” (How do you count the books you’ve read each month?)

    Anyway, hands down, no thought required at all, The Scorpio Races was the best book I read in February. I’m sure it will turn out to be in my top five for the year, without even knowing what else I’ll be reading. This book had the perfect combination of marvelous, engaging characters, a wonderful premise, a breathless plot, and an enigmatic, yet fascinating setting. Add the fact that I love horses (that’s my beautiful Belle to the left–doesn’t she look just like Dove?) and this book was a guaranteed hit for me.

    One thing about The Scorpio Races, which is true for other great books–it stuck with me for days. I kept reflecting on the book, kept feeling the pull of the story even though I’d finished it. That puts it in an entirely different category than other books I’ve enjoyed but weren’t quite elevated to greatness in my mind.

    So, what were your favorites this month?

  • RTW – The Best Book I Read in November

    I just finished a post on why I love reading e-books and scheduled it for this coming Saturday. I mention this because YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday prompt for today is What’s the best book you read in November? and thanks to my Kindle, it was easy as pie to refresh my memory on what I read this past month. I could have also checked Goodreads, but since I’m not great about updating my reads there, it’s not as reliable.

    Anyway, my best book for November was The Declaration by Gemma Malley. In The Declaration, Anna and Peter are illegal children living in a hellish children’s home that’s like something from a Dickens novel. A Longevity drug that extends life indefinitely has led to an overcrowded world, and the illegal children are the ones who pay the price. It’s set in a futuristic Britain and its British voice is part of what led me to fall in love with this book and its characters. I very much enjoyed the humor interleaved with the very dire situation Anna and Peter were in. I also found the set-up intriguing and since we’ve recently reached the 7-billionth mark of the population on our planet, The Declaration had some very real-world elements to it.

    Of course, this is an “older” book (published 4 years ago), but as a newcomer to young adult, I’m still catching up on the great books. The upside to that is I don’t have to wait for the sequel. The Resistance is already available. And since I have the patience of a flea when it comes to waiting for the next book in a series, I am a happy camper about that.

    Has anyone else out there read The Declaration? What was your take?