It's Monday - Fairyland, Dark Lords, Third Shifts, and Shadows

It's time for our weekly post for the fabulous meme - It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (Picture books to YA) sponsored by Teach Mentor Texts. Here we go:

Amanda is currently reading 2 books:

* The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente is an intriguing adventure. I have to admit that the title is the primary reason I picked up this book. I'm a sucker for quirky titles. That's one reason why I love the music of Sufjan Stevens who has songs like, "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!!"

This book follows a girl named September who travels to Fairyland and discovers that it is need of some help. Valente's writing style really caught me off guard. It's challenging! At first I wasn't sure that I'd be able to hack it, but the delightful nerd humor kept drawing me back in and now I'm trapped. For example - one of the main characters in the book is a Wyverary, half Wyvern - half library. Yep. Makes my nerd heart happy.

* Normalish by Margaret Lesh is a new release. It's basically a series of journal entries written by Stacy, a freshman in high school. We follow her entire freshman year. It's not really my cup of tea, but I'm reading it for the Stand-Alone Challenge and it's kind of surprising me. I find myself strangely interested in this girl's rather typical teenage life. What I like best about it is that I can read bits here and there. I usually prefer books that suck me in and don't let go, but it's been nice to just read a few pages of this book at a time.


Ashley is currently reading 2 books:

* A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton is a paranormal romance novel. Ashley discovered it through Felicia Day's book club on Goodreads. She's really enjoying it so far. That's all she's telling me because she's totally sucked in at the moment.

* Dark Lord: The Early Years by Jamie Thomson is a fun nerdy romp. The Dark Lord, Ruler of the Universe, finds himself trapped in the body of a young boy... with parents! How will he regain his rightful dominion?? Fun for nerds everywhere.

Together we are reading:

We have been anxiously awaiting Hugh Howey's Third Shift for months. It was released last week, earlier than expected, and we purchased it immediately. This is the 8th installment in Howey's incredible Wool series - set in a dystopian future like no other. Neither of us could bear the thought of one person getting to read it first, so we are doing it as a read aloud . It will read more slowly that way, but at least nobody feels left out.