sj

My senior year in high school, I became friends with this girl that kind of way outclassed me.I wore men's cords and snap up western shirts under tee shirts, and was often barefoot when I could get away with it (I kept my duct taped corduroy converse in my backpack and would just slip them on when I went into class)I dyed my hair every week and went to a lot of local punk and third wave shows (srsly, a lot - like at least two a week and I rarely paid my way in).Contrast with E. who wore heels and dresses (I was shocked the first time I saw her in pants) every day, had Lucy red hair and perfectly sculpted eyebrows.I didn't understand how she could want to be my friend (much like I still am today, really), but we were super tight for a while.I met her through a kindasorta friend of mine that had a crush on her, and he thought they were dating, when they totally weren't. Anyway, we were hanging out at T.'s house and she and I were talking and totally ignoring him.She looked me up and down and I felt really uncomfortable being scrutinized, then said that she didn't think my name suited me. I had always hated my name (I've got one of those super common late-70s names, for realsies - it was the most common female name the year I was born) and when she told me that I seemed more like a Matilda to her, I was thrilled.I even let her make me over and would spend Sunday nights at her house (our school started 2 hours later every Monday) and she'd curl my hair and dress me up (oh, because WE WERE THE SAME HEIGHT AND BOTH HAD GIANT FEET) and [gasp] put makeup on me.Those Sunday nights/Monday mornings where I got to be Matilda were some of the only good parts of that year, and every time I see this book, I think of her.Of COURSE I was a huge Dahl fan when I was growing up, and I empathized so hard with little Matilda, whose parents were total selfish assholes. How I longed for a Miss Honey in my life.[sigh]Oh, and if you're interested you can hit the spoiler tag for one of the few photos of me at that age that I don't actually hate. (I'm on the right, dur)

The boy I was totally in LUUUUUUUUUUUUUURVE with my Sophomore year in high school? This was his favourite book. And by favourite, I mean...He lived several hours away, but we wrote each other letters every day. We also played this game in our letters where we'd draw out song lyrics or book titles and the other would guess...and then the person who'd originally drawn the damn thing would have to remember what they'd been talking about in the first place to be able to tell the other person if they were correct.Anyway, this was the first book title he drew for me. And I can still see the little stick figures in my head. I read this for him, and then again when it was required reading.(I totally found him on facebook not too long ago, and DAMN he has aged well. Just sayin')I was so sad when he totally rejected me. WHY ELSE WOULD I WRITE YOU LETTERS EVERY DAMN DAY, NELS?!

September, 2012:

 

All right.  I've had a few glasses of wine, and I finally feel ready to talk about why I so very much HATE THIS FUCKING BOOK.

 

Please, don't get me wrong.  I'm a HUGE Tower Junkie.  

 

By the time I got this book, I'd already read and re-read the first three more times than I could count, and even though it was only 6 years after TWL, I'd really been waiting 9 years total.15 years after this book came out (and I've probably read the whole thing 5 or 6 times, and skimmed it many more than that) I am still just as pissed as I was that November day in 1997 when I closed the cover at the end for the first time.

 

My reaction is the same today as it was then.  "What the actual fuck, Unky Steve?"

 

The first 100 pages?  BRILLIANT!  This is why you see TWO stars instead of just one.  

 

That was an excellent payoff after the cliffhanger we'd been left with (again, FOR SIX YEARS) and I remember poor 18 year old sj thinking "Oh, shit, is this going to be BETTER than The Waste Lands?!"

 

Sadly, 18 year old sj and every other sj that has thought "Hey, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought?  Everyone else seems to love it!  Let's try that again!" has been sorely disappointed.

 

Actually, everything is pretty okay up until Roland starts talking about his past over the gunslinger burritos.

 

Here's the primary reason I HATE THIS BOOK SO MUCH:

 

Susan.  Fucking.  Delgado.

 

I hated her the moment she stepped on the page, singing at the moon on her way to the house of Rhea of the Cöos.  Singing Careless Love, come the fuck on, already I can't stand her.  Seriously.

 

Also, since Roland was telling the story from her point of view, I knew she was going to play a major role and therefore would be EVEN WORSE because I HATE ROMANCE IN MY QUESTS!

