The Chick Manifesto

Flowers in the Attic/Petals on the Wind Winners!

2009-11-17T20:40:00.003-06:00

Many apologies for getting back to you all so late on this! I got in a fight with a migraine yesterday and it won, so I've spent much of my time being unconscious. Anywho, the reason you are all here....the winners are:

...My Name is Eleni and I am a Bookaholic
Maybeimamazed02
Aimee
Celi.a
Sadako
Mari
MJ
Stargirlreads
Jannie aka Girl Talk
Funky*soul

Congratulations, you all! Now I just need you to send me your names and addresses (my email, if you don't see it on the sidebar, is thechickmanifesto@gmail.com) as soon as possible so that I may alert the fine friendly people at Simon & Schuster.

If you didn't win, never fear -the cool new cover is available to purchase and I definitely recommend doing so since getting two books for the price of one is a great thing.

Win One of TEN New Copies of Flowers in the Attic/Petals on the Wind by V.C. Andrews!

2009-11-09T10:52:00.004-06:00

Guess what? Not only am I giving away ten copies of a Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind, but for the first time, the two have been combined into one edition with a brand new cover! Sure, I'll miss the keyholes, but I really like the new cover. What are your thoughts?

The contest ends Monday November 16 at 3pm central. You get one entry just for commenting in this post, another for linking to me, telling me you posted about this contest somewhere (like your blog, facebook, or twitter), one for becoming a follower of this blog, and two if you were a follower of this blog before today. If you don't mind, can you leave a seperate comment for each of your entries (i.e. this is my comment for posting on twitter, etc.)?

Good News and Bad News

2009-09-24T23:00:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! I'm sure by now (at least if you're a regular reader to this blog) you've noticed that I haven't been posting lately. After taking a couple of semesters off from school, I'm back in college and the workload has been kicking my butt. It's hard to reconcile reading for fun when I still haven't read Light in August yet, you know? So yeah, the bad news here is that I won't be able to post often, if at all, until the end of the semester.

The good news, however, is pretty fun. For my Southern Lit class (where I have to read the aforementioned Light in August) I have to write a term paper on something to do with the genre. It's pretty open ended -book, author, whatever, as long as it fits within the confines of Southern Lit. I've been racking my brain, trying to think of something to write about. Then, last night, it came to me. But no, no, I thought. My professor will never let me write about that. After thinking a bit longer and still not being able to come up with anything better that would be enjoyable to write about, I thought screw it, I'll ask and the worst he can do is say no. But he didn't. He said yes! And that means...

I'm writing my term paper for Southern Lit on V.C. Andrews! It's perfect. She was born in Virginia, her books are Southern Gothic, and I can totally make the case that Flowers in the Attic is about the decline of the aristocracy (not unlike Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher) and that her books regularly feature characters and elements that are grotesque (just like Flannery O'Connor). There's not a lot I can do with race, since it's not really an issue, other than the fact that every single African American character is a servant. I'm going to try to keep it with just the books she wrote, but if it's November and I'm still struggling with just what aspect to write about, there will probably be some Landry series/Kate Chopin comparisons in there somewhere. Obviously, I've had VCA on the brain all year. I've been making fun of the books for so long that I think it could be quite fun to approach them from a scholarly perspective. In other words, I think I can spin that shit into gold.

Twilight Fans Dissatisfied with Wuthering Heights

2009-08-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

If you've read the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer you'll recall that Wuthering Heights is mentioned in one book as being comparable to the love story between Edward and Bella. With the publication of the 5th book in the series on hold indefinitely, some fans have decided to pick up the Brontë classic in hopes of finding an epic, sweeping, swooningly wonderful love story. Unfortunately, to their chagrin, the story (now repackaged with a snazzy new cover and a tagline describing it as "Bella and Edward's favorite book") isn't quite the happy go lucky tale they were led to believe.

Hey, I've been there. Watch the Yul Brynner/Joanne Woodward film The Sound and the Fury and then read the Faulkner novel. My teenage self was livid that the book wasn't filled with kissing and smoldering and hot little bald Yul Brynner (shut up, I know I have weird taste).

That's why I've taken it upon myself to make some recommendations to the Twilight fans who had no idea that Wuthering Heights wasn't the romantic story they were led to believe.

If you're looking for a good romantic comedy (the couple meets cute, complete with familial shenanigans) check out Romeo and Juliet.

If you're interested in a faith based novel, about a dutiful priest, might I suggest The Thorn Birds?

If you like stories about little girls with carefree childhoods and playful shenanigans, you'll love I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Finally, after all that reading you're going to want to sit down with a good film. You simply must watch that great comedic classic Schindler's List.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I personally believe that Edward/Bella Heathcliff/Cathy share a lot of relationship similarities. The words hateful, possessive, co-dependent, and unhealthy come to mind.*

Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson

2009-08-25T06:00:00.002-05:00

Clio Ford was looking forward to spending a quiet summer at home, working in the local art store where her crush also happens to work. Things changed suddenly and now she's stuck on a boat in the Mediterranean with her kooky dad, his best friend, his new girlfriend and her daughter, and the girlfriend's quarrelsome, albeit attractive, assistant. No one will tell her what they're doing out there and the only emotion stronger than her curiosity regarding that is her need to get off the boat and back to civilization. However, as she begins to uncover the reason for their mission and a romantic possibility is revealed, Clio starts to see that there might be worse things than being out in the sea.

For the first half I really didn't enjoy this book. I felt like Clio was a brat -not just because she had other plans and had to change them, but because of her (needlessly in my opinion) whiny attitude toward everyone and everything. It's obvious from the get-go who her romance will be with and though I love a good "fight until you fall in love" story as much as the next person, their romance felt forced. Aidan the assistant says a couple of snarky/sarcastic things to Clio and suddenly he's "the enemy"? Clio is unpleasant to Aidan until he finally admits he's into her and all is well. For most of the romance lead-up I really wasn't convinced.

The second half, however, I started to enjoy more. The Maureen Johnson humor that I love really started to show through. Clio as a character became more likeable. It's not that I can't handle whiny -I just don't care for it as a constant persistent character trait. Someone who I felt was consistently awesome was Elsa, Clio's dad's girlfriend's daughter. The character would have been so easy to write as a dim-witted and vacuous bimbo, but instead she was well-written, hilarious, and sweet.

All in all, Girl at Sea was pretty hit or miss for me. Like I said, I love Maureen Johnson's humor and wit. I just wish it hadn't taken so long to show up.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

2009-08-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Susie Salmon is fourteen and she has been murdered. From Heaven, she watches her family below struggle with their loss and try to move on. From this mystical place called Heaven, which somehow resembles a suburban junior high school, she sees the boy she loved blossom and grow into a man, not even knowing herself that she they are soon to share a special experience. She also sees her murderer, from his childhood to each of the other murders he's committed, as he calmly covers his tracks under the suspicious gaze of her father, who knows he killed his daughter, but has no way to prove it.

I can't believe I've never read this book before this week. It's been on my shelf for ages and after watching the trailer for the upcoming film I knew I had to read it right away. What can you say about this book that hasn't already been said in the years since its release? It's haunting and so beautifully written. I spent the first half of my time reading it feeling as though I was taking continuous punches to the stomach, so heartbroken was I over the Salmon family's loss and the lfie Susie never truly got to lead.

Susie was the best kind of narrator. Totally omniscient, she could see a person's past and present and read their thoughts at will. However, she also refrained from being judgmental and let a person's actions speak for themselves. In the years following her murder she follows several people extensively: her parents, her siblings, the boy who gave her her first kiss, the girl her spirit touched as it was leaving Earth, and, of course, her killer. Each deals with her death in a different way -some consumed by it, others trying to forget. She, too, is consumed by them. As she's been told by her counselor in her Heaven, she'll never move on in Heaven to the place where she can reunite with her deceased love ones if she continues to worry about the people she left behind.

There's no way I could do this book justice and I won't try. It's something you'll just have to read and experience for yourself. I urge you to do so.

