I picked this up because it matched my catalog search for [a:Eula Biss|60913|Eula Biss|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1227734650p2/60913.jpg]. It turns out that I had already read her essay included in this ("Goodbye to all that") but I like personal essays so I checked it out. It's a pretty strong collection. I was excited about the essay written by the guy who did volunteer work in the Dominican Republic, and there were a lot of interesting perspectives in here.

Oh jeeze. Oh jeeze. This was the best book I read all year. I could not believe how skillfully she twines her personal experience with historical narrative and analysis. All these essays are beautiful and compelling. You can read the book's title essay here: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200802/?read=article_biss and I really can't recommend it, or this book, highly enough.

This book is one of the most popular at the juvenile detention center, which is why I picked it up. It's an engaging, fast-paced read. It's... grim, but then, so is urban poverty. Tyrell's a sympathetic narrator, and I really felt for all of his tough dilemmas.

This book reminded me of David Levithan's YA stuff, in these girls are way too smart and well-spoken to resemble real teenagers in any way. They all talk like they are in a graduate level women's studies seminar at all times. Which is fine--I love reading sassy teen girls talk about representations of sexuality in hip hop. (I love David Levithan's overly-educated teenagers, too.)

The friendship between the members of Sister Mischief, an all-girl hip-hop crew in suburban Minnesota, felt realistic, even if their dialogue didn't. Their dialogue (and raps) are hilarious and heartfelt.

A solid juvenile historical fiction novel. The Watsons are a charming, funny family. The civil rights movement history seemed slightly tacked-on, but overall a pretty good read.

I was skeptical about this--I'd never read anything by Rick Riordan, and I had some kind of "he's popular so he's probably bad!" attitude problem about him. But I actually really enjoyed this book and am definitely going to seek out the sequel (...maybe over winter break). I don't know much about Egyptian mythology and it turns out it has some awesome stories. I found Sadie, the younger narrator, to be kind of obnoxious, but, well, she was 12. Carter was very endearing. This book is long but a real page-turner. I dug it.

Hmm. This was certainly an engaging, fast read. I enjoyed Lionel's narration--his Tourette's Syndrome provided some interesting phrases, even as I wondered about how problematic the use of Tourette's as both a literal characteristic as well as a metaphor might be. Ultimately, noir detective fiction just is not my preferred genre, but this was an entertaining example of it.

A good follow-up to Tyrell. I liked the complicated relationship between Tyrell and his father, and I couldn't look away from the trainwreck of his parents' reunion. I don't know if Booth has plans for a third book about Tyrell, but after (no spoiler) the ending of this one, I'd definitely read a third book about him.

Sigh, Marilynne Robinson, you are so good at writing. I actually bought this a year ago and then was scared to read it because I've been reading so much YA lit that I didn't think I was up to tackling this. But, duh, it was great. It had enough tiny suspenses and it was so well-written that I moved through it much faster than I had anticipated. (When I think of MR, I think of beautiful writing, but also a very leisurely pace.)

It's been awhile since I read [b:Gilead|68210|Gilead|Marilynne Robinson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316637613s/68210.jpg|2481792] so I'm not sure how closely this ties into it, except that Ames is in it as a peripheral character. I just don't remember how much the Boughtons were in Gilead. But it didn't really hinder my enjoyment of the book at all, so, yay.

I was grumpy when this book got chosen for YA book club. It sounded boring and like who even cares about the French revolution?

UHHH WELL

I do? At least when it's in Jennifer Donnelly's hands. It took a little while for me to get into this book (partly because I was grumpy about having to read it...) but I'm really glad I picked it up. It's very well-done.