Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A Few Good Reads

So I just caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, whilst tossing more decongestant down my gullet, and what I saw made me pause. Sure, I've been sick the past four days (again? yes, again), and I've spent most of my time sleeping and sweating and not grooming, but I had some ridiculously big purple bags under my eyes. I wondered, Am I really that sick? I thought I was getting better?

And then I remembered that I finished reading The Fault in Our Stars this morning. Those swollen lids are little mementos of how hard I sobbed. Oh John Green, have you no care for your readers' delicate eyelid skin?

Of course it was an amazing book. Augustus Waters is up there with my all-time favorite characters. And I count myself lucky to have been able to get a ticket to John Green's book tour when he came through L.A. last week--if you think he and Hank would probably put on an awesome show together, you would be right.

I also recently attended Robin Mellom's release party for her debut, Ditched. She was absolutely lovely in person, and I won the raffle basket (put together by her parents!) which had all kinds of cool schwag (including but not limited to FUNYUNS!) and an ARC of her upcoming MG book, The Classroom. Yay me! I haven't read Ditched yet, but I'm looking forward to it--it looks like such a fun book.

Other books I have read recently: Chime by Frannie Billingsley (a little slow and very different, but by the end I really liked it), and Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley (unique and lovely, with a plot that comes together so neatly). Right now I'm working my way through A Game of Thrones, which I'm embarrassed to say my friend's husband lent me lo these many years ago (before the HBO series was even announced), and I only just now took interest in after watching said series and needing to know right now what happens next. The epic fantasy, she is not my first choice, but the storytelling here is excellent.

Anybody out there read epic fantasy? Is there anything else amazing that I'm missing?

7 comments:

  1. I've made a list of your book recommendations - thanks for posting them.
    I'm working my way through the George RR Martin's - when I'm through with them I'm thinking about building a wall ;)

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  2. Just ordered The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I've never read anything by him. Yeah, I know, I feel like the person I ran into the other day who suggested a great book series she was reading called "The Hunger Games." I wanted to pat her on the head and say, "It's okay, pet. I won't tell anyone you've been living under a rock."

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  3. Game of thrones is on my list. It's so long though. I might wait until its all finished before picking up one. LOVE the series though. I just finished reading DIVERGENT. I really enjoyed it.

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  4. I need to get to Game of Thrones one of these days. I get intimidated by series that are longer than three books, but I probably need to get over that. :)

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  5. I REALLY want to read Where Things Come Back!

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  6. TFiOS was gorgeous and painful. I almost couldn't make it. Good book list, Rachel.

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  7. Hope you're feeling better now, Rachel! Everyone keeps talking about TFIOS--I've got to pick it up! My son's been raving about how good Game of Thrones is, too. So long, though! And then if you're hooked, it'll be impossible not to read the rest of the books. Hate to say it, but I'm not sure I want to commit that much time at the moment.

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