Everything Sucks: Losing My Mind and Finding Myself in a High School Quest for Cool by Hannah Friedman

2009-08-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hannah Friedman's school years were anything but ordinary. She was home-schooled on a bus full of musicians while her Rock and Roll dad was on tour and food was thrown at her head during public school. It was only at a private boarding school, the prestigious Danforth Academy, that she found the acceptance and popularity she always wished for. Of course, popularity comes with a price. Her drug addiction and eating disorder are a piece of cake compared to the Great Eight, a sea of real life mean girls . Join Hannah as she navigates high school, gets published in Newsweek, is ostracized by her peers, and is finally accepted to her dream college.

Hannah's voice is such a blast to read. I love her descriptions of researching pot and oral sex because she's willing to give them a shot and how annoying it is to have your mother's pet monkey be the star of your family. She's funny and sarcastic, which is brought out as she comments on some of the more absurd events in her life, most of which, like the aforementioned tour bus incident, aren't exactly common to most people.

I felt like the first half was a lot of fun. Even when she's describing some pretty bad events, her humor keeps you interested and not just full of pity for some of her less enjoyable experiences. The second half, however, I didn't feel was as strong. There was so much concentration on her drug use, in one form or another, that it just felt repetitious and occasionally boring and uninteresting. Maybe I was supposed to feel shocked and outraged at the lengths to which the group of pampered rich kids went to keep themselves caffeinated and prepared for college applications. I wasn't -I mean it's not like drug use among teenagers is that surprising anymore, is it?

All in all, Everything Sucks was a fun non-traditional memoir that most of us can relate to in some form or another. If you've ever wondered what it was like to be a part crowd, girls who count to ten after one of their own leaves the table before trashing her, this book is for you.

Spotlight on Classic Films: Mildred Pierce

2009-08-14T18:29:00.002-05:00

Mildred Pierce is the story of a dirt poor divorcee who scrimps, saves, sacrifices, and ultimately opens five restaurants in an attempt to win the love of her spoiled, selfish daughter Veda. Joan Crawford, her eyebrows, and her shoulder pads won an Academy Award for Best Actress as Mildred, while Ann Blyth and Eve Arden earned Best Supporting Actress nominations for their roles as Veda and Mildred's friend Ida respectively. Jack Carson also stars as Wally, Mildred's ex-husband's former business partner and Zachary Scott as Monty, Mildred's second husband who is murdered at the beginning of the film, his last words implicating Mildred, thereby setting off the flashbacks that make up the bulk of the story. Did Mildred kill Monty? How far would she go to protect a daughter whose love she could never earn?

I've loved this film for a long time and was reminded of it when I recapped Web of Dreams and noticed that Mildred Pierce was the name of Leigh's stepmother.

You can't help but sympathize with poor Mildred. She has ** spoiler ** two daughters: one awesome who loves her, one spiteful who hates her. Guess which one dies? All she wants to do is give Veda the life she never had, first by opening a restaurant, then by marrying a wealthy man, and everything comes back to bite her in the ass. As awesome as Joan Crawford is in her role (and she really is), I think Ann Blyth is equally as fantastic as Veda. She's sweet when she's satisfied and cruel and manipulative when she's not. Mildred is just so noble and her performance almost reeks of "yoo hoo! Oscar bait! right here!", whereas All Blyth seems like she's having a lot of fun.

In addition:

* I just learned that the film was based off a book of the same name written by James M. Cain.

*Another interesting thing I found out today: Kate Winslet will be starring in a remake of Mildred Pierce, which is to be a miniseries on HBO. Normally, I'm opposed to remakes, but I really love her! As long as no one from the Disney channel plays Veda, I'm in.

* You have to note the irony of Joan Crawford playing such a devoted mother when her own parenting skills weren't exactly successful. Maybe if Veda had shown up with some wire hangers in the movie, Mildred would have been singing a different tune.

* Unfortunately, from what I can see, this film isn't available on Youtube. HOWEVER, I've found some great alternatives.

A hilarious parody featuring the actual film footage

The campy and totally over the top film version of Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford's memoir of her mother Joan.

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

2009-08-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

May Gold's father died a year ago and her family hasn't been the same ever since. The only constant in her life is her father's old Pontiac Firebird which continues to sit in the garage, untouched since he died. Her older sister gets drunk every night, while her younger sister sits like a zombie in front of the television. May's mother, who works nights, depends on May to hold everyone together. Part of being responsible is that she's expected to get her driver's license and help shoulder some responsibility. Unfortunately for May, she's lacking in driving ability and the only person who will teacher her is her old childhood nemesis and next-door neighbor, Pete. Suddenly, driving isn't quite so bad anymore and she finds that the single car key opens up a world of discovery.

Maureen Johnson's covers are pure crack, I tell you! I was at a bookstore this weekend and picked up this book and another one by her and couldn't put them down. They were just so bright and shiny! There's not a dud in the bunch.

I really enjoyed this book. It was such a quick read, but it didn't feel like one. I was so into what was going on that I completely lost track of both time and page numbers. Usually (though not always) a quick read means a short happy fluffy way to pass the time, but this was more than that.

May's voice was so great. She's so sarcastic and witty. She presents this sort of hard exterior shell, but inside she's still reeling from her father's death and about to crack from the strain of her family's complete 180 over the past year. I totally related to the way she would think things she'd like to people, but doesn't, and then ends up letting them walk all over her.

One of the things I love about Maureen Johnson's books are her well rounded portrayals of sibling relationships -something I'm sure I'll cover in more detail after I re-read and finally review Suite Scarlett. In just a few pages I felt I understood so much about May and her sisters' history together. Each has a defined personality and each is dealing with her father's behavior differently. They're at each other's throats a lot, but when they're not the in-jokes start flying and it's great fun.

Obviously, I couldn't get threw this without mentioning the love story. It combined two of my favorite love story cliches: fighting until you realize you're in love and falling for the one you've known your whole life. Yes, I'm so full of cheese Wisconsin just declared me a state landmark. But really, even though I enjoyed it, I was glad that it didn't make up the bulk of the book. So many books are about the girl mooning over the guy. May has other things to do.

The Key to the Golden Firebird is a little sad, a little romantic, and a great fun. If you don't believe me, just pick it up in a bookstore and stare at the cover for a while. That'll convince you.

Web of Dreams by V.C. Andrews: Part 3

2009-08-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

After Leigh spots Tony naked, she hightails it back to her room and takes a bath to calm herself. She wonders what Tony could have been doing, painting the two of them naked together, and that night she finds out. He comes in her room, naked once more, and proceeds to tell her how beautiful and desirable she is -that he should never let anyone use her. Then, he rapes her, while joyfully explaining that this way he's bringing the portrait doll to life. It's sickening. The next morning, at breakfast, he acts like nothing is wrong. When Jillian, who has been out of town, sends a telegram that she'll be home tomorrow, Leigh can't wait to tell her mother, positive that she'll be pissed and leave Tony. She locks herself in her mother's suite, putting on her nightgown and perfume for comfort. Tony, who conveniently has a spare key, comes in and accuses her of wanting to be her mother, his wife. He claims that Jillian's been encouraging his advances toward Leigh and when Leigh says that Jillian couldn't have confided in him that much since he doesn't even know her real age, he says he does actually -he just happened to find out after they got married. So yeah, it happens again.

Leigh stays where she is until her mother gets home. Jillian, who has been told that Leigh is sick, is full of "how can you do this to me's" and "don't trouble me's" until finally Leigh is able to scream at her the truth. Naturally, Jillian doesn't believe her, saying that Tony has been telling her that she has been coming on to him. Lovely parenting there. You know what she's most upset about? That Tony knows her real age!

Upset that her mother won't believe her, Leigh spends all her time with little Troy. Finally, her father, who has been traveling for business, calls her and she jumps at the opportunity to get him to meet with her so that she can tell him what's happened. She tells him that it's very important, personal stuff and he insists on bringing new wife Mildred who Leigh met for five minutes. Apparently, Mildred doesn't like to be left out of things. Apparently, Cleave is once again whipped. He agrees to meet with her in a couple of days and finally Leigh feels some hope that she'll be rescued from her situation. But no. Business is more important than Leigh to Cleave and he gets some lackey to call her and tell her he left town. Leigh wonders if maybe he hasn't always known that she wasn't his and that's why he never puts her first. She starts to feel nauseous, throws up, remembers that her period is late, and promptly realizes that she's pregnant!

