Monday, April 14, 2008

Good Reading

After a recommendation recently from a friend, I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I've since read Rebel Angels, the second book, and am now reading the third, which is The Sweet Far Thing. What I'm wondering is, why have I never heard of this author? Everyone is raving and raving over those Twilight books, which I thought were kind of crap (at least the first one, which is all I could make myself read), but these books are so much more well written, without the "cold, marble skin" and the whining.

Granted, the characters can be a little annoying at times. But I guess since they're teenage girls in a finishing school, that's to be expected. Anyway, the books take place in the late 1800's. There's a little bit of fantasy, which I love, of course. It's young adult, and I'm finding there are a lot of good young adult books out there. But what I'm also finding is that I don't like the ones that everyone else seems to love. The ones that receive all the hype. I didn't like Eragon (couldn't even finish), didn't like Twilight (made myself finish). Oddly enough, A Great and Terrible Beauty was on the New York Times Bestseller list, yet I still never heard of it. I wonder what other good books I've never heard of.

6 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting! I love books set in that time period. I'll have to try them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with you about that Twilight series(or whatever they're called). I actually listened to them all. I don't know why. I complained to Jason about them the whole time I was listening to them at work. These books sound interesting. I think I'll check them out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I will have to read them I love books, but I don't think it can beat the twilight series I love those books

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm so out of the loop. And here all those years ago I earned a degree for teaching high school English. I liked knowing what was hot on the reading lists. Now I have no idea. But your take on the popular ones that you don't care for cracked me up. Love the honesty.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just got back from the library and I checked out the first two (I don't think they have the 3rd). I realized that these are books that I looked for awhile ago, but I didn't realize they were young adult, so I thought my library didn't have them! Funny, eh? Thanks for giving me the heads up that they were YA.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, I made it through the first... I think that will be enough for me. ;) I guess popular YA books are just not my thing.

    ReplyDelete