First batch of summer reading...

Tough times, generally, call for light reading.  However, I do have one heavy-lifting book off my list now.  I finished The Course of Mexican History by Susan M. Deeds, M.C. Meyer, and W.L. Sherman.  I am now slightly less ignorant about our southern neighbors and a lot more indignant about Europeans and Americans behaving badly.  Seriously, I am ashamed and embarrassed at the level of entitlement and greed and downright evil white people have exhibited and continue to profit from, myself included.  (Why yes, it does seem that dismantling my white privilege is becoming a theme.  This is a Good Thing.)

Marissa Kennerson’s YA novel Tarot did not particularly speak to me.  I think the problem was the protagonist.  She has a horrific childhood, a great gift… and zero personality.  Nice is not a personality.  Popular is not a plot line.  It was disappointing because a lot of the ideas floating around in the book could have been amazing.  That said, I am probably not the actual target audience.  My twelve-year-old self might have liked it a lot better.

I reread Dorothy Sayers’s The Nine Tailors because it is always soothing when things are difficult.  Yep.  I still love it.

As I mentioned last time I wrote one of these, I realized not long ago that I was missing a couple of Lloyd Alexander books.  I fixed that and recently read The Black Cauldron again.  It is so good.  What impressed me this time around, much like my reading of The Book of Three, is how efficiently the story is told.  Alexander is masterful at conveying much in few words.

Then I turned to graphic novels.  I am not entirely sure what age level Ursula Vernon’s Dragonbreath series is intended for, but it works really well for me and I went downstairs and made T. read them, too, and I could hear him laughing from across the house.  How do you not like books that have Snorkelbats in them?  And the lost city of Atlantis working hard to keep from being the found city of Atlantis?  And truly dangerous potato salad?  I had only bought the first three.  I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of the next three and will be buying more whenever book buying is allowed.

Summer reading total so far:  7 books.  Year to date total:  49