I've wanted to read some of Lisa See for a long time now, I've heard such good things about her. My sister actually recommended "Shanghai Girls", and I really enjoyed it. Two sister live a charmed life as "beautiful girls" (models, basically) in Shanghai in the 1930s, until their father loses everything and promises them in marriage to erase his debts. Pearl and May are reluctant, but marry their intended spouses, but they have no intention of getting on the boat and following them back to Los Angeles when they leave. However, when their father runs off and soldiers and gangsters alike come after them, the girls manage to escape Shanghai and get on the boat. They arrive at Angel Island, where May confides to Pearl that she is pregnant and it's not her husband's baby. They stay at Angel Island long enough for Pearl to fake a pregnancy and May to deliver a girl, Joy, whom they pass off as Pearl's. They arrive in L.A. and move in with their in-laws and husbands and make a pretty decent life for themselves. It was touching and very sad. I wasn't happy about the ending until I found out her book "Dreams of Joy" is a sequel, so I'll have to read it to find out what happens next.
"Life Below Stairs" by Alison Maloney cashes in on the "Downton Abbey" craze. It was a decent primer to what life was like for the servants who waited on the family upstairs.
"Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan was really cute and charming, I liked it a lot. Chase gets a job as a night clerk in Mr. Penumbra's 24 hour bookstore. He notices right away that they don't sell a lot of books, but people do come in to borrow books off of what he has dubbed the "Wayback List", books on the top shelves that are only accessible by ladder. He meets a smart girl named Kat who works at Google, and together with his friend Mat they figure out a pattern in the Wayback List: the books form a face, the face of the founder, Mr. Penumbra tells him after he reveals what he's learned. Chase has cracked to first code in the Unbroken Spines society, which is dedicated to decoding their dead founder's last work, which holds the key to immortality. The society has been working on the code for over 500 years. Of course Chase and Kat and Mat want in on trying to crack the code as well. It was funny and sweet.
"Wonder" by R. J. Palacio was also really amazing. It's a children's book about a young boy named August, who was born with an extremely rare birth defect that has caused his face to be very deformed. He's had surgeries his whole young life, and has never been able to attend school. But now he's 10, and he's going to Beecher Prep. Typically enough, some of the kids are really mean and a few are nice, and bad things happen to August. But as the year goes on and the kids get to really know him and discover how cool and fun he is, he makes lots of friends. I'm so used to reading adult books I kept waiting for something awful to happen to August, so I was pleasantly surprised by the happy ending. A great book about the importance of kindness.
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