#12 - Hate List / NOOKS, Kindles, & eReaders

Did I create a rule about no YA books unless they were for book club?  Well, my rules, so I guess I can break them if I want to.

This was the first book I read on the new NOOKcolor eReaders purchased for the library.  Since they are loaded with books for the high school students (and we're still taking requests), YA was the really the only choice.  Hate List by Jennifer Brown is the emotional story of a school shooting.  This one is told from the viewpoint of the shooter's girlfriend.  Most of the selected targets were the product of her hate list, a notebook in which she had tracked all the slights and wrongs committed against her, or should I say perceived wrongs. The story alternates between the present, while Valerie returns to school and learns to cope with the help of her counselor, Dr. Hieler, and the days leading up to the shooting.

The NOOKcolor is an amazing little gadget, now being called an iPad lite.  But I have to say that while searching and browsing the web is easier and more eye-appealing than the same tasks on a Kindle, I much preferthe Kindle when it comes to reading.  I like the fact the Kindle is not back-lit... and you can read one-handed with either hand.  Swiping on the NOOK is not as convenient as the Kindle's buttons to turn the page, located conveniently on both sides.

#11 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This book took me forever five months to get into.  I started it before Christmas and was less than 20% into it when May began.  It may have been all the restarting that slowed me down, but I think it was the multiple plot strands and Swedish translation.  Obviously, it needed to retain the Swedish names of characters and places, but because they all sounded so foreign strange unfamiliar, I had trouble keeping the characters straight.  Now I'm dying to start Steig Larson's next book, "The Girl Who Played with Fire."