Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

Four kids and their mom and baby sister are on vacation near a lake with several islands. The dad is away being a sailor or something. The kids find an island while sailing around in a little boat and get permission to camp on the island for the rest of the summer.

They meet a man they are convinced is a pirate captain and have a run in with two female pirates, and much adventure is had.

This is a very slow, sleepy book, so probably a good one to read to kids at night. It help me get to sleep fairly quickly for a while.. until the insomnia hit and I read half the book in one night.

There are a lot of nautical terms in it I didn't understand and couldn't be arsed to look up.

Also, one of the girls is named Titty.

Titty Titty Titty. Hee hee hee.

Wake, Lisa McMann

Janie has a weird problem: whenever anyone near her dreams, Janie gets sucked into the dream whether she's awake or not.

This is terrible enough, but one day she's driving when a particularly strong and nasty dream hits her and she drives into a tree.

Top that off with a crush on some guy she can't let herself get close to, plus the fact Janie's mom is an alcoholic, and you've got a fairly standard teen supernatural thriller.

Then again, maybe not. After all, I finished the thing. Also I did not hurt myself by rolling my eyes too hard. Not a BAD book.

Unwind, Neal Shusterman

There was a war between the pro-life and pro-choice factions, and finally to stop it the military or government or whoever said, hey, what if you can't abort the fetus, but from the ages of 13 to 18, you can decide you don't want the kid anymore. To make sure the child doesn't really die, we'll cut it up into spare parts and give them to other people!

To their surprise, both sides said yes.

This novel follows three kids as they try to escape this destiny.

This book is incredibly disturbing.

Totally Confidential, Sally Warner

Quinney wants to earn some extra money, so she puts an ad in the paper saying she will listen to people for 15 minutes for a dollar. At first it's very interesting, even though people want advice too, but soon it gets overwhelming.

Well-written but not groundbreaking or anything.

Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire

October Daye was a changeling working as a private investigator, trying to find a missing fairy queen and princess when some assholes turned her into a fish.

Fourteen years later, she finally comes back to herself but her life is in ruins. Her lover and their daughter refuse to talk to her, and Toby is afraid to make contact with the man she feels she failed.

The one of her remaining fairy acquaintances is mudered. But before she was killed, Evening left a message on Toby's answering machine--a curse. Either she finds out who killed Evening or she will die herself.

This was a decent novel, except that I solved the crime ahead of time again. Fun read, though.