Book stuffs

*a sort of follow-up to this post from May

About a year ago I tried to read the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield. You've probably heard of it. I say "tried" because I stopped after a few chapters, I felt like I was getting dumber by the minute. The series is incredibly popular here, but the premise bothers me even more than the writing does. Aren't teenage girls already obsessed enough with beauty and fame and money? (Don't I have to pick up Seventeen magazine from the couches every day?)
(And didn't I just watch another commercial for plastic surgery last night? "You owe it to yourself." Gag me.)
Anyway.
Is my opinion unfair? Is the series worth reading? Does anyone know, or even care?

At the beginning of this school year I read Jane Eyre for Tay, and Little Women for Linnea. They were my late-summer sunshine-soaking books and I loved them both. I read the last few chapters of Jane Eyre in bed, wiping my tears on Slice's sleeve while he slept. That was before the pregnancy hormones took over. The end was beautiful, just beautiful.

Little Women made me wish I had married an old German professor. Sort of.

Read The Great Gatsby for the first time, isn't that hard to believe? Slice said he had to read it in school. The writing was truly incredible but I had a hard time following the dialogue; I don't speak the vernacular of the easy '20s. Or the upper class, for that matter.

I also didn't get some of the "symbolism" that was mentioned in the Preface (which I read afterward, I hate spoilers). Apparently such complexity is over my head.

I stopped reading for a while because nothing sounded good. I kept checking out books and taking them back a few days later, unopened. But when we got to the airport I panicked. So Slice and I stopped at the ridiculously-priced bookstore and bought The Lost Symbol for him and Wuthering Heights for me.

I've never seen Slice so engaged in a book. Heck, I've never seen him sit and read a book, period. (Thank you Dan Brown! Where can I get more??) I had to force him out of bed some mornings just so we could leave the hostel. And one time I woke up at 2:00 a.m. to find him reading in the dim light of the Kyoto Guesthouse.

Good times.

I didn't like Wuthering Heights as much as Jane Eyre - we must compare them, right? - because it was darker and much more heartbreaking. To me. Also, I didn't identify with the characters as well; they were all so disturbing. Stills I liked the book.

And ... The Hunger Games sat in my purse/suitcase throughout the entire Japan trip. I turned it back in without reading so much as the first page.

Now I need something else. Any suggestions? What have you been reading lately?