Book: The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci Time Spent Reading It: 1 hr 15 min

I really enjoyed this book.  It surprised me in many ways.  I’d never read anything by Cecil Castellucci before, but I know a bit about her (I almost interviewed her once, then decided I couldn’t take the time to do the interview justice) and expected her main characters to be kind of hipstery thrift shoppers with cool glasses and entertainingly affected speech patterns.  You know, the kind of people I like to have as friends.  Instead, I found out that the Queen of Cool was ACTUALLY, you know, cool, like, popular-kid cool.  At first I was disappointed, but as I read on, it was really refreshing.  There are tons of teen books about not fitting in, not being part of the popular crowd, being a nerd and a loser (and let’s face it, the book-reading population probably skews heavily towards the less “glamorous” kids - I know I was horribly unglamorous as a middle and high schooler except for the few times I tried really hard, when I was fabulous) but you don’t get many books from the popular girl’s perspective.  It’s always nice to be reminded that, oh yeah, popular kids are people too.  And then, it’s also nice to read about all the stuff “cool” kids do that you didn’t and not feel like you were actually missing anything at all by being unpopular, because you gave your friends silly awards and did absurd fashion shows from your childhood dress-up box with the boys who were your friends and invented silly games and generally made your own fun.  A good, fast, fun read.  I recommend it.

Total Time Spent Reading: 7 hrs 43 min

I haven’t been keeping up with my blogging/networking, but I think all told it comes to less than an hour.  Maybe closer to half an hour, even.

Next up: Accidental Love by Gary Soto