I am not coming up with anything witty to say as an introduction: I thought I’d read less because the weather was getting nicer, but I didn’t. I did, however, have the single highest number of posts in a month. (This one will be 48, Teaser Tuesday, which will go up soon will be 49. I should do one more to make it an even 50.) I suppose that should be an accomplishment. Either that, or it means I should be spending more time with my kids…

Graceling (Harcourt, Inc.): “In a world where people born with an extreme skill — called a Grace — are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing. She lives under the command of her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him. When she first meets Prince Po, who is Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace — or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away… a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.”

One of the most difficult things to do when writing jacket flaps is to conceal a twist or a big revelation and yet not give a false sense of the book. This one does both admirably.

Bee Season (Doubleday): “Eliza Naumann has no reason to believe she is anything but ordinary, especially after her teachers place her in the class for slow learners. Her father, Saul, dotes on her older brother Aaron’s rabbinical ambitions. Her mother, Miriam, seems fully absorbed by her law career. When a spelling bee threatens to reaffirm her mediocrity, Eliza amazes everyone: she wins. Her new found gift garners an invitation not only to the national competition, but to her father’s sacred study where a new dictionary beckons, Jewish mysticism lurks in leather tomes, and language offers a spiritual awakening. Eliza’s unexpected success sends her off-kilter family into a tailspin, and Eliza comes to depend upon her own divination to hold the family together. With intense imagination and great emotional acuity, Bee Season evokes a child’s desperate longing for praise and acceptances and is a masterful portrayal of modern family life.”

This one did its purpose: it made me want to read the book. Too bad I liked the summary better than the book itself…

Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux): “From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she’s an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops — a major infraction of high-school society — so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it’s not so comfortable in her head, either– there’s something banging around in there that she doesn’t want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won’t go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can’t be silent — she must speak the truth. In this powerful novel, an utterly believable, bitterly ironic heroine speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while learning that, although it’s hard to speak up for yourself, keeping your mouth shut is worse.”

I liked the straightforwardness of this: it basically tells you what to expect, but there’s still a little sense of mystery that makes you want to find out what happens to Melinda.

Other books read this month:
Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before (Hyperion)
The Parliament of Blood (Bloomsbury)
Somewhere in Heaven (Hyperion)
To Catch a Mermaid (Little, Brown)
Permanent Rose (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Life As We Knew It (Harcourt)
Just One Wish (G.P. Putnam Sons)
So Many Books, So Little Time (Berkley Trade)
Banker to the Poor (PublicAffairs)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Rosewater and Soda Bread (Random House)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Evernight (HarperTeen)
Flygirl (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Stealing Heaven (Harper Teen)
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan (Puffin)