My 1st YA book for LATI

For LATI I am required to read 2 books outside a genre I normally read as well as 2 young adult books. I am a slow and fickle reader, so as soon as I found out about this project I began to get started, trying to find books I might be interested in and starting to read them. I am actually very bad about reading books I am not interested in. I quickly loose interest and often leave books (even the ones I chose to read for fun) in the middle and never come back. I am not that excited about reading 2 books outside my usual genres. I do read from a wide variety of books (although I do have my somewhat unique criteria for what I chose to read. I tend to read things that are a bit on the eccentric side). And the genres I do not read in (like inspirational books especially) I am strongly disinterested in. But I was looking forward to the YA part of the assignment. I have actually read several YA books throughout the past year on my own even though it is not a section I am particularly responsible for. I still enjoy YA books and I was glad to have an excuse to read a few.

The first YA book I chose to read Is tittled "Bloody Jack: being an account of the curious adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy" By L.A. Meyer.

I LOVED the book. I always enjoy a sassy female lead and this book has a wonderfully spunky young female lead character. The humor in the book also kept my attention, and the plot was high paced and full of action.

The book did have that YA/J children's book quality of letting every bad situation be a near miss that every important character, including the main character, comes out of alright in the end.

I would recommend this book to young readers, and to librarians leading books for young readers because it is an engaging book and it lends it's self to discussion of current and historic gender roles and class distinction. It is also the first book in a longer series that would encourage readers to keep on reading.

In fact, I enjoyed the book so much, I intend to read the rest of the series myself.

I have a few other YA books checked out to read for my second book but I will try to get one of the 2 adult books outside my normal genre's under my belt so I'm off to read "Hard Core Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality" by Brad Warner a Non-Fiction book.

-M