No Reading Ahead

I've tried to read a few books here lately, but other things keep coming up. Right now I'm in the middle of "The Shining" by Stephen King, but I've been "in the middle of it" for months. I keep putting it on hold when other books come up. Right now I'm in kind of a strict "no reading" zone because I'm on vacation and hanging out with a 2-week-old precious precious baby, so I imagine I'll continue to not finish "The Shining" for a few more weeks, at least.

The other day I did start reading "Maniac McGee" by Jerry Spinelli, and I totally would have finished it if the vacation hadn't come up. I totally recommend rereading a beloved book from your childhood. It's been like 20 years since I read about the Maniac, so even though I know the gist of it, I'm still suprised by all the stuff my brain let go of over the years. And this book, back then, was just so awesome. I can't tell you why until I finish it, but I remember ALL of my classmates reading that book, and loving it. Even the boys.

One thing I do have an opinion on is Julia and Julia. I just watched the movie the other day. It starts off slow, but it has a few laughs, and my mom and I both thought it was good. It's just not for everyone.

Last night I watched The Ugly Truth, and holy crap, Gerard Butler, you are a fucking beautiful man. The movie was way racier than the previews had shown, which was a nice little surprise, and it was very funny.

On TV: HOLY CRAP JERSEY SHORE HOW I LOVE TO HATE YOU! Can someone please beat the crap outta Mike? His "situation" is that he is a "douchebag". And poor Snooki, she's so attention-starved and pathetic. I'd love to see her actually realize how stupid she is by the end of the series, but sadly those people never do.

Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

Ah, Sophie Kinsella, how I love you! You create such charming, quirky leading women!

I hadn't realized how much they changed and condensed when they made the movie! The movie was great, yes, but I hated how it was set in New York instead of London. After hearing the Can You Keep a Secret book on tape, I can't stand to hear Kinsella's works in anything but a British accent. And I also hate how they made Lucas the boss of her paper instead of the owner of a separate company. I thought the original story arc was much better than the one in the movie. They're both good, it's just hard to know that they BOTH exist. I think it'd be better to just have one or the other.

Also, Becky's shopping is only good in small doses. There is no way I could read all of these books back to back and not end up hating her. It is very slightly annoying to see her go to store after store and get totally caught up in the purchases, "This is the only sweater I will ever wear! It is perfect! And this is the best stationary. I'll never need stationary again!" Until the very next store, when she finds another sweater and more sets of stationary.

Although it just occured to me that I do that with books: This is the best book I have EVER read! IT IS SO GOOD OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO READ IT! A week later: No, this book! Read this book! You will love it soooo much!

Paper Heart

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1331064

It is late, and I am tired, so please forgive this if it rambles.

I can't remember exactly when or how I heard about Paper Heart but I know it was in the last 2 weeks. I added it to my netflix queue and then hurriedly watched whatever movies I had so I could get it as soon as possible. Right now, I can't even remember why I wanted it so badly! But yesterday it came, and tonight I watched it, and now I totally love Charlyne Yi. I am not in love, but I love her. I want to hang out with her. I want to go see her shows. I want to buy her music. I don't want to have sex with her, but it's like I want to date her.

The movie is about Yi's search for the meaning of love. Along the way they do real interviews with real people, as part of the documentary that Yi is working on. However, they have scripted parts between her and actor Michael Cera, where they meet and start to date. It becomes half movie, half documentary, but whole awesomeness. It is very sweet, and precious, and I'm very glad that I watched it.

Currently Reading: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The title is deceptive--it immediately makes you think of a Southern coming-of-age tale, but the damned thing is British! It's not what I expected, but I'm warming to it. For one thing, Alan Bradley has this way with words that I cannot explain. So, I've decided that as I read it I'll post passages that, for whatever reason, I like.

FIRST!! The house that young Flavia de Luce lives in--it's centuries old and has such an interesting history that you can almost consider it another character in the book. And Bradley's descriptions of the different homes of his characters make me freaking yearn to live there.

Ok, back to passages.

"If you're insinuating that my personal hygiene is not up to the same high standard as yours you can go suck my galoshes."

Whenever I hear this music [the Toccata, by Pietro Domenico Paradisi] it makes me think of flying down the steep east side of Goodger Hill; running so fast that my legs can barely keep up with themselves as I swoop from side to side, mewing into the wind, like a rapturous seagull.

"Ah yes," Miss Cool said. "Margaret Pickery off to tend the sister in Nether-Wolsey: the Singer, the needle, the finger, the twins, the wayward husband, the bottle, the bills. . . . a moment of unexpected and rewarding usefulness for Tilda Mountjoy...."

Willow Villa was.......hidden in the shadows beneath the flowing green skirts of a monstrous weeping willow whose branches shifted uneasily in the breeze, sweeping bare the dirt beneath it like a score of witches' brooms.

Cracked cups and crazed saucers stood cheek by jowl on a draining board.



The author just mentioned an ancient monkey puzzle tree, so I HAD to look it up. Quite extraordinary.
http://completegarden.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/monkey-puzzle-treetrunk1.jpg

In spite of the gravy-stained copy of Inquire Within Upon Everything which Mrs. Mullet kept on a shelf in the pantry, I had long ago discovered that the best way to obtain answers about anything was to walk up to the closest person and ask. Inquire without. (I love that phrase!!!)

FINISHED IT!!! Awesome. I cannot believe that a Canadian dude can write a young English girl so well. Also he's working on a sequel--but don't worry, this book is a stand-alone awesome, awesome read. Doesn't end on a cliffhanger or anything gay like that. (Also I finished it on 12/1/09.)

Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris SPOILER HEAVY

I'm finally caught up with the series, and I hate it! Now I have to wait until Harris writes another freaking book before I find out what happens! THIS IS BULLSHIT!

I looooove Eric, and I hate Bill, and I was really, really hoping that Bill would die at the end. Bill pissed me off way back in book, like, 3, when he got wrapped up in his stupid computer program. Plus I'm a fan of a little drama, but not a crapload, and I think that the Eric-Bill thing has gone far enough. Let that die, and Sookie and Eric can have some fun until Harris writes her in a more suitable boyfriend. Someone with a pulse.

I'm sorry for Claudine! Can you imagine Claudine with a baby?! She is such a sweet character! And her with a baby would have been great! It's too bad...

But I suppose I like it that Harris kills characters off like that--you can't trust that just b/c someone's been around a while that they're safe. It keeps things fresh.

The faeries were probably the most badass of any Harris characters to date! Just cruel for the fun of being cruel! I'm not going to miss the good faeries. Who's left? Claude, who is a jerk, and Niall, who was wrong to play faves between Sookie and Jason. The world is better off.

From Dead to Worse, By Charlaine Harris

I could not put this book down! Eric suddenly being all "Hello, Lover" is hella creepy, though.

And I wish Sookie had asked for grandpappy's help with Quinn. Maybe if he had found Quinn some of the other crap could have been avoided. The two "wars" were TOTALLY unforeseen and were an awesome little happening. I hope Amelia never leaves: Sookie needs a girlfriend who can understand.

Skeleton Creek, by Patrick Carman

Firstly, this book is made to look like a journal, which I love. The font is one of those handwritten types, also love that.

Secondly, it's about Ryan (the writer) and his friend Sarah (the filmographer). The journal belongs to Ryan, and he says that's how he likes to explain things: by writing stories. Sarah likes to make videos. So guess what?! In the book, when Sarah makes a video, she uploads it to her website. The book gives the website AND the password required for each video. I LOVE IT. A few of the videos are seriously scary. The author did not just hastily film some crap for the book--he put as much thought and production value in these as if he were making a TV show. So the combination of books and movies is awesome.

Spoiler alert!





