Plowing through my “mid-read” pile this afternoon. Glad I can finally put these back on the shelves!

Update #3:

• 1.5 hour reading time (6 hours total)
• 196 pages read (697 pages total)
• 0 cups of tea consumed (2 cups total)

The Books

Review #3: I was a little less than halfway through Dirty Little Secrets when I picked it up for #48HBC. It’s one I’ve meant to read for a while, since it deals with a big family secret and a mother with some emotional/mental problems (in this case, hoarding). My heart broke for Lucy through this one, as she feels a strange hope in getting to move on with her life if she can just clean out the house. Omololu manages to make Lucy’s mom into a real person, not just someone defined by her hoarding, and I liked those glimpses of her outside of the house (at work, as a child). I also liked that crush-worthy Josh Lee is revealed to be dealing with his own family problems; I love that “everyone has secrets” theme and it’s one I tend to use in my own work. The ending felt a little rushed for me, and I would have liked a little more of an emotional build there, but overall a great read for anyone interested in YA contemporary family drama.

Review #4: I was almost at the end of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and so glad to finally finish this one. It’s a tome, so even though I started it a while ago, I’d inevitable leave it at home and take another book with me. Then I’d want to finish the other book and, well, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell suffered for it. But it’s an excellent novel–fake British history plus magicians is a winning idea, and Susanna Clarke gets the tone perfectly. I loved seeing the various plot threads eventually come together, and the ending is surprisingly bittersweet.