What I'm Reading

I'm a bit strapped for time so I thought I'd just do some quick twitterish reviews of read the books I've read so far here. You'll be able to see full reviews later at a variety of locations and I'll be back with links soon. For now:

Dooley Takes the Fall - Norah McClintock

An interesting variation n the YA genre with a noir/crime theme. Dooley is just trying to keep out of trouble, on schedule and away from temptation but he finds himself at the scene of a classmates death at the begining of this book. With a criminal record, a bad reputation and a known altercation with the deceased boy Dooley needs to clear his name fast.

I loved that Dooley had such a well crafted, genuine voice. The book had a fast pace and held my attention through nights filled with 'just one more chapter' before bed. The ending was a little confusing, I couldn't quite work out how two things combined to result in murder for a while. I would like to see some of the long term secondary characters like Dooley's uncle develop more in the next book in the trilogy (which I am super excited about reading) but overall a really satisfying book.

Temeraire - Naomi Novik

Dragons, battles, slash fiction elements, history, unrespectable behaviour and deceit...what's not to love! Captain Laurence and his crew capture a French frigate only to find a dragon egg aboard. The egg is about to hatch so a handler must be found to imprint the dragon before it goes feral and becomes useless to the British AirCorps (the air force but with dragons instead of planes). The dragon rejects the handler chosen and responds to Laurence forcing him into a life away from the navy and respectable society. He and his dragon Temeraire begin to train for a life defending the country from Napoleon.

I love alternate history. Chuck in talking dragons that bond with humans and I am sold. To understand a lot of exactly what I loved about it check out this review by Nic at Eve's Alexandria.

Jazz - Toni Morrisson

Toni Morrisson's earlier work is stunning. She takes a strange occurence and winds a story that makes it effortless to fall into the lives of the characters. I loved the forward to this book where the author said she wanted to write a book that felt and sounded like the launguage and music of the jazz age not a book peppered with historical facts that where static parts of the book.

Violet's husband shoots his sweetheart Dorcas and at the funeral Violet tries to difigure the corpse with a knife. The book is full of the characters histories which entwine with the history of the black civil rights movement and the issue of gradiations in skin colour.

The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen

A lovely romance novel mixed with some magical realism. You can see some of my quick thoughts at Beautiful and Fabulous this week.

So what have you read, what are you reading? How are the challenges going (I know you're all doing them, don't try and hide it)?