Been Busy

Haven't posted in forever! Between work, backpacking my ass off in September, and school, not only have I not had time to read but when I have read I haven't had time to post about it. I only recently got into a groove where I can cut corners in homework and stay up ultra late to get a couple chapters in every night. Essentially giving up sleep.
At the end of summer before I left for my big backpacking trip to California, I read The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I remember really liking her books in middle school and was feeling in the mood to visit the desert, but this book just didn't cut it for me. The main characters' name was Harry, and she was a girl, and I just couldn't get over it. If you're going to have a strong woman she doesn't have to have an incredibly horrible and manly name, it can at least be androgynous and I'll understand what's going on. Like Casey or something. Another thing that bothered me was the writing. A lot of it seemed like something I would write, and I'm a terrible writer. My sentence structure is so odd and doesn't flow well anywhere but my brain, and this is fine with me, but I'm not writing novels to sell to people. One sentence was something along the lines of "the children threw stones at the birds, but only small ones." what is small? the children or the stones or the birds?" I was so confused. Also, there is no romance whatsoever throughout the story, no inkling of passion or love or anything. This would be alright, except for the fact that in the last chapter the author is like "Oh wait by the way Harry is in love with this dude and they're getting married the end." And it's supposed to be all romantic, only it's just really weird because they've shown no sign of liking each other before then, I can't even tell if they were friends or not before then. It was all very rushed, and their speech admitting their love to each other is really formal and detached and weird. I guess this wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't as big of a fan of love as I am.
After that, I packed along The Hobbit by Tolkein with me for the trip. I've read this about a million times and it's never ceased to blow my mind. This was probably the longest I've gone without reading it though so I had forgotten the ending. In fact I think I forgot it again. It took me like a month to read it, which I'm ashamed about, but whatever. I read it in a cozy sleeping bag during a snowstorm in the mountains while drinking tea so it was awesome. And I read it sitting on a log by a lake with a friend who was also reading it, and that was awesome too. I also had a boy read it to me out loud on a long car ride. I also read it simultaneously with another boy and we ended up kissing so it was cool. So I'm not too down on the fact that it took so long, because it happened.
I guess I never posted when I read Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote either. I really enjoyed it, I couldn't put it down. Essentially I read it in one sitting but truly it was 3. It's one of those books that a friend kept in the back of her car for in case she needed something to read at any point, so on the way to a hiking trip to the coast in early July I read a little bit, which was bad because we missed some turns because I was in charge of directions. I finished reading it on the way to and from a camping trip in the south in late August. It was delightful and I'd like to read more by him. I was definitely not expecting the not-so-innocent Holly that I didn't pick up on when I watched the movie in middle school. I also read all of the short stories contained in that edition and I liked how honest they were. I can't think of a better word than honest right now, but I think it sounds dumb.
I hadn't read anything but textbooks and a couple stories from my folktale book from the Hobbit up until last week when I borrowed The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold from a friend. As I mentioned before, I definitely had to give up sleep to read it, but it totally drew me in and I was hooked. Though it wasn't the best book ever, it was certainly entertaining and a good break from all the stress of this fall. Also it was a good supplement to my profiling serial killers class.
With winter break coming up, and my newly found plan of lacking sleep, I may be posting more often hopefully. I am definitely behind on my book goal but whatever, I live my life.