The Value in Rereading

It's amazing sometimes how it's the smallest moments in life, the offhand conversations, or the words uttered when we're only half paying attention that end up impacting us in great ways.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a teacher who somehow managed to mention in class that he never reread anything because he would never be able to read all the books in the world and he saw no point in revisiting something when there were undiscovered and unconsumed books.

From that point on, that shaped how I viewed rereading. I considered rereading to be a waste of my valuable time on earth, I should be discovering all of the other wonderful stories and books out there, I only have limited time after all. See, I know it was this teacher, who I really respected, that influenced me because out of all of the things I remember from his classes, this is the most deeply embedded inside of me.

Fourteen years later, I'm just now starting to recover. With the exception of Harry Potter and the Bible, I haven't reread a book in all of that time. I've driven myself to endlessly read the next book, even if it ended up not being all that great. I've read a lot of books, but you know what? The number of books I haven't read hasn't really seemed to get any smaller. I can still have a conversation with a person and despite the fact that I read around 125 books a year, I'll feel totally illiterate.

I've started rethinking this. I think there are quite a few books out there that beg to be reread. I think there are quite a few books out there whose deepest treasures can't be mined from one reading alone. After all, for me at least, the first read through is often for story alone.

I've been writing lately about how my reading philosophy is changing and this is a huge part of it. I've spent the last week rereading The Hunger Games trilogy interspersed with new reads for the Inspys Awards and my appreciation for the series grows with the rereads. I think there is a lot to be discovered in these books, things I would have missed on one read alone. But that's not all, I also picked up The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, a book I read earlier this year that pretty much set the course for my year. I intended to use it in something I was writing but found myself drawn right back to the page almost as if reading it for the first time. The book is so rich in its concepts that one read is simply insufficient for processing the ideas. It's a book that can be a companion.

As someone who reads the Bible regularly, it's funny that I didn't pick up on this earlier. After all, the words in Scripture often come alive to me in new ways and I begin to understand them in different ways for different contexts throughout my life. It stands to reason the same can happen in other books as well.

And just beyond the simple joy of digging out deeper treasures, there's something comforting about a story and characters I already know.

I know there are dangers in rereading. I do, really. Sometimes a book is actually meant to be a one time experience. I'm not saying I'm going to reread everything, what I'm saying is that I'm no longer going to feel guilty if I want to go back into a book or read it again. I'm no longer going to feel that this is wasting my life.

Books, after all, are like people. Complex and layered. More than meets the eye. Understood better, the deeper you go. I'm ready to get to know them on a more intimate level.

SDCC Giveaway Winners!

I gave away some awesome bundles from SDCC and now I have the winners!

The winner of Bundle 1 which included Death's Daughter signed by Amber Benson is Lisa Richardson!

The winner of Bundle 2 which included a signed copy of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire is Michelle of The True Book Addict!

The winner of Bundle 3 which included a signed ARC of Virals by Kathy Reichs is Joanne of The Book Zombie!

Congrats all! Please email mypalamyATgmailDOTcom with your addresses so I can mail these!

Review: Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

After finishing Mockingjay I tried to read several books. I tried to read some general fiction, historical fiction, lighthearted YA, a mystery, and some creative nonfiction. And I couldn't get past a few pages in any of them. Not because they were bad books but because they weren't Mockingjay. So I decided to finally dig out my copy of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in Suzanne Collins middle grade series. I bought this book a long time ago after reading Catching Fire, I think, but never got around to reading it, even after reading some great reviews. I'm glad I read it now, because it was the perfect antidote to what ailed me.

Gregor is an eleven year old boy who lives in New York City with his mom and little sisters. His dad disappeared awhile ago, and while Gregor can't exactly allow himself to hope that his father will return, he hasn't given up that he won't either. One day while doing laundry, Gregor notices that his little sister disappears through a grate in the laundry room, he follows her and they are plunged into the underworld. Which is not Hades, though with the giant sized cockroaches and rats scurrying about it certainly seems like it could be to me!