 

(In the spirit of all honesty, I think my vitriol is a little stronger in recent years, because I knew a girl that TOTALLY IDENTIFIED with Susan Delgado [spoiler, I hated her!] and now even though I hated it before, I HATE IT EVEN MORE NOW because I could not STAND that girl.)

 

"Oh, but sj!  Surely, you can't JUST hate the one character!  What about the Mejisian Standoff?  WHAT ABOUT CUTHBERT AND ALAIN?  WHAT OF THEM, I BEG OF YOU?"(heh, I totally love how adamant my non-existent audience is in my head)

 

Yes, all right?  I LOVE Key-youth-bert and Alain.*  

 

I think Sheemie is awesome (especially being a grown-ass adult that has ALL OF THE BOOKS at her fingertips).

 

 I thought Rhea was a pretty damned great villain and I LOVED Jonas.**

 

They weren't enough to save the book for me though.Because I just couldn't bring myself to care.

 

What do I care about some shitty coastal town on the Mid-World Mexico/Texas border?  No, seriously.  Why am I supposed to care about some stupid town where the diction is terrible and the people can't even put together a good plot?***

 

UGH.I am tearing my hair out just THINKING about it.NOT TO MENTION, we make ZERO PROGRESS towards the Tower.  

 

THE WHOLE REASON I'M READING THE DAMN BOOKS IN THE FIRST PLACE!

 

Nononononono.No thank you.  I will just continue to skim this one (after the awesome Blaine stuff, natch) from now til the end of time, and just concentrate on reading the books in the series that I actually LIKE.

 

It blows my mind that this is the highest rated book of the whole series. Completely.

 

*I totally had conflicting early versions of his name, btw.  I'm pretty sure he went from Allen to Alan to Alain, which was what Sai King finally settled on.  Please tell me someone else remembers this?

 

**I still think he should be played by Lance Henriksen in the doomed but inevitable film adaptation.

 

***As in caper, not the overall plot.

 

[eta] 22/2/13 As I re-read The Stand, I find myself even MORE aggravated with this book because of the way Flagg is portrayed (and even more so in the later DT books). I think the people who haven't read all of SK's work other than DT probably have a different Flagg in mind than I do. I had a discussion with a friend of mine (the same friend that comforted me when I was reading the final book of the series on my break at work) about how disappointed we were with how the ultimate bad guy kind of went out like a little bitch at the end, but then we wondered if it was maybe because Flagg was never the central baddie of the Dark Tower series, afterall? Like, yes - he was always there, but if you weren't familiar with all the other iterations of RF, but only what you read in THIS SERIES, then maybe it wouldn't be so bothersome. I don't know, I'm kind of half drunk and rambling right now.I still hate this stupid book. HAAAAAAAAAAATE.

I read this my senior year of high school, borrowed it from my Deutsch IV teacher. We used to have German Club outings (typically bowling), and after everyone would head to Herr Schneider's house for a barbecue of some sort. I'm pretty sure I was his favourite (and not in a creepy way) because I was the only one who took the time to scan his bookshelves and find books to borrow.I'd read some of this in English the summer before, but he got all hand wave-y and full of indignation that I could speak the language well enough, yet not attempt to read it as it "should be read."So I did.

Originally posted here as part of the 30 Day Book Challenge.A Book So Emotionally Draining, I Had To Set It AsideI've made no secret of the fact that Chuck Wendig's Miriam Black books are some of my favourites that I've read so far this year, and have encouraged several people to pick them up (most of them have liked them too, yay!) so I kind of knew what to expect going in.  If you visit this book on goodreads, you'll see the following in the blurb:(Warning: title features mature themes, profanity, and violence.)It's probably a good thing that it mentions that up front because this book COULD BE triggery as fuck to some people.  Atlanta Burns, our protagonist, has been through far too much in her short 17 years of life.  The answers to just what she's had to deal with are doled out slowly throughout, but you know early on that whatever it was wasn't pretty....and even though she's been a victim herself, she'll be damned if she'll sit by and just watch it happen to other people.Even though it's short (it is only a novella), those few pages pack a brass knuckle punch straight to your gut.  I can't even count the number of times I was UGLY CRYING during the few hours it took me to read it.Unfortunately, many of us have been in the situations described here.Unfortunately, so many of us wish we'd had an Atlanta to stand up and take vengeance on our bullies/molesters/rapists/abusers, but we didn't.  So we sat quietly and took it.  Telling ourselves it would get better eventually - and sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't.I got up no less than three times while reading, tears streaming down my face, pacing, wringing my hands, telling myself that there was just NO WAY I could continue reading.But I did.And I'm so glad.For realsies, guys.  If you can make it through it, Shotgun Gravy is totally worth it.  It's only 99¢ and it's so completely worth your time and the DOLLAR you will spend on the ebook.Just be prepared for it to rip your emotions a new one.

