Levels.

Well, this has been a weird week so far, I'll say. 

I've done some things I can't say I'm very proud of, so I won't say anything else about them at all, but I've also had some fun with new friends and old that has surpassed the fun I've had with any other people in my life lately, so I guess that makes up for anything else that's questionable.

There was some news I got this week though that is the best I've heard in a loooong time, and I have a feeling the news is just going to keep getting better.

I had a meeting with Elise's kindergarten teacher on Monday and found out that Elise is reading two levels above where she should be at the END of the year. Kindergarteners should be reading at a level two right now, and at a level four by the end of the school year to be considered "at grade level." 

Elise is at a level six. 

The book in the picture is her favorite one right now. She reads the entire thing to me all by herself, and I am starting to think that she has it mostly memorized, but I am going to let her have that confidence for a little while longer before hiding it away and pushing her farther on. 

"Mooooom, I'm reading." She said to me right after I snapped this picture. She was pissed that I was interrupting her reading skillz to take a shot of her doing it. 

Oh, well. It's for the memories.

I'm so proud of you, Elise. 

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

This is technically a re-read, my first re-read of the year, but certainly not my last, as I know that Justin Cronin's sequel to my new favorite book ever, The Passage, is coming out in August, I think, and I need to read that again for the THIRD time before it comes out. This, I read again because the movie is coming out soon and I wanted to refresh my memory on what went down so I can rip the movie to shreds when I see it.

To be honest with you, I think I enjoyed this book the second time around. It's sort of funny how it came about that I got the copy that I read, since I first read it on my Kindle over a year ago. 

The toy store that I work at was accidentally shipped a case of these books from Schoolastic, so I took a copy and laughed to myself, thinking that this really isn't an appropriate book for a kid's toy store where we cater to elementary students and younger. It's so violent, gory even, and has themes that are incredibly dynamic, intense, and adult.

But, whatever. Selling it wasn't my choice to make, and who am I to tell other people what their eight or nine year olds should be reading? (That's sarcasm, there.)

Part of the reason I enjoyed it more this time, I think, is just knowing that there is going to be a movie coming out. The first time I read it I kept imagining it in my head like I always do while reading, but I could never stop thinking, wow, this would be great on the big screen. I probably should have known even then, when this book was first released and turned into a sensation, that the film would shortly follow. 

But what will it be like, I wonder, watching these teenagers kill each other? This is one of those books where it's really HARD to put yourself in the character's shoes. I can't imagine being Katniss, having to sacrifice myself for my sister, having to enter an arena with twenty-three of my peers, knowing that only one of us would come out alive. Having to kill to survive. It's practically impossible to fathom. 

I thought Lord of the Flies was bad. Not bad as in terrible and I didn't enjoy it, but bad as in TERRIBLY HORRIFYING to read and put myself into the characters shoes. That was literature. But this is better... because it's worse. Get me? 

I've really been enjoying the young adult books that I've been reading so much of lately. I guess I never appreciated them when I was a young adult myself, because I was already reading Stephen King and Anne Rice and scoffing at my peers who were reading "kid" books at the time. Now, I envy today's teenagers for the amount of great books they have at their fingertips that they can relate to right now, ones that are so much deeper and better than I had offered to me at that age. 

This really deserves its own blog post, but I'd just like to say, I think that even with all of its violence and terror, The Hunger Games should be read by teens - all of them. On some level, it's a book that says:

The government may be in charge, but that doesn't mean they are right. You may think you are safe, but you aren't. You may think you know what love is, but you don't. You might think you know yourself, but of course you don't. How could you when you are only a teenager?

The Compound, by S.A. Bodeen

I picked this book up at the library a week or so ago without ever having read about it on a book blog or anywhere - I had never heard of it, never read any reviews, and in my mind I was really taking a chance. There are just SO MANY books that I want to read, I don't usually take chances on things that I might not like based on reviews and such, but I was intrigued by the book blurb so gave it a shot. I was not let down. Here's the blurb from Amazon: 

Eli and his family have lived in the underground Compound for six years. The world they knew is gone, and they’ve become accustomed to their new life. Accustomed, but not happy. No amount of luxury can stifle the dull routine of living in the same place, with only his two sisters, only his father and mother, doing the same thing day after day after day. As problems with their carefully planned existence threaten to destroy their sanctuary—and their sanity—Eli can’t help but wonder if he’d rather take his chances outside. Eli’s father built the Compound to keep them safe. But are they safe—really?