Humans also live in this underland but they are in a place of uneasy peace. They have long awaited a warrior to come and begin to deliver them from the antics of the rats. They suspect Gregor is the warrior, and share a prophecy with him.

I really liked this book. It has the same traits as The Hunger Games trilogy, albeit for younger readers. It's funny, imaginative, a world I can easily visualize in my head and characters I learn to feel a tremendous amount of affection for, particularly Gregor and his sister, Boots. Additionally, Collins doesn't avoid or soften the hard issues. She has made clear that she writes books about children and war and this is certainly that. There are scenes of tenderness and loss of childhood innocence as well as other kinds of losses that are written with such aching emotional truth.

Gregor is certainly a character to love, he's empathetic and kind, and willing to take responsibility for his foolish actions. He sees the impact of his choices and acknowledges the role he plays in the way things unfold. He's loyal and brave.

This is a fantasy and there is a quest! This is generally not my favorite kind of story (quests) but I enjoyed this one.

The structure of Gregor the Overlander will feel familiar to readers of The Hunger Games as well, as it's divided into three parts with 9 chapters each. It is written in the third person, though.

I have to confess I immediately ordered the other books in the Underland Chronicles and that's all I want to read now. I've heard, though, they get progressively grimmer. Sound familiar?

Rating: 4.25/5
Source of Book: Bought it!
Publisher: Scholastic

Coming to the End

After I finished Mockingjay, I couldn't help but think that one of the things I love about YA and speculative fiction is series. I love series in books in the same way that I crave serialized TV shows. I like to watch a story unfold over many books (or episodes) I love feeling like I get to know the characters more deeply. Sometimes it's even just a world I want to return to again and again. Additionally, you might be surprised to learn that most of my keeper books are YA books (except apparently Harry Potter is actually middle grade??) and that I like to have them in hardcover matching sets. (which is why it annoys me when they add extra content to the paperbacks)

So I was thinking of how a few more series I love will be drawing to a close soon. Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series will come to an end next year. I'm very sad about this to be honest, as I really love these books and this world.

I think the cover of the final book, Darkest Mercy, is one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen.



I'm happy to have all of these stunning books in hardcover.

Another series that will be coming to a close is Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth. These books are responsible for my newly discovered love of zombie stories, and I really love visiting this strange world. I have the first two books in hardcover, but due to a design change, they don't match. I love the cover for the third, though, coming out next spring, The Dark and Hollow Places.



Another series that will be closing out next year that I enjoy is Maggie Stifvater's Wolves of Mercy Falls books. Sadly, I do not have these books in hardcover (ARC only) because I think they are some of the most beautiful books I've seen. Maybe they'll release a boxed set I can buy?

Are any of your favorite series coming to a close soon or in the next year?

CFBA Book Spotlight and Initial Thoughts: The Vigilante's Bride by Yvonne Harris

About the Book: Robbing a stagecoach on Christmas Eve and abducting a woman passenger is the last thing Luke Sullivan expected to do. He just wanted to reclaim the money stolen from his pa, but instead ended up rescuing a feisty copper-haired woman who was on her way to marry Sullivan's dangerous enemy. Emily McCarthy doesn't take kindly to her so-called rescue. Still, she's hoping Providence will turn her situation for good, especially when it seems Luke Sullivan may just be the man of her dreams. But Luke has crossed a vicious man, a powerful rancher not used to losing, and Emily is the prize he's unwilling to sacrifice.

