Reading Now (The 50% British Edition)

Finding Violet Park
By Jenny Valentine

"The minicab office was a cobbled mews with little flat houses on either side. That's where I first met Violet Park, or what was left of her."

Admittedly, my copy of the book does not look as cool as the cover on the right. I loved reading Broken Soup by Jenny last year and now have found this second novel under the title Me, the Missing, and the Dead. While Finding Violet Park sounds quirky enough for U.K. audiences, apparently everything has to be watered down when it's shipped to America. I have decided to tell people I'm reading Finding Violet Park anyway and pretend like I'm British. I watch BBC. Close enough.

Click on the U.S. cover to zoom in. Go on. It's not half as fun.

The good news is that the inside of Jenny's books refuse to be American-ified. Unlike some more mainstream British authors (another fancy way of saying  Harry Potter) her American editions hold their ground, their quirk, and their heavy London accent. It's like reading an old Kate Nash album.




The Dead-Tossed Waves
By Carrie Ryan

"The story goes that even after the Return they tried to keep the roller coasters going."

I guess the British are so sophisticated, their zombie novels have sea shells on the covers. Will an American not read a book unless a girl has passed out on the cover?

As a companion novel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, this book has a pretty good site staked out already. Hands and Teeth was a zombie novel that never said the word "zombie", and an apocalypse novel with no flashy technology, (which I consider even a bit more unbelievable). Instead the story took place in a community where you would expect the Salem Witch Trials to go down. Everybody wears peasant blouses, lives in little wood houses, and hangs out at the mill, overlooking a stream and field of daisies. And at the edge of the field there's a giant chain-linked fence with undead clawing at it.

This book caught my eye by starting right off the bat with such a more modern feel to it. The theory goes that humanity is surviving the apocalypse by living in these tiny little gated communities with no contact to any other tiny little gated communities. Yes zombie-apocalypse-preparedness-lovers, all you actually needed was a chain-linked fence. While the community most explored in the first book is controlled by a group of nuns who rule in renaissance-fair mode, I'm looking forward to seeing how other communities are fairing, apparently in the midst of broken down roller coasters and hopefully other more modern devices. I would also like it if less of the sequel took place inside a convent. Just an idea.

You Killed Wesley Payne
By Sean Beaudoin

"Dalton Rev thundered into the parking lot of Salt River High, a squat brick building at the top of a grassless hill that looked more like the last stop of the hopeless than a springboard to the college of your choice."

This book doesn't have a British edition but I liked the theme we had going here.

And I like the cover on the right better anyway.

While I've never read anything by Sean Beaudoin, I've heard some great reviews since picking up this book and his bio cracks me up.  Not to jinx this or anything, but I have hopes for this guy.

If I'm completely honest with you, I have to admit the real deal-sealer on this one was that title. Come on. It's completely U.K. edition worthy.

Bloomability
By Sharon Creech 

"In my first life, I lived with my mother, and my older brother and sister, Crick and Stella, and my father when he wasn't on the road."

Nobody, ever ever in the whole wide world is ever ever too old for a Sharon Creech book. I sound like a Taylor Swift single replay saying it like that but I needed you to listen. These books are for everyone and they always will be.  I love this woman and almost everything she does. I love it when I find a book of hers I haven't read.

And look, I went that whole paragraph without even mentioning how much cooler the U.K. cover was, or how everybody in England that reads Sharon Creech books apparently looks like that girl off Glee and can get away with serenely looking off into the distance at random moments and wears cool scarves.



Check in next Friday for five reasons to re-visit the children's section, plus Well Said! posts through out the week.