Oh, I am soooo in denial that tomorrow is September first. Actually, it’s in an hour and a half, but I’m still going to label it tomorrow because that makes me feel better.
See? Not just a river in Egypt. It’s all in my head, and I’m fine with that.
With the dreaded “S” word starting soon, I haven’t been able to read as much this week as I wanted to, darn it. I’m still working my way through Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading, and if I can finish it by the end of next week I’ll be fairly content. I’ve finished the research and rationale parts; now I’m into the lesson plans.
In the beginning of the week I re-read Natalie Anderson’s Gamble in Gold (re-released as a single Friday) and finished the last two of the three Ever After novellas that were coming out on Monday–Diane Alberts’s Take Me and Kathy Lyons’s One Night in the Spa. I reviewed all of them here earlier in the week. Take Me was definitely my favorite of the entire Take a Chance series, and I’m really hoping Diane will give Alistair his own story soon. (hint, hint!)
I read The Awakening: Liam on Monday. Even though I’d fully intended to spend a good chunk of the day in my classroom working, I just couldn’t put it down and stayed home and read instead. Liam was totally enabling my denial, and I just couldn’t hold it against him. I had the first book in the series (The Awakening: Aidan) on my Kindle wish list before I was even halfway through Liam’s.
I had faculty meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, which slowed down my print reading quite a bit–but I did start Kendra Leigh Castle’s The Demon’s Desire and am really, really liking it so far.
Anyone have extra reading time to spare? I’m in the market for some!
On audio, I finished The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. I liked it, and have already put book two on my iPod for future listening. The narrator was decent, though sometimes she forgot to change her voice from female mode into male, which threw me a bit. It was only mildly distracting, though. I think I’m going to wait to start book two until after we see the movie, which is planned for next Saturday. Has anyone seen it? Thoughts?
Next I picked up the first book in Kelley Armstrong’s new Cainsville series–Omens. I love, love, love Armstrong’s Otherworld series and the YA Darkest Powers/Darkness Rising series, so I had really high hopes for her newest book. For much of it, though, I was really torn. I wasn’t a huge fan of Olivia Jones, the novel’s protagonist and narrator. For much of the book I wasn’t even sure I liked her all that much. A big part of the reason–but not all of it–was the narrator of the audiobook–she sounded much older than a twenty-four-year old should, and it really bugged me. The secondary narrator who read all the other parts would have been a much better choice, I thought. I had to keep reminding myself that Olivia was only twenty-four when she’d do something on the immature side, because she didn’t sound young at all. For the first three quarters of the novel I really wasn’t all that crazy about it, but things really start coming together toward the end and I ended up liking it much more than I thought I would.
I really hope the narrator changes for book two, though.
I finally gave up on waiting for Mini Moe #2 to find time to finish listening to The Mark of Athena with me, and finished it myself. Darn you, Rick Riordan and your cliffhanger endings! At least I’ve only got a few short(!) months to wait for the next book, House of Hades, out on October 8. Man, can that guy write.
Just started Victoria Dahl’s Lead Me On today–am only a few chapters in. It seems like a fun read to finish up the summer with–hopefully it will keep me pleasantly distracted while working on my room tomorrow. And Monday. And Tuesday. (Though I’ll probably be on a second or third book by then. Sadly, I have a lot of work to do in my classroom.)
So many books, so little summer left. What are you reading this week?
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]