I'm about 100 pages into this book so far. It's not a bad book, but to be completely honest I don't know if I'll finish it anytime soon. If you are a fan of American historical Christian romances you'll probably enjoy this one, I've just not been much in the mood for this kind of book lately. (Please note I received this book from the publisher)

Mockingjay: One Week Later

Last week when I closed the cover of Mockingjay, I was emotionally drained and eager to know how all the other fans of the Hunger Games had reacted to the book. I was really curious as to what reactions would be to the book because while I had no real concrete expectations for it, I knew I what I got was not what I expected. Sure enough, the reactions have been extremely mixed and led to some interesting and thought provoking discussion. I'm a fan of the book and I suspect I will always feel a strong personal connection to it, not only for the way the story itself impacted me, but because it saved reading for me in a really big way during a time I wondered if I would ever love to read again. Here are some of the fascinating posts that have sprung up around Mockingjay:

I LOVED this post from Malinda Lo on fan expectations. This post gave me a lot to think about in regards to the books I read and the shows I watch. And of course on the weight of the expectation we bring to any book we read.

I read Mockingjay as a serious social critique and found this post from Sarah Darer Littman to be a good analysis of the discussion on war found within the pages of Mockingjay and the Hunger Games trilogy.

When it comes to writing heartfelt reviews, I'm pretty sure no one does it like Angie, so you can imagine I was relieved to find out she was similarly affected by this book.

Amanda also has an in-depth review and we're on the same page about a lot of things as well.

And I loved this post from YA author Gayle Forman on the Mockingjay effect...and I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has experienced a certain amount of lingering obsession.

Finally...I've really been thinking about these books being made into movies and I'm extremely curious as to how it will be done. There's a part of me that wants it right now and a part of me that fears Katniss and Peeta will be horribly cast and the movie will sort of miss the plot. In any case, here's an update from the Daily Beast.

I recognize there are many people who didn't really like this book and I do feel sad that it was a disappointment for so many who loved the first two. But I'm grateful for all the discussion that has sprung up and even more grateful for a book that makes me want to continue thinking about it and writing about it...so don't be surprised if I come up with a few Mockingjay essays yet.

How are you feeling about the book one week later?

Review: The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage by Jan & Mike Berenstain

The Berenstain Bears have been around for awhile. I know because one of the first books my parents gave me all my own was The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room. It was a Christmas present that felt a bit like a lesson, much like the ever practical gifts of socks and undies. I've never been entirely organized and my parents obviously thought a good story was the way to one's heart. Much wisdom in that!

Recently, there have been some new Berenstain books that are explicitly Christian. This is interesting to me. The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage is one such book. As with all Berenstain Bears books there's a topic to be dealt with and in this book it's bullies. Sister needs to deal with a bully but fears she lacks the courage. She asks Papa Bear to read the story of David and Goliath to them at bedtime. The story is fully in the book, complete with bear images! Sister expresses her doubt over whether or not she has the courage to stand up to a bully, and Papa Bear assures her she does. Will Sister Bear test this courage? Read the book and find out! :) (Please note I received a copy of this book from the publisher)

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The Vampire Diaries News

As you all know, I'm a huge fan of The Vampire Diaries, both the books (especially when I was younger) and the TV show. (Ian!!!)

The show comes back September 9th and looks better than ever! Check out this juicy trailer!

In other excellent news, Ian Somerhalder was voted as the sexiest beast during Entertainment Weekly's tournament. There are simply no words for how much I love this!

Finally, a series of Vampire Diaries prequels are going to be released. I do not understand. These are essentially books for fans of the TV shows that will explore the Salvatore brothers' lives during the Civil War era and have nothing to do with the actual books. They will be called Stefan's Diaries...cute huh? Which means I probably won't read them. But here's the cover anyway:



Most important! I will be recapping the Vampire Diaries every week right here on the blog! I invite you to link up your own recap posts. This will be an ongoing part of the L.J. Smith challenge. I'm adding The Forbidden Game trilogy as the books to read this year, and will be making the announcement a little later than originally planned because I hope to do something fun with it! Haven't read the Forbidden Game? One word for you. Julian. The Forbidden Game was recently rereleased in omnibus format from Simon Pulse. These were my favorite L.J. Smith books growing up.

Who's excited for the Vampire Diaries to come back?

