What I’m Reading

I’m currently taking a class in Young Adult Fiction. For the past year, I have been slowly pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing. Since I write fiction and blog, I thought it only fitting. Plus I LOVE to learn. I’m such a geek. Even though I’m not a fan of homework, I am thoroughly enjoying these classes. I’m learning a lot and it’s fun interacting with like minded people.

Anyways the point of my post today is I wanted to share a few books I’ve had to read for class that have really surprised me. I haven’t read Young Adult (YA) fiction since I was a young adult. When I think of YA books, I think of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, by Judy Blume. Today it’s on a whole different level.

The 3 books we’ve had to read so far are Belzhar, Pure, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime. None would I have classified as YA left to my own opinion and out of the 3 I only liked Belzhar but that was more due to personal taste than a bad book.

 

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer – was the story of a young girl who was sent to a special school for intelligent but fragile kids. Jem, the main character had suffered a loss. A loss so great she was shut down emotionally. At this school, she was put in a class with others who had similar tragic losses. They discovered through a special journal a way to go back to the incident and relieve it again to provide closer in a sense. The book was well written and insightful as to the feelings and emotions of the characters.

 

 

 

 

Pure Book 1 by Juliana Baggot – this story was more science fiction like that what I would normally read about a world before and after the Denotations. This tragedy separated the Pure people who lived in their perfect world in the Dome from the ones left behind that ended up hurt and deformed. Once the ones left behind turned 16 they were sent off and often never heard from again.

And no one ever left the Dome until one day when a boy named Partridge did. This set off a chain of events that threw him into the world of the ones left behind and finding out where he really came from.

It was also well written, and the visuals the author created through her words were amazing.

 

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – was about a boy who displayed signs of Asperger’s or high functioning autism even though the book never directly said it. His mother dead, or so he thought, his father was his caretaker.

One day he came across his neighbors dog, murdered, and part of the book was him trying to find the killer in his own awkward way due to his lack of social skills. His dad finally forbade him to pursue it further, but that didn’t stop him. In his search for a journal in which he write down the story of the murdered dog, he came across letters from him mother. She wasn’t dead after all. He went to find her, and this revelation caused a rift between him and his dad that at the end of the book was still not fixed.

Even though the main character was young, I didn’t understand how the content was geared to YA. Although again like the others it was well written.

I’ve enjoyed being exposed to works I normally don’t read, and our next 2 books are The Giver and The Fault In Our Stars. Both which I am looking forward too.

What have you read that you didn’t particularly care for due to the story but thought was well written and could appreciate it?

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