IT ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER! OH PATRICK CARMAN HOW I HATE YOU NOW!!

Luckily the next book is already out, I just have to wait for my kid to get it for me at school.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: this is a 5th grade book.

Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky

I said everything I possibly could about this book at bookclub. I do not want to talk about it any more.

EXCEPT TO SAY I LOVE HER WRITING!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Suite-Fran%C3%A7aise-Irene-Nemirovsky/dp/1400044731

All Together Dead, by Charlaine Harris

I'm back in this vampire thing for some reason. I really enjoyed this book, more so than the last few Southern Vampire books, actually.

I'm annoyed at the vampires still seeing humans as possessions! If you want to be part of this culture, or this boring little world, you have to quit treating humans like they're pets! Unless they want to be pets, and then only those particular people. So many times while reading these books I get all het up about how the vampires impose themselves on people.

I think the bombs were necessary. The vamps needed a wakeup. They needed to understand that there is actually something to fear in humans. I think in the next books there will be revenge, but I also think/hope that Harris writes in a few scenes were the vampires start respecting their food, :P.

ALSO I TOTALLY KNEW SOPHIE DID IT! HA!

Also reading about the convention of vampires where they had booths set up? That was kind of gay. Vampires are supposed to be ubercool and ubersexy and NOW THEY ARE IN A HOTEL CONVENTION CENTER AND THEY ARE LOOKING AT BOOTHS OF VAMPIRE SOUVENEIRS AND HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE MOST BORING THING EVER.

So behind it's not even funny!

Definitely Dead, by Charlaine Harris

I finally got back to the Sookie Stackhouse books! Loved this one, and LOVED the face that Sookie's new love interest is a tiger! Only beef with it: Sookie keeps talking about her cousin dying, her cousin WHO WAS A VAMPIRE. That's not mentioned in the last book. Or the book before that. I got on wiki to see if I was trying to read the books out of order again, but nope, I was on track. The cousin dies in a short story that was published between books! I found this out by reading some dude's Amazon.com review of this book, and HE thought it was retarded as well. Harris should have either put that short story IN this book, or at least had a preface explaining the events that we missed.

Lawn Boy, by Gary Paulsen

This is a short and snappy book about a kid with a mower. I recommend it for all ages, but specifically boys 10-12.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson

I liked it, but not as much as I thought I would. When I read Still Alice, I got on the internet IMMEDIATELY. I had a need to gush about that book for days! Jenna Fox is good, but it's not that WOW. I like that it makes you ask yourself questions about the afterlife, what makes you human, what constitutes a soul.

The Boy Who Dared, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Historical fiction based on the true story of a German boy who was not a Nazi. I think Bartoletti spent too much time making Helmuth, the main character, into such a hero. I would have liked this book to be more nonfiction than fiction. She idolized him, and it was distracting. I love that I have found so many books this past year set from the German point of view, though. In school when you learn about WWII, Nazis and Germans are one and the same, but I'm finding these books, all these supposedly true accounts, of Germans who did NOT hate Jews, but who either trusted their government too much, or, in some cases, knew that speaking out would end in torture and execution.

Talk Before Sleep, by Elizabeth Berg

I read this book. I read it a LONG time ego. So long that I can't quite remember all the end details. It's playing every evening at 5 on Book Radio on Sirius. I can't catch it every day, but I still enjoy the little excerpts I get. I decided to blog about it because of this line I heard yesterday, that I love soooo much, that I think I want on my tombstone:

"I'll come back as a breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I'm still listening. So you can still talk to me. I want you to talk to me."

I think it's beautiful, and sweet.

I just googled the audiobook so I can put a face to the voice I've been listening to--it's Blythe Danner! I KNEW it! I didn't remember her name, or what movies I'd seen her in, but I was totally seeing her face as I listened.

Today I had another sweet moment while listening, and this may be a bit of a spoiler if you're retarded--Ann get's a call from Ruth's brother, telling her of Ruth's passing. Ann says thank you, and hangs up. She is halfway through dialing another number before she realizes who she is calling. She is calling Ruth. To inform her of her death! The emotion that Blythe puts into that passage makes you want to shake your head in chagrin along with Ann at Ann's mistake, while at the same time you are holding back tears, also like Ann. I sat at the end of my driveway, having just pulled in before the phone call, for a good minute, just caught up in the story and the emotion.

Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt

“When gods die, they die hard. It’s not like they fade away, or grow old, or fall asleep. They die in fire and pain, and when they come out of you, they leave your guts burned. It hurts more than anything you can talk about. And maybe worst of all is, you’re not sure if there ever will be another god to fill their place. Or if you’d want another god to ever fill their place. You don’t want fire to go out inside you twice.”

That is a passage from “Wednesday Wars”. I have included that passage to show you just how fantastic of a writer Gary Schmidt is.

Holling Hoodhood is a 7th grader, and every Wednesday he is forced to spend his afternoons alone with his teacher while the rest of his classmates have religious training (they are Catholic and Jewish, and he is Presbyterian). It is an arrangement that even his teacher hates. But after Mrs. Baker finally realizes there’s no way out of these afternoons together, she starts to teach him Shakespeare, and from there they form a relationship.

I loved this book—I loved the writing, the story, the town, the characters. I wanted Sage to read it, but I’m not sure how much a 10 year old could connect to these characters, or understand any of the passages of Shakespeare, or even could relate to the time period—it’s set in 1967, during the Vietnam war, and even mentions the assassinations of both MLK Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. I’m actually curious about whether a modern-day 7th grader could connect to this story the way an adult can. (And, I want to point out that even though I was not alive during the 60s, I have seen “Forrest Gump” so I have an idea of how it was. :D)

Skeletons at the Feast, by Christopher A. Bohjalian

This book follows a German family fleeing the Russians along with their Scottish POW, a Jewish ex-prisoner posing as various German soldiers (all of whom he kills before stealing clothes and identities), and a French Jewish woman being marched across Germany, all in the last few months of WWII.

Cons: graphic depictions of violence and sex; deaths of loved characters.

Pros: you don't read many books from the German point-of-view during WWII, and this one felt pretty real--might be b/c the author was inspired to wright the book by the actual diary of a real Prussian woman, written during the same time. I also loved the characters.

Halfway through reading this I discovered that Bohjalian also wrote "Midwives", which I recall LOVING!!! If I could devote more time to reading I'd make a goal to read all of his books, but unfortunately that's not going to happen.

The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer

This story either takes place in an alternate universe or way, way in the future, I never could really be sure.

One thing I really liked is when Matt lives with the Keepers and keeps pointing out that what the Keepers are doing is brainwashing the kids into mindless zombies under the guise of the "we all work together for the good of the community" principle. I love that they continuously get one-upped by a kid, and I really loved that he becomes a hero when before he was considered a farm animal, and basically hated.

The book ends in such a way that Farmer can easily write a sequel if she wants to, but if inspiration never strikes it's still a good ending on its own.

The character I could happily never see in a book again: Maria. She was such an emotional twit!

I'm Pooped

I've been putting this off for a while because I have been too busy, when I wasn't being too lazy. So no long synopsis. Both of these books have left my possession, and so I'm simply going to state that I read them and I liked them.

Blessings, by Anna Quindlen--not what I was expecting. I thought I'd get sickly sweet, and instead I got a bunch of different flavors.

Push, by Sapphire--a very hard read. Precious' story is fucking HARSH. But I'm glad I read it, and I'm totally renting the DVD when it comes out.

Stuck in a Rut

I have only been interested in teen books lately (when I can actually force myself to read). I've read the first two books in the Shadow Children series, and an absolutely precious book called Firegirl.