Originally posted here as part of the 30 Day Book Challenge.Heh.  The topic for today makes me laugh.A Book I've Read More Than OnceMore than once?  At least 10, but I think more.I owned this one, and since my small town library was never open more than 2 days a week during the summer, I did A LOT of re-reading.Cruel elves, shape-shifting dragons, half-bloods, slavery, bicorns - man, this book had it all.I last re-read it...probably 10 years ago?  When I found out that there was FINALLY A THIRD BOOK.Did I still love it?Hell yes.Sadly, though, there won't ever be a fourth book.  I would have been all over it.I wonder if there's Halfblood Chronicles fanfic?  [runs off to check]

I came to Owl at Home rather late in life. I had a friend when I was 15/16/17/18 that lived in a different state, she and I were constantly picking up owl things to send to each other.I found this at a library sale one day and bought it for a quarter to include in the next package I sent her.I read it when I got home, and - oh my. I never actually ended up putting it in the post.Owl's Tear-water Tea was (and is) my favourite story in the book. It still appeals to me in a strangely wistful and melancholy way.Owl took the kettle out of the cupboard. “Tonight I will make tear-water tea,” he said. He put the kettle on his lap. “Now,” said Owl, “I will begin.” Owl sat very still. He began to think of things that were sad. “Chairs with broken legs,” said Owl. His eyes began to water.“Songs that cannot be sung,” said Owl, “because the words have been forgotten.” Owl began to cry. A large tear rolled down and dropped into the kettle.“Spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again,” said Owl.More tears dropped down into the kettle. “Books that cannot be read,” said Owl, “because some of the pages have been torn out.”“Clocks that have stopped,” said Owl, “with no one near to wind them up.”Owl was crying. Many large tears dropped into the kettle. “Mornings nobody saw because everybody was sleeping,” sobbed Owl.“Mashed potatoes left on a plate,” he cried, “because no one wanted to eat them. And pencils that are too short to use.”Owl thought about many other sad things. He cried and cried.Soon the kettle was all filled up with tears.“There,” said Owl. “That does it!” Owl stopped crying. He put the kettle on the stove to boil for tea. Owl felt happy as he filled his cup. “It tastes a little bit salty,” he said, “but tear-water tea is always very good.”(of course, it's better with the illustrations, so you should find a copy of this for yourself.)

There, Ferny can stfu now, since this way I will REMEMBER.

My school in Montana was K-12. It wasn't, like, one room or anything, but there were no more than 30 kids per grade, so it was still a very smaaaaaaaaaall setting.Our librarian was Mrs W. and she read (no joke) every single book that came into the library. I remember when she got this book, I was all excited about the cover (hush, I couldn't have been more than 12), but then was DEVASTATED when she told me that she wasn't going to put it on the rack.12y/o sj: Wait, whaaaaaaaaat? But I want to READ IT!Mrs W.: No way, man - there's all this sex and drugs and it's NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE TO READ!12y/o sj: But surely you don't mean it's not suitable for ME, right? Because you've already let me by on the "age restrictions" you've placed on CERTAIN OTHER books [like VC Andrews, which I read when I was 10/11], so it makes no sense that you won't let me read this one.Mrs. W.: You're right, young sj. I will now let you take this book home when it doesn't even have A CARD IN IT.INORITE? I totally got special treatment from the librarian, and it was awesome.This book, though? Maybe not so awesome. I mean - yes, it had the sex and the drugs in it, but other than that...All I really remember is Jenny having blackheads, so when she mentions them to her friend that's always telling her to "look it up" (it being the fifty cent words she peppers into conversation) and Smart Friend doesn't KNOW WHAT BLACKHEADS ARE, she gets to tell her to look it up.Oh, and Jenny's dad kept vodka in the freezer, so Jenny thought she could just refill the bottles with water and NO ONE WOULD NOTICE.Even at 12, I realized that Jenny was EFFING STUPID.I don't know why I thought this book was written by Paula Danziger, though. Hmmm.

