Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Obviously, as a reader, you know how this book ends, so the story is really why they broke up. Minerva (goes by Min) has a box of mementos from her relationship with Ed (honestly, what girl doesn't collect things like that, or maybe it's only during their first relationship, like me). The whole story is her going through each item in the box, starting with the beer caps from the first time they talked and he asked her for her number, to the rose petals lining the bottom of the box, obtained from the florist during the break up. It is a compelling story and will make everyone remember their first love and the pain they felt during that time of betrayal/loss. I thought this book was very interesting, and also sad, and kind of odd that it is told from the POV of Min while the author is a male, but whatev.

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Robots. Apocalypse. Robopocalypse. The book is told in a unique way, with each chapter prefaced and suffixed (?) with Cormac's account of the "New War," where a Rob named Archos became active and directed all robots to attack humans, or at least told them that humans and Robs couldn't coexist (and other Robs believed him). At first, the book is very confusing, starting with seven different accounts pre-New War, and each part (there are five parts to the book) having less and less accounts, directly corresponding with the storytellers who have died due to the New War. Eventually, some humans meet up with some Robs who are "free" aka not under Archos' rule and are willing to help humans defeat Archos. At first when I was about 100 pages into this book, I was so scared. People say Stephen King is horror (and I have read my fair share of SK)? Pfft! Not compared to the dreaded thought of cars and robots and computers and cell phones and everything technological developing its own free will and deciding to use it against humans! Man it had me up at night thinking of these things and what would humans really do if something like this actually happened. Because...you never know...

Room by Emma Donoghue

Room is told from the point of view of five-year-old Jack. The story is very Jaycee Dugard-inspired. Jack's mother (forever referred to as "Ma," her proper name is never revealed) is lured to help a man (known as "Old Nick") find his "missing dog," or so Old Nick tells her, when she is 19. She is then kidnapped and held in an 11' x 11' soundproofed garden shed which is called Room. Old Nick holds her and rapes her, leading her to bear a child who is stillborn, and then she has Jack a year later. She tries very hard to make Room an environment for a growing boy, but when Jack turns 5, she tells him hard truths, like what happens "in TV" is actually real (instead of letting him know the truth and not understand why he couldn't partake in it). With this knowledge, she comes up with a plan to save both of them and that requires Jack to be "sick" and then "die" from the sickness, leaving Old Nick no choice but to remove his "body" from Room. While en route to a burial spot, Jack escapes from the rug and is rescued, and helps lead the police back to Room to save Ma. The rest of the story is about Jack adjusting to life Outside of Room and dealing with all it has to offer (such like what happens when one "pets" bees). It was a very good story, I can see why it's been so popular. 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

If you are looking for a book to curl up in the bathtub with and have your razor and Death Cab for Cutie handy, this is the book to do the job!!! It is set during the Dust Bowl and is about Tom Joad who just got out of prison. He returns home to his family in Oklahoma and finds that they are leaving to go to California to get some jobs that they've seen in handbills. He goes with them and along with the way, some family members die. They eventually make it to California where they find that they are not wanted (and are called "Okies," similar to the N-word for African-Americans) and that jobs are sparse. What jobs they can find pay "starvation wages," so essentially everything they make in a day goes directly to buy food and not much else. More bad things happen, and then more bad things, and then the book ends. If you are looking for something uplifting, do NOT read this book. Grab yourself a box of tissues instead.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

I thought this was one of the funniest books I have ever read! Obviously, it is touchy material--it is about polygamy and the author is a Mormon--but one of the children, Rusty, is hilarious! A lot of his chapters, told from his eleven year old vision of the world, reminds me of A Christmas Story, when Ralphie has his daydreams about protecting his family with his coveted Red Rider BB gun. That kind of funny. So the story is about Golden, a man with four wives and 28 children, who has a failing construction business and lies to everybody about his current work project. Everyone thinks he is building a senior center in Nevada (lives in Utah, so no one goes to check the facts), but he is really building a brothel, Pussycat Manor II. Inevitably, he stumbles upon the brothel owner's wife (Huila) and they spend time together and he falls for her. But all hell breaks loose when Ted Leo (said brothel owner) finds out. Golden's past is expolored, and the author uses a significant amount of foreshadowing, which isn't obvious at the time, but makes it a good reflection at the end of the novel. It is so sad that this book has only been checked out four times--including my reading--since being available at the library since June, 2010. It is definitely not a book to miss, and introduces one to the theology behind polygamy and why this belief system is still kept even today.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

This book has won awards, people. Why, I am not sure... My friend Hillary was the one who let me borrow this, as John Green is one of her favorite authors ever. She even went to a book signing recently! But anyway... It is divided into two parts: before and after. What happens "in between" is what drives the last half of the book, but the first half is about "Pudge" (real name Miles) who decides to move from Florida to go to the boarding school his father went to in search of the Great Perhaps (this book is semi-autobiographical and Culver Creek is based on a school that John Green went to in Alabama). While there, he has a roommate known as the Colonel and falls hopelessly in love with a feminist, perplexing girl named Alaska (thus the title). But Alaska has a boyfriend that she is in love with named Jake, but she does think that Miles is cute... Anyway, John Green recently released The Fault in Our Stars which is supposed to be amazing. Maybe I'll read that later on this year sometime. 

