Lara

I definitely agree with this. Valiant effort at tackling serious issues, but fell short. Some of the characters really grated on my nerves.

As of now: -A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe -Animal Farm by George Orwell -The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling -Naked by David Sedaris -The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida -The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdich (favorites from when I was a kid ) -The Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller (technically a play, but I read it *like a book* for AP Literature in school, so I count it as a book) -Candide by Voltaire -War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy That was hard!

I have donated children's books to an educational non-profit I volunteer for. In a city close to where I live, there's a really amazing charity shop that is basically just a warehouse that takes book donations, shelves them, and then anybody can take anything they want from there for free. The shelves are always packed full, so I assume they must take in a great deal of donations to be able to sustain that. It's a really neat place.

Ooh totally forgot Perks and Hate List on my list. I really enjoyed both of them, especially Perks.

I look up Seed it looks pretty interesting. Thanks

Ooh I didn't know Every Day had a companion...thanks!

I recently finished reading The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen Year Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida. This book is one of the most excellent works of non-fiction I have ever read. It is very short, definitely no more than two hundred pages, and incredibly compelling. I read the entire book in a little over an hour. It is written primarily in Q&A style, with Naoki answering questions about living with autism. This is augmented by several beautifully written, fictional stories by Naoki, with one longer story at the end. Naoki, the author, who was only thirteen at the time he wrote the book, is so articulate for his age it is mindblowing. I would definitely recommend!

I've never really gotten into YA literature, even when I was in high school, but I've found that some can be pretty nice, even insightful, light reading. Some I've enjoyed include: The Distance Between Lost and Found - Kathryn Holmes Every Day - David Levithan An Abundance of Katherines - John Green Someone Named Eva - Joan M. Wolf The Hunger Games trilogy & Ellen Hopkins for sure! What are some that you all have enjoyed?

Hi! I'm here mainly to get into some new books, and start reading more - something that's unfortantely fallen to the wayside with school/work. Hoping for some good discussion!