Life is Short; After the Red Rain; Water to the Angels

I love watching "The Little Couple" on TLC. Jen Arnold and Bill Klein are such positive role models, for people of all sizes, not just little people. This book mostly focused on their childhoods, overcoming the obstacles involved with being little and having to have multiple surgeries. How they met and fell in love was super sweet, and the book touched a little bit on what the show has covered: their move to Texas, their struggles to conceive, finally adopting Will and Zoey. It was very upbeat and happy. I love how they're able to stay so positive even when faced with adversity, it's very inspiring.

I loved Barry Lyga's Jasper Dent series, so I was eager to read this new one by him, along with Peter Facinelli (seriously? he writes?) and Robert DeFranco. It's a pretty good YA dystopian novel set in a future where nature has pretty much been destroyed by people. Everything is paved over, there are no more trees or flowers or animals, all food is genetically engineered in a lab. Deedra is out scavenging one day when she meets a teenage boy named Rose. He's clearly different, she's just not sure how. As they get to know each other, we learn that Rose is a plant/human hybrid: he can make vines grow from his body, he takes nutrients from the sun, not by eating. Rose is convinced that the workshop Deedra is slaving away in isn't making air cleaners, but rather a human killing machine. Rose is arrested for a murder he didn't commit, but Deedra is able to help him escape (sort of, it's a long story) and they go on the run. I'm guessing there will be a sequel.

Southern California was never meant to support the number of people who live here. Even 100 years ago, Los Angeles was scrambling for water. William Mulholland, either a saint or a demon, depending on your view, came up with the idea to build an aqueduct and have water come down from the Owens Valley. Standiford is very sympathetic to Mulholland, portrays him as a visionary and a conscientious man who only wanted the best for the people of his adopted city, a view I'd like to believe in as well. He was certainly a self-taught, hardworking man, that much can't be disputed.