She tells her mother, naively believing that now Jillian will believe she was raped, but all Jillian does is accuse her of seducing Tony, despite having been brought up to know that good girls don't go all the way. Leigh calls her mother a hypocrite and tells her she knows she's not Cleave's daughter and that she knows that Jillian specically selected her to be Tony's mistress, believing that not having sex herself would keep her young. Well now she's going to be a grandmother and no amount of spa visits or face cream will wash that away! Leigh storms out, packs a suitcase and her portrait doll, steals a little over $100 and hops a train bound for Texas so that she can stay with her grandmother.

There's a layover in Atlanta and who does she meet but a young Luke Casteel. He's nice to her and gives her a little money since most of what she had she spent on a private train car. He takes her to the circus and they have a great time until she realizes that her train is about to leave. They get back to the station just as it's pulling out. There aren't anymore trains until tomorrow, so he rents them a motel room (with two beds, you pervs!). Leigh introduces him to Angel, her doll, and he decides that that's what he's going to call her from now on, his Angel. She tells him everything about her situation and he tells her that in the...uh five minutes they've known each he's fallen in love with her and is willing to raise the baby with her as his own. She likes him well enough and thinks he's mature, so she says yes. They're married by a justice of the peace with circus people in attendance. Leigh notes that the fortune teller looks very grim.

They go to West Virginia, his home, and plan to live with his parents until he can afford to build them their own place. Leigh sends her mother, who she has magically forgiven, a postcard telling her she's okay (presumably said postcard includes a postmark of her location). Leigh is, of course, totally unprepared for country life and doesn't even know what an outhouse is. His parents are restrained at first, since she seems so weak, but gradually warm up to her since she's so sweet and tries so hard. Their first night there, Leigh (who has been raped twice in the last two weeks) tries to put the moves on Luke, but he tells her he wants to wait until they've got their own place -where presumably his parents won't be sleeping on the floor ten feet away from them. They decide that if the baby is a girl they want to call her Heaven Leigh.

There's lots of forshadowing to things from Heaven, like Luke drinking a lot and Leigh telling him not to. One night, at a dance, Luke dances with a girl named Sarah who we all know will eventually become his second wife. Leigh comments that she's pretty and Luke's just like yeah, whatever. Considering that Heaven and her "brother" Tom were only about four months apart, I think it's obvious that saintly Luke cheats on Leigh at some point. The pregnancy progresses and Leigh has a lot of stomach pains, but refuses to let Luke pay for a doctor visit since his mother is such a great midwife. Her journal ends right before the labor pains start and she says she's so happy that she feels like she's fallen asleep in Heaven. Be careful what you wish for...

There's a letter enclosed with the diary from a private detective, telling Tony what we already know -that Leigh died in childbirth. I guess the private detective snuck in the cabin and stole the diary? That's the only way I can think of that Tony would have gotten it. Of course, if we're to believe Dark Angel, both he and Jillian had no idea what became of Leigh -when she died or that she'd had a child. Why would Tony have worked behind the scenes to get Heaven to fall for Troy if she knew they were related? Why am I trying to make sense of this?

The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams

2009-08-07T10:43:00.000-05:00

Since she was a kid, Helena Waite has spent five glorious weeks each summer at Southpoint camp. As a camper, she played games, inhaled pixie sticks with her best friend Katie Bell, and crushed on a slightly older camper from the nearby boys' camp. Now, as a seventeen year old, she's coming back to camp as a counselor, while Katie Bell, whose birthday is just past the cut-off point, has to remain a camper. Suddenly, the carefree days of camp youth are replaced in favor of skinny-dipping, secret cigarettes, and pranks on the male counselors. As things seem like they're about to heat up with her longtime crush, her friendship with Katie Bell becomes strained. Can one summer really be the dividing point between childhood and adulthood?

I've had this book for a while, but had misplaced it among the clutter of my bookshelf. Kathryn Williams is quickly becoming one of my favorite new writers. I love the fact that her stories and characters aren't interchangeable. While The Debutante was more humorous, The Lost Summer was more introspective. Of course it doesn't hurt that she's a fellow Tennessean who throws in shout-outs to sundrop, my favorite drink!

I really enjoyed Helena's voice in the book. She's caught between two works and while she doesn't know which one she belongs in, she feels guilty for leaning too heavily in one or the other. She loves Southpoint, but being there in an entirely different capacity than she's always been, as an equal with the counselors she's always looked up to, is daunting. Of course Katie Bell doesn't exactly help things by being so bitter that she's still a camper.

It's not all angst, however, as Helena and her fellow counselors get up to fun hijinks and even some summer romances. Certain things are described in more detail than you usually see in YA novels and I felt they added to the story, going along with the general theme of the book. I always wanted to go to camp, but never to, so I enjoyed reading about all of the Southpoint history and camaraderie was a lot of fun.

If you like a compelling story, this book is for you. In fact, as summer ends, this is the perfect time to get it -you'll understand a bit of what Helena is going through at the end.

Web of Dreams by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-08-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Leigh starts Winterhaven and immediately bonds with her roommate Jennifer. Once the popular crowd find her parents are divorced, however, they shun her (this is supposed to be the 50s after all). For like an hour. When she sneaks into a room where they're having a party and she tells them off for being snobs they agree to accept her. No harm, no foul, no laxatives. They call themselves the "special club" (I guess the Sharks and the Jets were taken). Everyone wants to visit her at Farthy some weekend, but Jillian isn't having it. She wants Leigh to spend all her time with Tony, skiing and learning how to horseback ride.

One day Tony announces that he wants to create a new line of Tatterton Toys: portrait dolls, and Leigh is to be the first model (this would be the doll Heaven found in a suitcase). He says everyone, especially teenage girls, will want one since it will be a collectible and look just like them. Yeah, who doesn't want those awkward teenage years immortalized in doll form? Leigh asks if she'll have to pose nude and Tony and Jillian are so happy to announce that yes, she'll be doing this nude since there's no other way they could possibly do it. Because I'm so sure that all the rich girls clamoring for portrait dolls will have to do the same thing.

She gets down to modeling (they do it in the cottage so that it's private) and Tony starts asking her whether she's ever French kissed anyone or had a boyfriend while he sketches her naked twelve year old body and touches her breasts. She's really uncomfortable with this, but also strangely aroused. When she looks at the drawing she sees that he's captured her face well, but her body looks more like her mother's. They meet a few times, each more awkward and pervy than the next. She tries to tell her mother how uncomfortable she is, but Jillian just snaps at her and tells her not to be a baby, that she should be honored to have the job.

When her father, back from a voyage, wants to have lunch she decides to confide in him. But she can't because he's brought his new wife, Mildred the accountant who we know is practical and organized because she has gray in her hair and doesn't wear makeup. I would say that Leigh is irrational when she silently freaks that her father is abandoning her, but then he pretty much vocalizes that he is when he tells her all of the places he and Mildred will be going over the next year -cruise to Alaska for the honeymoon, vacations with her family in Maine, which he says he "would invite her to but...". When Leigh asks what about time for her he's just like "oh, Mildred will schedule some time". Screw you, Cleave, and the boat you rode in on.

Back at school Leigh does tell Jennifer, who promptly changes to the subject to a boy she met over the summmer who goes to the local boys' private school. He has a roommate who's just perfect for Leigh named Joshua John Bennington. The four meet up at the first dance of the year, which pisses off the rest of the members of the "special club" since they weren't told and are jealous. Most of the girls don't want to associate with them anymore, which suits Leigh fine. The boys and the girls who are still talking to her and Jennifer are invited to her 13th birthday at Farthy. Also, Joshua is 16. Is it not creepy that he wants to date an almost 13 year old?

Present time **a gold locket from Troy, a music box from her dad and Mildred, and the portrait doll from Tony, which she names Angel since she's sort of like her guardian angel.

