Book Log: Incantation, by Alice Hoffman

beingblueagain has been recommending this book to me for ages--at least since my YA lit class last semester, and maybe even since my Children's lit class over the summer. In any case, I finally got around to reading it when I found myself copyediting the new back matter that beingblueagain wrote for the upcoming paperback edition. Mostly I'm not going to do book logs for books I read in the course of my job--I have a hard enough time keeping up as it is--but since this involved taking an actual hardcover book home with me, and I read it mostly for pleasure, I'm counting it.

Incantation is the story of Estrella de Madrigal, a teenage girl living during the Spanish Inquisition. Estrella has a secret, a secret so dangerous that she herself does not learn of it until it is too late: she and her entire family are Marranos, Jews who hide their faith and pose as good Catholics to avoid persecution. Estrella and her best friend Catalina think that they will be together forever, until a forbidden kiss between Estrella and Catalina's cousin Andres starts a cycle of jealousy and betrayal that tears Estrella's family apart.

Incantation is an incredibly fast read--it only took me a few hours to read in its entirety--and for that reason I'd suggest either taking this book out of the library or waiting until it comes out in paperback. That being said, it is truly a powerful story of betrayal, loss, and hope, and Hoffman's lyrical prose is beautiful. This one didn't quite make me cry, but it came close. Highly recommended.

Book Log: What Happened to Cass McBride?, by Gail Giles

Words are teeth.
And they eat me alive.
Feed on my corpse instead.

This is the suicide note left by David Kirby after his advances are rejected by Cass McBride, the most popular girl in school. David's brother Kyle, driven over the edge by David's death, decides to make Cass pay for her part in David's suicide: he kidnaps her and buries her alive. The story alternates between the points of view of Cass, Kyle, and the police detective trying to find Cass before it's too late.

This is a fast read that grabs the reader and doesn't let go until the last page. Through Kyle's and Cass's points of view, we learn about the history that drew each character inexorably to this horrifying end, and we sympathize with each character's predicament even while deploring their actions. Cass's struggle to outwit her captor and stay alive is particularly harrowing and rife with truly scary moments. Because this is such a fast read, I'd recommend taking this one out of the library or waiting until it comes out in paperback in September.

Book Log: Eggs, by Jerry Spinelli

Eggs falls squarely into the patented genre of Jerry Spinelli books about quirky friendships between outcast kids. In this case, the kids are nine-year-old David and thirteen-year-old Primrose. David spends most of his time taking his considerable store of anger out on the grandmother with whom he was sent to live after his mother died in a freak slip-and-fall accident; he only sees his traveling-salesman father on weekends. Primrose lives with her whimsical-to-the-point-of-crazy fortune teller mother in a tiny house on a forgotten street; she treasures a framed picture of the father she has never known and is so desperate for a room of her own that she moves into the junker car on her lawn and decorates it like a miniature house. The two meet after David finds Primrose pretending to be a corpse at an Easter egg hunt, and they quickly form a tight friendship.

My favorite thing about this book is that, unlike some of Spinelli's other books, the child protagonists actually sound and act like kids. David and Primrose's friendship is not saccharine-coated or idealized; rather, the two bicker and grouse and argue constantly, and the depth of their affection for each other is an electric undercurrent beneath the surface chaos. There are some priceless tiny moments in this book: David's desperate belief that following all the rules will bring his mother back (and the near-obsessive compulsive behaviors that result from this belief), Primrose dressing up as David's mother so the two children can go to a Halloween event without their guardians, the tiny white picket fence that Primrose builds around her "room." All serve as poignant illustrations of the healing power of friendship between two damaged, but not broken, children.

In which I am productive

I've been wondering recently why it is that, even with a job I adore, I remain largely incapable of such seemingly simple adult tasks such as doing my laundry regularly and cleaning the bathroom every week. Then Spring Break started and everything started to make sense. In the last two nights, without the looming specter of class, I have accomplished the following:

*Cleaned the bathroom
*Did a sink full of dishes
*Did many, many weeks' worth of laundry (though in all fairness "doing laundry" in my case involves sorting the laundry, dragging it to the laundromat, and picking it up again all clean and folded a couple days later)
*Dropped off a bunch of dry cleaning
*Washed two sweaters and some hosiery by hand
*Vacuumed hall, living room, and my bedroom
*Did a full change of the cat's litter
*Straightened living room
*Made my bed
*Cleared horizontal surfaces in my room
*Moved tights, knee-highs, boot socks, and other bulky items from dresser drawer to plastic storage container on top of dresser, thereby alleviating the dire space shortage in said drawer, a task I've been meaning to accomplish for weeks that ultimately required nothing but a trip to the hardware store and approximately five minutes of my time

It's amazing what I can accomplish when all I have to worry about is my full-time job, as opposed to my full-time job + two classes + transportation time to and from Queens + studying time + time spent staring off into space and feeling guilty for not studying. I am so freaking excited about summer, I cannot even tell you.