Slacker by Gordon Korman

Cameron Boxer is obsessed with computer games.  He gets so engrossed playing online one day that he almost allows his home to burn down.  In response, his parents challenge him to join some kind of extracurricular group unrelated to gaming.  Cameron and his friends decide to create a fake service club at their school with themselves as its only members.  Their plan backfires when other people in the school, including the school counselor, get involved.

Korman has done a lot of these humorous school stories, several of which were better than this one.  The problem with this one is that Cameron's inevitable transformation doesn't come until the very end.  It is like productions of A Christmas Carol.  Mediocre productions have Scrooge stay about the same until he meets the Ghost of Christmas Future, and is scared into repentance.  The good productions show how Scrooge's heart is gradually changed during the course of the story as  relives the painful and pleasant realities of his own past and present. In this book, Korman shows Cameron's friends' gradual transformation but Cameron only turns away from his video game addiction when his friends desert him and he can't play any more.

I am actually being overly harsh.  It wasn't a bad book and I have had kids tell me that they really liked it.  It just wasn't nearly as good as Restart or The Unteachables.  (2016, 230 pages)

Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary Schmidt

Carter's father is in Afghanistan, and his mother is struggling to make ends meet.  Carter helps out with his little sisters when he can but he can tell life is hard for his mom. Then one day, Mr. Bowls-Fitzpatrick shows up on the doorstep.  He is a butler from England who drives a eggplant colored Bentley.  It turns out that Carter's fraternal grandfather has died, and left the use of the butler and the car to Carter.  The butler quickly takes the family in hand and with courtesy, decorum, and a bit of self importance, starts to sort things out.  He is determined to make Carter into a gentleman, and one way to do that, in his opinion is to teach Carter and his friends to play cricket.  The first time they go out on the football field in their white sweaters and pillowy shin guards, Carter is totally embarrassed.  Much to his surprise the game catches on, and soon the whole school is talking about it.  Little does he know that the game, and the butler, is just what he needs to get through the Australian strength storm that is headed for his life.

I love Gary Schmidt and, as bizarre as the premise is for this book, I loved it too. When it comes to tender adult/child relationships, Schmidt just has the velvet touch.  It is all about good people helping other good people get through tough times.  I also liked Schmidt's emphasis on what is means to be a gentleman, and how dignity and decorum can make life run more smoothly.  I think it is a lesson our American culture has almost forgotten. (217 p. 2019)

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo

Kondo is a de-cluttering and organizing consultant from Japan.  In this book she shares her attitudes and secrets for bringing your life in to beautiful order.  Her main suggestion is to keep only the things that give you joy and that by eliminating a large proportion of your possessions you will have a more orderly life.  When I told my sister I was starting this book she said it had some good ideas, but that Kondo herself was a bit "cray cray." As I read on, I could see what my sister meant.  Kondo is what someone might call an animist, or someone that believes all things have a spirit and feelings. She advocates greeting your home with a cheery hello when you get back from work, and thanking your possessions and clothes for all their hard work during the day etc.  It was a bit weird, but I did feel like I got a lot of good ideas from the book.  I have already thrown out some clothes that I knew I didn't like, but kept hanging on to, and reorganized my underwear drawer following her folding technique.  The book also reminded me to feel grateful each day for what I have, even if I don't thank my purse verbally for its efforts in my behalf.  I guess the book is like a garden of fruit.  Take the pieces you want, and leave the rest for someone else. (2013 p. 2014)

An Elegant Facade by Kristi Ann Hunter

You are probably tired of hearing about these books from the Hawthorne House series.  This is the second in the series, but I haven't been reading them in order.  In fact, I believe that I have read them in exactly reverse order.

In this one Georgiana, the Hawthorne family's youngest sister is having her first season.  She has been preparing for this for years and is determined to be the season's glittering diamond.  She is not just after the praise and admiration of all the ton.  She is really after a rich, titled husband who will be influential enough to help her hide her deepest secret. She seems to be succeeding but the handsome and markedly untitled Colin McCrae keeps getting in her way.

Yes, the book is a sappy and cheesy as the description sounds.  Why do I like these things?  They are totally escapist and this series is very clean and moral.  I mostly check them out when I am going on vacation and want some literary cotton candy.  I only have one more, the first in the series, to read, and read it I definitely will.  (359p. 2016)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Wade is a high school computer game geek in 2045.  Society has come to revolve around one all-encompassing computer simulation called the OASIS.  When the creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves his company and his vast fortune to whoever can find a hidden "Easter egg" in his program.  Clues to its whereabouts are based on the programmer's life and interests.  Millions of people start the search for the prize initially, but when no progress has been made after five years most people give up the hunt.  Wade is one that doesn't.  When he manages to be the first person to solve the first clue, he sets in motion a series of events that catapult him a few of the other gifted "gunters" into a high stakes game of cat and mouse with the powerful corporation bent on winning the challenge and ruining the OASIS for everyone.

This was one of the most engaging science fiction books I have read in the last decade.  I almost didn't get past the first chapter because I was put off by the main character's gutter language, but the premise of the story and Cline's world building are so compelling I stuck with it.  It turned out to be fast paced and pretty fun.  I reiterate, if you are bothered by profanity this is not the book for you, but if you can get past it this is a great read that begs a lot of philosophical questions about where modern society is headed.  It is not a surprise that they made the book into block-buster movie. (2011, 274 p.)

The First Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch

George Washington was waiting tensely in New York for the British troops to arrive in June 1776 when John Jay and others of his intelligence officers uncovered a plot to overthrow the army and betray Washington to the British.  This is a over dramatized account of how the plot came about and how it was discovered.

In a forward Meltzer states that he saw the plot mentioned in a footnote of a history he was reading. He was intrigued and went to talk to a Washington historian about it.  The historian said that it was an interesting side note, but that there were probably not enough original sources about it to put together a clear picture of what really happened.  Meltzer was determined to prove him wrong.

In the end, however, the historian was probably right. The whole story could have probably been adequately told in 100 pages or less. Meltzer restates the same facts over and over, trying to draw more drama and action from them than is really there.  He also says "we have no documents that say how....but we can imagine that..."  about a hundred times.  So even though this is in the nonfiction section, it is mostly fictionalized.  Worst of all, he flattens all the characters.  Washington is this demigod hero, and William Tryon and anyone siding with the Tory is a black-hearted traitor. (Meltzer seems to forget that during the time period when these events take place, the Colonies were still under British rule, so technically it was Washington who was the traitor.) 

All that said, I did enjoy the book a little.  I like reading about history and there were some interesting facts I picked up from this book that I didn't remember hearing before.  Still, if I knew the author, I would suggest that he stick with fiction. (413p. 2019)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Hastings is recovering from a war injury, and is invited to stay at the house of a friend, John Cavendish. Not long after Hastings arrives, John's mother is found dead, the victim of a poisoning.  Hastings invites an old friend, Hercule Poirot, a well known Belgian detective, to look into the matter. Of course, there are numerous suspects and clues, but Poirot uses his razor whit to discover the perpetrator. 

I didn't know while I was reading this that this was Christie's first published mystery novel, and the book that launched her career.  She really was such a master.  Even though this is her first book, the plot is very clever, and the portrayal of the quirky Poirot is delightful.  I am usually a Miss Marple fan, but maybe after this one, I will try some other Poirot novels. (153 p. 1920)