Two Book Tuesday

I do have two titles for Two Book Tuesday this week.  My favorite thing about this week is how odd the two books are, lol.

First, we have a book that I desperately wanted to find and read.  Sadly, I couldn't remember the title or author, and I barely remembered the cover art and general premise of the story.  Emily B., a co-worker of mine, was kind enough to help me dig through the depths of the internet until we found it!  So, the first book for Two Book Tuesday is The Cure by Sonia Levitin.

A strange mixture of science-fiction, dystopian fiction, and historical fiction, I first read The Cure when we lived in Baltimore, MD.  If you are a fan of the recently-popular Divergent series, then The Cure is right up your alley with "factions" and forced conformity into these factions.  Deviants are criminals with only two options: to die and be recycled or to accept a mysterious cure that is supposed to bring them back into the fold.

Gemm, a deviant and the main character of the story, chooses to take the cure and suddenly finds himself living the live of a 16-year-old Jewish musician in 1348 at the beginning of the Black Death.  As a young reader, this book was such a great experience that is has stayed with me over a decade later and is a title that I re-read every few years.

The absolute terrible part of this whole search process is that the library no longer owns this title and I need to look elsewhere if I decide that I want to read it, which I do.  I cannot put into words the sense of betrayal I felt that this book was no longer available at my library.  I have to wonder if this is how most patrons feel when we go through a period of healthy weeding of our collections.

And the second book I have for you this week is Beauty written by Hubert, with art by Kerascoët.

Apparently, I placed an Inter-Library Loan request for this title a few weeks ago and it finally arrived...  The strange thing is that I don't remember anything about the request or the book itself!  So, I find myself with the opportunity to read a pretty great looking graphic novel that I may not have otherwise picked up.

I'll let you know how it is.  :)