First, the Shadow Children::::::::

Among the Hidden, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Luke is a shadow child--due to population laws you are only allowed to have 2 kids, and his parents have 3. The punishment for having 3 is death by torture and/or a VERY large fine (in the millions of dollars). So, Luke has to stay hidden. They live on a farm in the country, so he's allowed to go outside, but he sleeps in the attic and must hide there every time someone comes up their road. Then, the government buys up all the land around their farm and builds houses for government employees, so Luke is confined to the house at all times, and is restricted even further to only rooms with the shades drawn. When the government makes them sell their pigs, Luke's mom is forced to go to work, leaving Luke pretty much a lonely prisoner. He has nothing to do but watch the government houses all day, and he finally notices a child where there shouldn't be a child. ANOTHER shadow child! He very slowly works up his courage to go to the house and he actually meets the illegal--and it's a girl! This is seriously the only girl he's ever seen in his life. He's not even allowed to watch TV b/c the government has everyone convinced they can spy on you through it. I'm surprised he even knows what he's looking at....or doesn't become instantly aroused (he is 12 already). From her (Jen) he finds out there are a lot more hidden children, and that even the rich government workers have Thirds (hypocrites). They form a quick friendship, and we learn that Jen is trying to get all the nation's Thirds to rally at the President's house. She thinks the Population Laws need to be appealed, and she has some good supporting evidence for that. Luke pusses out of the rally, never sees Jen again, and finally goes to her house to find out what happened to her. He meets her step-dad, who informs Luke that Jen was shot. All the kids were shot. And it was completely covered up. Also, step-dad works for the dreaded government! For the Population Police! He ends up telling Luke that the "evidence" Jen had was only partially truthful, just like the government's reasons for having the Laws is only partially based on fact. So he muddies the waters for us a bit. The book ends when step-dad gives Luke a choice: he can get Luke a new identity, and send him away from his family, or Luke can stay home, but the Police will probably find him soon b/c they're already suspicious about the area. Luke chooses a new life, and the end.

Among the Imposters

Luke, now under the identity of "Lee", is sent to a boarding school, for reasons which are too banal to mention. After a few weeks of running around the school with no idea what classes he's supposed to take and with no ability to navigate the hallways or tell any of the other boys apart, he accidentally stumbles upon a secret group of Thirds who meet in the woods outside the school. Life for him gets better after that, until he discovers that the "leader" of the Thirds is actually an undercover, working for the Pop Police. He frantically gets word to Jen's step-father, Mr. Talbot, before the police raid the school, although he doesn't know if it actually worked until Talbot shows up and arrests the undercover kid (for being a Third! which is justice). At the end he tells Luke the real story behind the boarding school: it was built specifically to house Thirds who were coming out into the world. Everything everywhere in these books is one big ruse!! I'd still read the rest, though. They're a little like.....milk. Enjoyable, but not as snazzy as soda.

Firegirl, by Tony Abbott

In two words: So. Good.

Tony's 7th-grade class gets a new student: Jessica, who is badly burned from a car accident. Tony is a bland, fat, boring little kid who let's his friend make most of the decisions. He's a wimp, but he's also sweet. In his bumbling little way, he makes a connection with her, and it changes him. What I really find awesome with this book is how Abbott can write in a 7th-grade boy's voice so well. Tony's not a kid with a man's vocabulary; he doesn't structure his story like an accomplished writer. It's scattered and messy like a boy's story is supposed to be, but without just being poorly written. I just love this book!

Whistling in the Dark, by Lesley Kagen

I got lazy.....I read this book like 2 weeks ago, and I never got around to writing anything. I also, in the meantime, tried to read several books and gave up on them. I've been a bad, bad reader!!!

Ok, this book, what I remember of it: Sally and Troo, ages 10 and 9, live in a cute little neighborhood in the 50s, and they are essentially orphans for the duration of the book: stepdad is a drunk all the time, mom goes in the hospital shortly after the book begins. The two of them basically take care of themselves, and I love the atmosphere of the neighborhood that makes this possible! They just show up at different neighbor's houses for dinner every night, sometimes even sleeping over. The neighborhood is full of kids, and most families just assume one of the kids invited the girls over, and everyone is so friendly and it's just so natural to have extra kids over that no one says anything! I just loved that! I loved the freedom these people allowed their children. It wasn't until a child murderer/rapist strikes for a SECOND time that they start to get a little weary. Sally is pretty sure she's going to be the third, so she spends the book trying to figure out who the bad guy is, and trying to protect herself and her sister. Even with the two murders, this is a pretty cute book. I just loved the differences between life then and life now, and I also loved all the 50s vernacular.

Some Books!!!!!!

I have been putting this off for a while now….just haven’t felt like doing it. But, I’m 3 books down and all the things I wanted to say about them just after reading them have left me, so I figured I better get what little things I DO remember down on the internet or they’re going to be lost forever.

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

This is supposed to be a children’s book, but I’m not sure what age group the author was going for. I know that it’s a little too old for my 9 y/o, but I can’t imagine a 12 y/o reading what is basically a fairy tale, either. What I mean by too old for the 9 y/o: I’m not sure he would understand the “Island of Conclusions” and how you can only get there by jumping. (You know…..“jumping to conclusions”?) The book has a lot of puns, basically, and I KNOW he’s not going to get any puns. However, the book was written in 1961, and maybe kids were smarter then.

Anyway, it’s about a boy named Milo who is unhappy. “Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered. Nothing really interested him—least of all the things that should have.” One day he comes home from school to find a box in his room. The accompanying note says FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME. He opens it, and it’s a tollbooth. A purple tollbooth. The assembles it, shrugs, drives his toy car through it, and ends up in a CRAZY WILD ADVENTURE!!!!! He meets a part-dog-part-alarm clock tamed Tock, a “humbug” named Humbug, King Azaz the Unabridged, and the Mathmagician. By the end he has a new appreciation for knowledge, he’s saved the kingdom, and he’s a kid who wants to explore and play, etc. Eventually he gets home, and the next day the tollbooth is gone, just as mysteriously as it came.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

It’s set in the early 60s, and it’s told by 3 women: Skeeter, a 23 y/o white girl, single, still living with her parents, missing her family’s former maid, and wishing to be a writer. Aibileen, a black maid who’s great with her bosses’ children, moves on to a new job when the kids get old enough to stop loving her and start hating blacks. Minnie, black maid with loud mouth, works best for deaf old ladies who can’t hear her talk back.

Skeeter gets an idea: a book of interviews of black maids for their side of life—what it’s like to work for white women and raise white kids while simultaneously being treated as if they are barely human and not fit to breathe the same air.

I cannot do this book justice, so I’m not writing anything else. Just this: I loved it, and Mom loved it.

I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak

I read a book by Zusak before, called “The Book Thief” and I simply loved it, so I was prepared to love this as well. It’s not just a “Book Thief 2”….it’s good, but definitely in a different way. Like Book Thief, it’s not my age group. Technically, it’s young adult. What is the age range of young adult? I’m pretty sure most moms in this town wouldn’t let their 13 y/o read this book. If I were to recommend it to anyone, I’d say maybe 16 and up, just so I don’t get parents mad at me. However, I’d let my 13 y/o read it, if I had one. And I was reading worse when I was 13, anyway.