When I started reading this, I got a little nervous that it would be a boring book about a family in a compound, going about their day to day. Based on the fact that it was just a family in there I didn't expect any sort of Anne Frankish romance or anything, and there wasn't one - which, to be honest, was sort of refreshing. It's nice to read a book, especially a YA book, that doesn't revolve around teen romance. I don't think it would have worked at all in this story, and it didn't touch on it at all. Instead, it was more about the love between Eli and his twin brother Eddy who was lost outside of the compound, and the strange and tenuous relationship that Eli had with his two sisters and parents while in the compound.

Eli finds out pretty quickly that his father is hiding some big piece of information from the family about what is going on in the world outside of the compound, and there are many tense moments when Eli is searching for information, not trying to get caught. What was more interesting (surprisingly) was the descriptions of the compound itself, and the way Eli's billionaire father had prepared and stocked it for their duration inside. It came complete with an indoor farm, complete with livestock, and every amenity and more that you might enjoy on the outside. It was really pretty neat.

But then, there was an extremely dark twist to the story, something so (excuse me) FUCKED UP, that just made me appreciate the book even more. I say it a lot, but when I find something that is BRAVE in a story, I really admire it. I really admire the bravery this author took with what she was willing to put her characters through to get out and survive. 

This was a really quick and enjoyable read, I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a break from the mainstream young adult fiction that is out there right now.

Paper Towns, by John Green

I resisted reading anything by John Green because my sister is moderately obsessed with him. There, I said it. It's not that I don't think anything she likes can't be good, but she is twelve years my junior and re-reads the Harry Potter and Twilight series like they are going to be pulled from shelves the world over and never read again. I guess she does the same thing with John Green books. However, I wanted to give him a shot. I had started An Abundance of Katherines a few weeks ago and got annoyed by the characters in the first few chapters so I put it down, but then I went to the library and picked up a different title, and was promptly, seriously, blown away.

 

From John Green's website:

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life–dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge–he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues–and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

First of all, this is unlike pretty much all of the young adult I've read in the last couple of years in that it's not in any way paranormal - it has no supernatural aspects or horror that I generally go for, but in a way it had its own horror, the horror being that it was so true to what high school experiences really are, it threw me back into thoughts of an uncertain time I call the teen years - scary stuff. 

These characters - Quentin especially - are real. I didn't feel it right off the bat with the two main characters in An Abundance of Katherines, but I am considering giving that book another chance after reading this. I feel like I have discovered something that I didn't really knew existed and (sorry Kayla, if you are reading) didn't think I'd find it in a pile of books my sister cherished - and that is honesty. Beautiful, unabashed honesty of what it is to feel when you don't really know a thing about love or feelings or relationships because you are just too damn young to have a clue what forever means. 

So Quentin is essentially in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman, but the thing is, he has no idea who she is. He is in love with the idea of her, with the idea that everyone had made in their own heads for the person she was - the paper girl living in the paper towns. She disappears after a wild adventure he never expected and Quentin makes it his mission to find her, along with his two best friends and one of Margo's, and really you learn that sometimes looking for something is better than what you actually find, such as in this case. 

This is true, this story. We never know anyone completely and we are fools to think we can. Sad, but true.

I'm going to read this book again, and I am going to read - probably - everything else that John Green has written. I am sorry that I had dismissed him for so long and that I've been missing such a great writer, because really he writes YA with such maturity, honesty and truth, I think his stories (at least this one) would be great reads no matter how old you are or where you are life. I loved this book. 

And as a bonus? It has one of the best lines I've ever read anywhere. Taken out of context:

Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer, but unfortunately he's never cried. 

Genius. Truth and genius.

Blow the town down

I started reading Paper Towns by John Green today and I am blown away already. So, here are some Paper Towns related things to enjoy while I finish this book as fast as I can:

Via: http://hipsterjohngreenquotes.tumblr.com/post/16342800507#notes

via: http://hipsterjohngreenquotes.tumblr.com/post/11519116123#notes

RUN, by Blake Crouch

Reading 52 books in a year is a huge task. That's one per week if you do things right, and even if I read like a maniac I don't think that this is going to be easy for me - but it's possible, and it's something that I want to accomplish so much, I even added it to my Life List. 

