Broken Record

I know. I go away for ages and then I come back and talk about being a terrible blogger and how I will be better, I promise, this time will be different...and it isn't. So no promises. And no self-flagellation over my blogging habits (or lack thereof). Let's just talk about some books.

There have actually been a lot of books in the last year that have made me want to share them here. Not sure what exactly it is about the following trio - except for the fact that they are a trio, one that was entirely unplanned - that actually got me to do it, but here we go.

I am, once again, in the process of moving. At the beginning of the summer, with the knowledge of this impending move on my mind, I started buying and borrowing books and setting them aside, a TBR pile that wouldn't get packed up with the rest of my library. By the time my summer trip to Seattle (a couple weeks ago) rolled around, I was down to about 5 books. I can never travel with only one book, so I packed three, not realizing until I cracked them open, that every single one was set in the Pacific Northwest. Ah, serendipity, you did it again.

I started Winger on the plane (after wrapping up Neuromancer in the airport). I really had very little idea of what to expect - I just knew that it had been pretty well-received critically but was probably too "mature" for our junior high library. And wow. It was funny and real and occasionally kind of magical, with vivid characters and an absolute punch to the gut that managed to come out of nowhere and yet make perfect sense. It had me in tears on the plane, which I was trying very hard to be discreet about.

Seattle connection: the title character goes to boarding school in Oregon and spends a memorable weekend on Bainbridge Island.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is, indeed, strange and beautiful. It is magical realism, almost immediately bringing to mind Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Characters turn into birds, fade away, intuit things through smell, and have wings. How many ways can I try to explain how much I loved this book? It is gorgeous and atmospheric and I just want to read it again, because I tried to read slowly and I couldn't. It sucked me in and held me rapt. Books like this make me a little sad about heading to my new middle school library post - it's not right for middle schoolers, but I would recommend the heck out of it if I had high school kids as a captive audience.

Seattle connection: Ava's grandmother, Emilienne (the names, by the way, are fabulous), moves with her husband (who she won't love, because the three times she was in love before she met him all ended badly) to Seattle from Manhattan, where he opens a bakery (which goes on to produce some of the more mouth-watering treats in literature).

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is not YA (although it's narrated by Bernadette's eighth-grade daughter, Bee, and would probably be enjoyed by high school kids). It is wonderful. I know. I sound like a broken record. And I know that this one has been around for a couple of years and plenty of people have said, more eloquently than I, I'm sure, how awesome it is. So let me just say that, among the many other feelings it made me feel, this book also rekindled my desire to visit Antarctica (sparked by Madeleine L'Engle, the first time I read Troubling a Star).

Seattle connection: Bernadette and family live in Seattle and her many issues with Seattle and Seattle-ites and Seattle culture make for some hilarious, ranty reading.