Birmingham and Books!

I'm currently in Day 2 of the Great Birmingham Adventure (so far, no need for law enforcement...)

So far, hanging out with dad has been fantastic as usual. Since he still has to do silly things like "get a paycheck" and "go to work," I've had most of my days free. So, because I am lame, I have spent approximately 12 of the past 48 hours in bookstores and Starbuckses. (Starbucki?)

I've written a bit, but mostly I've read a couple great books. The first was AUDREY, WAIT! This book was a riot. It's basically about a girl whose ex-boyfriend writes and angry song about their breakup, which turns out to be amazing. The band becomes huge, and Audrey's life gets a little crazy.

The voicing reminds me a lot of Suzanne Young (who, to date, is the only author to actually make me snort Pepsi up my nose while reading.) The beginning was awesome, and while the voicing got a little flat towards the middle/end, it came back at the very end. It was great fun, and also made me decide that I need to go to more live shows.

The book I read today was IF I STAY, which was on the other end of the YA spectrum. This is the story of a girl's decision to keep on living or go on to die after her parents and younger brother die in a car accident and she is suspended between life and death in the ICU.

It's weird--I didn't think the book was that good, but it still made me cry at three separate times. (Also, if you're going to have your main character be a Julliard-bound classical cellist, you should probably not misspell Haydn. Just a thought.) But I liked several aspects of this book--Mia's parents were fantastic, and I ended up really wanting to know where the story was going.

Now I'm out of book again, so I'll have to work on that over the next few days. But more importantly, we're going RAFTING!!!