I made it, faculties mostly intact

Yes, I managed to make to the end of Breaking Down, and have thus finished Stephanie Meyer's sparkly vampires fic^* quartet. As a general rule of thumb, I'd venture to suggest that when viewing the series as a whole, it starts poorly, gets progressively worse, and the less said about the ending, the better.

To cleanse the palette, I then read A Dog Called Grk by Joshua Doder; P borrowed it from the library the other week and absolutely loved it. He therefore insisted on extending the loan specifically so that I could read it. The titular hound, Grk, belongs to the children of the Stanislavian Ambassador to Great Britain. The Ambassador and his family are abducted by the military during a coup, leaving Grk in Blighty.

Grk befriends Tim, our 12-year-old protagonist, who takes it upon himself to ensure that Grk is reunited with his proper owners. Even when said owners are in prison, 1,000 miles away.

It's a fun read, with a strange blend of politics for a kiddies' book, and I think it probably hits its target demographic (10 - 13 year olds) spot on.




* allusion to sugar-high fanfiction.net crack!fic wholly intentional