I took four years of German classes in high school. German I was a small class, only ten or so people. For German II and III I was the only one that continued, so I had A PRIVATE TUTOR essentially for two years.As a result, we probably did a lot of things most kids wouldn't get away with in class (by "we" I mean "I," of course) - like listening to OpIvy during finals (cos my teacher was bored and since I'd listened to music while I was studying IT ONLY MADE SENSE to listen to it during the test, right?) and sharing snacks and stuff. This girl A. had an office assistant period and was always SO MAD when she came in to deliver the announcements cos I was always listening to music or eating and SHE COULDN'T. What was I talking about?Right. Damals war es Friedrich. Which I guess is just called Friedrich in the English translation, but I haven't read that so I can't talk about it.This book.This book is fucking sad. I know I just talked recently about how books and movies didn't really make me cry until after my oldest was born, but I have to amend that statement. Because this book made me cry ALL THE TEARS.I have a difficult time reading Holocaust stories in general, but this one especially is hard to read.Damals war es Friedrich is told from the point of view of our narrator, but the story is all about his Jewish friend and neighbour, the titular Friedrich. It begins in the mid '20s and follows both families for several years.Both boys (our narrator and Friedrich) have no idea what it means to be a member of the Jungvolk, they just know that it's exciting to be part of such a group.Friedrich's father loses his job, because Jews don't deserve to work. Friedrich is sent to a Jews-only school, and kicked out of both the kino and the swimming pool. Friedrich's school is trashed by the aforementioned Jungvolk and they head to Friedrich's house, where his mother becomes their next victim. It's horrifying and compelling at the same time, and I remember sobbing my eyes out.This is not an easy read, thematically, but it is definitely worthwhile....and now I really want Kartoffelpuffern.

The King is dead. Long live the motherfucking King. Oh, Lee Battersby.  You sure showed me, huh?  When I said I enjoyed but didn't love The Corpse-Rat King last August, it's like you took it as a PERSONAL CHALLENGE and decided to write a book you knew I would LOOOOOVE.What?  That's not what happened?  Oh.  Hm.Well, anyway.For the rest of you - if you're too lazy to click that link up there, The Corpse-Rat King was the first of Battersby's Marius don Hellespont novels, in which a downright scoundrel is mistaken for the King of the Dead, and the only way he can extricate himself from the situation is to find them a new King.The Marching Dead picks up several years later, after Marius has settled into a staid rural existence with Keth, his One True Love.Life is decent, if boring, and Marius has learned to derive pleasure from the small things - like aiming the cat at the stickerbushes he's planted outside the window.Here's where this gets difficult for me to write.  There are literally TENS OF THINGS I want to discuss, but to do so would mean spoiling the crap out of this book for you guys.  And since Angry Robot was kind enough to avoid spoilers in their blurb, I don't even really feel comfortable wading too far into those waters.Since I'm not being a spoilery asshat, here are some things you can look forward to, should you decide to pick up The Marching Dead: *Real and true ASSASSIN NUNS, not those stupid assassin nuns I've written about before that don't really do any assassinating. *Too many eff bombs for my reader to accurately count. *Some kind of icky sex. *"You're fucked.  Love Dad" *Some of the best fantasy worldbuilding I've encountered in a very long time, with nary an infodump in sight. *A particularly poignant scene that made me cry my eyes out. *Tons of laughs, many of them of the uncomfortable variety.One of the things I loved most about The Marching Dead is that it works well on its own.  I don't think you need to've read The Corpse-Rat King to appreciate it at all.  It's difficult to find books in a series lately that effectively standalone, but this one definitely does.  That's not to say I don't think you should go read the first RIGHT THIS SECOND to prepare yourself for this one (US and ebook release March 26, everywhere else April 4) because I totally do.There.  Now you have your reading assignment for this week.  Go read the first book, then pre-order this one.I need someone I can discuss them with.(Thanks for the eARC, Angry Robot!)

Oh, man.I have been trying to remember the name of this book FOR YEARS. I couldn't even remember details before tonight. I think this wine is magic or something.If I'd tried to describe this book for you before tonight, I'd have been all "Um...there's a girl, whose sister was a year older than her and the sister dies so the girl is all sad on the cover."Seriously.Then, tonight, I got for serious about remembering details, and I knew that the sister died in a car crash, that the girl in the book had broken both her legs and was totally distraught that SHE LIVED cos her sister was the pretty/smart/popular one.And then I remembered names and the title of the book JUST CAME TO ME. It was pretty fantastic.Anyway, this was a RIF book for me, I'm pretty sure.RIF days were the best days of the ENTIRE YEAR and I totally remember bribing other kids with my desserts if they would just GIVE THEIR BOOKS TO ME (this totally worked, btw).ZOMG THIS ISH IS AVAILABLE TO BORROW FROM OPENLIBRARY!I know what I'm doing with the next hour!

2013 has been kicking my ass so far.  Things seem to be falling apart at an astounding rate (no, I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm really just setting the scene, 'kay?), which is why my presence both here and on all social media has been sporadic at best.(Also, I apologize to all the unread blog-posts - I'll get around to them someday.)Anyway, I took pretty much all of last week off from pretty much everything, and came back feeling slightly rejuvenated on Monday.  Things are still all fall apart-y, but it's not as daunting as I thought it was before.SO.  To fill you in on the book I'm going to be talking about today - a few months ago, I emailed my friend Kat asking her if she'd read this series of cozy mysteries (cos I know they're totally her thing) that I was kind of interested in and her response was something along the lines of  "THOSE ARE MY FAVOURITES!  I have almost sent you the first book so many times!" which caused me to feel both interested and slightly nervous.I put them off (really, I kind of forgot about them.  It's what I do.) until the other night when I got an email telling me that I HAD A GIFT! An ebook gift!  With this note:You need book comfort food. Hope you love it.xoxoKAwwww, so sweet, right?  Yes.I did not like that I was given the option to trade this book in for credit, but that's a whole grievance thing that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS BOOK.[sigh]I'm sure by now you're all wishing I'd get to the point, right?  Right.The book she sent was Aunt Dimity's Death, the first in the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton - which, again, are described as cozy mysteries when they're described at all.I haven't been into books of this sort since high school (when I tore through these things at a rate of two a day during summer vacations) and to say I was dubious would be an understatement.BUT!  I totally heart Kat and we agree on a lot of NON-mysteries, so I figured "If she says this is a comfort read, I'll trust her."I am so glad I did.Within the first two pages, I'd laughed several times and KNEW I was going to love it.And I did.Here are some of the things that Aunt Dimity's Death is kind-of-but-also-kind-of-not: *A mystery. *A love story. *A ghost story.Here are some of the things that Aunt Dimity's Death most-definitely-is: *Charming in a sort of L.M. Montgomery kind of way. *Laugh your tush off funny in a comedy of errors kind of way. *Heartbreakingly sad. *Upliftingly beautiful. *Fun. *Worth reading.Heather D. started reading it last night after I told her how much I was loving it, and she's already enjoying it too.  So, there.Amy, you should read this book.(And, no - I'm not going to tell you what it's about, other than that.  Anything else would be spoilers.)Originally posted here.

The Problem Child is the third Sisters Grimm book in a series of [runs off to check]...nine. Really? Nine? Holy crap, I should have checked into this before I got The Boy all into them.Okay, so I talked a little bit here about why I'm reading these, and the ARDUOUS PACE my 13y/o is setting for me.  He doesn't cut me any slack when it comes to these, because he hasn't yet picked up his mother's bad habit of having eleventy billion books going at once.So what did I do all day today?  I finished this book, of course, so that I can be ahead of him and have a little breathing room when it comes to the schedule he's set for us.I guess all of that is really neither here nor there, though.  For those of you that are too lazy to click that link up there, The Sisters Grimm is a series of books by Michael Buckley, and it bears a striking resemblance to the television series Once Upon a Time.  There's a town (in the books it's in New York, in the series, it's in Maine) full of all the faerie tale creatures/people we know from the works of Grimm, Lang, Andersen, Baum, etc.In the first book, we met Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, sisters whose parents disappeared one stormy night, and since then they've been bouncing around through the system, moving from orphanage to orphanage, foster home to foster home...until their social worker finds a grandmother they didn't even know they had.Sabrina (11) has a difficult time accepting the fact that Relda Grimm is really their grandmother, her father hasn't ever mentioned his parents, after all - she has an even harder time accepting the notion that Ferryport Landing is a "safe haven" for faerie tale creatures, and that the Grimms are basically in charge of keeping them out of the way of humanity.Things happen, and the girls learn that their parents aren't really dead (of course).  The long arc is Sabrina and Daphne trying to bring them home.  The books follow the monster of the week format, in the first it's Jack (he of the beanstalks), in the second it's Rumplestiltskin...but in the third it's Little Red Riding Hood.I was rather meh about this series up until this third book.  They were cute, and I appreciated how many of the details Buckley got right, but I was also very aware that I was reading a series for children.The Problem Child, though - it goes beyond "cute" and starts to deal with topics like mental illness and addiction.  Heady stuff for a younger crowd.  But it's handled deftly and without a lot of finger pointing and shaming.  I really liked that we were made to understand exactly WHY our villain went 'round the bend, and I think it was done in such a way that even VERY YOUNG readers will understand and sympathize.  Addiction is handled in a similar manner (in this instance, it's an addiction to magic) and consequences are very clearly shown, as is how it can be made to seem alluring.No, of course it won't replace talking to your kids about such things, but if you've already had a discussion on the topic, this can reinforce it - similarly, it might be a good way to bring the subject UP if you haven't already.I have to admit, after finishing The Unusual Suspects last week, I wasn't in much of a hurry to continue the series (I am still hoping to get the kid into my books of faerie tales, but I think it'll have to wait for now) - but I'm very much looking forward to picking up Once Upon a Crime later this week.(Also, I LOVED what happened with The Little Mermaid in this book.  That's all I'm sayin'.)Originally posted here.

Wow, this is a terrible cover. After slogging my way through the previous two books in this series, I fully expected to hate this one, too. Maybe it's because I had such fun snarking on the last one (that everyone else seems to love to pieces) that I found myself surprised by the fact that this one was...not terrible. I didn't love it, but it didn't make me want to barf with overly florid descriptive passages like the first two books did. My main problem here turned out to be the chapters alternating between Lena and Hana. Why? Because they have the same damn voice. If I hadn't been told at the beginning of each chapter who was narrating, I wouldn't have been able to tell - which is particularly unforgivable knowing that Hana is supposed to be fairly emotionless after having received her "cure."I was bored by all of the silly love triangle nonsense (really? WHO CARES?!), disappointed that we got little time with Lena's mother and as not shocked as it is possible to be when the identity of the TRAITOR was revealed. [yawn]Oh, but I give Oliver credit for the ending. It was more grown up and well-thought out than what I've come to expect from her over the course of this trilogy. Not the worst, but not recommended.

So, even if this isn't technically the series that Once Upon a Time is based on, it is similar enough that I mentioned it to my 13y/o when he and I started watching the show a few months ago.He was immediately intrigued, and asked if I could add the books to my old his reader. He read the first one in a day, and started the second the following day, then started to bug me about when I was going to read this one so we could discuss.Kids, right?I like that the Grimm family keeps track of ALL storybook characters trapped in Ferryport Landing (a much better name than Storybrooke, IMO) and not just those the Brothers Grimm collected their tales about. I like Granny and I especially like Mr Canis.I did not like how very predictable the villain was (I knew who we should be side-glancing at as soon as the character appeared on the page), but I'm not the age for which these books were written.My son has been rather ambivalent towards his mother's One True Love (the faerie tale) before this, but I'm thinking I can use these as a stepping stone to the Lang books that I have on the shelves. Maybe even before we move onto the third book in this series (although, with that cliffhanger, I have a feeling he won't buy it), so that he can know more of the backstory behind the characters in these books....and so that I'm not constantly having to explain who he's seeing on the screen when we finally catch up with season 2 of OUaT.