Faith and Fiction Saturday Round Table: Godric by Frederick Buechner

Every month a group of Christian bloggers read and discuss a book via email which we then post on the final Saturday of the month. This month we read Godric by Frederick Buechner, a book I've long been meaning to read. You can find our discussion below at the various blogs who participated. My many thanks to them for helping me understand this different but interesting book.

Unfinished Person --The language of the book
My Random Thoughts--Overall Impression
The Fiddler's Gun--Godric's relationship with his sister
Shelf Love--Perception
Book Addiction--Merits of rereading
Books and Movies--Prayer passage
Wordlily--Familiarity with Buechner and the real Godric

What Makes a Book YA?

It's time for the lastest installment in my never ending quest to understand what factors drive a book to be marketed as YA (young adult) fiction.

I've argued before that it's the age of the protagonist and nothing else, but people pointed out to me that some YA books have non-teen protagonists. So I was back to square one.

Then, this year at the LA Times Festival of Books this subject came up several times and many YA authors said that YA books need to have hope or an element of redemption. That I could buy into and it even help explained why I love YA so much...I adore hope! I love stories of redemption!

This year two of my favorite YA series have come to an end. These are both post-apocalyptic series with many bleak dark moments--The Last Survivors and The Hunger Games.

While the reactions to Mockingjay (the final Hunger Games book) have been varied, many people have felt that it no longer qualifies as YA. I disagree (since YA is a made-up marketing category) because I felt the book had hope. But it does lead to an interesting question...does hope look different to different people?

The Road is a book in which I've heard people say it's all darkness with no hope and others say it has hope. I haven't read the book, but I would come down on the side of hope from the movie.

What makes a book classified as YA in your opinion? And what does hope look like to you? Do you need a happy ending? Do all wrongs need to be made right?

Some Awesome Looking Books Coming out in September!

Since I have made the commitment to slow down reading, I've really been enjoying it. I think the books I'm reading have come to mean so much more. I finished Mockingjay two days ago and that book has so totally disrupted my life that I can't even really think about reading anything else. (or really thing about much else) And that's okay, I love for story to have that kind of impact. I wouldn't trade my slightly dazed feeling for anything.

But I do a few things...like a podcast more focused on new books in which I look through catalogs for books with certain themes. As such, my book lust is constantly being ignited, though I'm committed to really focusing my reading and taking it slowly. So I'm stealing a page from world-famous book blogger Nymeth's book and making lists of books coming out that are tempting me something crazy. The following books are coming out in September alone!

Vestments by John Reimringer is coming September 1st from Milkweed Editions. This books is about: Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James finds himself - just a few years after his ordination - attracted again to his first love, Betty García. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, this is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.

It should be fairly obvious why this appeals to me...I enjoy explorations of faith and calling. I love the torturous idea of being torn between a public faith commitment and love. And the pre-publication reviews are outstanding.

Snakewoman of Little Egypt: A Novel is coming from Bloomsbury on September 14th. Snakewoman of Little Egypt is about: On the morning of her release from prison, Sunny, who grew up in a snakehandling church in the Little Egypt region of Southern Illinois, rents a garage apartment from Jackson. She's been serving a five-year sentence for shooting, but not killing, her husband, the pastor of the Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following, after he forced her at gunpoint to put her arm in a box of rattlesnakes.

Sunny and Jackson become lovers, but they're pulled in different directions. Sunny, drawn to science and eager to put her snake handling past behind her, enrolls at the university. Jackson, however, takes a professional interest in the religious ecstasy exhibited by the snakehandlers. Push comes to shove in a novel packed with wit, substance, and emotional depth. Snakewoman of Little Egypt delivers Robert Hellenga at the top of his form.

Oh for the love! Another book exploring the tension between religion and science you know it's right up my alley. I always really enjoy stories about small cults and the way community forms in them and the impact they have on the individual as well. This one looks like it should not be missed!