Her birthday party is this huge affair and while everyone is watching a movie in Farthy's private theater Leigh and Joshua sneak out to the cottage and start making out. Just as Joshua's rounding second base Tony storms in and orders them back to the party. Later, Tony tells her he won't tell Jillian on her, but that her sexuality is like a volcano ready to explode and she needs to understand the power she holds over men...also, that he would like to "teach her" which freaks Leigh out just as much as it does me. Hand to God, when I was seventeen I was making out with someone who said the exact same thing. It was so V.C. Andrews and brought me back to these books that I was like "the hell you will" and put a stop to all that. He was so gross, you have no idea.

The portrait dolls sell well and all the Winterhaven girls put their orders in. Of course there's no mention of them having to pose nude. Meanwhile, Jillian is still freaking out over her age and perceived bodily imperfections (when is she not), so she decides to have a month long stay at a spa in Switzerland in the summer. While she's gone Leigh can't have any friends over to Farthy and she can't visit them either. Instead, Jillian tells her to spend her time with Tony. One night after her mother's gone, Leigh goes to the cottage and finds the nude painting of her that combined so much of her and her mother's features. Only now he's painted himself nude beside it. Just as she registers that, Tony comes into the room stark naked and Leigh runs out.

I'm afraid I'll have to leave it at that for a while. This book has so much detail to just leave at two parts.

Web of Dreams by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-08-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

This was one of my favorites when I was younger. It's the story of Heaven's mother, Leigh, who as we all know was raped by her stepfather, Tony Tatterton, when she was thirteen, resulting in Heaven's conception. I know, I know -not the most fun premise, but I love it because it's basically gift porn. Recapping just the first half is going to be about 2208602 words anyway, so I'm just going to go all out and put a little ** whenever Leigh gets a present.

Also, the Heaven series is supposed to have titles related to religion. What the hell does a web have to do with that?

A little (abridged) recap of the family tree here (click to make it bigger -hopefully!):

In the prologue we find out that Annie Stonewall is still with (married to?) her (not)half-brother and they've come back to Farthy because her father/uncle Troy has died and they're going to bury him next to his true love/niece/Annie's mother, Heaven. Later, she's poking around in great-grandmother Jillian's room and finds her grandmother Leigh's diary. This is that story.

Leigh Diane VanVoreen lives a charmed life as the much loved daughter of wealthy Cleave (who owns an ocean liner company) and beautiful Jillian VanVoreen. On her 12th birthday she has a nightmare that she's suddenly gotten fat and gross (the same thing in VCA land) and that her parents don't love her anymore *foreshadowing*, but when she wakes up she's inundated with presents. You ready?

** From her mother (paid for by her father): A dozen cashmere sweaters with matching skirts, silk blouses, gold hoop earrings and matching bracelet with diamonds from Tiffany's, Chanel perfume, scented soap, pearl comb and brush set, lipstick, a skiing outfit, and a bra. From her father by himself: the diary. From her grandmother: a cameo pin that her mother is jealous of.

Jillian is constantly complaining about how even though Cleave owns cruise ships they never get to vacation. She wants a different life for Leigh where she can live in a big(ger) mansion with a private beach, stables, and a hedge maze, but Leigh is happy with her parents and loves to hear her mother tell the story of how Cleave rescued her from her family who was mean to her and jealous of her beauty. She wants to take Leigh to meet Tony Tatterton, the owner of the home where she's been painting murals, Farthingale Manor, which sounds quite similar to where she wants Leigh to live one day. Cleave surprises them by saying they're going on a Caribbean cruise next week, which pisses off Jillian for some reason.

Jillian talks about Tony like he's Chuck Norris. "Tony Tatterton's tears cure cancer -too bad he's never cried". They arrive at Farthy and Leigh is enchanted by the grounds and four year old Troy, Tony's brother (not so much Tony himself). Tony gives her **a diamond and gold ocean liner pendant necklace, which Jillian points out Cleave would never have thought of. The adults keep whispering to each other and speaking privately and when they leave Jillian is still giddy. She reveals that Tony thinks she's only twenty eight (add about ten years to that) and she goes on about how she'll never look old because of her amazing beauty regimen that includes everything but bathing in virgins' blood.

The VanVoreens have a huge party to launch the new Caribbean cruises and of course Tony is invited. He and Jillian basically flaunt their affair, which Cleave catches on to, but Leigh doesn't. Even though Jillian always begged to go on cruises, she bitches and moans the whole time and will hardly come out of her room. Finally, the first chance she gets, she hops on a plane back to Boston. Leigh acts like she shot her in the face, but still has a good time on the trip because she's looking forward to seeing her parents reunite. Finally, on the last night, her father tells her that her mother flew down to Mexico for a quickie divorce. When she gets home Jillian's not there, but she does find samples of wedding invitations.

Jillian comes home and is totally oblivious to the fact that Leigh is devastated and happily announces that she and Tony are to have a Christmas wedding at Farthy. When Leigh isn't thrilled her mother plays the victim about how horrible her marriage has been, blah blah. She asks Leigh again to keep her age a secret and to be her confidante, more like sisters than mother and daughter. Leigh agrees, but decides she hates Tony.

Jillian's planning a huge wedding and Leigh is to be a bridesmaid. When she's changing in her new blue and ivory room that I'm in love with Tony comes in and helps her zip up, per Jillian's orders. Nothing creepy about that at all. Or when Leigh and Troy get lost in the hedge maze during the rehearsal and almost freeze to death, nothing freaky about Tony undressing Leigh in order to get into the bath while Jillian's screaming different variations of "how could you do this to me?!". No sir.

Jillian's mother Jana shows up and the two get into a screaming match that Leigh overhears. Jana is pissed that Jillian left the marriage that she set up for her -Jillian was pregnant by a man named Chester Godwin before she married Cleave. Leigh doesn't know who she is anymore, but knows her mother is a big fat hypocrite for telling her that good girls wait until marriage for sex.

Jillian and Tony get married which brings the revelations that Troy knows Jillian doesn't like him and that Jillian had a pre-nup drawn up where she gets half of Tony's worth if he divorces her for any reason. Tony is a moron for agreeing to it.

Christmas brings about ** a model of his horse made by Troy and a gold locket from her father, but before Tony and Jillian get back from their honeymoon Troy gets sick and has to be put in the hospital. Jillian, when she gets home, could care less, so when she goes to sleep Leigh gets someone to take her to see him. Tony is there and thankful to see her. He tells her that her mother stopped pretending to be interested in the same things (winter sports) as him and instead spent the whole honeymoon shopping by herself. The way Jillian tells it, Tony's so full of energy and always pawing at her and "practically raping" her. She's afraid that Tony's constant need for sex will make her old before her time, so she makes Leigh promise to come home extra weekends from school (Winterhaven, the school Heaven would eventually attend) and keep him company. Again, nothing weird about that at all....

I'm on Twitter!

2009-08-02T09:38:00.002-05:00

Eons after everyone else already did, I joined Twitter. Click here if you want to follow me and read the pearls of wisdom that are sure to come. It goes without saying that I'll follow you, too.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

2009-07-29T02:25:00.000-05:00

Seventeen year old Mia is a cello virtuoso whose biggest problem, until this morning, was deciding whether to stay home with her family and boyfriend in Oregon or move to New York to attend Juilliard. Her life is changed in an instant when her family is killed in a car crash that leaves Mia both orphaned and in a coma. Now she is faced with a decision bigger than any she has faced before, one more important than any she will ever have to make: does she will herself to live or face death?

Okay, Thirteen Reasons Why, this is how you do melodrama.

Actually, for a book whose premise is so dark and depressing, If I Stay was actually surprisingly light on the melodrama -at least until the second half. Thanks to flashbacks, as Mia is remembering her life, it contains a great deal of humor. I was actually all set to complain about the relative lack of sadness until I finished it and automatically appreciated the subtlety in Forman's writing and the fact that her book tells an actual story and isn't just some overwrought Lurlene McDaniel book whose sole purpose is to make you weep and then become an organ donor. Not once did I feel manipulated, which is something I feel that too many genres are too apt to do these days.

