Dandy Books

Dandy Books is a meme I started doing a while back where I will post books that I think sound dandy which you might think sound dandy and want to check out. :) Most of these I've had on my tbr list for ages so I though I'd share. These books I do not own but wish I did so I'm probably getting them in the future. I'm making this meme a weekly one every Tuesday, so look out for it ;)

Here are this week's picks:

Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp
It's time for blueblood Bernard Johnson to leave his boring life behind and go on The Vacation, a yearlong corporate-sponsored odyssey. But instead of seeing the world, Bernard is captured by terrorists, becomes a key figure in secret drug wars, and, worse, doesn't once miss his secure American Dream.

Sounds insane. I like insane. :)


When I Was Five I Killed Myself by Howard Buten

Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is almost impossible for adults to understand: the perspective of an 8-year-old. And to Burt, his parents and teachers seem to be speaking a language he cannot understand. This is Burt's story as written in pencil on the walls of Quiet Room in the Children's Trust Residence Center, where he lands after expressing his ardent feelings for a classmate. It begins:

When I was five I killed myself....

In this rediscovered modern classic from "one of France's best-loved temporary writers" (Time), Howard Buten renders with astounding insight and wry language the tale of a troubled -- or perhaps just perfectly normal -- young boy testing the boundaries of love and life.

Been on my tbr list forever. Sounds incredible.

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones

My name is Ruby.

This book is about me.

It tells the deeply hideous story

of what happens when my mother dies

and I'm dragged three thousand miles away

from my gorgeous boyfriend, Ray,

to live in L.A. with my father,

who I've never even met

because he's such a scumbag that he

divorced my mom before I was born.

The only way I've ever even seen him

is in the movies,

since he's this megafamous actor

who's been way too busy

trying to win Oscars

to even visit me once in fifteen years.

Everyone loves my father.

Everyone but me.


Luna by Julie Anne Peters
Regan's brother Liam can't stand the person he is during the day. Like the moon from whom Liam has chosen his female namesake, his true self, Luna, only reveals herself at night. In the secrecy of his basement bedroom Liam transforms himself into the beautiful girl he longs to be, with help from his sister's clothes and makeup. Now, everything is about to change-Luna is preparing to emerge from her cocoon. But are Liam's family and friends ready to welcome Luna into their lives? Compelling and provocative, this is an unforgettable novel about a transgender teen's struggle for self-identity and acceptance.

This book sounds pretty neato.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron


In Peter Cameron's eighth work of fiction, the narrator is a disaffected teenage product of divorced, self-involved, and privileged parents. He is thus so emblematic of a typical upper-middle-class experience today that there is from the outset the potential for cliché, suggesting that Cameron has set himself an admirably difficult task. James Sveck, a Manhattanite, smacks of an updated Holden Caulfield, believing as he does that nearly everyone is a fraud, apart from a young man who runs his mother's art gallery and, touchingly, his grandmother. But Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You -- a work unfairly categorized as "young adult" -- is a keenly observed and elegantly drawn novel that skirts the problems typical of the post-Salinger teenage angst story.

I've seen this one being compared to The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, both of which I LOVE. Need. To. Read. It.



Yes I renamed this meme, the last title sounded silly and I knew it but I was especially uncreative that day apparently. ;)

Again, I ask, have you read any of these? If so, tell us what you think! If not, are you interested? Thoughts? Comments?

;0)