It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 4/21

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? --From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

This is the 9th book in the Pretty Little Liars series.  A quick and fun read.  It is now getting quite interesting to see how the author will twist the story to extend it.  Most of the twists and turns are quite unbelievable, but it is fun to read nonetheless.

Since I am already a big fan of murder mysteries, this book appealed to me.  The book alternates viewpoints between the daughter of the man accused of murder and the boyfriend of the murder victim.  Emily, the daughter, knows in her heart that her father did not kill the girl, but her father was in the midst of a flashback, a symptom of PTSD. The mystery of what happened is further twisted by the fact that the boyfriend does not remember what happened that night.  He has told police a lie and his memories might just be the key to the mystery.  This was a very intriguing mystery and well-written.  I absolutely would recommend it to grades 8 and up.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey was described in a blurb as a cross between Mary Shelley and Stephen King.  I definitely agree with that.  I really liked the fact that the writing style was similar to Frankenstein.  The story is told in journal entries by the assistant to a doctor of monstrumology as he works to rid the town of the latest infestation of monsters.  There were some quite gruesome scenes in this story and I would not recommend it for anyone who has a hard time with gore.  I will definitely read the next book in this series soon because I am now curious about what other types of monsters might arise in the world of these books.  I would recommend this one to high school students and adults.  As I said, there is some gruesome material, and I think the writing style is best appreciated by someone who has been exposed to classics.

A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park is based on a true story of a "lost boy" of Sudan.  It tells the story of Salva, a young boy who walks long distances to avoid a war in his home country.  It also tells the story of a young girl from modern times who still has to walk all day to get enough water for her family each day.  The story is woven together at the end and would be an excellent read aloud to spur students to global action.  There is information at the end of the book about the organization that Salva started to help villages to drill wells and get clean drinking water.  I highly recommend this book.

This is the last book in the Ruby Red trilogy.  It is a highly entertaining series.  I very much enjoyed the audiobooks of the second and third books.  The humor in the book was brought out by the narrator.  I found myself laughing out loud to the book while listening (which was slightly awkward at the gym).  I also found excuses to listen to the book while at home.  This is a good sign that I am really enjoying a book.  The best part about it is that I usually would avoid a time travel book, it is not my cup of tea.  However, this is a witty and fun science fiction that made me long for more.  The taste of romance and bungled, confused conversations made it that much more interesting.  I highly recommend this whole trilogy to middle school and older readers.

It took me longer to get into this book than when I read Grave Mercy, but once I was hooked, I could not put this one down.  It has all the great elements of the first book and a really intriguing story.  I will definitely be looking forward to the third book in this trilogy.  I recommend this one to grade 8 and up.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am listening to Rotters by Daniel Kraus.  I also started reading The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal.  

What's Next?

I made the mistake of signing up for a free trial of Oyster while I still have hundreds of books that I own that I need to read.  I am determined to not continue the subscription beyond this month so I will be focusing on reading books there for a while.  I have quite the reading list going.  I also borrowed the book Perdido Street Station by China Mieville from a friend so I will get to that as soon as possible to be able to return it in a timely manner.  

What are you reading this week?  I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a great reading week!