Salvation City is coming from Riverhead on September 16th. Salvation City is about: After a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, the United States has grown increasingly anarchic. Large numbers of children are stranded in orphanages, and systems we take for granted are fraying at the seams. When orphaned Cole Vining finds refuge with an evangelical pastor and his young wife in a small Indiana town, he knows he is one of the lucky ones. Sheltered Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation of the outside world.

But it's a starkly different community from the one Cole has known, and he struggles with what this changed world means for him. As those around him become increasingly fixated on their vision of utopia - so different from his own parents' dreams - Cole begins to imagine a new and different future for himself.

Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the true meaning of salvation.

Again with the religious element! Plus a little cult/dystopia/utopia/apocalypse stuff going on...this one sounds absolutely amazing.

To the End of the Land is by David Grossman and is coming from Knopf on September 21st. Book description: From one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers comes a novel of extraordinary power about family life—the greatest human drama—and the cost of war.

Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer’s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the "notifiers" who might darken her door with the worst possible news. Recently estranged from her husband, Ilan, she drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend and her former lover Avram, once a brilliant artistic spirit. Avram served in the army alongside Ilan when they were young, but their lives were forever changed one weekend when the two jokingly had Ora draw lots to see which of them would get the few days’ leave being offered by their commander—a chance act that sent Avram into Egpyt and the Yom Kippur War, where he was brutally tortured as POW.

In the aftermath, a virtual hermit, he refused to keep in touch with the family and has never met the boy. Now, as Ora and Avram sleep out in the hills, ford rivers, and cross valleys, avoiding all news from the front, she gives him the gift of Ofer, word by word; she supplies the whole story of her motherhood, a retelling that keeps Ofer very much alive for Ora and for the reader, and opens Avram to human bonds undreamed of in his broken world. Their walk has a "war and peace" rhythm, as their conversation places the most hideous trials of war next to the joys and anguish of raising children. Never have we seen so clearly the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, the currents of ambivalence about war within one household, and the burdens that fall on each generation anew.

Grossman’s rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great antiwar novels of our time.

I have sadly not ever read anything by Grossman, but when I saw someone tweet about this book the other day, I looked it up. It was this blurb that absolutely sold me and made me want to read the book:

Very rarely, a few times in a lifetime, you open a book and when you close it again nothing can ever be the same. Walls have been pulled down, barriers broken, a dimension of feeling, of existence itself, has opened in you that was not there before. To the End of the Land is a book of this magnitude. David Grossman may be the most gifted writer I've ever read; gifted not just because of his imagination, his energy, his originality, but because he has access to the unutterable, because he can look inside a person and discover the unique essence of her humanity. For twenty-six years he has been writing novels about what it means to defend this essence, this unique light, against a world designed to extinguish it. To the End of the Land is his most powerful, shattering, and unflinching story of this defense. To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.

--Nicole Krauss

I felt a little bit like that after reading Mockingjay and I welcome the chance to be completely altered in the same way again. I'm a bit embarrassed to have not heard of Grossman before, but I suppose it's impossible to know every author!

Fame by Daniel Kehlmann is coming from Pantheon Books on September 14th. It's about: After some initial hesitation, a man receiving someone else's phone calls begins to play with his new identity. From one day to the next, an actor's telephone falls dead silent, as though someone has stolen his life. A writer takes a pair of trips with a woman whose worst fear is to end up in one of his works. A somewhat confused Internet blogger wants nothing more than to become a character in a novel. A detective-story writer goes missing while on a journey through Central Asia, a fictional old woman on her deathbed quarrels with the writer who created her, and a managing director at a cell phone company goes crazy trying to manage his double life with two women.

In Fame, nine episodes coalesce to form a coherent whole as Daniel Kehlmann plays a sophisticated game with reality and fiction—creating, in essence, a dazzling hall of mirrors.

This sounds really different to me, and timely. I'm always up for something different and this certainly seems like it is!

And if that wasn't enough, I talk in-depth about some of the books coming out this September with Nicole on The Underground Literary Society.

What September books are you looking forward to reading?