New Year, New Outlook

While 2009 was the year of reading as much as I could (155 titles, including some adult and audiobooks, but mostly print YA), I think that 2010 will be the year of reading the best books I can, and of a wider variety. I completed three of J. Kaye's Book Blog challenges last year, but this year it'll be just one. While I read more graphic novels and fantasy in 2009 (I usually tend towards realistic fiction) I still shied away from "boy" books - adventure, action, gore - the stereotypical boy stuff anyway. Even the graphic novels, manga, and comics I read were girl-based. I also tended to read more high school based stuff, perhaps because so much of the YA lit is geared towards older readers (gritty and/or content that might not fly with 7th and 8th graders that I mostly work with). That said, here's what I've read already in the first week of the year!

As you can see from the above picture (Blogger isn't cooperating with me at the moment to cut and paste the image here), Wondrous Strange, by Leslie Livingston is my first read of the year. It's a great YA fantasy that I just couldn't put down, despite the exhaustion of pregnancy. It's really pretty strong fantasy, based on the faerie kingdom of Shakespeare's plays, including Auberon, Puck, and other fairy royalty. I loved it because while it had a strong girl protagonist, it also shared viewpoint with a strong male, which I think my guy readers will be able to relate to. At any rate, there was plenty of action, a little romance, and a great story line (Kelley, the girl, is stolen from the faerie world and hidden from her true life - as a faerie princess, while the main boy, Sonny, is a boy stolen and made half-faerie). The ending isn't too neatly tied up, but you can finish without expecting or needing a sequel (by pet peeve recently). Great book. Three and a half out of four stars ***1/2.