"The Geek's Guide to Dating" by Eric Smith

How I could not read this book? The title alone intrigued me. Full of references to a plethora of geeky and nerdy references, The Geek's Guide to Dating has lots of tips and tricks for finding (and keeping) one's true love. While I had quite a bit of fun reading this book, I'm not sure how much I would actually use it as a guide for real life dating. I enjoyed the fun references, the art style and just the overall nerdiness of the book, but I don't think I would necessarily use it to get real advise (this coming from someone in a relationship, so I could be totally wrong). However, even if you aren't seeking relationship advise, this book is just fun. I spend a lot of my time with various geeks, nerds, and other insert-correct-sysnonym-here and a good chunk of that time is spent either staring blankly until they explain the reference or getting way to excited because I actually knew what they were talking about. I also do this while watching Gilmore Girls. So that part of the this book that I enjoyed the most was seeing which references I understood (and researching the ones I didn't).  This is definitely a book to read if just for the entertainment purposes. However, I would absolutely love to hear if anyone is able to put the advise in this book to use in their real life too!

Happy Reading!
-Melly

"Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell

So here's the process that led to me reading Rainbow's Rowell's (who, by the way, would win my best named author award if I did such a thing) Eleanor & Park. Rainbow was the writer of the one of the NaNoWriMo updates and she talked about her book, Fangirl. My brain was sparked because it sounded really good and it's a NaNo book, but since my library doesn't have it yet, I decided to read Eleanor & Park instead. Now I was aware of it, I'd seen it on display at the library and knew that it was getting great reviews. It ended up somewhere on the list of books I hope I find time to read before I die. Thankfully it ended up making it's way to the top of said list because it is really good!

Eleanor has just moved back in with her family after originally being kicked out by her stepfather. They live in a too small house with too many people and live in fear of his temper. Park is part Korean, part nerd and 100% awesome. The two meet on the bus when Eleanor has no where else to sit and ends up next to sitting next to Park. Slowly their relationship begins to develop. At first, she reads comics over his shoulder, then they start reading said comics together. Soon Park starts making mix tapes for Eleanor; she loves music but has no means to go out and buy her own (and note that I said mix tape. This book is not set in the present day but instead takes place in the mid 80s). As time goes by, their relationship grows stronger, but so does the need for Eleanor
to keep all of this a secret. You will fall head over heels for these characters and this book has an ending you won't soon forget.

I loved how natural this book felt. It felt like these two could easily walk out of the pages of the book and be actual people. Every event that took place in the book was also very realistic. Never once did I have the though 'there's no way that would happen.' Once I started this book, it was extremely difficult to put it down. Rowell has created a real gem and I am looking forward to reading more of her books.

Happy Reading!
-Melly

"Tilt" by Ellen Hopkins

This is likely a very biased review as it is no secret whats-so-ever that I am totally in love with just about everything Ellen Hopkins writes.  But I'm going to review it anyway.

Tilit is the companion to Triangles.  It follows Mikayla (Holly's daughter) and her relationship (and sometimes lack-thereof) with Dylan and the complications brought on by an unplanned pregnancy, Shane (Marissa's son) and his relationship with Alex who is HIV-positive, and Harley (Andrea's daughter) and her desire to have a relationship with just about anyone that will have her. This book takes place during the same time as the events in Triangles.  Told from the perspective of the teens, we get to see why they do the things they do and how they react to their parents actions.  Though you don't need to read one to read the other, I do recommend the two novels one right after the other.  I didn't and my memory of the first book was a little fuzzy.  Something else that I liked about this book was that I could see it being perfect for a mother-daughter book discussion.  I like that we see the adult and the teen perspective and think it would be really interesting to discuss these books with someone (sadly I haven't caused a total Hopkins-craze in my community...yet...).  As always, the poetry in this novel is superb.  Something that caught my eye as I was reading was that each characters section always ended on the same side of the novel and was followed by a poem from the perspective of a (mostly) minor character.  The kind of planning it must have taken to always have the right number of papers per character astounds me.  Hopkins has got to be the most brilliant writer of my generation and I look forward to all of her future work.

Happy Reading! 
-Melly