Synopsis: Ed Kennedy gets chosen. For what, he doesn’t know. He just starts getting playing cards in the mail and phone calls at night and visits from hooligans. According to the first card, he is to go to 3 addresses at the time specified. It’s not until he gets to the first address that he figures out what, exactly, he is supposed to DO. He is supposed to help! The types of help vary—one involves murder, one involves the impersonation of a dead man, the other involves an empty shoe box. When that card is finished, he receives another. And then another. One for every suit. By the end, he has made things better for a few people for a little while, and he has made things way better for a few people for a long while. He goes to 12 addresses, but some addresses have more than one person who benefits, so he ends up helping like 25 people. It’s very, very, very, very sweet! I loved all the cards, even the ones that were very hard for him to complete. The last card is my favorite, because it’s the most personal. My only beef with the book was the shitty ending. I wanted to person behind the cards to be some kindly, old benefactor who noticed some things that were wrong, somehow, and decided to pick Ed to fix them, so that Ed could learn an important lesson in the process. Instead Zusak himself shows up, says HI, I CREATED ALL THIS. TO, LIKE, SHOW HUMANITY THAT AN ORDINARY PERSON CAN DO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS. BUT THEN I COULDN’T END IT, SO I JUST CRAPPED THIS OUT. SEE YA.

Ok, really? Truthfully? I love Markus Zusak. That man has a fucking way with words. I wish I had marked every sentence that I loved so that I could write a few of them here, but I didn’t, and a quick flip-through of the book didn’t give me any. Just read this or The Book Thief. You’ll know what I mean.

In the Wood, by Tana French

(I actually handwrote this last night, because I wasn’t near a computer and I wanted to get this down IMMEDIATELY)

I am horribly, horribly, horribly, horribly, HORRIBLY disappointed in this book. To hint at something, with the dreams, and everyone’s weird “hallucinations” in the wood, and the very slow recovering of the stupid memories that all seemed to be leading up to something…..all of it was fucking pointless. It was a total waste of my time. I read this as quickly as possible, skimming over the numerous passages detailing Ryan’s total inadequacy as a detective, flipping through page after page, because I wanted to know ONE THING: where are they??

The book hinted that the question would go unanswered, but I though NO! They are just trying to divert you, to confuse you, so where it’s all revealed you’ll be MORE SHOCKED THAN YOU THOUGHT POSSIBLE!!!!!111!!!(one)!!!

Back to Ryan’s incompetence: dude, I did not need you to keep pointing out all the mistakes you made, okay? I totally called them all on my own. You could have saved a hundred or so pages. Also, do not fucking insult my intelligence you alcoholic whack-job! On page 409: “But before you decide to despise me too thoroughly, consider this: she fooled you, too.”

NOT. FOR. A. SECOND.

I knew something was wrong immediately, and I can’t even tell you how. As soon as she spoke, I gave her a quiet, little-girl voice (obviously faked) with a holier-than-thou attitude.

I wonder, was it on purpose? Did your author plan it that way, to make it so obvious to everyone else? Was this supposed to be part of the “plot twists and turns to bamboozle even the most astute reader”? (That was a line from a book review printed on the back jacket.)

Or, did French really think we’d be too distracted by Ryan’s back-story to catch on to the psychopath?

I have a theory about where the bodies could be, by the way: I think they’re in the tower—the one with the broken stairs but the top is still intact. I read through that boring bit of archeological crap rather quickly, so for all I know the book said it was in fact being torn down, or it mentioned, in passing, someone bothering to climb up and have a look, but my short and spotty memory says no, it was never mentioned. And I’m kinda sure they were going to leave the tower, for historical reasons. Ryan’s such a shitty detective it’ll never occur to him to look though, and he’s so mentally weak if he did look and did find them, he’d probably totally lose his shit.

Two Books

Both of these actually belong before Still Alice, but that book required instant blogging. These did not.

Dead as a Doornail, Charlaine Harris

More craziness in the life of Sookie—someone’s trying to kill shapeshifters, every man she comes across throws himself before her and professes true love and demands to marry her, she witnesses some more crazy other world ritual shit. Same old, same old. HOWEVER: at the end she agrees to date a weretiger, which is simply awesome.

Stolen Innocence, Elissa Wall

This is Wall’s account of her life in the FLDS church, her arranged marriage to her cousin, her escape from the church, and her experiences during the trial of Warren Jeffs. I love any book that criticizes cults.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova

I'm going out of order here--I've read 2 books now without blogging, but I just finished this 3rd, and it's so damn good I had to write about it immediately.

It's a story about Alzheimer's, told from the point of view of someone suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's dementia. Alice is a Harvard professor, married to a scientist, mother to 3 very smart and successful children. Watching her mind deteriorate is fascinating and heart-breaking. As her version of things gets muddier and muddier, it's almost a puzzle to figure out what's going on.

At the last book club meeting, Wendy asked us to bring in a list of books we'd recommend to our daughters, or mothers, or other significant women in our lives, and I couldn't think of any. I wish I had read this book before then!! Because Alice's relationship with her family changes as her disease progresses, especially with her youngest daughter, and the passage where she not only accepts her daughter's path in life but offers suggestions of how to--not just be more successful, like the old Alice would have cared about--but to enjoy her life and the experience, that passage was just awesome. I think mothers and daughters--shit, everyone--could learn from that. Another reason this book is perfect for recommending to the women in her life? Mom and I were reading it at nearly the same time, and several times today I would stop reading and say "hey, did you read this part? wasn't that sad?!"

I hate that I'm not a better writer, because I feel like I can't do this book justice! I hate just havign to jump from subject to subject because I can never link my thoughts up.

My favorite element in the book: Shortly after being diagnosed, Alice starts to realize how much she's already affected. She starts thinking about how much worse it's going to get, about how much of a burden she's going to be on her family. She decides that she needs to stop it before it gets too bad, but she wants to try to enjoy as much as she can while she can, so she comes up with a plan: she sets an alarm on her Blackberry to go off every morning. A message will pop up, asking her 5 questions, and it includes a set of instructions that she is to follow if she can't answer the questions. This is her suicide plan. Up there, where I mentioned having to figure out what was going on through her confusion? You realize when she's already slipped a lot that her husband has discovered her plan, and to witness HIS suffering through her dementia is something I can't even describe. You just HAVE to read this book.

Note: I started reading this book this morning, around 10. I did not read it continuously--we went shopping and ate, and all that, but it's midnight and I'm finished with it already. This book is addicting!

A Crooked Kind of Perfect, By Linda Urban

I picked this book out of one of those scholastic catalogues they send home with schoolkids. There wasn't even a synopsis or ANYTHING, but I just knew from the little picture of the cover that I wanted to read this book.

It was the toe socks! You can look at that cover and you know that this is one of those cute little quirky numbers that's going to make you feel warm and fuzzy, and it is. I didn't buy it, though. I decided I wasn't going to spend money on any books right now. So my nephew went to his classroom library and found it for me--he's a sweetie.

It's about a girl named Zoe Elias. Zoe wants to be a piano player, but when her slightly agoraphobic dad goes to buy a piano, he sees an organ, gets a little excited and nervous, and buys it instead. The dad is a perfect oddball--he will leave the house on occasion, but mostly just gets lost and has to be talked home by a friendly tow truck driver. He also subscribes to one of those take-classes-at-home colleges, and at the start of the book has, like, 26 "diplomas"!

Zoe is disappointed with the organ, but since it comes with 6 months of free lessons she learns to play it anyway. She's actually good at it, and although she still wishes it were a piano, she sticks with it, and I LOVE THAT!

Also there's this kid named "Wheeler" who just decides one day to be her friend, and he ends up being a sort of lifesaver to her family, and the most frustrating thing happens at the end--Zoe asks him about his family, and he says "it's a long story" AND THEN THE STORY ENDS. I'm really really hoping that Urban is, RIGHT NOW, writing the sequel. That would make me happy.

This is a short book, for me, but it'd give a 4th-grader a very nice read, and I would recommend this to anyone. Seriously. It's hella-cute.

A Gracious Plenty, By Sheri Reynolds

LOVED IT!!

