Jumbled Words

Today it’s time for: A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about. And you know, my first impulse was to say The Demon’s Lexicon Trilogy. Except that when I ordered the second book, The Demon’s Covenant, from Book Depository they told me that it had a sales rank of roughly 600 (now it’s 900, I suppose sales have gone down a bit), so it’s not exactly doing badly.

So I thought a bit and came up with these two books. (And yes, I know I’m cheating. Shut up.)

Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

It’s a gorgeous first-person-present-tense (which is hard!) adventure by a boy named Cameron. He’s your average lazy, sulky, pot smoking teenage boy who you rather dislike in the beginning. The story starts just as he falls ill with Mad Cow disease and you really can’t tell if the rest of the book is a) reality, b) hallucination because of the disease, or c) a bad trip.

Of course, I don’t think you CAN trip on just weed, but that’s a question for another day.

The voice in this book is unique, driven and feels so damn true. This is really how teenagers talk, except not as obnoxious. It’s funny and sad and crazy and everything in between, all at once. There’s a very amusing sidekick too, with the craziest little quirks, and really, I could read these two talking all day long, adventure or no adventure.

So yes, I’d recommend this book to anyone, except that it’s not out in paperback just yet. Still, Book Depository is ridiculous cheap and ships anywhere at no charge.

Liar by Justine Larbalestier.

This is a book I read last year and loved. It’s a bit hard to talk about because like the one above you can’t tell what’s truth and what’s not, but it’s really the reason I love it so much. This one is about Micah who is a compulsive liar. You think you’ve figured her out every twenty pages, and then she turns it all upside down and you have to start from scratch. It’s equal parts fascinating and frustrating. More fascinating, actually.

I love the voice in this book too, the lying is interesting and actually I should make a list of books with unreliable narrators in because I love them so much. Maybe after this whole blogging adventure is over. I do have a third book I’d like to put on this list, but I think I’ll save it for later in the month.

Keeping you on your toes and all. (Though, if you know me you can probably figure out which one it is.)

(Full list with links to all posts.)