YA Is Rotting My Brain!!!

It seems the topic of YA rotting our brains or, if you prefer, shortening our attention spans, seems to be coming up with a few of my blogging friends lately. I think the latter phrase says it better but, "rotting my brain" is funner to say.

After spending a month where I only read adult books...or at least tried to, I've proven (for me, anyway) that reading strictly YA seems to make reading adult books or classics a LOT harder. But why? What is is about reading so much YA that makes it harder to focus and appreciate a good classic or adult book? I've discovered there seems to be two things that makes YA "rot our brain".

1) YA has a much simpler vocabulary. No, not picture book vocabulary or even MG, but just....simpler. Am I wrong? When was the last time you picked  up an adult book and really looked at all the big words it uses? It's can be quite frightening to someone that mostly reads YA. Or, at the very least, frustrating.

2) YA doesn't usually offer much to make one ruminate, nor does it "waste" time meandering about with character introspection or world building. It's aimed at YA readers and they don't have the patience (supposedly) to read all that. They just want the story and maybe, for the girls, a bit of romance.

That's what is seems like to me, anyway. I'd love to hear your opinion. "If" you read mostly YA, do you notice that when you do try to read and adult book or a classic that it's hard? Or, if you read mostly adult books, do you ever pick up a YA book and gape at how "simplistic" the writing is?

Now, I know it might sound like I'm bashing YA. I'm not. Obviously. Look at what I predominately read. I'm just noticing it's effects on my attention span. And I'm thoroughly aware that it isn't just reading YA that does this, but watching TV, with it's 8 second sound bites and the internet, with a million different things to see and skim with just the click of a finger. It's gotten so bad it's nearly impossible for me to just do one thing at a time. If I'm not multitasking I get all antsy. It's driving me crazy!

So, I've decided to try to read more adult books to counter balance all the YA books I love reading and hopefully lengthen that attention span of mine!

Review: Room

Title Room
By Emma Donoghue
Pages 321
Recommended by Suey???

First sentence Today I am five.

Synopsis
Told from five year old Jack's perspective, comes the tale of a mother and son locked in a room and their daring escape.

What it has going for it
I've been putting off reading this book for a long time. I think I had some weird expectations. See, I thought they were going to be in the room the entire book and that it was going to have some deep message of sacrifice; with the mother keeping  her son innocent of the awful things that were going on. Of course, once I started reading I realized that if this whole 321 page book was going to be about being locked in this room I was going to lose interest fast! Luckily, a hundred pages in things started happening and got very interesting from there on out. I enjoyed Jack's voice and found his actions and feeling incredibly realistic. I couldn't help but want to judge certain characters and kept having to remind myself that I have NO idea what it would be like to go through what they did. Then I'd laugh that these characters were so real to me that I even wanted to judge them. Talented writing indeed to accomplish that, agreed?

What's lacking
Like I said, those first hundred pages weren't very good at holding my attention but that might just be a personal preference. I think some people might be bothered by some of the graphic descriptions and subject matter. I don't know, once it got going I don't think there was much lacking.

Yea or Nay?
I'd recommend it.

Top Ten Tuesday

Today  The Broke and the Bookish asks the question: What are the Top Ten book covers you love. 
Well, we're told not to judge a book by it's cover but I think it's safe to say that we all do it anyway. I know I do! So, I'm going to list the Top Ten books I read because of their cover. 

Infinity (chronicles of nick 1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon. This one I was draw to because of the cute kid. Alas, it was a complete miss.

Existence (existence trilogy 1) by Abbi Glines.Come on! Look at those eyes. This one wasn't the most amazing book I've ever read but it was kinda fun.

Nightlife (cal leandros) by Rob Thurman. This one just screams urban fantasy, my favorite genre, so I just had to read it. It was good, I've already purchased the rest of the series. 

The Ghost and the Goth (ghost and the goth ) by Stacey Kade. This one caught my eye because of how annoyed the guy looked and I just knew it would be funny. It was. And had some really great depth to it too.

Intertwined (intertwined 1) by Gena Showalter. K, this one did sound good to me but I was first drawn in by the guy on the front. Unfortunately the cover was the ONLY thing this book had going for it.

White Cat (curse workers 1) by Holly Black. What's not to love? A hot guy AND a cute kitty? I was sold and it paid off I LOVE this series! 

A Madness of Angels (urban fantasy 1) by Kate Griffin. What?! You didn't know that one of my favorite series of all time was something I picked up based solely on the cover?! I did and, oh, how happy I am that I did! 

Shadow Moon (chronicles of the shadow war 1) by Chris Claremont and George Lucas. I read this series so long ago I don't ever really remember more than that I liked it and that the cover is definitely why I picked it up. 

 Homeland (the dark elf trilogy 1) by R.A Salvatore. Once again we have a fun looking guy and a awesome kitty. I couldn't help buying and reading it and I loved it! 

Obernewtyn (chronicles of obernewtyn 1 ) by Isobelle Carmody. Yep, you guessed it. I picked it up because of the kitty. I adore this series so I'm glad I have a weakness for kitties. 

So, what have we learned about my cover judging ways? Apparently I like cute guys and kitties.   

Sunday Salon (In Pictures!)

Welcome to the new Sunday Salon. A weekly update post about my boring life. ;)


Well, I had this crazy idea that it would be fun...well, at least different, to do this post in pictures and to let you get a glimpse into my life. I'm starting to think it's a stupid idea, after all, but I've taken the pictures so I'm going to do it. 

Weather Small Talk: The view from my window. 

Music Discoveries:  Lullaby by One Republic 

On The Idiot Box: Where all that time wasting takes place. ;) The eopisode of Grimm on Friday was awesome!!! And ANTM is back! Whoohoo! 

Weekly Reads: Working on The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat for book club. Room (is something going to happen anytime soon?)  Queen of the Dead because I needed something light before I went crazy! K, here's how bad my lack of shelf space has got. I never stack books on the floor! 

Crazy Kitty: Is wondering why I woke her up from her nap with a rude flash. 

This Week: My sister blogged about her son who loves to read. Ahhh.

 Movie of the Week: Man on a Ledge. The movie was fun and suspenseful and, hey, it has Sam Worthington. I suffered through Clash of the Titans for him!  See, we have to put this refillable bucket to use...a lot!

Food Talk: I'm now going to advertise something and not get paid for it. I LOVE these things! I wrap hamburgers, sandwiches and everything else in them and there's only 8 carbs in each one! 

Soccer Sightings: My Calender. Purchased for a mere 20 dollars...hmmm, I prefer my homemade ones better. ;) 

Plans For The Week: Yeah, I need to get new shoes but that's not the plan for the week. I just plan on putting these to better use. I haven't exercise hardly at all for three weeks! Tsk tsk.

February "Adults Only Month" Wrapup

So, this concludes my adults only month and, as you can see by the numbers, it didn't go so well. I probably shouldn't even bother with a wrapup post...oh well.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
Love Shannon Hale's writing. Thy mystery didn't do it for me, though.

Atonement by Ian McEwan
Thank goodness for the last paragraph in the book! That's all I'm going to say.

Partials by Dan Wells
Awesome! Just awesome. Go buy it and read it already!

Shade by John B Olson
One shouldn't be dragged kicking and screaming through a book.

See? Told you it was a pathetic reading month for me. Favorite of the month was Partials. (funny, seeing as how it was the one non adult book I read) Least favorite was Shade.