Life Under A Rock

Sunday’s reading was rather hampered by the fact that at one point, I had a massive breakdown that included crying, wailing, and whining for my mom.

No.  Joke.  It was definitely one of my finer moments!

But, because I am me, I still managed to read three books.  Man, that takes me back.  It was like being in college again!  During my freshman year, before I got into counseling because of That Man Who Done Me Wrong, I used to schedule my hysterical crying breaks.  “Now Deborah,” I would say to myself (usually aloud), “You can sob uncontrollably after you’ve finished writing this paper.”  And then I’d sniffle my way through another five paragraphs about hookers in Ancient Greece before having full-fledged meltdown.

Don’t worry, my current mental state has nothing to do with you.  No, I am not okay.  HOWEVER!  I am sorta functional, so I’m gonna review the rest of these fucking books and then move on with my g-d life.

Candace Camp, The Courtship Dance

So y’all wanted me to read a Regency Romance.  Here it is.  It’s thoroughly forgettable, although it does allow me to add a few cliches to my Dead Gay List:  the Feckless Gamester (the heroine’s former husband gambled everything they owned, including her honor!  Okay, in this book she’s just in danger of losing her house, but sometimes he totally sells her hot body).  Also, The Great Sexual Awakening:  the Heroine had an unhappy marriage in which no one seemed to own a copy of The Joy of Sex. So now she thinks she’s frigid.  Because her husband said she was.  Because he used to hump her without a by-your-leave.  So she’s all, “I can’t get busy with the Hero!  He’ll think I’m cold!  He’ll think I’m frigid!  Hey, what’s this funny feeling in my pants!  Surely that has NOTHING to do with sex!”

Ugh.

Like I said, there’s really nothing to this book.  The only interesting factoid I can relate is that when I was in my teens, I accidentally ran across a Candace Camp novel, in which the villains were your garden-variety Sexual Deviants. I remember this solely because at one point, the villain sexed up the hyper-horny villainess (who was old!  And droopy!  Naturally!) using a greasy chicken bone.

I remember that the chicken bone was greasy.  Because that’s the kind of detail you can never forget, no matter how hard you try.

Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

This is one of those books about reading that always makes me remember why I hate other readers so fucking much.  Basically, a bunch of essays about various aspects of reading; I actually enjoyed some of the pieces, but others left me cold.  Let me just put this out there:  I couldn’t care less about grammar.  It bores me.  And people who spend all their time correcting it bore me even more.  The English language, like all languages, is constantly evolving.  Get over the fact that the vast majority of us are using “they” instead of “him or her.”  It doesn’t matter how much your panties bunch, that’s just the way it’s worked out.  For the love of shit, move on with your lives.

Also, do not call science fiction trash.  Being genre doesn’t automatically make it “trash.”  Fuck you and your literary pretensions, Fadiman.

Edward Bloor, Taken

A strong contender for “worst book I have read all year.”  The plot is, “in the future, rich people will be even more paranoid than they currently are, as well as even more racist, and kidnapping rich kids will be a growth industry.”  Aaaaand it basically boils down to, “Being rich and white is a total drag!  Hey, kid, let’s take all the money and run off into the night and wear brownface for the rest of our lives!  Seriously, we’ll give you a new Spanish name and you can start calling your dad Papi!  Because that’s the only way to lead an authentic existence!”

Other white people…why do you continue to embarrass us all like this?  Really.  Seriously.  WHY.

Around 5 o’clock I went out and got me some provisions.  After fortifying myself with junkfood (although not, alas, the junkfood I wanted–I can’t find pretzel M&Ms for love or money), I continued on my journey through bookdom.

Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days

Okay, so what is with authors who write retellings of fairy tales and living in Utah?  I swear, between Shannon Hale, Mette Ivie Harrison, and Jessica Day George, that state has got this shit tied up.

There’s a Mormon joke in there somewhere, but I’m not going to make it.  Not because I’m better than that–we all know I’m not–but because I can’t figure out what that joke is right at this moment.

Don’t worry, I’ll get back to you.

Anyway, I’ve been given warnings about Shannon Hale, but I actually quite enjoyed this.  I’m not familiar with the tale it’s based upon (something out of the Brothers Grimm, not one of the heavy hitters), but it’s sort of like Rapunzel in that it involves a princess locked up in a tower for refusing to marry a really unpleasant dude.  However, instead of a studly young man climbing up her long hair, she’s got a lady’s maid named Dashti to get shit done.  Dashti’s pretty accomplished:  she reads, she writes, she draws, she sings the illness out of people, and she makes gruesome rat traps.  I liked her a lot–and I also liked the fact that Hale managed to base the culture largely upon medieval-era Mongolia without making a big deal out of it or exoticizing everything.  Dashti’s illustrations are included, and it was so refreshing to see pictures of recognizably Asian people included as, you know, THE HEROES.