Getting to know Mia's family through her flashbacks is both a blessing and a curse, knowing what happens to them. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed her parents, ex-punk rockers who are much cooler than you or I will ever be. It is from them that Mia has inherited her love of music, even though the dark haired cellist feels out of place amongst her fair haired family. In YA I've noticed that there are typically two kinds of parents: those who are present and those who are not. Of those who are an actual presence in the book, most tend to be window dressing -bland authoritarian figures whose only purpose is to have temporary clashes with their children in order to drive the story along. Too few are actually integral to the story. As you know, I love when characters or stories are different and in with book (I could go on for thousands of words about Mia's best friend, boyfriend, and grandparents, all of whom are absolute gems) I could not be happier in that regard.

Bottom line: If I Stay is just sad enough if you're looking for a good cry, just funny and interesting enough if you've cried enough, short enough to where it's not a huge obligation, yet still just the right length, and different enough to where you won't feel as though you've already read it a dozen times before. Meaningful, but not manipulative; sentimental, but not overly so. It's a must-read.

Gmail Users

2009-07-25T16:49:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or has gmail's usually awesome spam catcher not been doing the job lately? I used to only get legitimate email in my inbox and now I'm at around a dozen a day in spam showing up there. If you added up the amount of money I've supposedly "won", I'm pretty sure I'd have more money than God. Any other gmail users noticing the same thing?

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

2009-07-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

Clay Jensen's classmate and crush, Hannah Baker, has recently committed suicide. One day he discovers a package on his doorstep that contains several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah herself. As he begins to listen to them he discovers that they contain thirteen reasons -thirteen people- why she killed herself and that he is one of them. Now, he must listen to all the tapes and find out why.

This is a really hard review for me to write since I try really hard to not a negative person, so please bare with me. I just really didn't like this book. I wanted to. I'd read great things about it and had a friend whose opinion I trust tell me that she loved it. However, I found it, at best, boring and, at worst, insulting. Unfortunately, since this is a pretty new book and I don't want to spoil it for anyone, I won't be able to clarify my beliefs as much as I would like, but here we go...

First, Hannah's reasons for suicide seemed completely implausible to me. With the exception of a few of the thirteen, I can't see how they would be anything more than a fleeting pain in the ass. From everything I had heard, this book was supposed to be so emotional that one would have to put it down and take a break for a few moments. You know what, they're right. Only with me, and I kid you not, I put it down in order to yell "are you fucking kidding me?" over and over. Now, I'm pretty sure my parents think I hear voices in my head and that I'm now conversing with them. Thanks, book.

Next, is there a male term for the literary Mary Sue? Because Clay is a Mary Sue if I've ever seen one. He's so sweet and perfect and no one can say anything against him and....gag me with a shovel. And the reason he's to blame for Hannah's suicide, I'm still comprehending that one. I'm by no means a dumb person, but it made no sense to me whatsoever.

Third, and this goes for just about every book, there's a certain little four letter word that keeps popping into books as a plot device that I wish we could put a moratorium on, just for a while. I saw it coming a mile away in this book and lo and behold, it showed up twice! It's not even that I find it offensive to use this horrific thing as just another plot device (because I'm not someone who thinks that just because I'm offended at something, no one should be exposed to it), it's that it's become so common, so predictable. The fact that, as a reader, I can actually say "oh great, another **** book" without irony, actually makes me sick to my stomach.

Look, I love a good depressing, sad, or heavy story every once in a while. But the key word there is "good" and I just don't feel like Thirteen Reasons Why fits that bill.

A Question About Spoilers

2009-07-21T12:28:00.001-05:00

In your opinion, when does something cease to be a spoiler and then become fair game? Sure, everyone knows that if it hasn't come out yet, either book, movie, or television, you don't reveal what happens (especially if the fanbase in question is a particularly violent one). But what if a few months have passed? A few years? A few decades?

I took a film class a few years ago and before we watched Casablanca, the professor said something about the ending and how it's so memorable because they don't end up together and he tells her to get on the plane, etc. etc. One girl was livid that he dared to spoil it for her, but he was unapologetic. When a film is over sixty years old and the scene in question is so ubiquitous as to have been parodied on The Simpsons, is it really a spoiler at that point?

What about more recent examples? I saw the latest Harry Potter film on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and before it started I turned to my friend and said "hey, I totally forgot -Dumbledore dies in this one!" and then promptly got the stink eye from someone behind me. The movie is based off a book that's been out for four years and is certainly not scarce. Did I reveal a spoiler? What about the seventh Harry Potter book? It's been out for just two years. Would revealing the end to it be a spoiler?

But then again, maybe Harry Potter isn't the best example since the books have sold ridiculous amounts of copies and certain people, places, and events entered the public lexicon years ago. What about a slightly less popular book like The Hunger Games, which was released ten months ago? When reviewers are talking about its sequel, Catching Fire, is there any way to talk about the sequel without spoiling the original? Sure, you can put up a spoiler notice or have spoiler bars, but if there's already a sequel do the events of the original become public domain?

When it comes to spoilers, do you operate on a case by case basis or is there any one way to operate?

This Week in Books: Also Known as the Week I Finally Beat Alea!

2009-07-20T03:36:00.002-05:00

Hopefully, Alea won't mind me borrowing her meme title this week only, but I thought this was so funny that I had to post it.

My week started off pretty well. I received three books in the mail for review, which for me is pretty great. They were Shelf Discovery by Lizzie Spurnick, The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson, and Everything Sucks by Hannah Friedman. For me, that's a pretty great week.

Then I got to go to Books a Million this week, for the first time in well over a year. You would be proud of me -I showed great restraint and bought two books (both on clearance!): Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and a giant photo book about the House of Windsor.

Then....this afternoon happened.

My town's library has been doing a lot of shelf purging this week for its summer carnival and since they didn't sell everything, my friend who works there told me that since I'm a volunteer I could just take whatever I wanted. So I'm casually filling a box with stuff and then he goes "hey, there's some Star Trek books in these boxes. You want 'em?". Uh...yes!

This is what I've ended up with:

(click for super enlargement)

In addition to the 5 I mentioned earlier, there are 355 Star Trek books, 19 Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, 9 Joan Lowery Nixon, 32 R.L. Stine, 5 Sweet Valley Senior Year, and 13 other assorted books, including some Paula Danziger and Caroline Cooney.

That's 438 total.

Don't worry, I'm not a total freak -my brother's taking 90% of the Star Trek books- but I just had to share my random book stash from this week. Now, if you'll excuse me, that picture was taken on my bed and I now have to find another place to sleep.

Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick

2009-07-18T10:00:00.002-05:00

Have you ever dreamed of living on Klickitat Street with Ramona Quimby, traveling across the prairie with Laura Ingalls, or playing in the secret garden with Mary Lennox? Shelf Discovery is about these and many more (many many more) young adult books that we devoured in our youth and are compelled to read over and over again. Based on (inspired by?) her column at Jezebel.com, Fine Lines, Lizzie Skurnick's essays reflect on more than fifty books about friendship, growing up, and what it means to be a girl.

First, let me just say how mad I am at this book. Do you have any idea how much it's added to my to be read pile? I've read maybe half of the books covered in Shelf Discovery, but now I have to re-read them, plus read the other half for the first time. Talk about pressure. Lizzie Skurnick leaves no (pardon the pun) shelf unturned. All the greats are represented here: Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, Beverly Cleary, Madeleine L'Engle, Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Louise Fitzhugh, Bette Green, and even....V.C. Andrews (she gets two mentions)! If it's from the 80's or before, she's got it.

One thing I noticed while reading this is how I think different age groups will probably approach it. The author is in her thirties, so most, if not all, of the people in her age range will be familiar with just about every book. I'm in my twenties and am about half and half as far as having read the books or at least being familiar with them. Then there are the teens, who I think are going to discover so many amazing books that they might not have ever heard of or read. I love that it's written in a way as to be accessible to those who haven't read the books, yet familiar enough for those who have who want to reminisce. Fine Lines is my favorite part of Jezebel and I always look forward to the installments. In fact, I can remember reading some of the excerpts from the book on the site months ago, such as the one about Cheaper by the Dozen.

