I have been restlessly looking for the right book - the exact book I want to be reading but I'm not sure what it is or should be about - and thus have pushed through several titles in a quest to find myself blissfully in the middle of that book I've been searching for. I haven't found it yet, but not for lack of trying. (And perhaps this frenzied reading has been in response to the Nicholson Baker discussion which proved to be far different from I imagined and has now resulted in some less than complimentary comments over at the round table. Nicholson Baker chimes in today with a very cordial sum up of the whole process but I feel more than a bit burned and jaded by it. Every time I asserted a thought I felt as if I was being condescended to in return. Very frustrating and I found myself pushing even harder in response. Not satisfying for any of us I'm sure. At least today there was some support for my position which I was beginning to think was out in some weird gung ho left field and not at all where I thought I would be.)

But I digress. First book finished was the very unusual Lizard Love by Wendy Townsend. This YA coming-of-age is about the very likable Grace who enjoyed country living with her grandparents and now lives in NYC with her mother. Grace is a reptile fan - a big one - and finds herself in a reptile store with a guy who has the same affection for lizards and snakes that she does. What Townsend does is juxtapose the transformation of snakes shedding their skin and lizards changing color against Grace herself growing up (transforming from young wild girl to young woman with all those scary physical alterations). It seems like the book should be like similar titles before it (dating all the way back to Judy Blume's Margaret) and yet, it really isn't. This one has a quiet charm that was most enjoyable. More in a column down the line.

Peter Gould's Write Naked has confounded me from the start. I thought it would be coming-of-age about a teenage boy and his newfound love for a garage sale typewriter. But then he meets a girl who turns out also to be a writer and they form a small writers group in his uncle's slightly remote VT cabin. So maybe teen romance now? Except her family is struggling from a long ago local tragedy so then it tips into family drama. But Gould makes Rose Anna's WIP part of the plot and so we end up following the story of some woodland creatures gathering together to find a way to awaken the world to the climate crisis and finally I decided this is another entry in the newly formed (and classified only by me) "green fiction". It's an odd little book, but I don't meant that in a bad way. For a certain group of tree hugging teens it will be grand, and the romance between the two leads is really sweet. Also for a column down the line.

The graphic novel Skim from Mariko and Jillian Tamaki is a very intimate look at one girl's high school experience. This one has me confounded. "Skim" (real name Kimberly) has one best friend, who is veering off in a direction that takes her away from who they have always been together, and a lot of loneliness. She doesn't fit it (does anyone?) and struggles along in a outsiderness that is not foreign to this setting. But then the author gives us the suicide of the popular girl's recent ex and the school is galvanized into some sort of nightmarish "choose life" mania that only teenage girls can muster. (It's an all girl's school which ratchets the insanity up a notch.) On top of all that, which is very well done, Skim has a crush on a teacher that results in a brief relationship. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me; because she is in high school and seems old enough? I don't know. This book is a puzzle. I enjoyed it a lot but I'm not sure if I should have - if that makes any sense. Are we supposed to enjoy a book that crosses a line like this and everyone turns out okay? It's from Groundwood, and I'd love for someone else to read it and give me their opinion. (Oh and the PW review is way off - it isn't Skim's best friend who is mourning; I wonder if the reviewer even read this book.)

And I finished The Invention of Everything Else. I wish I could put my finger on what it is about Samantha Hunt's writing that I so enjoy. She doesn't craft her novels in a linear manner and that does appeal to me - it's how I write. And I also love the mix of real life and hint of myth or magic. I don't mean magic in a faerie kind of way - it's more scientific than that in this novel for sure. But even in The Seas with it's allusion to mermaids, the magic was very subtle and more mysterious then is usually found in literature. I found the ideas she threw out in Invention to be nearly dizzying - from Tesla to Mark Twain to time travel and pigeons and life in a hotel. Hunt brings ideas together in a wholly new way - she is a remarkably original writer. This book I did love - a lot. If you like your fiction in a thoughtful and unusual way, then you will embrace this. And if you've ever wondered the tiniest bit about what life is like if you are a genius - if a character is someone ahead of their time - then this book will wildly appeal to you. Divine, simply divine.

Tonight, I read some more.