books! books! books!

I totally want a books!books!books! neon sign somewhere in my house.

Here are the things I've been reading recently:

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.
Ugh. Just awful. This contrived, Disneyfied "prequel" to Peter Pan was boring, poorly written, and HORRIBLY edited. There were typos all over the place, wrong words used, that sort of thing. Bleh. We tried for months to finish it and just gave up 30 pages from the end. That's how boring it was. I think I'll be skipping the rest of this series.

Starfish by Peter Watts.
Cyberpunk meets undersea thriller. Compelling and unique. I read it pretty quickly because the story was so different. It's very dark, hard sci fi which I don't usually read but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Man in the Woods by Rosemary Wells.
There's something so quaint about young adult literature from the 80s. I first read this in 5th grade and LOVED it, so when I found it again I was thrilled. This is the famed Rosemary Wells who does the Max and Ruby books, by the way. The Man in the Woods is a teen thriller about a talented young woman at a new school who gets involved in a mystery about a rare old typewriter and drug trafficking. There's not a swear to be found, the girl is very Catholic, and the only hint of sex is when she wants a boy to hug her. It kind of made me feel elderly, but I'm glad I re-read it.