If you're like me and love books about books (and the people who love them) this book is for you. It strikes just the right balance between description, analysis, personal reminiscences, and even as a mini-timeline of the feminist movement. But remember, I warned you: you're going to want to read or re-read every book in it!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

2009-07-16T14:16:00.000-05:00

Jenna Fox has just woken up from a year long coma that has left her unable to remember anything of the life she once led. While she can quote Thoreau with no hesitation, she only answers to the name of Jenna because her mother and father tell her that is her name. Her parents have painstakingly documented most every moment of her life until age sixteen, when she had her accident, and she watches these videos to try to regain her memory. Slowly, she starts to remember, but the remembering poses new and troubling questions. If she remembers confiding in her grandmother and loving her, why does that same grandmother seem to hate her now? She remembers having friends, but why has no one come to visit or called? And most importantly: what really happened after the accident?

Has there ever been a hot button issue that everyone seems to get riled up about that you can't seem to be able to have an opinion about? Abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, gay marriage? That's how I feel about the huge revelation in this book. I thought, from reading the description and others' reviews that I'd had it all figured out. But no, it was something that not only had I not anticipated (and believe me, when one of your guesses includes "robot" you're exhausting a lot of options), I'm still wrapping my mind around it. It's not that it's an issue I don't care about -I do, I do!- but I love that it's one, in this book at least, in which there isn't a clear cut good guy or bad side, right side or wrong side. It all boils down to perspective -what constitutes life, the role of government in regulating science, how far ethically should science go, how all of that can be thrown out the window when you're a parent faced with losing a child.

I loved that the twist was exposed at the middle, not at the end, giving Jenna (and the reader) time to adjust, deal, and think about it, bringing about an actual resolution. I also enjoyed the idea that even though you could have incredibly strong opinions on this issue, having it happen to you or having it done to a loved one, could change your mind in an instant. Hell, I also really liked the small glimpses of the future -two female presidents, one more great depression, and a number of insane medical regulations after today.

This will be a book that long after I've put it down, written the review, loaned it to a friend, I will still be thinking about. Is it right? Is it wrong? What do I think? What do I think I would do in the situation? If you like a book that sticks with you after you've finished it, pick this one up asap.

Gates of Paradise by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-07-10T17:20:00.001-05:00

Annie is trying to recuperate from her paralysis, but she has to overcome a doctor who tries to make her feel like a moron for not being cured right away, a nurse who hates her because she (Annie) grew up rich and won't let her eat "exotic" foods like chicken, mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables, and Tony her step-great-grandfather/secret biological grandfather who keeps mixing her up with her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. She's also in love with Luke, the guy she still believes is her half-brother/cousin, but Tony won't let her call anyone or bring him to see her.

Annie decides she wants to go to her parents' memorial service and Tony says she can, except he keeps badgering her to dye her hair silvery blond like her grandmother's and like how Heaven did hers once. She says no, but Tony brings a hairstylist to do it anyway. Then, after one bowl of oatmeal too many, she pitches a fit at the bland food her nurse keeps feeding her and insists that she finally gets to eat some of the famed Rye Whiskey's home cooking. She does and it's delicious, but the nurse has spiked it with laxatives, so she has a massive accident. She finds out what the nurse did and tells Tony, who promptly fires the bitch. Tony then takes it upon himself to be the one in charge of dressing and undressing Annie and putting her in the bath, which paralyzed Annie is powerless to fight. Meanwhile, she's gotten feeling back into her legs, but no one will let her walk or become self sufficient.

Tony installs a special elevator for her to go downstairs and wheel herself around the grounds. There she meets my beloved Troy who doesn't tell her who he is at first. She notices all of these similarities between the two of them, from the way they shlump their shoulders to the way they like to pretend they're in a fantasy world. Finally, he reveals that he's Troy and she's not too surprised. He helps her walk and she finally takes a few steps. She confides in him the trouble she's been having with Tony, like the fact that he won't let her heal and keeps confusing her with Heaven, Leigh, and Jillian.

Later, Tony comes in to her room confused and disoriented, calling her Leigh, telling her that they can make love all night long and that he can even call her Daddy. (In case you're wondering, I'll be bleaching my brain any minute now). He tries to force himself on her and since she's not back to her old strength she can't fight him off. Eventually she says something and he snaps out of it. The next morning, he makes no mention of what he did. In case you're counting, with Jillian the great-grandmother, Leigh the grandmother, Heaven the mother, and now Annie, that makes four generations of women that he either has or tried to get it on with. Remember when Jillian's mother Jana came to visit in Dark Angel? I think now we know why she left so quickly.

Naturally, she's shocked and disgusted. Drake, who is now Tony's protegee, comes to visit and he doesn't believe her. She passes out, I forget why, but when she wakes up Luke and Aunt Fanny are there! Troy called them and they've come to take her home. Tony pitches a fit and do you know the reason he gives as to why she should stay? (Paraphrasing) "I raped your grandmother, so I'm your real grandfather! Isn't that great?". She's not a moron (this isn't the Cutler series afterall) and chooses Fanny and Luke. Fanny confirms that Tony was telling the truth and Annie is actually devastated to learn that she and Luke have lost one of their familial bonds and are now just brother and sister instead of cousins. Maybe she's not as smart as I thought she was.

Then there's like thirty pages of Annie being back home and she and Luke having all this angst about how they love each other, but can't be together and will have to find other people to marry, etc. Just as they kiss, Drake shows up and calls his nephew Luke a pervert, which is pretty funny. Drake tries to get Annie to come back to Farthy, but she's still not having it.

Finally, Troy calls and tells her that Tony has died. Tony raised him, so he's actually pretty devastated. Annie and Luke decide to go to the funeral. She has since progressed to using a cane, so she's able to navigate the grounds better. Troy, who can see that Annie and Luke are hot for each other, decides to tell Annie the whole story that we already know -even though they knew they were uncle and niece, Troy and Heaven still got it on and made Annie. She takes the news of being inbred pretty well and decides not to hold any grudges. As they leave, finally with the knowledge that they're not related, they each ask the other to be each other's prince and princess. Whatever.

The prequel is so much better than this!

I Need Some Help That Only You Guys Can Give

2009-07-06T20:56:00.000-05:00

The summer reading program at the library is going really well. So well, in fact, that I've been asked to do a regular program every Friday with the Boys and Girls Club and a monthly teen book club! I think I (and my awesome, indespensible partner Ally) have the Boys and Girls Club program down (i.e. we must stay caffeinated!), but I want to talk to all of you readers out there and tell you what I'm thinking and get some feedback.

We can't do a traditional book club and have everyone read the same thing since the library can't afford to buy that many copies of the same book and it's not fair to ask it of everyone. Since we can't do that, I thought about taking a general theme or genre like science fiction, romance, fantasy, or love stories and making a list of several of the library's titles that fit those categories and have everyone, in the month leading up to the next meeting, read one. Then, at the next meeting, everyone talk a little about the book they read, and then as a group we compare and contrast how certain elements of that theme vary from book to book. For instance, say it's the August meeting and I hand out a list of science fiction books for the September meeting -stuff like Uglies, The Giver, The Hunger Games, etc. By the time of the September meeting, everyone's read something (hopefully!) and they describe it. Then I propose questions like "how are the dystopias different from each other? which one sounds the best". With any luck, we'll get some good discussion going and everyone will be inspired to read some other books from that genre. Everyone can bring food and we'll chill in a meeting room that's far enough away from everything that we don't have to worry about being quiet.

What do you think? Too boring? Too dumb? Best idea the world has ever seen?

In addition, there's the little problem of the library itself. Since I don't want to burden everyone to buy a different book a month, each suggestion has to be available at the library. The problem with that is that they don't have the greatest YA selection. If we have to rely on what's already there we'll be up shit creek without a paddle. The good news is that I should be able to ask that they buy certain books. The help I need from all of you (in addition to the whole "does my idea suck" question) is in the form of suggestions. Can you think of some good YA titles for a specific category (doesn't have to be one I listed) that I can look into? There's not a huge budget or anything, but we'll definitely be able to order some books.

I know you guys won't let me down with this!

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

2009-07-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Who hasn't been inspired, on the spur of the moment, to take up some momentous project? Julie Powell is one such person and thankfully, unlike most of the rest of us, she actually saw her project through to the end. As an almost thirty year old temp working as a secretary she was in a bit of a funk. While seeing her flipping through a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, her husband suggests starting a blog about working her way through all of its recipes. At that moment the Julie/Julia project was born. In one year she would cook her way through all 524 recipes and document the experience in blog form. This book is part recipes, part blog stuff, and a whole lot of craziness as she attempts to finish the project, not bite her husband's head off, and track down such exotics things as animal bone marrow.