The story is told by Finch. When Finch was little, 4 I think, she was very badly burned—most of her face, her shoulder, and her arm. She’s left with horrible scars, and what you all know will happen, happens: she’s an outcast. Her parents are cemetery caretakers, and the cemetery is basically her front yard. After school, she sticks to home, helping her parents with the caretaking and eventually taking over for them when they pass. When she’s a teenager, Finch discovers something (that I think is WONDERFUL!)—she can hear the Dead. With a little practice, she can see and hear them quite well. Even talk to them! So my favorite parts of the book were reading Reynolds’ idea of the first stage of afterlife. Did you know that the Dead are in charge of pretty much everything? Guess who pushes rivers along! Guess who calls down storms to water the crops and guess who kisses flower buds open! Who greens ivy? Who moves the very air?? Those parts were simply enchanting. For the Dead, when you’re not working, you’re talking. You have to tell your stories. Each story lightens you, until eventually you are nothing—and that’s when you go to the next stage. In the book Finch doesn’t say if there’s a heaven or hell. She just says that they go “up”.

The Dead become her friends. She needs friends, because she’s the town freak. She looks like a monster and she lives in a cemetery—is it wrong that I think that’s funny? She’d be thought odd with just one of those, but with both it’s almost sitcom material.

By the end things have changed. I felt the same sort of sadness as I did at the end of The Graveyard Book—why does it have to end? I know the point of the book is that the character has to grow and change and evolve and blah blah, but why can’t they both learn to live and ALSO still talk to the dead?? Finch learns a lesson, and a few of her kinda sorta enemies learn lessons, and the closest thing she has to a buddy, Leonard, learns a lesson, and everyone lives happily ever after except Finch didn’t even get to say goodbye to her parents. That was the only part I didn’t like.

About Finch: in my opinion, she’s awesome. I like her attitude. I like how she handles young punks who come into her graveyard to litter the place up, and I love how she handles the town busybody—that woman won’t take her vegetables but Finch’ll force her to take her money!

When Katie Wakes, By Connie Mae Fowler

Connie Mae Fowler tells her own story—that of a woman who grew up being abused by her mother and, of course, ends up with an abusive boyfriend. I liked how she acts like she’s telling the story to her ex—she always says “you”, and it puts the reader in his place. I thought that was interesting and different. “Katie” is her dog. I thought it was going to be a big “if it weren’t for my dog, I would never have improved my life” stories, but I’m pretty sure Fowler would have left the man on her own. The dog certainly gave her comfort and affection, though, and that was important to her, so the dog gets title privileges, lol. Another flashback story—Fowler goes back and forth between her drunken mother and her drunken boyfriend, but in this book it wasn’t annoying.

My only gripe with this story was a little passage towards the end where Fowler is debating leaving the bastard, and it’s way too long. Just skim it, it’s really just a “should I? or shouldn’t I” conversation with herself.

The Outlander, By Gil Adamson

A young woman, Mary (a.k.a. the Widow) is on the run from her brothers-in-law for murdering her husband. The story is flashback-happy and ignores logic, but the author’s writing style and her descriptions of the landscape the Widow trudges through are great. Certain parts of the story are good, but for the most part you’re bogged down in the Widow’s journey, which gets old pretty quick. The best character in the whole damned thing doesn’t even show up until close to the end: a dwarf whose name I can no longer remember because I read the book weeks ago and kept putting this off. I feel like I said everything I could about this book in book club, so….uh….bye.

Roseflower Creek, by J. L. Miles

This book will make you cry. Maybe even in the first paragraph, because that’s where you find out your narrator is a dead little girl, killed violently by her stepfather.

I have two problems with this book; first, the use of the word “buggering” and then the description of the event (made me want to puke, and the fact that a 10 year old girl is telling you the story makes it even worse). Second, the way the concept of forgiveness is crammed in your face in the end. You can’t tell me about the beating this little girl had to endure and then have her blathering on about how you gotta let go, because it wasn’t Ray’s fault, his daddy done mean to him and it made Ray mean, he couldn’t help it, and blah blah blah. Listen to me!! Ray deserved what he got. And you know what? So did the girl’s mom. She failed her daughter, and for that she deserved to be punished. She redeems herself, actually, with what she does to Ray and with how she accepts her end. She sure didn’t pull a Ray and decide it was anyone’s fault but hers, and I liked that.

I liked the book, even though some stuff bothered me. I like books that affect me like this one did, make me feel different emotions: I cried, I got mad, and (lol) the damn thing had me thinking in the little girl’s accent for a few days. I’d put the book down and find myself saying crap like “I need to do them dishes a’fore it gets to late!”

The Good Thief, by Hanna Tinti

The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti

I read the inside flap at the library, thought: sounds good….

I tried to read it and couldn’t. It’s one of those things I can’t really explain…it just failed to hold my attention. So, I put it up and read something else. Or played a lot of video games. Something. However, Ma read it and I made her tell me what it was about—EVERYTHING. I made her spoil the entire thing for me. Even though I could not make myself read the book, I still felt the need to know the entire story. And you know what? It totally made me want to read the book.

And I did.

And it was good.

Very short synopsis: Orphaned Ren is taken in by a pair of thieves, has adventures, ends up actually finding out why he’s orphaned and why he lost his left hand as a baby.

Favorite characters:

Mrs. Sands, the boardinghouse owner who’s lost most of her hearing—she shouts, she’s very brusque, and rough with the main character, Ren, but she’s also very caring. She has a big heart without being all gushy.

Dolly—he’s a murderer, he tells you that right off. He’s also mildly retarded, but that takes you longer to figure out. When the character is introduced he’s just gone through a pretty traumatic experience, so I kept blaming his faults on that, but nope, he’s a little retarded. Dolly is nearly unstoppable, and he’s strong and single-minded, and fiercely loyal to Ren, which is why he’s one of my favorites. Ok, the favorite. Yes, he killed people, but he’s practically a giant, and very stupid, so using his physical gifts is the only way he’s going to make it in this world, and although they never go very deep into his past I’m betting if they did you’d find out that he didn’t just start out as a hitman because he liked it. I bet you’d find out the poor dude stumbled into the profession and didn’t know any better to stop. And, furthermore, he DID stop it, for Ren, because he cares for Ren and Ren asked him not to. After meeting Ren, he only killed out of necessity.

Tom is way down on my list, but I felt I needed more than two characters or it would look like the book didn’t offer much. Tom decides, with his drunken wisdom, that Ren needs his pals. Boys need their mates! He says it many times. So he disappears for a few days and comes stumbling back home with Ren’s friends from the orphanage, and he makes them call him “Pa” and it looked like a huge mistake at first, but by the end I felt there was genuine affection between the 3 of them. I just thought it was cute.

If I cared to, I’d put some passages from the book in here because some parts of this are pretty funny, but I’m too lazy. So trust me, some parts are pretty funny.

Ooooooh, some parts are sad, though. So, warning. The part with the horse just made me feel sick.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, By Brian Selznick

I am going to explain to you why cover design is important.

When I first saw this book in the library, it was displayed like so:

I saw it sitting on that shelf for, like, MONTHS. Never even picked it up. All those bright colors totally turned me off.

Then Miss Wendy moved it, put it on the shelf with the spine out.

I was on the book IMMEDIATELY upon seeing it. I was a little surprised when I turned it around and saw that eye-raping cover, but I decided to flip through it anyway.

I READ IT FOR 15 MINUTES. It sucks you in, with its drawings and its bare pages and its black borders. It backs that up with a pretty awesome story, too. OOOH about the drawings: seriously half this book is pictures. In 15 minutes I was on page 115. But they are beautiful pictures!!

What really piqued my interest was the automaton. It’s a little machine man that writes, and draws! Wendy told me it actually exists, and gave me the website, and it’s a little creepy, I’ll be honest, but once you see how it works you are blown away. I’m not going to try to explain it, but go here: http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/automaton/automaton.php?cts=instrumentation

Also of interest: integral to the story is one of the very first filmmakers: George Melies. Selznick included stills from his films and drawings that are either by Melies or are based on Melies’ work, I’m not sure. I’m not going into why he’s integral, because if I happen to forget what happens sometime in the distant future, I will totally enjoy reading this little book again.

Just After Sunset, By Stephen King

This was my little b-day present to myself this year (it was a bit of a splurge because I bought the “collector’s edition” that included a DVD with an animated/graphic novel adaptation of the short story “N.” [which is kinda boring because it’s not really animated….it’s more like someone took photographs and then converted them to drawings])…..anyways: book was awesome. I LOVE how King puts stories that will scare the living shit out of you in the same collection with stories that just make you feel good, with stories that will just quietly make you uncomfortable—no flash, no bang, you just read it and you’re unsettled. I LOVE BEING UNSETTLED!!!

“N.” is terrifying. Seriously creeped me out. I maybe slept with a lamp on after reading this.

“The Things They Left Behind” belongs in the “feel good” category. It’s a little creepy at first, but then it just made me feel that sad/happy way that I loooove.

“The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates” nearly made me cry. In a good way.

When I was 11, my dad got married. That meant that instead of spending a few weeks out of the year at his little apartment, we spent them at my new stepmom’s house. My new stepmom had hundreds of books—whole shelves full on their living room, and more hidden away in cabinets, just stacked up all mishmash because she was out of room. She had every Stephen King book ever made (at the time) and although I *may” have read some King before then, I didn’t really get into him until I started reading it at their house. The first books I can remember reading were the short stories….probably Nightmares and Dreamscapes, but I know it was at her house I read Different Seasons. My point is I started King with short stories, and even though getting into a meaty novel like Insomnia or a lengthy series like Dark Tower is great, I like coming back to the short stories every now and then. They’re special. I do NOT regret buying this book. :)

Quick Note on Something

I'm reading Stephen King's newest book of short stories, Just After Sunset. In the story "N.", he briefly mentions a landmark in Maine called "Boy Hill". In previous King works, he mentions "the long boy" and "big, handsome boy" (in Lisey's Story and Rose Madder, respectively). For some reason both the latter "boy" phrases have always stuck with me, sort of like songs that you get stuck in your head, snippets of chorus playing over and over again. I do that with phrases, too. When I read "boy hill" in that story I immediately thought of the other two. I beleive I have now inadvertently added a third (oops!).

Down River, by John Hart

I wish I’d written this earlier when both the book and the book club meeting were fresh in my mind!

The main character is Adam Chase, and the book opens with Adam going home, to North Carolina. He talks a little about why he’s going home, and why he left in the first place, but the author is also careful to not just lay everything out for you in the first few pages. Through the rest of the book you learn why he left (he was accused of murder, held on trial [with his own stepmother as star witness] and acquitted, but the town still felt like he’d gotten away with murder so his father basically threw him out), and why he came back (an old friend called him for help and once the idea of going back was put in his head he couldn’t shake it).

This book is a soap opera, only not as retarded. You’ve got a town torn apart by big land deal that could leave some people very rich, and a family torn apart by secrets, lies, suicide, murder, and one bitch of a stepmother.

The stepmother was my least favorite character. Or maybe most favorite, if you consider it a “love to hate” thing. Here are my problems with her: (this is a huge spoiler) she testifies against her stepson in his murder trial. She is the only eye-witness, but all she saw was a dude covered in blood walking away from where the body was later discovered. Throughout the book, we give her the benefit of doubt: she saw a dude, but it wasn’t Adam. She *believes* it was Adam, but I know he didn’t kill that boy! I do not think that she is actively lying; only that she is mistaken. Somewhere in the book the bitch even manages a snooty “Well, I guess this makes me a liar, then!” And at that point I believed that *she* believed he killed the guy. When Adam finally demands to talk to her, she gets all mad, like he has no right to a conversation with her in the house that was *his* before it was hers, she acts like she doesn’t owe him anything, won’t admit to him that maybe she was mistaken, and then bitch slaps him! Still, I thought that she was just a bitch who’d made a mistake.

But finally, at the end, you find out she knew all along Adam had nothing to do with it, she was covering for her own child—and I’m pretty sure that’s when I actually said the words “oh, you bitch!” out loud. Sometimes I wish I could reach into a book and smack the characters around a bit, because she totally deserved it.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was how the author kept describing everyone’s anger. Because EVERYONE in this book was an angry little ball of anger, I had to read sentence after sentence about how sometime was all “angry, hard lines” or “by the time he’d turned back to me he’d composed his face, but the anger was there, just under the surface”. These are not exact quotes because I’ve already forgotten exact lines.

It was an okay book. Not awesome enough for me to gush over, but not terrible, (haha). And we had one of our best book club discussions (in my opinion) so it totally gets high marks for that.

Duma Key, by Stephen King

Duma Key is one of those books (most of which are written by Stephen King) that can make me afraid of the dark again. I was reading it furiously last night, stupidly thinking I could finish the last 200 or so pages before I went to sleep, and I started to get creeped out. It was around the appearance of the dead man in Edgar’s kitchen—I was reading that passage, and then started to reach over for some chapstick, and I paused. Reaching for the chapstick would necessitate turning my back on a portion of the room. For just a tiny second I was afraid that turning my back on that corner would invite a dead man, or worse yet the lady in red, into my own room. For just a *tiny* second, I faltered. Then I hurriedly grabbed my chapstick, turned around, and I was still alone…..but I did sleep with the lamp on. And the TV. I needed the noise of Food Network to mask any squelching fresh-from-a-watery-grave footsteps. :D

Like all King books, you know something horrible is going to happen, something very horrible, but King will hint at it CONSTANTLY. At every turn, he will remind you THIS WILL NOT END WELL. But deep down, you also know that it might not end “happily ever after” but good WILL conquer evil. What I like about King is that he always makes me wonder—will this be the book that goes off-script?

Short description: Edgar Freemantle is a Minnesotan contractor who gets hit by a crane, suffers a head injury, and loses his right arm. After his wife divorces him, he moves to a beach house in Florida to recover, starts painting as a form of therapy, paints some things he shouldn’t be able to see, and the rest is awesome. And scary.

More Southern Vamps

Club Dead, by Charlaine Harris

These books are so fun and easy, I just love them! They’re like soap operas, only more interesting. In this one, Bill and Sookie take a break, and then Bill gets kidnapped and Sookie gets to go find him. Of course, as with the last 2 books, she ends up getting her ass kicked and having to do things that she’s not comfortable with, like killing Bill’s ex-girlfriend. Also she meets a Werewolf and falls in lust, but his ex gets in the way, and she gets to spend some more time with Bill’s boss, during which he keeps trying to have sex with her. In this book we meet a goblin! And his name is “Hob”, which I thought was pretty cute.

Oh and I almost forgot: she finds out a little more about the vampires’ community structure. Her hometown is located in Area 5, and her boyfriend is like the boss of it. Her boyfriend’s boss, Eric, is actually the Sheriff of their little region of Louisiana. And furthermore, Eric has a boss: the Queen of Louisiana. She is mentioned a few times, and it’s her secret job that gets Bill kidnapped, but we don’t meet her. We do, however, meet the King of Mississippi.

I like reading these books, but damn if they are unforgettable. I had to wiki “Charlaine Harris” just to remember the title.

Dead to the World, by Charlaine Harris

At the end of the previous book, Sookie sort of leaves Bill. At the beginning of this one, we learn that she actually, seriously left him—he cheated on her in Club Dead, and even though according to vampire mystique he pretty much had no say in the matter she decided to hold it against him anyway, and also I think it had a little to do with the fact that since she met him she’s getting her ass kicked every few days.

So when the book opens its New Year’s, and I think maybe a few months have passed since she dumped him. She’s lonely, she misses him, but she’s staying firm.

Coming home from the bar that night, she finds a naked and amnesic Eric on the side of the road. He is no longer the vain asshole she’s been forced to deal with the past 3 books—he’s sweet! And nice! And a little childlike! What girl can resist that? She manages to resist it like 4 days, by the way.

She calls Eric’s second-in-command, Pam, and learns that they have been targeted by some witches who want to control all the supernatural goings-on in Shreveport. After some negotiating, Sookie is convinced to baby-sit Eric while everyone else tries to figure out to get the witches to lift their curse on Eric, and how to stop whatever their plan is for Eric’s bar and shit. And then the next day, Sookie’s brother disappears! This poor girl’s hardships never end! She can’t even call on Bill for help because he’s in Peru, working on some more of the Queen’s business.

So there’s some investigating on everyone’s part, the witches are defeated, Eric gets his memory back while also losing his few days with Sookie (for the best, because if the vain asshole knew he’d slept with her he’d annoy the shit out of her forever), and Sookie solves up the Plot B, entitled “where in the world is Jason Stackhouse?”. Answer: the manwhore was taken by this chick’s boyfriend. The chick and boyfriend just happen to be wereleopards. So now, Jason is a freaking wereleopard. (The boyfriend was hoping if he turned Jason into a wereleopard the chick wouldn’t prefer Jason over him. It’s a kind of retarded subplot.)

There’s an excerpt from book 5 at the end, and we learn that Jason is totally cool with being a supernatural being, so way to tie up that loose end, Charlaine.

Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli

I love Jerry Spinelli. I have never been disappointed by a Spinelli book, even Wringer, a book whose subject matter is incredibly repulsive to me. I think the first Spinelli book I ever read was Maniac McGee. I loved it so much, and I have such a high opinion of it, that I am sure if I ever read it again I’d be disappointed. I think over the years it has taken on this almost holy aura, I have built it up to be something more than it ever was, than it ever could be. So I refuse to read it again. But when I saw Spinelli’s name on Stargirl, I knew I had to read it.

Hmm…..first, I want to point out that it’s no Maniac McGee. But it IS good. The storyteller is Leo, he’s somewhere in the 14-17 range (I already forgot!), and he tells us about a new student in his school—a girl who’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. She has named herself Stargirl, she dresses like Little House on the Prairie, she has a pet rat, she carries a ukulele around with her, she sings Happy Birthday to strangers, she dances in the rain, etc.

To compress the entire book into a few sentences: Stargirl charms the school. Leo falls in love. They sort of date (dating Stargirl is not like dating a “normal” girl). The school turns on her. Leo tries to make her change. It fails. She eventually leaves. Leo moons over her for the next 15 years.

This is a really sweet book, but it also…..unnerved me a little. Because at times I felt that Spinelli himself wasn’t sure whose side he was on—at times you cheer her on for her uniqueness, but at other times she comes off as retarded. I’m serious: mentally deficient. She is completely unaware of her surroundings ONLY when people are unhappy with her. She just doesn’t see it. And she inserts herself into other people’s lives to the point that she goes to a stranger’s funeral and gets kicked out and STILL does not understand what was wrong about it. She can spout some really beautiful things about enchanted places, but she doesn’t get modern society’s rules at all. I like to think Spinelli did that on purpose: he’s not going to create a character that’s perfect so you’ll know “ok, I’m supposed to love her”. He creates a character that just……is. And you respond to her how you will.

With Leo…Leo is all of us, I think. He turns on her, in the end (to totally spoil it for you) but it bothers him for a long time. He never forgets her and you know that he wants to see her again. I hated Leo at points in this book. He loves her, and yet he wants to change her COMPLETELY so that the school will like her again. I wanted to shake him for that, but it’s such a human thing to do, to want to “fix” things, that I suppose I shouldn’t hold it against him.

Screw that, I’m holding it against him: Leo is an asshole.

My favorite part: mockingbirds. A character talks about how he/she thinks that mockingbirds not only mimic birds of today, they also mimic birds that lived a thousand years ago, that the songs have been passed down through the generations and that when you hear a mockingbird sing you might be hearing a bird that’s been extinct since before your great-great-great-grandmother was born. I really liked that idea.

I've got the sequel to this, called "Love, Stargirl" and I'm anxious to see how this whole Leo/Stargirl thing works out.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

This book is fantastic! It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s hopeful…it’s a lot for such a short book.

It’s about Arnold Spirit, a 14-year-old Indian boy living on a reservation (the “rez”). First, he introduces us into his life: he was born with an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in his brain, resulting in a lot of surgeries. He’s skinny, has a big head, and stutters AND lisps. He’s a pretty big outcast on the rez. However, he has a best friend, and a loving family (even though his parents have problems with alcohol and his sister lives in the basement, unwilling or unable to move on with her life after graduating high school), so he’s generally happy.

((OH and I almost forgot: he likes to draw, so the author had someone do illustrations for the book, little drawings of people and events, and some little comics, just anything that would enhance the story. The illustrations made this book more special, for me.))

However, Arnold decides to leave his school on the rez and go to another school 22 miles away. It’s mostly white, and he knows he’s going to get shit for being the only Indian there AND the people on the rez are going to think he’s turning his back on them, but he decides to do it anyway, because he sees the white school as hope, and the Indian school as hopeless. The rest of the book is about his experiences at the new school, his relationship with his best friend, and how his family deals with certain problems that arise that I don’t want to give away.

I’d recommend this book to high schools—the language isn’t exactly pretty in some places, but aside from that I think it teaches some good lessons, concerning alcoholism especially.

Carry Me Home, by Sandra King

Mom and I both read this, and both loved it, but we took so many opposite views on it!

For instance, in the beginning I was telling her it was hard for me to read this because it’s written from the view of a retarded 16 y/o boy, and that is distracting. Also, it has a lot of those moments where inside you just cringe, because you know just how the dude is going to mess up, and it’s almost painful to read. Mom, however, loved his view of things, and felt that he was the only character in the book who saw the truth. I eventually came around to her way of thinking.

Another example: The boy’s mother! I hated her! She treats the retarded kid so unfairly compared to his “normal” older brother and she’s always fussing at him, almost as if she is totally forgetting that he is mentally-challenged and DOES NOT understand her sometimes! This kid had to be removed from school because he couldn’t pass the 3rd grade and was getting too big for the class, so why does she fuss at him for making mistakes? Mom felt that the mother loved him and always wanted him with her, and I felt that she was a bitch who just liked harping on him. I held that view right up until the last few chapters, when the mother started to change and she got less bitchy.

Oh, synopsis: Earl/Earwig/Earlwig (he’s called all 3 by different characters) is 16 and retarded. His brother Jimmy is 21 and not. They both live with their parents, and they both work with their parents: Jimmy with the dad, and Earl with the mom. The author gives a brief look at their daily life, before pretty much destroying it for a little while. Jimmy signs up for the National Guard and ends up being sent to overseas during WWII and kept in a Japanese prison camp for a few years. The parents’ marriage nearly collapses, but Earl actually grows up a little. He gets a job outside of his mother’s store, and starts making friends with two women he works with, possibly the only friends he’s ever made on his own besides a 6 y/o boy named Eddie that he likes to play with. His other friends were all made through Jimmy and every one of them went off to the war.

Since I’m no essayist, here’s a list of stuff I liked about the book:

Besides the story, the author tries to convey what life was like during the time, with the ration stamps, and women having to go to work, and the children going through air raid drills in school. She also makes a little social commentary towards the end, when the boys come home from war and the women have to quit their jobs and go back home. This reminds me of point 2:
The father is the Voice of Reason throughout the book. He sees where things are heading before the war starts, and he’s the one trying to warn everyone of what shape the boys’ll be in when they get back home. He understands more of how the world works than anyone else in this book. He’s the go-to guy for advice, and I really found myself loving this dude.
Favorite lines:
Childbirth is as natural as taking a shit.
I hope to hell I ain’t gotta tell [---] he’s got a cute baby in there, ‘cause that sure would be a lie. (Earl got a glimpse of the afterbirth and thought it was the baby, lol)
Titty moon.
I wouldn’t have made it back if it weren’t for you, Earwig. I just kept telling myself every day, every hour, that I had to live through it to come home for you. (I dare anyone to read this book and not tear up at that part. IF YOU DO NOT GET AT LEAST A LITTLE MISTY-EYED THEN YOU ARE A ROBOT.)
There were more lines but I forgot them already. I have a new rule: I write these blogs AS I read the book, so maybe it’s less of a hodgepodge of my thoughts.
Who am I kidding, there’s no way I’m every going to put these blogs in any sort of proper form, like a real essay, HAHA.

This was funnier than I thought it was going to be, and more touching than I thought it was going to be. Except for the pretty bad language, I think this would make an excellent book club book, actually.

Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris

Damn, I love these books because they’re short and easy! In this installment (side note: I hate this title) Sookie and her boyfriend get lent to the Dallas vamps to help solve a missing vampire mystery. There, Sookie learns that shapeshifters are more prevalent than she previously thought, that werewolves do exist and they are assholes, and that you can’t trust people just because a vamp says so. She is supposed to just interrogate the humans at the last place the vamp was seen, but ends up having to go undercover into a religious super-anti-vampire cult and gets captured and all sorts of shit. Meeting Bill (her dead boyfriend) was basically the worst thing to ever happen to her. She thinks otherwise, of course, because with him she finally gets to relax because she can’t read his mind and blah blah blah they have a lot of sex, but seriously—because of him her grandmother is dead and she’s been beaten up every 10 pages by both “normal” people and the supernatural. And she is entirely too unfazed by this for my liking.

And yet, I’m still reading the books. It’s almost as if I like making myself irritated.

Oh and also the author is trying to create some romantic tension between Sookie, Bill, and Eric, Bill’s vampire boss/elder/basically he can tell him what to do. On several occasions Sookie has needed to take Eric’s blood, so now they are emotionally connected, and seeing as how Bill is a chauvinistic jealous brat things get all stupid and tensiony and crap. But, as with the other book, when the action is going on (car chases, wild demon woman attacks in the woods) I can really get into it and enjoy it.

I can see myself reading maybe 3, 4 more of these before I Cromwell/Koontz this author for good.

Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris

Poorly written, and bears some uncanny resemblance to the Twilight series, even down to the overprotective-bordering-on-controlling boyfriend. But for now, having read this book and currently halfway through the sequel, "Living Dead in Dallas", I like it. It's an easy read. Just turn off that part of your brain that says "hey, that contradicts what was written before. HEY MODERN SOCIETY WOULD NEVER ACCEPT THAT!". That's referring to the fact that vampires have "come out of the coffin" and formed some sort of weird truce with humanity. Humans pretend the vamps are really infected with a virus that makes them allergic to sunlight, silver, and garlic. Vamps who would like to become "mainstream" drink synthetic blood and file taxes and shit. However, they still think of humans as lower forms of life.....like cows. I think that the humans would pick up on that and annihilate the suckers (haha!), seeing as how no matter how super-human you are and manipulative of the human brain at night, in the daytime you are a dead body stuffed in a casket, totally defenseless if someone wants to, say, set you on fire.

Also (!) Vampire blood has healing powers and gives you energy and makes you pretty and all kinds of awesomeness, and although they mention in the book that some people trap and drain vampires, I think a LOT more people would be doing that in real life, until vamps were extinct. Even if you don't take the blood, it's easy to sell and very expensive, so it would feed whatever addiction you DO have, so imagine all the meth heads in the world realizing that they are one dead vampire away from enough crack to take a bath in.

OOH, I just found out via Wikipedia that this lady lives 2 hours from my house. This means that, theoretically, I could have show up at her house and tell her everything that's wrong with this series. HAHAH just read that she's a former weightlifter and karate student. I'M SORRY MRS. HARRIS. PLEASE DO NOT KICK MY ASS.

Quick synopsis of the book: Sookie Stackhouse: waitress and psychic, meets Bill Compton: vampire trying to mainstream (become a regular part of society). There are some murders in Sookie's little town, which are alternately blamed on her brother and then Bill. It's not really a mystery in that Sookie doesn't go all Nancy Drew, looking for clues and stuff, but she does help find the killer, and in the process gets a totally selfish and overbearing dead boyfriend in the process.

Another problem with the book: Sookie gets mad when her coworker doesn't want Sookie to watch her kids if her boyfriend will be present. My thoughts on this: SOOKIE HE IS A FUCKING VAMPIRE WHO LIVES ON HUMAN BLOOD. WHAT MOTHER WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT???? Eventually, though, the mom is okay with that. WELCOME TO THE MOST RETARDED TOWN IN LOUISIANA.

Anatomy of a Murder, By Robert Traver

This is going to sound stupid, but although I thought the book was well-written, I also thought it was boring as shit. Barely read it, because I simply could not make myself interested in it at all.

read three more books, go freaking me.

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving

Here's the way you enjoy this book: watch the movie "Simon Birch" first. Then, when you read it you can remember all the really sweet moments from the movie as you read them, and it tricks you brain into forgetting all the boring and tedious and sometimes gross parts.

Miss Invisible, by Laura Jensen Walker

Christian fiction, but it's not "IN YOUR FACE" Christian fiction, and it's not about a schoolteacher in in the 1920s who falls in love with the town doctor or some other boring-ass shit. It's fluff, but after Owen Meany I think I needed fluff. It is also not hard to make your brain ignore the author's amateurish writing style. In this book a fat chick meets a fatter chick who teaches her to be comfortable with herself and to actually live life, instead of hiding away, ashamed about her looks. My only problem is the fact that the girl meets two guys who happen to love inner beauty (puke) at pretty much the same time and there's sort of a competition at one point, and I found it a little hard to believe that suddenly she's miss irresistible when the character admits to spending the last few years completely and totally dateless.

Canned, by Alex Shearer

Weird little kid's book about a boy who collects unlabelled cans. He finds a finger in one, then meets a girl who also collects cans and who also has found body parts in the unlabelled ones. They try to solve the mystery, and of course they succeed. There was a strange point near the end where the girl is poking around a farm and keeps reciting "The Listeners", a poem about a Traveller who knocks upon the door of a house where no one's home, but he still feels like someone or some entity is listening. It was just a weird little turn in the story to throw that in there for no reason. Maybe the author was trying to create a little atmosphere? ALSO: forgot the title to this one and was too lazy to get the book out of the living room, so I thought I'd google it: trying googling "can book" and see how THAT DOES NOT HELP YOU AT ALL.

I now have a choice: start reading the next book club book, which looks freaking boring, or read another christian fiction, this one a murder mystery. I've already figured something out in that one, I think: the killer drops his victims' bodies off at a lake, after the "angels" descend--and in the very next chapter they mention a group of swans. I'm betting he's sacrificing those women to swans. I just need to know why.....but I'm not sure the book is worth finishing. Again, it's amateurish. It sounds like the horrible stories I used to write for the paper in high school. I am totally regretting skipping the library today.