yay for books!

i've already decided to change up my new years resolution to read 150 books this year. i'd like to make that resolution a little more challenging by reviewing some of the titles i read this year. and i mean some. there is no way i'm going to have the interest in reviewing every book i read. some just aren't worth it.

the ones i choose to review will be ones that i either REALLY enjoyed and want to share or ones that i REALLY hate and want to steer people clear of. let me warn you, there are few books i REALLY hate. a lot of books bug me, but i have a knack for finding something redeeming about nearly every book i read. most of the ones i'm already sure i'll dislike are the ones chosen by my book club for the next 6 months. there is only 1 on the list that i might have picked up on my own and 3 on the list that i already know will be tough for me to finish due to lack of interest in the topic. which is one of the reasons why i joined this book club...they push me to read outside of my regular, cozy comfort zone.

the majority of my reading falls into the category of young adult. while there is plenty of really great young adult books out there, there is also a lot of mediocre and crap young adult writing out there. and i don't discriminate. i enjoy almost all YA lit not because of the content, but because YA authors understand writing to people with short attention spans. they don't spend 3 chapters on stupid character background. they jump right into the story from page one, letting the reader figure out the characters (and even setting) as the story moves. i appreciate that. but 80% of the YA books i read really aren't worth commenting on so unless something is REALLY good, you won't hear about my having read it other than to see the book listed to the right in the 2012 book list.

feel free to send me your book suggestions. i'm always looking for new authors or even just titles to pick up. beware though, i don't read much non-fiction so if your recommend something that requires me to look it up using the dewey decimal system, i'm probably less likely to read it. not because i don't understand the dewey decimal system and therefore couldn't find it in my library, but because well, typically non-fiction is just really blah to read.

anyway, you'll be able to find book reviews in the 'Literary Adventures' tab.

oh yeah...i also decided that i'm going to try to catch up on some of the classic children's literature books that i missed out on growing up. can you believe i've never actually read Alice in Wonderland or The Secret Garden? first up? robert louis stevenson's Treasure Island.