I love a good memoir and this one definitely did not disappoint. Even if you have no interest (or in my case, skill) in cooking, it doesn't matter. It's more about being in a rut, not knowing what you want to do, and then embarking on something that will eventually change your life. Not that this was some kind of weepy sort our your feelings kind of thing. It's laugh out loud funny and if you love a good bawdy sense of humor and someone who doesn't mind saying fuck a lot, Julie Powell is a writer you should check out.

Unlike others who would have the tendency to paint themselves in only the most flattering light, Julie has no problem letting people see that sometimes she can be a foul mouthed, freaked out bitch (also known as my kind of people). Have you read any of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking? We're talking, calves' brains, bone marrow, sweetbread, de-boning chickens, and homemade mayonnaise. How can you not freak out when dining on that stuff for a year? Often, usually after some sort of disaster, she thinks about quitting, but doesn't because she doesn't want to disappoint her blog readers. I'd guess that a lot of the bloggers I know have felt that way at some point, not wanting to read or finish a book, but feeling as though you owe it to the people who read the words you've written to write something. All you bloggers and blog readers out there will love Julie & Julia.

And yes, the story has been turned into a film to be released next month, featuring two of my favorite actresses. I can't wait!

Gates of Paradise by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-07-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

Feel free to refer back to the family tree recap, which as someone so hilariously stated, is more like a wreath than a tree, because some of these relationships can be pretty confusing. Also, let me just reiterate how awful this book is. I'm pretty sure that if we made it required reading for Guantanamo detainees, even Dick Cheney would be like "whoa there, no need to be so harsh".

Following the book four pattern of the Casteel, Landry, and Cutler series, this book is about Heaven's daughter Annie who has grown to be just as beautiful as her mother was. Unlike her mother, she was born with artistic ability....if you remember anything about her (hot/melancholy) biological father, Troy, you'll see that this ability is genetic. It's funny to see Heaven as a mom since she's constantly telling Annie not to worry about unpleasant or unhappy things -the exact stuff she always criticized her grandmother Jillian for saying!

Annie has a perfect charmed life with her parents and Drake, her mother's younger stepbrother. Other visitors to the house include Luke, her half-brother (except not -thank God!) and his mother, everyone's favorite hillbilly harlot, Aunt Fanny. Annie and Luke are aware that they're supposed to be half brother and sister, yet they have this intense fairytale pretend world relationship (see: Heavenly Creatures, except with a guy) where they're aware they're in love with each other, but can only verbalize it when playing pretend. At age eighteen. Yeah. The two have always been obsessed with Farthinggale Manor and constantly imagine what it looks like and why Heaven left (she refuses to talk about it and gets upset if anyone else does). Annie has no idea that Tony is Heaven's father or that Troy exists or that she's of no relation to anyone surnamed Casteel. On her eighteenth birthday Heaven gives her the Tatterton Toy music box cottage that Troy sent after she was born.

Annie's super close to her parents and Luke spends more time at their house than his since his mother is still a tramp. They're about to graduate high school (Luke's the valedictorian) and he's been accepted on a full ride scholarship to Harvard where Drake goes. Shortly before graduation it's Fanny's birthday and she throws herself a party that the three Stonewalls feel obligated to attend. Fanny throws herself all over Logan, shoving her tongue down his throat, followed by some dirty dancing, and Heaven just has to stand there like a fool as her dumbass husband gets progressively more drunk. She makes them leave early and despite knowing that dumbass Logan was drinking, lets him drive. A storm starts as they wind around the mountain hills, arguing over his behavior. He crashes the car killing himself (yay!) and Heaven (not so yay) and putting Annie in a coma for a few days.

When she wakes up, Tony Tatterton is at her bedside. Someone had the bright idea of telling him about Logan and Heaven and he's shown up to take over. Annie has been paralyzed in the accident and needs a lot of physical therapy, so he's arranging to have her taken back to Farthy. He claims it was in their will that their daughter go to him and I don't think anyone bothered to check to see if he was right. Surely, they'd have updated it by now. Anyway, he outfits her with a private nurse named Mrs. Broadfield who is neither kind nor warm and who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the ghostwriter's attempt at creating a villainous lesbian since she gets all hot and bothered when giving Annie baths and massaging her ass. What with all the African American servants who resemble something out of a minstrel show, it's fairly obvious that there's not a minority out there that Andrew Neiderman won't disrespect.

Once he takes her back to Farthy (aka the majority of the first half), which by the way is now all dusty and dilapidated, a shell of its former self, not a lot happens. Mostly, she wonders what caused the rift between Tony and her mother. Tony keeps promising to put a phone in so that she can call Luke, but he never does. Mostly, she just lays around while people feed her jello and Tony confuses her with Jillian, Leigh, and Heaven. One day, however, from her window she sees a tall, thin man approaching her mother's grave, dropping to his knees, and sobbing. Gee, who could it be? Finally, she gets a visitor when Drake (who Tony has been taking under his wing) stops by and tells her that Luke has a new girlfriend. She's stunned that Luke isn't saving himself for her (let me reiterate, they still believe they're half-siblings). Yeah, now I see why she wasn't exactly in contention to be valedictorian.

One day, while Tony is showing her around she asks him to explain about his and Heaven's rift. He's somewhat truthful and explains that he bought off Luke Casteel (Heaven's stepfather, not the squicky brother) with a $1 circus and the promise that he wouldn't see Heaven again and that she got pissed and left. Of course he neglects to mention that he's also Heaven's biological father, Annie's biological grandfather, and that he once got more than a little fresh with Heaven. Hmm...could that knowledge of Tony's character be important later?

A pre-Gates of Paradise Recap

2009-07-02T07:28:00.001-05:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I hate Gates of Paradise. I'm pretty sure I've just read it once and that was enough. But what was painful for me should be fairly entertaining for the blog. Since I haven't done a Casteel series book in a while I thought I'd recap the major characters and what their relationship is to each other since it's insanely confusing. If it's still confusing let me know.

Annie Stonewall: Daughter of Heaven Casteel Stonewall and Troy Tatterton, although she and everyone (except her mother) believes her father is Logan Stonewall. Haven't read the book in years, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know that her grandfather is Tony Tatterton.

Luke Casteel: Not to be confused with his grandfather Luke Casteel (father of Fanny, stepfather of Heaven) who's dead. Son of Fanny Casteel and Logan Stonewall. Luke and Annie's mothers were raised as half-sisters, but aren't actually related. Both he and Annie believe their father is Logan Stonewall but he's really only Luke's father. Therefore, despite being raised as half-siblings, Luke and Annie aren't actually related.

Drake Casteel: Half brother of Fanny Casteel and adopted half-sister of Heaven Casteel Stonewall. Raised by Heaven and Logan after his parents died. Half uncle of Luke Casteel, adopted half-uncle of Annie Stonewall.

Heaven Casteel Stonewall: Daughter of Leigh Van Voreen (deceased) and Tony Tatterton (pedophile/freak). Raised as the daughter of Luke Casteel (deceased). Adopted half sister of Fanny Casteel (hillbilly). Husband of Logan Stonewall (moron). Mother (with her uncle, Troy Tatterton) of Annie Stonewall. Stepmother (thanks to her husband being an asshat) of Luke Casteel. Adopted half-sister/guardian of Drake Casteel.

Fanny Casteel: Adopted half-sister of Heaven Stonewall. Mother (thanks to Logan Stonewall) of Luke Casteel. Adopted half-aunt of Annie Stonewall.

Logan Stonewall: Husband of Heaven Stonewall. Cheated on her with slutty hillbilly step-half-sister Fanny and is the father (with her) of Luke Casteel. Thinks he's the father (with Heaven) of Annie Stonewall, but (luckily) is not. Personality of a blade of grass.

Tony Tatterton: Was the husband of Jillian Van Voreen Tatterton, but had Heaven with her daughter Leigh, making him Heaven's father and step-grandfather and Annie's grandfather, step-great-grandfather, and uncle (since her father is his brother Troy). Super freak.

