In general, I try to blog about every book I read, but sometimes either there’s not much to say, or there’s something to be said that isn’t positive, either of which can stop me. But in the interest of an even flow of content…

I read the next book in Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak mysteries set in Alaska, and liked it quite as well as the first two, if not more. In Dead in the Water, Kate has to join up as a crew member of a fishing boat in search of expensive and difficult to harvest crabs in the Bering Sea in order to get a handle on a missing persons case she inherited from her former employer, the Anchorage District Attorney. The author’s own youthful experiences on an Alaskan fishing boat inform this volume with a real feel for what the life is like, and taking Kate out of her normal setting and putting her at a disadvantage among strangers ups both the tension and the quality of the storytelling. I will continue with this series anon.

I then picked up a young adult novel, in an attempt to get some new titles onto my “read” list; I will be teaching Young Adult Literature again at UCLA’s library school next spring, and since I retired from my job as a teen librarian I have fallen woefully behind with my reading. Unfortunately, I won’t be recommending The Upside of Falling Down, by Rebekah Crane to anyone. It had an interesting premise—Clementine Haas is the sole survivor of a plane crash, and wakes in a hospital in Ireland with trauma-induced amnesia that stubbornly hangs on for weeks. Her father’s imminent arrival from Chicago to take her home provokes a panicked response as she worries that she won’t recognize him or any part of her life in America, and she runs away, falling in with a kind young man who takes her back to his small Irish village and gives her license to stay there for as long as she needs. And then, of course, stuff happens…

I thought the book was only okay. The characters were all suspect—untrustworthy, and not particularly likeable. The best character in the book was, ironically, neither of the main protagonists; the “mean girl” sister stole every scene in which she appeared. And the events of the last third of the book were just too pat to be either believable or entertaining. Give it a miss. There’s a multitude of better YA novels out there, some of which I will hopefully be reading and reviewing soon.