Enclave (Razorland #1) by Ann Aguirre

Enclave is based in post apocalyptic NYC where people have gone to live underground in the subway tunnels. Everybody's lives have been truncated and they live together in communes called enclaves. This book is about Deuce, a Huntress in the College enclave who is paired with Fade, another Hunter from what they call "Topside." Hunters make up part of the societal system in the enclave; the other two groups are Breeders and Builders. Hunters leave the enclave and go into the subway tunnels where they find food and battle Freaks (they sound like zombie meets animal since they have claws). Freaks eat humans, but Hunters fight them off to protect the enclave. For some reason, they seem to be getting smarter, and Deuce disobeys orders at some point and is sent with Fade to Nassau enclave, which is about three days away. There, they find all of Nassau's people eaten by the fat and happy Freaks that roam that enclave. Terrified, they return to College enclave and report what they have seen and what they think--that Freaks are getting smarter. The elders of the enclave (that are about 25 years old...Fade and Deuce are fifteenish) wave that off and think they are silly. Deuce finds that Fade (a man with a mysterious past of his own) is part of a quiet rebellion against the elders and how the enclave is set up. Deuce believes in the elders and what they tell them (that acid rain burns things Topside, that no one can survive up there, etc), but is appalled when she figures out that Fade is right when one of her friends is framed for hoarding (something that receives banishment from the enclave). Deuce claims that she is the one who framed her friend, a fact that people know is not true, and Fade says that he helped her. They are banished from College enclave and are sent Topside, where Deuce finds that the elders have lied about a lot of things. From there, Fade and Deuce scavenge the remains of NYC and battle against the gangers, as they call them. Eventually they end up heading north, where "Fade's sire" (father) told him that it was safer, but along the way, the run into more Freaks. Will they ever be safe? I thought this was a great book and a fun read, it made me really think I was running around the subway tunnels and battling Freaks. I am pretty sure there will be a sequel to this, and I am looking forward to it!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus is an overly long, drawn-out tale about two children--a boy and a girl--being chosen to outdo the other with the power of magic while being contained within the confines of a circus that is open only at night. Their magic teachers decide this when Celia is six years old and Marco fourteen. Of course, when they both are at the circus, they fall in love, and then are distraught to discover that the winner of this contest of sorts is decided by one of them dying in one way or another (not magic inflicted by either party). It gets very convoluted and confusing, with each chapter jumping between locations and times. It made me want to pull out my hair at points because I did not have a clue what was going on, and so many characters are involved that by the end I just had to read it and go with the flow and assume I knew who the author was chattering on and on about. This book would have been much better if it had been more tightly written, perhaps cutting 100 pages from its girth (387 pages). There are of course a myriad of sub-plots and whatnot, but something I kept thinking of while reading this was Anne of Green Gables when it is said that it is better to use short words than long ones.

Okay, done whining, but I would definitely put this in the same bin as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

This book is told from the POV of nine-year-old Oskar Schell whose father died in one of the towers from the World Trade Center. Most of the book takes place about two years after his father, Thomas, dies. One day, Oskar is in his parents' bedroom and somehow (I don't remember how...not really a memorable book) a blue vase crashes to the floor and gets broken. Inside, there was an envelope with "Black" written on the outside and a key inside. The entire book is devoted to Oskar finding out what this key opens, and he begins by tracking down every person with the last name of Black in NYC. No. Joke. The book also has random flashbacks that take until the last chapter to figure out who wrote what. Quite daunting, in other words. I am not sure how they made a movie out of this, or why, since nothing seems to really matter at the end. It harkens me back to Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. As in the world of reading, you win some, you lose some. Take note: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html#s123751&title=Jonathan_Safran_Foer. According to this article, supposedly this book is Foer's best book yet. That does not encourage me to read Everything is Illuminated at all! The best part of this book is Oskar's random "inventions." That's pretty much the only saving grace.

Crossed (Matched #2) by Ally Condie

This is the sequal to Matched. Crossed is told from a different point of view than Matched: it goes from third person to first person, alternating between Ky and Cassia's stories/POVs. I found that hard to get used to since the tone is so similar between the two, but whatev.

It starts (and goes) fairly slow compared to its predecessor, but still a lot happens in the book. Cassia is on the hunt for Ky because she loves him and wants to be reunited with him, while Ky is on the hunt for Cassia for the same reason. Ky is bent on getting back to Society, while Cassia is on a mission to get to the Outer Provinces. Cassia beats Ky to the punch and ends up finding him before he finds her. Then the story goes on and on about the Carving, a giant Grand Canyon-eque landmark thing. Cassia is searching/following Ky in it, Ky leaves it, Ky returns into it, Cassia finds him, they go back into the Carving, they meander in the Carving, they leave the Carving, blah blah blah Carving this, Carving that, zzzzz! ANYWAY, they finally make their way out of the Carving and they are on a mission to get to the Rising (an anti-Society outfit). Ky doesn't want to be a part of the Rising, but Cassia wants to be a part of something bigger than herself. Will Ky find it in himself to follow Cassia wherever she decides to go. Will she choose Ky or the Rising?

Nail-biter to the end!

Thankfully, the third installment of this trilogy comes out in November!