Reading Update

Book #15 of the year was Glittering Images, #17 was Glamorous Powers, and #21 was Mystical Paths, all three by Susan Howatch and all three part of the Starbridge series. I wrote more about the series, which I've read several times, in this post from 2009.

 

Book #16 was Henri Nouwen's The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey from Anguish to Freedom. This is Nouwen's spiritual journal of a difficult time in his life, and while it doesn't go into the details of what he himself was going through, it does provide many deep insights into how to proceed through such a struggle. 

 

Book #18 was Extraordinary Birds, by Sandy Stark-McGinnis, the story of December, a foster child who's coping with her difficult past by believing she's a bird. Because of her own struggles, December is able to connect with Cheryllynn, a trans girl at her new school. December is put under pressure to join in with the bullies who are making Cheryllynn's life miserable, and at the same time she's trying to keep from getting too close to her new foster mom, because foster placements always end and December has too much experience with being abandoned. I found December a believable character, and of course what I liked best about this middle-grade novel was the information about extraordinary birds on every page. 

Book #19 was Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton. I had read this book before (here you can read what I wrote about it in 2013), but this time I read it aloud to my husband. We both enjoyed it immensely.

Book #20 was Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, by Dusti Bowling. Aven is a 13-year-old with no arms, and she's just moved to Arizona so her dad can take a job running a cowboy amusement park. While she was well-known at her previous school and didn't have to deal with being stared at, it's not quite the same in the new place. She has to make new friends and solve the mystery of what's going on at Stagecoach Pass. And she has to do it while facing treatment like this: "As Connor, Zion and I walked together down the sidewalk, I heard someone do that coughing thing when they sneak a word into the cough, but they're not actually being very sneaky about it at all. And the word was freaks."