I will be keeping this one.

Maryrose Wood, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling

Okay, if you liked Lemony Snickett, I’m guessing you’ll like this.  Penelope graduates from her dreary orphanage-cum-governess school and takes a job at Ashton Place, where she’s supposed to tame three children who have been raised by wolves.  There’s a lot of word play and spoofing of Victorian England, which I always enjoy.  Beyond that, I don’t really have much to say about it, because it’s the first in a series and clearly a lot of it is set-up.  I’d buy this for my sister if I wasn’t A.) Broke as hell; and B.) Pretty sure that she’s already read it.

That’s the bitch of having a family full of readers:  on the one hand, you know what to buy everyone for Christmas.  On the other hand, they’ve probably already bought it on their own.  Fuckers.

ONWARD!

Janet Evanovich, One for the Money (Stephanie Plum, No. 1)

Okay, I admit it:  I tried to read this when I was either in late high school or early college and hated it.  HATED IT.  But apparently I have developed a taste for bitter banter, because I enjoyed the CRAP out of One for the Money this time around.

So.  Stephanie Plum is out of money and out of luck; she’s been jobless for six months, her car’s just  been repossessed, and her only real option is working as a bounty hunter for her pervy cousin Vinnie.  She’s trying to bring in Joe Morelli, a cop accused of shooting an unarmed man at point-blank range.  Oh, and he also happens to be the first guy she ever slept with, and the first one to write a dirty poem about her in a sub restaurant.

Yeah, he’s a charmer.

Anyway, I enjoyed the crap out of this, but there are probably all kinds of race and class issues that I’m not picking up on fully because I’m really, really tired.  Whatever.  I’ll be picking up the second book–although probably not until after the move.

Le sigh.

Recommended for: If you like your heroines snappy, sarcastic, and realistically quick on the uptake, this is probably for you.

Yeah, so.  I went to see Inception last night (pretty good, or cheap mindfuck?  I can’t decide), and then I got home and started reading the new Tana French, and then I looked up at the clock and it was well past midnight, so I decided the read-a-thon might as well be ON.

And thus, because it was short AND she was the first to sign on, I read Lizaanne’s pick:

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Jade Green : A Ghost Story

Okay, I’m sorry, but I just wasn’t in love with this one.  To begin with, it’s got that stick-up-the-butt pseudo-Victorian narrator voice that great children’s authors of the 1980s always seem to adopt when they’re writing about the 1800s (think Cynthia Voigt in The Callender Papers).  I hate that voice.  Also, the whole thing just seemed…muddled to me.  Age-wise, I mean, not plot-wise.  See, the story’s about Judith, this orphan who comes to live with her uncle after her mom dies in an INSANE ASYLUM (wooooo!), and the only stipulation that her uncle has is that she CAN’T BRING THE COLOR GREEN INTO THE HOUSE.  But of course she does, because GIRLS IN THESE BOOKS NEVER LISTEN, and the house immediately becomes haunted.  Because it turns out that a girl named Jade Green (seriously, whut?) lived there before her, and Jade Green totes offed herself.  By cutting off her hand and letting herself bleed out all over the attic stairs.

Yeah, TOTALLY NOT A MURDER, Y’ALL.  Seriously, Naylor, who are you kidding?  NO ONE KILLS THEMSELVES WITH A MEAT CLEAVER.

Anyway, on the one hand (har), this is obviously meant for younger children, because the murderer is telegraphed from essentially the first time he runs his hands over Judith’s maidenly bosom buttons.  On the other hand (again, har), Judith is always talking about how the neighborhood boy is giving her the tinglies in her drawers and how she would very much like to roll around with him naked, and I’m thinking that’s just not going to appeal to an audience of eight-year-olds.  Naylor should have either cut out all the underpants-tinglies or pitched this older, because what we’re left with is a book that is a little too adult in content for readers who might appreciate its plot, and waaaaaaaaaaaay too simplistic in its plot  for readers who can related to their underpants tingling.

Recommended for:    Eh, eight-year-olds.  The sex stuff will be over their heads, anyway.  I hope.

Tracy Barrett, Cold in Summer

Ariadne’s family moves to rural Tennessee and she’s real whiny about it because she had to leave all her friends behind.  Eh.  Sorry, these plots don’t do much for me, because I was a military brat and SUCK IT UP, YOU BIG BABY.  Anyway, because she’s all lonely and sad and shit, she starts seeing a ghost.  No, seriously.  Aaaaaaaaaand…yeah, once again, in my desire to pick something short, omigod SHORT, I overshot the mark and got something that I’m just too damn old and grumpy to appreciate.  The mystery ain’t no mystery, y’all.  Skip this.

Next up: One for the Money!