books read in September 2008

Wow, this month has been a feast! So many wonderful books!

Dragon Slippers, by Jessica Day George
The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things, Wendelin van Draanen
The Patron Saint of Butterflies, Cecilia Galante
Austenland, Shannon Hale
Red Glass, Laura Resau
Shug, Jenny Han
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen, M.T. Anderson
Murkmere, Patricia Elliott
Thursday Next, First Among Sequels, Jasper Fforde
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, Brandon Sanderson
The Time Thief, Linda Archer Buckley (book 2 of the Gideon trilogy)

Depending on how things go the rest of the day, I may or may not add another one.

ETA: Savvy, Ingrid Law. Excellent!

writing/books

I just read The Time Thief, by Linda Buckley Archer. Unfortunately, my library only has the second volume of this trilogy (how, I ask, is this possible??), which frustrates me no end because I'd really like to go back and read the first book. Ooh, but I loved this one--while there are other books out there with nifty concepts, they often fall short to me in the falling-in-love-with-the-characters department--in short, they feel soulless. Despite a large cast of characters, these characters felt real to me. I felt real emotion, not gimmicky manipulation, at their situations, and for once the author didn't try to cram every significant person of the 18th century all into one book.

Of course, this book makes me think, too, since the book I just wrote is also about time travel (different system, different place, different issues and plot, despite my initial worries over the title). I hope my book measures up; that it's full enough and solid enough to satisfy a reader. Also, while Archer's book was long, the plot itself wasn't complicated. Which brings me to a question: how do you keep from overcomplicating a book? It seems that every time I pick up my characters' arcs, in asking why they act a certain way, I come up with yet another subplot about it. I constantly have to go back and prune things out that really don't need to be there. What do you do?