Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
(Audio)

( REVIEW )

The River by Gary Paulsen

The River
by Gary Paulsen
(Audio)

( REVIEW )

KateKintail's September Reading Log

This is a recap of my September reading, for a swap-bot swap I signed up for. I chose to post it here so that I can format it the way I want. See below for a very brief recap of what I thought of the books along with a link to read more about my thoughts, if you so desire.

Here's a list of books I read during the month but didn't finish (or haven't finished yet):

• Star Wars Jedi Apprentice: The Day of Reckoning by Jude Watson


• Incarceron by Catherine Fisher


• The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Gailbraith


• Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Holly Black and Rachel Caine


• Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Here are the books I finished this month:

1. The Avengers, Volume 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr.:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/145360.html
   I really enjoy Bendis's storylines and takes on characters, and this was a great start of a series. My library doesn't have the next two volumes, so I might have to wait a while to find out what happens next. But this one had some restructuring and rebooting after a big Marvel crisis... and some time travel that puts a serious wrinkle in things--a nice, exciting balance.


2. The Lady of Shallot by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Genevieve Cote:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/145413.html
   The concept of this "series" is to take classic poems and illustrate them beautifully in new and slightly more modern ways. I read this version of The Highwayman which, I thought, worked. This one didn't work quite as well. It was difficult to figure out when this was supposed to be taking place. In some cases, the images matched nicely or creatively. However, there were times where the images didn't match well enough for me. Still, a worthy project. I hope to track down others in this "series."


3. Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/145695.html
   I don't read a lot of memoirs, because I really love fiction. But there are few memoirs I haven't enjoyed, and this is among my favorites ever, so far. I saw Cheryl earlier this year in Boston at the AWP Conference and again last week at my local book festival. In-between these two times, I earread Wild. I hadn't heard of the PCT before, as I live on the east coast of the US just an hour or two away from the AT, a more popular hiking trail. But I can honestly say I could never have done what Cheryl did. Her journey emotionally and physically was powerful. As she said last week, "when you write about your life, you get to look back and see the way life works as symbol and metaphor." And the bonus is that it also means the readers get to see those things as well and enjoy and learn a little from them as well.


4. The Uncertain Path (Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice, Book 6) by Jude Watson:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/146624.html
   An emotional book for both my Jedi boys. They're separated and stuggling with not only the fact that Obi-Wan broke their training bond and is no longer a Jedi but dealing with their own dramas--with a world that just finished a war that seems to want to slip back into the fighting and with someone causing trouble inside the Jedi Temple itself. When the two unite, it's still emotional, but it feels right and it leads beautifully into the next book with great drama.


5. The Captive Temple (Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice, Book 7) by Jude Watson:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/146768.html
   Though Obi is on probation and not trusted in the Temple, he still manages to help his former master in foiling a great plot that will take down the entire temple and the Jedi within it. And he slowly rebuilds a little of the trust. Spoiler (sort of): the temple does not explode and we move on to book 8 with most but not ALL of the characters. There have been some significant deaths in the series so far, but the one in this book is a powerful one indeed.


6. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Volume 1 by Bendis, Samnee, and Ponsor:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/147007.html
   I read the first set of books in this series by Bendis, and I wasn't sure I wanted to read this. Another Spider-Man after Peter? Isn't that in bad taste? Turns out, the answer is yes, it is. Also turns out that I kind of adore Miles. He comes into his powers similarly to Peter, but he has a much different path before him almost immediately, and it's fascinating to see how such a young boy assumes the already-established role of Spider-Man. I was totally hooked, and I hadn't expected that.


7. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Volume 2 by Bendis, Samnee, Pichelli, Marquez:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/147218.html
   The continuing adventures of the new Spider-Man, where Miles tries to figure out how to be Spider-Man and learns that watching YouTube videos of the previous Spider-Man doesn't really help as much as he had hoped. He also learns that there's a whole lot more going on than just him being Spider-Man. There's a new crime lord and his uncle practically blackmailing him. And there's a roommate who become suspicious of him. Poor Miles!


8. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/147627.html
   I've been eying this in the library for a couple years now and finally picked it up and earread it. It was an interesting story; I can see why it's recommended for kids. It gives kids a lot of big concepts to think about that they might not have thought about before--the morality of cloning, how one defines "human," what it means to choose a path your life takes, how far someone will go to survive, how the way you treat people define your character, etc. And the characters are good--some are a little flat (really good or really bad, but I rather like knowing where I stand with characters, so I was okay with that). But this felt like two different, short books that weren't long enough by themselves and were stuck together and kind of held together somehow. I liked it, but it wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would be.


9. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen:
   http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/147934.html
   A book I thought I'd read as a kid but hadn't, as it turned out. I would have surely remembered THIS! Brian crash lands as the only survivor on an island in a remote part of Canada. He's a city boy who must learn to survive in the tough wilderness. His struggle is dramatic. Sometimes it felt realistic to me, other times too convenient, and other times annoyingly complicated. I really liked it, though, enough to read the next adventure with Brian in it.


10. The River by Gary Paulsen:
    http://katekintailbc.livejournal.com/148011.html
    Poor Brian's just trying to help out when he agrees to take a government psychologist into the wilderness to show him how to survive. But something unexpected and unplanned (which is typical, really, as nature is the most uncontrollable force out there) happens which leads to Brian having to survive under even more extreme circumstances. Bring on the third book now!

That's my September! It was great to have a change to read a book and then immediately see the author read and speak in person this month. I've got a little bit of fiction, a tiny bit of poetry, and a good helping of graphic novel comics and juvie fiction in this month. Where will October take me? Who knows? Happy reading, everyone!