June Meeting Wrap-Up

Greetings One and All:

This month's reading "The Rest of Us Just Live Here" was a bit of a dud. Despite it being included on a list of suggested science fiction reads, the novel was firmly in the "fantasy" category. Thoughts on the book ranged from "did not finish it" to "decent teen book, but not fitting for the group". The moderators were both very disappointed in the choice we made to include the novel, but do not regret deciding to include "teen" and "YA" fiction in this and future months.

Overall, "The Rest Of Us Just Live Here' was a decent teen book; it was an interesting literary conceit to show an evolving apocalypse from the point of view of ordinary kids who are not charged by fate to save the world. These kids still have to deal with the supernatural craziness going on around them, but also the normal teen issues: romance. friends, college, family issues, gender/sexuality issues, and the change that comes with graduating from high school into the real world.

Side note: at least one of the moderators found the little summaries of the supernatural goings-on before each chapter, while the mundane teenager activities were detailed out fully, to be a nice touch that made the book stand out a bit more.

Though this novel was a hard "miss", especially with several attendees unable to finish it, the moderators will not shy away from choosing teen novels in the future, we will just do so more judiciously. Speaking of, we hope to see everyone in July for "Defy the Stars".