Sons from Afar by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 6)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  October 2 – 5
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  The way James and Sammy both admire each other, with neither of them realizing it.
Least Favorite Thing:  Not enough Dicey & Gram.

I was right in this post, to expect that I would like this book more now that I’m older. I even rated it higher than I had in the past.

My Posts About Sons from Afar

Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 7)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  September 5 – 6
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  The way Dicey thinks about things.
Least Favorite Thing:  Cisco. (Please read that name with your lip curled up in disgust, because that’s how I think it and how I typed it.)

Wow. I was right to expect it to be different to read when I was older. Not good different or bad different, but different.

The best way I can think to explain it is:  When I was younger and I read it, I was reading it with the kind of optimism about the future that mostly only people under 18 have, even the ones who don’t think they really have it much. Because no matter what was going on I thought pretty much like I always had with all the other books, that everything would fall into place and work out because Dicey deserved for it to. And because that’s what I was reading it for, when Dicey feels satisfied with the way she’s moving forward at the end, I felt like everything had fallen into place and worked out.

Now though, I see it more realistically. Things don’t work out because you deserve for them to or because you want them, but even when things don’t work out the way you dreamed, there’s usually something you can still do to pick yourself up and keep going with your life, whichever way you go. Not that it’s all hunky-dory, of course, but if you look at things with an eye to solve problems and keep surviving, that’s almost always what you’ll do eventually, even if it doesn’t feel good the whole time and even if it isn’t the way you wanted it to be.

I feel like this book was trying to teach me something my whole life, and I got it, but I didn’t get it.

It’s a great book, but it’s a hard one too. Because you only want things to work out the way they ought to and be simpler, and you have to grow your thoughts up right alongside Dicey as you read. And the process doesn’t feel very good most of the time, though there are bright spots, but in the end you feel satisfied with yourself and with the book.

This bit got a lot longer than I usually have it, but I can’t see a single thing I’m willing to take out, so long it will have stay.

My Posts About Seventeen Against the Dealer

Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
(Battle Hall Davies, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  October 12
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  Nic’s insistence on “bisexual”.
Least Favorite Thing:  It’s a tie between everyone else insisting on saying Nic was gay/lesbian and her straight friend Katrina making every single thing about Nic and Battle into something sexual as if queer relationships aren’t about anything except sex.  (Note:  I didn’t enjoy reading those things, but they are totally accurate so I wouldn’t want them removed from the book.)

I read this book once before when I was in middle school or early high school. I decided to reread it because there’s something about the cover art and title that constantly bring me back to it even though it’s not exactly a mind-blowing piece of writing. But I can actually remember clearly the exact moment I first saw this book on a shelf, and if you know anything about me and my terrible memory, you know that’s a huge deal.

I did have a couple of complaints, but they are small:

• There was something off-putting about the way all Nic’s straight friends kept saying “dyke” all the time… Maybe Yankees use the word more than Southerners and that’s why I’m not used to it, but it practically made me flinch every time.
  (It’s only used as an insult a couple times, the rest are it being used in place of the words “gay” or “lesbian”, but in my life I’ve only ever heard anyone use that specific word on tv, even my queer friends never used it.)
• It didn’t feel like there was a plot? I’m sure there must have been, and I guess it was that the romance was the entire plot, but honestly it barely felt like it had a plot at all. I’m assuming that I am just not used to novels that are literally about romance and nothing else at all.

Overall it was a decent book and it was nice to see a portrayal of the different ways bisexuality is erased and dismissed by other people.

My Posts About Empress of the World

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  August 2 – October 13
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  THE LETTER!!!!!
Least Favorite Thing:  Anne’s family…

I no longer hate Persuasion. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. It’s just as well written as all Austen’s novels, even if I couldn’t get into it, and I’m so glad to have finally read it all the way through.

I finished this book for The Cookie Read-A-Thon

My Posts About Persuasion

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
(Gallagher Girls, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  October 13 – 14
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  Mr. Moscowitz during the final!
Least Favorite Thing:  D’Man.

I’m pretty glad I decided to reread this one and see if I wanted to finish the series (which I never did the first time I found this book, back in middle school.

I read this book for The Cookie Read-A-Thon

My Posts About I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter
(Gallagher Girls, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  October 15
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The suitemates’ friendship makes me happy.
Least Favorite Thing:  Cammie doesn’t question things enough man… Or when she does she forgets them almost immediately.

I can’t believe someone actually debated who would make a better Gallagher Girl between Buffy and Veronica Mars when the answer is so clearly and unarguably Veronica. Buffy wouldn’t know stealth if it kicked her in the face…

Also I don’t actually remember reading this book before, but somehow I knew about Blackthorne? That is, I knew it was a boys school when Cammie overheard that first conversation and I knew it was specifically “Blackthorne Institute” so….???

