Reading Report: End of August 2022

Posted on 08/30/2022 by chick
  • I finished In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. It was a fast read. The main character is Leonora, aka Lee, Leo, and Nora. When she gets an invite to a hen party from her one-time best friend, she’s totally shocked, because she hasn’t spoken to that friend in so long, due to something that hurt Nora so deeply that she walked away from her hometown and never looked back. But something compels her to say yes, and she, along with a mutual friend, Nina, heads up to the house where the 2-day event is being held. But things are strange up there in the woods. There’s no cell reception, and then the landline dies, leaving them isolated, setting up the perfect situation for a murder. Told in two time frames–after the murder, when Nora’s in the hospital and struggling to remember what happened, and during the hen party leading up to the murder–the author manages to stretch out the suspense without irritating the reader (or, at least this reader) too much. I’m not sure I entirely bought the reason behind the murder, the main character’s reasons for being so hush-hush about her teen years, or the way she behaved at the end, which is why I gave the book a slightly reduced grade (A-), but I enjoyed the suspense immensely.
  • I finished Henry Huggins by Beverly Clearly. It is a collection of stories about a boy named Henry Huggins who lives on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon. It starts with a story about how he acquired his dog, Ribsy. It is in many ways like Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, but IMHO more charming. I really got a kick out of it.
  • Steadily working my way through the Top 100 Children’s Books, I also finished The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi and All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.
  • Just for ha-has, I also reread the first Fablehaven book by Brandon Mull, and I’m still amazed at how much fun it is to read.
  • I finished the rest of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a book that once killed my reading mojo. That particular book is a necessary bridge between Book 4 and Book 6, but it is definitely my least favorite of the series. It is the longest, too, of course. I also happened to notice that the words “panted” and “panting” appear far more often than seems advisable (they show up quite often in the following books, too!). Couldn’t the characters have been breathing heavily, breathing fast but shallowly, gasping, or perhaps out of breath instead? Anyway, I don’t mind the story so much. It’s pretty good. It’s just so angry and very, very long. I got through it, though, and enjoyed finishing the series once again. As usual, finishing the last book left me feeling somewhat bereft, because I wanted to continue to reading about the characters, but the end is the end is the end. 🙁
  • BTW, it is an interesting thing to read through the whole HP series now that everyone is so mad at J.K. A close reading provides a lot of fodder to use against her (wizards aren’t really so nice, are they? OMG, the casual abuse of animals alone….), but I still love the series, and I intend to keep on loving it.
  • Currently reading: The Alchemyst by Michael Scott, Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, and How Civil Wars Start by Barbara F. Walter.
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