Went a bit mad and I’ve read a wee stack of books.
- Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif by Rick Riordan
- Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- First 2 of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris - Dead until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas
- and the short ‘between the numbers’ story Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich
Right let’s start with the first two – both Puffin books (it’s their 70th Birthday this year) and I wrote to them to ask if they’d give me some free books for the Lones. Well they did – 30 books including the latest paperback Percy Jackson and Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Big thanks again!). So I decided I should read them. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a international best seller and well deserved because it is brilliant. I love the illustrations and the stories. Like so many teenagers the main character is blissfully unaware of the bigger picture and the results are very funny.
I decided to start with the first Percy Jackson book rather than the one Puffin sent as I am doing Greek Myths with my S1 autistic class and next weeks lesson includes a reading of the first chapter of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. I enjoyed it – very much in the vain of Harry Potter or similar but I thought different enough not to feel like a duplication. Plus it had all the Greek myth stuff to spot or enjoy the variation on. Plus it has a really exciting first chapter and I’m all for a book where the main character is nearly killed in chapter one.
The Sookie Stackhouse series will be ongoing. My my sister in-law was down with Tom’s brother they introduced us to the TV series True Blood. Well we really enjoyed it so I thought I’d try the books, there was a deal from The Book People so I ended up with nine books. The books are fun, written in the first person (Sookie) so your knowledge of everyone else is based on what she knows. The TV show and books are similar though a number of the key characters in the TV show barely register in the books (though it looks like they may have blended a number of elements from the books so maybe they’ll appear more important in later books). My only comment would be the sex scenes (of which there seems to be many both in book and in TV series) seem less sexy than they should be. Perhaps that’s because I’m used to Janet Evanovich.
See the link there? Her ‘between the numbers’ book ‘Plum Lucky’ again sees Stephanie blowing up a car (well technically Lula blew it up but the result was still a toasted car) and hanging out with overly sexy men. In this case it’s Diesel who features strongly, he’s a bit on the magical side and I feel Evanovich’s weakest man. I know I’m being picky but I’m just not drawn to the character. I’m not sure why but I think it might be the super natural element the stories he features in have. I do know this is silly since I’ll happily read fantasy and I just finished writing about two books where the lead bloke in undead but the Stephanie Plum novels have a more believable set up – perhaps I just can’t imagine meeting Diesel on a night out but Ranger and Morelli seem more likely? Mmm… maybe need to think this through more as that didn’t sound any more rational. Anyway while I didn’t rush to read this it was still enjoyable – the little person who thinks he’s a leprechaun, Lula’s love of spandex and Grandma Mazur (she’s my favourite character) it was funny and fun.
