I need something good to read!

Okay, that may seem like a ridiculous title for a blog post, considering I currently have SIX BOXES of books stacked up by my front door (and believe me, they are big boxes and taking up lots of space).  Half of the books are brand new from publishers, and the other half are advanced copies that I picked up at the American Library Conference in June.  Surely there is something good to be found in there, right?

Well, the problem is, I can't seem to pick them right now.  All the books that I am picking are just not winning me over.  Now, to be fair, I just gave bags of books to 6 different neighbor kids, and am mailing some excellent suggestions to Ms. LaBrie and Mr. Kaneko.  Perhaps the OUTSTANDING books were in the ones that I picked out for them.  Each of the kids that borrowed books has a variety of reading tastes, from science fiction, vampires, historical fiction, adventure, realistic, and love stories.  And I found many interesting titles for each of them.  Now, to await their reports and critiques!

But for me, I so want to find that one AMAZING book that I feel so passionately about.  The reviews that I have been posting lately are all from books that I read in June, before my Best Fiction (BFYA) meeting in Washington, D.C.  Or they are books that I've already read and gone back to ("Ironman," "Power of One"...see previous blog posts).

For example, I've been reading the same book for 4 days now and am only halfway through.  It sounds great, the premise is interesting, I like the main character...but it is clearly just not keeping my interest.  Hmmm, follow my own advice and stop, or keep going?  There is also the book that I abandoned after 35 or 40 pages.  Again, it sounded so interesting, a fun adventure story perfect for summer (and short!), but I spent the majority of the time wishing the one character would tell the other one to "SHUT UP!" that I just had to stop.  Either that means it is brilliant writing and the character was supposed to annoy me, or it's just not worthy of my time.  (When I put the book down, however, my husband thought I was already done with the entire book...ha, ha, I'm not that much of a speed reader.  Just abandoning the madness)!

It can't be all dark and dismal, right?  While I was still on vacation, I did read some galleys (advanced copies) from those boxes (before I mailed them home).  There were winners, and I guess I will just get to posting those reviews.  Case in point: "Forge" by Laurie Halse Anderson (loved it!!); "Girl, Stolen" by Henry (quite good).

So now I am looking for reading suggestions from you...what do you like?  What should I read?  What have you read and loved this summer?  Perhaps I need to stop looking for AMAZING and settle for good summer read?