Happy 10th Gotcha Day, Lucy

Ten years ago yesterday, I drove out to Sherwood to pick up Lucy from the foster home where she’d been staying. In honor of this auspicious occasion, here are three of my favorite books featuring basset hounds.

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan

Publisher’s Summary: Jake Semple is notorious. Rumor has it he managed to get kicked out of every school in Rhode Island, and actually burned the last one down to the ground.

Only one place will take him now, and that’s a home school run by the Applewhites, a chaotic and hilarious family of artists: poet Lucille, theater director Randolph, dancer Cordelia, and dreamy Destiny. The only one who doesn’t fit the Applewhite mold is E.D.—a smart, sensible girl who immediately clashes with the defiant Jake.

Jake thinks surviving this new school will be a breeze . . . but is he really as tough or as bad as he seems?

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Publisher’s Summary:

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:  Debate Club.  Her father’s “bunny rabbit.”  A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:  A knockout figure.  A sharp tongue.  A chip on her shoulder.  And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend:  the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Landau-Banks.  No longer the kind of girl to take “no” for an answer.  Especially when “no” means she’s excluded from her boyfriend’s all-male secret society.  Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.  Not when she knows she’s smarter than any of them.  When she knows Matthew’s lying to her.  And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:  Possibly a criminal mastermind.  This is the story of how she got that way.

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

Publisher’s Summary: Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions.

Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintance who shows up and asks Jane to accompany her to a gala at her family’s island mansion called Tu Reviens.

Jane remembers her aunt telling her: “If anyone ever invites to you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you’ll go.” With nothing but a trunkful of umbrella parts to her name, Jane ventures out to the Thrash estate. Then her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn’t know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.

More interesting than THE INTERESTINGS

I listened to Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings  in the early Spring. It was OK, but I don;t know if I would have stayed to the end if I’d been reading the book. I didn’t really like many of the characters and just had trouble really caring about their lives.

I just listened to We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Although the characters of this book have much in common with those of  The Interestings,  I liked this book a whole lot more.

The story is set in a world of privilege. Cady Sinclair Eastman is the firstborn grandchild in a wealthy family that vacations every summer on their private island off Martha’s Vineyard. She spends idyllic summers with her cousins who are only a few years younger that she is and a family friend. They call themselves The Liars. In the summer when they are 15 something happens. Cady does not return to the island until she is 17 and trying to remember the parts of the Summer 15 she cannot. Since that summer she has suffered terrible migraines and partial memory loss.

The story weaves back and forth between the past and the present. As Cady was trying to put the pieces together, I was right there with her. h, I had my theories, but when it all came back to her, I was not prepared for what really happened. I’m not often surprised in literature, but Lockhart caught me off guard and I reeled.

I highly recommend this book, wither in print or audio. The narrator, Ariadne Meyers, really captured the fierceness and frailty of Cady.