Starting Line 48 Hour Book Challenge

I am participating in the 48 Hour Book Challenge hosted this year by Ms. Yingling Reads.  (The rules for this year.) Full reviews of the books will be posted later this month, but I will share a short sentence or two on my first impressions of the book.

My start time will be 8PM Friday which means my end time will be 8PM Sunday.



What I've read:

Title: The Moon and More
Author: Sarah Dessen
# of Pages: 384 pages
Hours Spent Reading: 3
Rating: 4 stars
My thoughts: While The Moon and More isn't my new favorite Dessen novel of all time, it was WONDERFUL to spend time with new characters in the beach town of Colby. What I love about Dessen's YA novels is the fact that relationships--ALL relationships matter. Family relationships and friendships are typically very important in her works. This one was not an exception.

Title: Al Capone Does My Homework
Author: Gennifer Choldenko
# of Pages: 224 pages
Hours Spent Reading: 2 
Rating: 5 stars
My thoughts: I love Moose! I do! It was such a treat to get a third book in this series. Like the previous books, it's set in the mid-1930s on Alcatraz. Early in the novel, the Flanagan's apartment catches fire. While some mean busybodies assume Natalie, Moose's older sister, is to blame, Moose and his most faithful friends (Jimmy and Annie) know that it isn't so. They work together to prove that SOMETHING is going on on Alcatraz, and that Natalie is innocent.

Title: Odessa Again

Author: Dana Reinhardt
# of Pages: 196
Hours Spent Reading: 90 minutes
Rating: 3 stars
My thoughts: Odessa Again has a unique concept. Odessa, our heroine, discovers that she has a magical attic floor in her new house. By jumping up and down, she can travel back in time, twenty-four hours, twenty-three hours, twenty-two hours, etc. At first, she uses these opportunities to "fix" her life for really small things, but towards the end she wants to start making HUGE changes to her life. What she learns is that even with time travel, change happens and that is okay too.

Title: The Mouse With The Question Mark Tail
Author: Richard Peck
# of Pages: 224
Hours Spent Reading: 2
Rating: 5 stars
My thoughts: Richard Peck is a great author. I just loved the "nameless" mouse hero in this one. (He's sometimes called Mouse Minor.) This is a great adventure story set in Victorian England. The writing was great. One of my favorite lines: "You rarely see a mouse that size unless he's fallen into a butter churn" (106).  Or possibly, "A double life? A secret agent? You never know the full truth about a teacher. And he was everywhere I turned, practically in two places at once. But then, bats can fly. Very worrying. "What a merry chase you have led us from a schoolroom where you benefited from my teaching and protection," he wheezed, shaking his scaly old head. "All the right sort of schools are bat-run, of course, from burrow to belfry," he said, off on a tangent as usual. "How much the world has to learn from us. Yes, I think you'll find that all the best teachers are old bats." (170)

Title: Zoo Station
Author: David Downing
# of Pages: 304
Hours Spent Reading: 3 hrs. 40 min.
Rating: 3
My thoughts: I enjoyed the first book in the John Russell spy series. The book is set in Germany in 1938 or 1939, I believe.

Title: They Found Him Dead
Author: Georgette Heyer
# of Pages: 323
Hours Spent Reading: 2 
Rating: 4
My thoughts: If only I'd read They Found Him Dead before reading Duplicate Death! There are TWO murders and two attempted murders to try to solve in this delightful mystery starring a dysfunctional family! I enjoyed quite a few of the suspects and I am really getting attached to both Inspector Hannasyde and Inspector Hemingway.

Title: A Blunt Instrument
Author: Georgette Heyer
# of Pages: 309
Hours Spent Reading: 2
Rating: 3
My thoughts: Constable Malachi Glass has to be one of the most irritating characters to ever star in a mystery novel! I would have given up on it perhaps if it hadn't been for my growing interest in Helen North, Sally Drew,  and Neville Fletcher. While there were irritating elements to this mystery novel, it had its moments!

Title: The Language Inside
Author: Holly Thompson
# of Pages: 520 (verse novel)
Hours Spent Reading: 2
Rating: 4?
My thoughts: Emma Karas may not be the first heroine in a YA novel to ask the ever-important question: where do I belong? but her story--told in verse--is powerful and compelling.


© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews