I hate it when this happens

So, I started reading a book after work this evening. It's not a big surprise, my reading slump is coming to an end.

But I just can't bring myself to finish this book. I read 52 of 304 pages, so approximately 1/6 of the book, and that's enough for me. I put it down, and tomorrow I'll return it to the library so someone who might enjoy it can read it.

What's the book you ask? It's The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. I'm almost surprised that I don't like it, but not quite. I mean, I loved The Lovely Bones, but as most people would be, I was depressed as hell by it. And there was one chapter in that book that made me tilt my head to the side and ask everyone I know who had read it, "what the fuck was THAT about?" That particular scene really marred the whole experience of the book for me.

Anyway, The Almost Moon, like The Lovely Bones was just beautifully written. The author can certainly string words together to paint a picture, a vivid one. Just not a picture that I want to look at. I didn't like the protagonist, and the plot was one that I can't relate to at all.

I do hate when this happens, when I work myself all up over a book, or a movie, and then it just sucks. Or maybe doesn't suck, but it's not for me. But I do know that life's too short to finish a book that you're not enjoying just because you started it.

I'm going to go back to my massive In Death re-read-a-thon and just enjoy that. I'm working on Reunion In Death right now (it's been my bedtime book for a couple of days), and as always, these books please me greatly.

Liked it, didn't love it

The new Nora Roberts book, Tribute, that is.

With any author, there are books that stand out as favorites and ones that are just OK, and occasionally some that just flat out suck (don't get me started on how much I hated The Circle trilogy ~ and that's saying a lot coming from a girl who loves paranormal). This book was on the good side of OK. Some great dialogue, which I've come to expect from da Queen, good character development, some BTVS mentions, and an excellent dog. There was even a NTTAWWT (not that there's anything wrong with that) which just cracked me up, but overall it's not in the top 20 for me. I'm glad I got it from the library. I think it just wrapped up a little too quickly at the end, and the ultimate villian was out of left field; that part felt a little contrived.

Now, next year when the paperback comes out, I'll buy it (because I have a compulsion to own all Nora Books) and I'll probably re-read it at that time and I may have a completely different opinion. Who knows?

I did try to re-read The Circle trilogy a couple of months back and couldn't even get 20 pages into the first book, so my opinion doesn't always change, but sometimes it does. On the other hand, I've never actually been able to finish Divine Evil or Sweet Revenge or The Reef for that matter. And I don't think I've even tried to read Genuine Lies, but I own all those books, and eventually I'll probably read them. Except the aforementioned trilogy, which I will keep on the shelves for the sake of completeness (because I'm crazy like that).

A brief book(s) review

Looking back at the blog lately, I realized it's been a while since I've talked about books.

Last night, I finished a book. Which is something that happens on a regular basis with me, every day or every other day I finish a book.

The one I finished last night (which I picked up from the library and started the night before) was not my usual fare. Not romance, not paranormal, not mystery, but an actual novel. It was written by a woman, so it might end up in Chick-Lit land, but if I were in charge of shelving, I'd have put it in literary novels. But anyway.

The book is The Girls by Lori Lansens and appears to be only be available in HC; which is too bad, because that means it probably didn't sell enough for a PB run, and more people won't have the opportunity to read it. It's a dual-perspective first-person account of conjoined twins, the world's oldest surviving craniopagus (joined at the head) twins. A couple of reviews I read this morning (after finishing; I like to read reviews of books that I've just read rather than those I might want to read) favorably compared it to The Lovely Bones and The Time Traveler's Wife both of which I read, loved, and own. I have to agree, if you liked either of those books, then this one might appeal. I also recognized some echoes of Lorna Landvik, which is weird because I found Oh My Stars to be unreadable (I certainly didn't finish it) but there are elements of similarity. Not every reader I know will love this book as I did, but I imagine that some of you reading this entry will, so if you have time to read for pleasure, take a trip to the library for this one (frankly I'm not sure if it's still in print in HC, although it came out in 2005 in Canada and 2006 in the US.

Saturday, I finished Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin. I had a hard time in the middle of this one, I cheated and read the last chapter and even put the book down for a full 36 hours. I might not have picked it back up that soon if my internet (and thus my ability to work) had not gone out on Saturday afternoon. I'm glad, though, that I stuck with it because it really was worth the rough time I had with the middle. When it's available in trade PB, I'll buy it to match the rest of my Giffin collection.

On Saturday, also due to the internet being out, I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. What can I say about this one? It was well-enough written for me to finish, but a little overly sentimental for my tastes. Not to mention that as a person with polytheistic beliefs, I had a difficult time accepting the premise. Which is weird, because I'll read a vampire book and accept it no problem, as if I were reading nonfiction. I'll give Albom props for his ability to turn a phrase or evoke an emotion, and I'll stop short of calling his works mawkish, but I probably won't pick up anymore of his works (unless they're a little meatier length wise), and this one is going back out on PBS.

Next up is Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner. Another library book because I only buy Nora Roberts writing as JD Robb in HC these days, and I've been looking forward to this one for a while. Can't wait to find out how things turn out for Cannie and Joy (to whom we were introduced in Good in Bed which I loved).

Tagged but not released into the wild

So my friend Dana here at http://danabelfry.com/blog/ tagged me today.

It’s called the 1-2-3 tag (hey, stop complaining it’s a short one!) and it goes like this:

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Here's my entry:

"God I remember this!" Nick had stopped in frone of one and was pointing at it. "This was taken on our honeymoon. In fact, I took it."

Caitlin, as ever, was looking gorgeous, her strawberry blond hair fanning across her bronzed shoulders.

~ That's possibly 4 sentences, I'm not sure if a sentence within a quote counts as it's own entity.

The book is The Second Wives Club by Jane Moore. It was the closest book to me with actual sentences because mostly what I have here at the desk are medical transcription word books; dictionaries without definitions, if you will.

Anyway, this is further along in the book than I actually got when I attempted to read it. I read the back cover blurb in Target and thought it looked interesting. Not interesting enough to buy, mind you, but interesting enough to get from Paperback Swap. Sadly for me, what I forgot is that having been a first wife twice, I can't relate to any of the main characters. In fact, I didn't like any of them. So I quit reading at about page 35 or so. And this peek into the future does not interest me enough to pick the book back up. In fact, it reconfirms that I'll be reposting it on PBS for someone else to read.

The bad thing about the tags is that I'm never sure how many people read this blog and how many of those readers have blogs themselves, so I have to skip the tagging part.

Theme reading month so far

Finished The Chronicles of Narnia last night. Meh. Overall, not that impressed. The first couple were pretty good, BUT, as the stories went on, the writing did not mature, the characters did not mature, and then the last book, The Last Battle, just pissed me off.

I'm not a Christian. I'm not even a monotheist, so the religious overtones of the series bothered me as a whole, but by the end I felt as if the author was trying very, very hard to convert me. Which is something I don't appreciate, don't need, and certainly don't want.

I told That Boy's sister, Ms. Thing, that I'd read them to her kids someday, because I want to be the kind of grandmother that reads to the grandchildren, but I won't pick them up before then.

If I had read these books when I was 7 or 8; I'd probably see the wonder and have enjoyed them more. In fact, at that age, I'm fairly sure these would have among been my favorite all time books. But I didn't, so they're not.

Of course, to quote Dennis Miller: That's just my opinion.

On a positive note, I had a problem with one of the books. My copy of Prince Caspian was defective and the last 20 or so pages were unreadable. I contacted Harper Trophy (a children's book subsidiary of HarperCollins) about the problem and they sent me a replacement book promptly and pleasantly with no fuss. You have to like it when a large corporation makes good on a defective product without me having to jump through hoops.

And I'm semi-abandoning theme reading month now. I'll still read only books that I've not read before, but I'm leaving the children's genre behind. I don't think I'm childish enough, which, quite frankly, is probably a huge surprise to the people who know me best.

Birthday Memories

So, yesterday was my birthday. I was thirty-thirteen (still am until next November 26, but anyway).There was a small family gathering for my birthday with tacos and margaritas, and my mom was making the cake. My friend Josie met me here and followed us over to where Darrin and Kimberly (brother and his girl) live. So it was Darrin, Kimberly, 2 of their girls, me, That Boy, Josie, mom, and Eva (family friend). Kimberly made strawberry margaritas that rocked. I drank many of them. I ate a taco and lots of Kimberly's chunky gaucamole dip. Not that calories don't count on the BD, but I didn't give a crap.

Mom made the cake. She had thought about making a carrot cake, but I told her that in my general world view on cake, "if it ain't chocolate why bother?" So she made a chocolate cake. She proceeded to "invent" the frosting/icing/topping which had some nuts, some coconut, more chocolate, and I'm not sure what else. It almost looked like haystack cookies with nuts on top of the cake. Eva and I (at least) picked a little off when she unveiled the cake, and it was pretty darn tasty.

I should mention that my mom is many things. A confident cook/baker is not one of those things.

Mom's idea was that the cake should go under the broiler (!) for a couple of minutes before serving to get the topping all nice and melty. I was already drinking when she suggested this, so it seemed OK to me. Kimberly was less certain, especially when mom said she thought it could go under the broiler for 3 minutes. Kimberly was more on the maybe 30 seconds side.

Anyway, time passes. We eat, we drink, and drink, and drink. We play with the dogs a little bit, and eventually Kimberly sets the broiler and then she and Eva go outside to have a cigarette. They come back in, but no one moves immediately to put the cake in. So mom decides to take the bull by the horns. She pops the cake under the broiler. Doesn't really tell anyone and does not set a timer.

You know where I'm going with this don't you?

Yep, there was a smoke smell. Mom issues a little scream, opens the oven door, and sure enough my birthday cake is ON FIRE! Which we had joked about 15 minutes before. My mother's voice screaming, "Oh my God, the cake's on fire," is going to be echoing with me for a while.

Fortunately, only the topping got crispy crittered, and Kimberly saved the day. She scraped it off, opened the fridge and found a can of chocolate icing, and re-iced the cake lickety split. You have to love a woman like that. Or I do anyway.

After cake, the bigger but younger male dog (who is about 8 months old and part pit bull and part minature dachshund) appeared to be performing oral sex on the smaller female dog (a very miniature chihuahua) right there in front of the world. Fixage is in order for that boy, who is terribly sweet and just adorable, but seemingly horny.

Apparently flaming cake leads to doggy oral gratification.

Good Times (capitalization shamelessly stolen from the Good Times Bitches). Good Times indeed.

There was also a story about a bear, but it's not my story to tell (since I didn't witness it firsthand).

CURRENTLY READING: Fluke, or I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore.

December: Theme Reading Month

Last December, I read nothing but nonfiction for an entire month. Not my norm, but I enjoyed it, and over the course of the last year, I've incorporated more nonfiction into my non-December reading.

This December, I want to do another theme month, but I don't know that the theme should be. I have options, lots of options, since I have several hundred books around my apartment. Some of those options are:

1. Books written by men. Since there are way more books written by men than women, this choice, while giving me the most variety, has the least appeal to me. On the other hand, right now, I read almost exclusive books by women, which is equally sexist.

2. Books that were written more than 100 years ago. There's lots of Jane Austen, and I never made it all the way through Vanity Fair, plus I could re-read Little Women.

3. Books that I've never read before. The dreaded month of no re-reads.

4. All horror. I have a bunch of Stephen King books that I've yet to read, plus I wouldn't mind revisiting some of his earlier work. This would probably turn into the all Stephen King all the time month, and I might not sleep well.

5. All mystery. I could probably get through the Sue Graftons A through S in a month. If not all of them, I could make a nice dent.

6. Books that were turned into movies. I'd start with Mystic River and Cold Mountain and move on from there.

7. "Children's" books. It's never too soon to do a Harry Potter re-read, plus I've never actually read the Chronicles of Narnia, although I do have a lovely box set.

Hmm, what to read, what to read. At this point, I'm willing to take suggestions and/or votes because 1 week from Saturday, it'll be December and I'll need to have a theme in place and the first couple of books picked out.

Curl Up and Dye?

So, the hair is very short. And Very Gray. So gray, in fact, that it requires capitalization, because I have never been this gray, or I've been this gray but haven't seen it until now. I've also not been without at least some artificial color on my hair since I was 20. Eek!

Anyway, thus far my friends and family seem to be divided into 3 camps. Tony is alone in his camp, liking the cut (which is actually universal, yay! because I love it, too) but he's noncomittal about the color. He asked me yesterday, "what do you want from me, mom?" and my honest answer had to be that I don't know. Other than Tony, the reaction to the gray is mixed. Some love it and don't think I should color. Others are less enamored of the color and think I should cover it up.

I'm on the fence. Trying desperately not to run my life by committee, because I did that for years, and it's a tremendously difficult habit to break, but I am soliciting opinions.

So what say you, Gray or Nay? Own the color or fight Mother Nature? Yes, I'm a comment whore, soliciting away. Sue me. It's not like I'm the first comment whore you've encountered (probably not even the first one today).

CURRENTLY READING: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Just finished with Italy and loving it so far)