MOAR Fantastic Books!

First and foremost, BREAK by Hannah Moskowitz is officially out! I wrote a quick review of it on Amazon:

Jonah is on a mission to break all his bones. There, you've got the plot of the book.

Not so fast. Because a person's life isn't isolated. Jonah spends most of his time (when he's not intentionally falling off skateboards) trying to save his younger brother from dying from food allergies. His best friend is egging him on to keep breaking bones, while his brother is having reactions all over the place and begging him to stop. His parents are clueless and trying to take care of a baby who won't stop crying.

Everything going on in Jonah's life pushes him to keep going. The reason for his actions make sense, in a way. When you're reading this book, you ARE Jonah. You are completely in his head, and while the leaps in logic seem crazy to the outside world, when you're Jonah, it all ties together. And as a reader, I was dragged into his thoughts and emotions.

Moskowitz has written a fantastic debut novel. Jonah's voice stays present through the whole book and doesn't lose much steam in the middle, the way many first-person novels do. I would recommend this book to anyone (as long aren't a pansy when it comes to blood and pain.)

Sound intriguing? Go buy it!

Also, I'm a little slow and just read HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. WOW. I devoured this book. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time, and gave me that warm fuzzy post-amazing-book feeling. I ordered CATCHING FIRE, the next book in the series from Amazon, but it won't be here until I'm already gone! Alas.

I also just read GODLESS by Pete Hautman. I wasn't as impressed by it, but a lot of that might be because I read it so close to the awesomeness of the first two books. I thought it was still a pretty decent book, but I wasn't blown away by it.

Next up? Not sure. THE THIEF LORD, maybe.

Crack of the Week

In case you haven't picked up on this particular quirk (i.e. neurosis) in my personality, there's something you should know.

I have a bit of an addictive personality. Which is pretty awesome when I get addicted to something productive like, I don't know, PRACTICING, but is less exciting when it's something like Monopoly.

Currently, I'm back on an anime kick. (Note: Windows does not believe "anime" is a word. Screw 'em.) So I've watched absurd amounts of Fullmetal Alchemist in the past few days. (Windows doesn't believe in "Fullmetal," either. WHY DO YOU HATE JAPAN, BILL GATES?)

So if I've been a terrible/distracted/annoying friend over the past few days, that's probably why.

You know, my blog is still called "Music Major Madness." While the madness still almost certainly applies, I'm not a music major anymore. I don't write about writing much, so it would be stupid to name the blog for that. Hm...name change is probably on the horizon.

(Note: Dani sent me a copy of FRAGILE ETERNITY, and she totally rocks my socks for that. Even if the end did make me a little aggravated. Cer la vie.)

Shh! Jesus is watching!!!

Scene: we're walking through the church parking lot this morning.

Mom: Holy shit, it's hot.

Me: You can't say shit here! Jesus can hear you better!

Mom: Well, I said holy...

A real post will come soon. Eventually.

It's official!!!

I will be moving to New Orleans in October!!! I'll be working at Hagar's House, a center for single women in crisis.

I'll be living in the church nearby, with several other people who work there (mostly young adults, methinks.) I know some of them will be Americorps volunteers, which means that not only will I be living in !freakingNewOrleans! I'll be living with people from all over the country and with different faith backgrounds.

Heck. Freaking. Yes.

Right now, the schedule that I know so far: Our training, which will be in upstate NY, will start September 23rd (ish.) We'll be commissioned and fly to our placement sites on October 13th (ish.)

DID I MENTION I'M EXCITED?!?!?!?!?!?

Hmmm...

As some of you might guess, I'm stressing a bit about the placement thing. Because that's kind of my thing.

Well, about a week ago, I had a dream while I was at Dad's. I dreamed that I had gotten placed somewhere in New Orleans. And when I woke up, even once I realized it was a dream, I felt better. Not because I thought I knew anything from it, but because my subconsious brain saw that I would still go somewhere that was a good fit, even though right now it was stressful.

I'm not going to say anymore right now, so don't ask me, but more information will be coming soon.

Patience Blows

*headdesk*

So, I'm supposed to hear about where I'm going to be placed sometime this week. Apparently, they've been waiting on the placement sites to respond, and they haven't.

I am SO TIRED of this helpless waiting to hear where I'm going to be. And I'm frustrated because it's not like it's unavoidable stuff. I've just committed the next two years of my life to this--I don't think it's unreasonable to be antsy about where I'm going.

Watch my ass get placed at a Wesley Foundation in Iowa.

Edit: We interrupt this rant to be...um...non-ranty. More information to come as stuff is confirmed.

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!!!