Anyway, here we are three days into the new year and I HAVE finished my first book of the year, so this is as good of a start as one could get, in my humble opinion. That it was a great book is just another plus. 

RUN, is the first book I've read by Blake Crouch. I was able to score it for free when he was offering it on Amazon just before the new year, and I started reading it while recovering from my New Year Hangover. That I blew through this in about a day and a half is a testament to how enjoyable this book was to me. I know that the dark and apocalyptic isn't for everyone, but it really is what I have been enjoying most these days.

RUN was about a family on the run from the vast majority of the American population. An event has turned people hostile and violent, and this is the story of one family who is trying to find a safe place to figure out how they will put their lives back together after society has collapsed. Unfortunately, the family runs into quite a few obstacles. 

From being chased down and shot at on roads, from avoiding concentration camp style execution, from spending a week without food and barely any water on a freezing mountain in the middle of winter with no shelter and barely any hope, I really didn't think this family was going to make it. The total breakdown of the world was too much, in my opinion, to ever be able to recover from, and a little unprepared family with two young children weren't the strongest heroes. 

However, it was the family that shone in this story - the way they struggled and got through danger, wounds, sickness, and loneliness when they were apart - it was a touching family story of survival with the extra goodness of pure, horrifying evil overtaking the rest of the world. 

(Have I ever mentioned that I suck at reviewing books? Like, SUCK at it?)

This was, as far as I am aware, the first independently published book Crouch has put out. I decided I wanted to read it because Crouch has often paired up with Joe Konrath to write books, do interviews, and contribute heavily to the indie publishing scene that I have found myself becoming a part of online. He's one of the ones who have done it right, and it's good to learn from the "pros", if you will, and I see here that RUN would probably have been a great seller if he'd published traditionally, it was just that good.

I'd really recommend this book to anyone who likes horror and intense emotional thrillers, with just the slightest hint of the supernatural. 

Shifting

Something remarkable happened today. I was given the opportunity to be honest with my boss without the fear of retaliation, and I told him that I was unsatisfied here at my job, mostly due to not being paid what I feel I deserve, and I told him that the best thing he could do for me at this point is give me a stellar job recommendation. And he will. 

I've been wanting to leave my current job for a while. It's not something I've blogged about since I don't want to get Dooced, but the job has really been one of the biggest dark clouds hanging over my life in the past few (six to eight) months, and now that I know I can take my time finding a new, better job with a great recommendation from my current boss, it's like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I feel liberated, free, and easy. Really, it feels like I've been walking around with a ton of bricks on my shoulders and I've just finally been able to set them down.

I'm still nervous about job searching, but nowhere near as nervous as I would be if I didn't know that I was going with my bosses' blessing, and certainly not as nervous as I would be if I were currently unemployed. I get to take my time now and find something that is right for me, and figure out what I am going to do to navigate the next part of my life. 

***

Lots of bloggers pick 'words to live by' at the end of the year, and Shmutzie, one of my favorite writers, has picked Shift for her 2012 guiding word. I was thinking of doing this myself this year, and need to come to a decision soon. Shift isn't quite it for me, though. I want to shift, yes. I want to shift out of my current job and into a new one, out of my current home and into a new one - but I want to settle as well. I want to be comfortable and rested no matter where I am in my life or any of it's stages, but I haven't gotten there yet. I'll figure out this word eventually, just like I will eventually write about Christmas and reflect on Elise's birthday. I just feel like so much has been going on lately, I've hardly been able to do anything CREATIVE.

***

I have been following a writer named Nova Ren Suma for some time now. I adore her blog, she has one of the best writing/book blogs I've ever come across in my life, and I was waiting not so patiently for my anticipated Christmas gift of Amazon gift certificates so I could get some books I have been dying to read. So tonight, Nova's book Imaginary Girls arrived in the mail, along with a few others. I started this one right away, mostly because not only did I anticipate it, but I sort of feel like a tool talking to this author on Facebook and on her blog and not having read her novel. Well, here I am up late, I could barely put it down and will pick it up again after I finish this quick blog, because, wow. I'm being blown away by her writing. It's WAY BETTER than I ever thought it could be. See, I am usually into urban fantasy and paranormal YA books, I have not found many regular "literary" YA books that I've enjoyed, and this... I am not sure yet what genre this book will eventually fall into, other than the genre of AWESOME.