I had a short feeling of Second Book Syndrome, but the book was engaging enough that I could just keep reading through it and luckily it didn’t last very long.

I read this book for The Cookie Read-A-Thon

My Posts About Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Part 2

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

The woman put her sad moon-face in the window of the car.
“You be good,” she said. “You hear me? You little ones, mind what Dicey tells you. You hear?”

Interested? Scroll down for the cover and summary!

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
(Tillerman Cycle, book 1)

It’s still true…

That’s the first thing James Tillerman says to his sister Dicey every morning. It’s still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillerman children somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It’s still true they have to find their way, somehow, to Great-aunt Cilla’s house in Bridgeport, which may be their only hope of staying together as a family.

But when they get to Bridgeport, they learn that Great-aunt Cilla has died, and the home they find with her daughter, Eunice, isn’t the permanent haven they’ve been searching for. So their journey continues to its unexpected conclusion — and some surprising discoveries about their history, and their future.

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ____, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Have you ever read a book that changed your life?

I blogged about ____ this past week…

• Monday, October 2 – Musing Monday this week talked about what we do with physical copies of books that we don’t want to keep. And I posted a Currently Reading bookstagram.
• Tuesday, October 3 – Teaser Tuesday, using Sons from Afar by Cynthia Voigt.
• Wednesday, October 4 – WWW Wednesday and a WAYRW, again using Sons from Afar.
• Thursday, October 5 – I finished Sons from Afar and made a rating post for it, along with my usual Thursday Quotables, and then later a Currently Reading bookstagram and an update on Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt.
• Friday, October 6 – The usual First Lines Friday & Friday 56. And throughout the day a couple updates on my progress through Seventeen Against the Dealer, ending with a rating post for that book.
• Saturday, October 7 – Just my weekly Persuasion progress post.

Have you ever read a book that changed your life?
To be honest I’m pretty sure every book I’ve read has changed my life in that the books we read shape the way we think and view the world in minute ways, but as for books that changed things significantly…

The Harry Potter series did, around middle school. I had always loved reading, even as a toddler, but around 6th grade my depression began to get overwhelmingly bad and I was struggling just to get through the days, with no energy left over for things like pleasure reading. Then in 7th grade I saw a chance to do something I wasn’t allowed to do and get away with it, which I always loved. (That thing being reading Harry Potter.) Thanks to those books I rediscovered my love of reading. In addition I discovered that reading could take me away from the struggle in my own life and mind, could give me an escape. I’ll always be grateful for that.

Cynthia Voigt’s books changed me too. Her writing changed the way I think. They taught me to look at problems differently, to face challenges differently. I think they helped me learn to be resilient. I learned from characters of hers how I could think to help me enjoy hard work, ways to appreciate small things and see beauty around me. Not that I couldn’t sometimes do those things already, but not as well. Her characters taught me how to arrange my thoughts to appreciate the things already around me. When I want to feel like my best self, I always reread a Cynthia Voigt book. It bothers me that more people don’t know about her books because they had such an impact on me.

Robert Fulghum is another that changed me I think. His books taught me an introspective way of thinking, taught me to look for meaning in my experiences. They also taught me to look at everything with a dose of humor, to laugh at myself, and to enjoy experiences in a more childlike way even as I became more mature. And on a lighter note, they were the first books I ever read that weren’t marketed specifically to children or teens, and I discovered I could like adult books.

I’m sure there have been others, but those are the ones that stand out in my mind. What books have changed you?

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my ratings on Goodreads

Welp, I remembered one thing about Cisco, and I had a sneaking suspicion that’s as good as confirmed now… And he still gives me an awful sick wrong feeling.

If this book was about any one of them other than Dicey, I wouldn’t keep reading it. (I wonder if that’s what got me through the other time I read it…?)

Judas Priest, but Cisco makes me anxious!

And the thing is, I’ve read this book before, a couple times, and I remember the important plot points, if not every little detail, but I don’t remember a single solitary thing about Cisco! It’s like I blocked him out completely. And I’m not totally surprised, I’ve done that before with books when a part of it caused me a lot of stress.

I get such a bad feeling off that Cisco.

• Grab a book, any book (I, personally, prefer to use my current read.)
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that’s ok.)
• Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it)
• Post it

Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 7)

“I wonder if all this school isn’t a way of running away. You know? A Failure to choose, and get down to the business of life. I don’t think so, but I have the suspicion that a really free woman wouldn’t ever wonder.”