Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight by Naoki Higashida
Genre: Memoir
Short Summary: A young man describes his experiences with non-verbal autism.
My rating: 4 stars.

My thoughts:
Well, that was quite an enlightening read. I learned quite a lot and thought of things in ways I hadn't thought of before. However, the phrase "he or she" was used really often and got on my nerves.

Do I recommend it? Yes

*Read for day 7: pink of The Rainbow Readathon*
The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
Genre: YA humor (I guess?)
Short Summary: Mia, a freshman girl, has to deal with the fact she is a princess of a fictional country and the fact her mom is dating her algebra teacher.
My rating: 1.5 stars

My thoughts:
Plot: 1.5 stars
There isn't much of a plot at all, and the ending really fizzled out.

Characters: 1.5 stars
Mia is the whiniest, most selfish character I've read about in ages. She literally thinks it's good that Iran bombed Afghanistan so war carnage can be in the news instead of the fact a guy kissed her. The only thing good about her is that she's vegetarian. The other characters are all very bland.

Writing: 2 stars
Way too many exclamation points and too much use of all-caps. Also it's not funny at all (except when there's typos) even though it's supposed to be humorous. It's just dumb.

Other: -1 star
Racist (a dance celebrating cultural and racial diversity is described as "stupid", and a whole subplot is devoted to how racist Asian people supposedly are), sexist (sexual harrassment and groping are portrayed as things girls want), transphobic (one of my status updates had a charming quote illustrating this), and very, very heteronormative.

Do I recommend it? Definitely not.

*Read for the Rainbow Readathon day 5: Blue*

*Read for the second day of the Rainbow Readathon: Orange*

Unlikely Friendships for Kids: The Monkey and the Dove and Four Other Stories of Animal Friendships
Category: Children's animal nonfiction
My rating: 1 star
My thoughts:

I feel kind of cheating for letting this count for a readathon at all, but I have school today and I don't really have the time to read anything longer or with more depth. All this is a shallow, dumbed-down collection of very short and telly stories about animals, with hardly any details at all. What was the point? I don't know. "Animals can be friends", apparently. Woah, how profound. Don't we all know that (I hope)? There wasn't anything interesting at all in the stories, and one of them, The Lion and the Oryx, seemed depressing in a pointless way. Also, I doubt that even the intended audience needs to have the words 'dog' and 'cat' defined for them.

Do I recommend it? Heck no.

Let's pretend I didn't read this, okay, people? Thanks. I had to read something to replace Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice and I was in a hurry.

For the YA Book Club August Reading Challenge:
Read a memoir.

Actual review to come.

Repetitive and boring, but it does make a few good points. It took me forever to read, though.

For the YA Book Club August Reading Challenge:
Read a book by an author you have never read before.

For the YA Book Club August Reading Challenge:
Read a book with a cover you love.

Disorganized and basic as heck, and I hope I never have to read about the Gender Genie again. The whole concept behind the Gender Genie disturbs me.

A few of the tips are good, though I seriously doubt that there are 100 tips in here.