Book Reportage

I'm happy to report that I've read real, published books since last we talked! I also made the realization that I do quite a bit of beta reading and critique group reading and that those reading activities shouldn't be discounted. True, they are not published books, so they don't contribute to my yearly totals, but it's still reading.

3. The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney. This was a great read. Fast, too, because I got completely sucked into the world of being a Spook's apprentice. Very nicely done, Mr. Delaney. Very nicely done.

It's the story of a 13 year old boy who's learning how to deal with witches, boggarts and other things that go bump in the night. An exciting read.

4. So then I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It was pretty good. I was intrigued for the first 200 pages or so, and then it sort of stalled for me. But the narrator was interesting and the story was compelling enough to keep reading. The thing I liked the most was the literary style of writing. For example:

It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprint were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice.

As you might expect, someone had died.

I've really been paying attention to what I read, what strikes me, what I really, really like. And sentences like these are brilliant. I really need to learn to write like this. I love it. Here's another bit from The Book Thief.

The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness.

Both of those passages conjured such great imagery for me. Other moments of brilliance were sprinkled throughout, so while I grew tired of plot at about page 200, I was able to press on and finish.

Because of the writing itself.

I read Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr last year, so it doesn't count, but she had this same style of literary writing mixed with an interesting story. Not too purple, but enough to stun you with the power of the words.

I so want to write like that.

5. Maximum Ride, The Final Warning by James Patterson. Okay, okay, I admit, I still have about 50 pages in this one. But it's a fast read, so I'll be done by the end of the day. I love the way Mr. Patterson weaves together the present tense commentary of the narrator with the past tense telling of the story. This is something I *love* and am trying to do in a novel I've written.

So here's my question, and it's really several. What books have you read where you fold down the pages because of the writing? Not necessarily the story, but the actual writing on the page? I need to read those books. Also, how have you decided what kind of writer you want to be? Do you want to write the gripping passage about a single color? Or are you the type that just writes what needs to be written? I'm a little of both. I'm trying to be more literary, but sometimes that's a hard mix with the sarcasm I've got going on.

*Snarf, snarf, snarf*

So how to you balance what you're writing? Some of everything in the book? Different styles for different stories?

See? Told you I had a lot of questions.