The House That Cleans Itself

by Mindy Starns Clark
Hennepin County Library, paperback, 234 pages
genre: self-help / housekeeping

I am torn between wanting to buy a copy of this book and just starting with the notes I've made to see how it goes. I will be gone too much in the next few weeks to start this system. I love her tone and the fact that she struggled for a long time with the clutter and lack of cleanliness that I am dealing with. I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle this, though. It will take time to go through the whole house and change how we do things. By the end of the book, I thought, "well, we're not THAT bad around here." But I recognize that we have too much clutter and we need to make some changes so our house is more enjoyable. I may be checking this one out again. Or simply buying a copy.

The Fallen

volume one in "The Nine Lives of Chloe King" series
by Celia Thomson
Hennepin County Library, paperback, 250 pages
genre: YA paranormal romance

A very intelligent young lady highly recommended this to me. She is an avid reader and I eagerly picked this up to see what she was enjoying so much. I'm not sure why she recommended it so highly. The sexual innuendo? The risky behaviors? The slight mystery of why Chloe seems to be turning into a cat? I found it abrupt, poorly developed, and ultimately pointless. I have no empathy for Chloe or her friends, Amy and Paul. I certainly don't care about Xaviyer, Brian, or Aleyc. I do care that a young woman I have a good opinion of is raving about a book with such careless teen use of alcohol, swearing, dishonesty, and sex . . . but I probably won't see her to tell her what I really think of this book. I won't be reading the rest of this series!!!

Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel
Hennepin County Library audiobook 10.5 hours
genre: YA adventure

This was a re-read. Loved it! Except that Kate was really irritating (author's portrayal, not the voice talent). I enjoyed the full-cast audio. It was very rich and enjoyable. Matt Cruse is a wonderful hero. This is a delightful story with good and evil, plenty of heroics, and a touch of first romance.

Airman

by Eoin Colfer
PRMS hardcover 412 pages
genre: YA adventure, historical

This took me a loooong time to get through. Conor Broekhart has a fascination with flying. Set in the late 1890s on the Saltee islands, we see Conor's birth, childhood, downfall, imprisonment, and triumph (naturally). I ended up enjoying it, but it took a while for the story to develop enough for me to care.