Spotlight on Classic Films: Gaslight

2009-06-29T18:27:00.002-05:00

This is one of those films that's impossible to describe without revealing a big spoiler. However, because the spoiler is so incredibly obvious, it doesn't really do any harm.

Ingrid Bergman stars as Paula, the niece of a famous opera star who was murdered several years ago by someone who was searching for her famous jewels. She's been studying abroad for several years when she meets the dashing Gregory Anton (played by Charles Boyer), who she marries after a whirlwind courtship. He insists on the two of them moving back to London, to the house where she lived with her aunt. Soon after their arrival the newlywed Paula starts hearing strange sounds coming from the attic, sees the gaslight go up and down for no reason, and can't account for various items that have disappeared from around the house. Not only does no one else notice the strange sounds and sights, but Gregory is adament that Paula is imagining things and moving the various paintings and others items herself. Is she really doing all of these things she doesn't remember or is a certain *ahem* someone slowly trying to drive her insane?

Okay, anyone could see five minutes into the movie that Charles Boyer's character is a total asshat. Even if he wasn't trying to drive her insane, just the way he treats her (like a very dumb child) would be enough to piss me off. Ingrid Bergman is fantastic, though, as she's slowly tormented by things that only she can see -not even the servants notice the strange goings on and Gregory won't allow her to have visitors and tells anyone who tries to come see her is quickly told that she's not well. My favorite scene is when Bergman confronts Boyer after she figures out that he's behind everything (though why he is I'll leave to you to find out for yourself) and convinces him that he's succeeded in driving her mad.

One of the things I really love, aside from the mystery and suspense (that Ingrid Bergman is so great at, I can't stress this enough) is the way the uber-controlling marriage (which would have been accurate for the Victorian setting) is portrayed. Gregory totally controls Paula -from the people she sees to whether she leaves the house. When a young man (played by Joseph Cotten) who eventually solves the mystery nods to her in the park, the way he jealously goes off on her could have been straight out of a Lifetime movie.

1944's Gaslight is a wonderfully directed (by one of my favorites, George Cukor), acted, storied, and costumed thriller!

Additional facts:

* For her performance as Paula Anton, Ingrid Bergman won her first (of two) Academy Award for Best Lead Actress.

* This film is actually a remake of a less known version that had been filmed four years earlier.

* Gaslight marks Angela Lansbury's film debut. Today, we know her as a sweet old lady, but she's amazing as the bitch she is here. Don't believe me? Watch The Manchurian Candidate.

* I'm pretty sure I caught cancer from the amount of smoking Charles Boyer did in this film. It's amusingly excessive -even by classic Hollywood standards.

* You must watch it ASAP, as it's available on Youtube right here.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

2009-06-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

May 2, 2008: high school junior Nick Levil opened fire in his school cafeteria, killing several students, one teacher, and injuring several others who had been on his "hate list". Before turning the gun on himself, the last person he shot (inadvertently) was his girlfriend, Valerie Leftman, who had jumped in front of the intended target. Though what she did was heroic, she is nevertheless questioned by the police for her role in the shootings -for Valerie was the one who started the hate list, the list of people and things she and Nick hated. Despite the fact that she had no prior knowledge of the shooting, didn't know he planned to use the list for a shooting rampage, and never pulled the trigger herself, Val is surrounded by a cloud of suspicion. When she goes back to school in the fall she has to face everyone affected by the tragedy, from those whose friends were killed to those still suffering from their injuries, to those whose cruelty toward herself and Nick were the catalysts for the list's creation.

This was such a heavy book. Unlike with most other books, I don't think I laughed or smiled once while reading it. Still, I thought it was fantastic. Once I started it I didn't want to put it down. Had I not been so busy this week you would have read this review days ago.

Right off the bat, what I loved about this book was the story was laid out. It goes back and forth, from the present to the past, from how Valerie is coping with going back to high school an even bigger outcast than before, to that awful day in May when Nick opened fire and part of what motivated him to do so. Spreading out the details throughout the book the way Brown does, for the reader, the shooting never loses its emotional intensity the way it would if the narrative was completely linear.

Mainly, though, this is Valerie's story: how she continues to feel the effects of the bullying that started the whole thing, how she blames herself and must coexist with those who still don't want to be around her (including her own family and friends), and even how, after everything, she still loves Nick. Valerie has some of the worst, least understanding and least compassionate, parents I've ever seen in a book. They, coupled with Val's treatment by her peers and general feeling like she doesn't belong, makes it easy to see how she could have become involved with someone like Nick, a fellow outcast with an obsession with death that was far more serious than she or anyone else understood.

A fantastic book that's both timely and intense, Hate List is sure to be a bestseller.

Retrospective (4)

2009-06-21T01:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't done one of these in a while, so I thought that instead of just updating from the last week I'd update from the last Retrospective.

Reviews
The President's Daughther by Ellen Emerson White - I forgot to mention this in my review, but one of my favorite parts was Meg making fun of the weirdos who show up at party conventions and make ridiculous speeches before casting their votes for whatever candidates. "From the great state of blah blah blah, where the buffalo run free, the water is clear with the dew of the great sky" etc. That's one thing I hate about both political parties.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd Edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

V.C. Andrews Recaps
Pearl in the Mist: Part 2
All That Glitters: Part 1
All That Glitters: Part 2
Personally, I don't think anyone in this series is likeable. That's what makes it so much fun to recap!

Spotlight on Classic Films
(A new one should be coming up soon)
Rebecca
The Bad Seed - Right after I posted this I chaperoned a lock-in at the library and showed this to a bunch of the kids. They loved it and with all the pausing we had to do in order to discuss Rhodas hijinks it took about four hours to finish the film!

Crazy Things
David the Gnome dies!
A Twilight cruise? Really?

Fun Things
My killa decoupaging skills
Steph's amazing generosity
Everyone's a little bit geeky

All That Glitters by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-06-20T00:45:00.000-05:00

With Gisselle comatose there's not a single character that I like left in this book.

All parties have agreed on the Gisselle/Ruby switch. They explain "Gisselle" and Beau having custody of baby Pearl as Paul being too grief stricken to properly care for her. Ruby now has to go through every day of her life living as someone else -all for a man who didn't even consult her about getting a nanny for their child. But the nanny's a quadroon who talks like Amos N' Andy, so she's perfect. Meanwhile, I've grimaced so hard during every scene with a servant in these books I've strained my jaw. When Beau and Ruby go out to dinner and she has to be her sister, Beau takes this freakish delight in hearing her talk about their child as a bother and an inconvenience because it makes her sound more Gisselle-like. Suck it, Beau.

They even run into Louis Turnbull, the thirtysomething blind guy who used to feel up teenage Ruby as a substitute for his mother. He's no longer blind and is playing the piano in concert halls over the world.

Ruby's worried about having dinner with Beau's parents since they always hated her and didn't think she was good enough, but she plays the Gisselle role really well. Surprise surprise, Ruby's good at being a blatant bitch, not just a silent, judgmental one. Loved when Mr. Andreas, questioning her about Pearl, asks about the situation with "that Cajun" and why the baby can't just live with its father, as though he's forgotten that his knowledge of Ruby's pregnancy is what made him ship his son off to France in the first place. Who wants to bet that literary genius/ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman forgot that part?

If you're wondering what's going on with Paul (not that I blame you if you weren't) he's basically gone insane. He's spending hours at comatose "Ruby's" bedside, grieving and doesn't even break character when he's alone with Ruby and Beau. Ruby starts to worry about him, but Beau's just like "wow, he should get an Oscar!". Paul's family treats "Gisselle" and Beau as lepers since they know real Gisselle was always a brat to Ruby. Ruby actually starts to have some doubts as to the awesomeness of this plan, realizing that having everyone she's ever known think she's dying is kind of a shitty thing to do. She remembers she once put a voodoo curse on Gisselle and considers that maybe the curse never ended. Yeah, blame it on the curse and not your need to be near Beau's wang at all times.

Ruby and Beau are in New Orleans when they find out Gisselle died and they're not the least bit sad about it. Sure she could be a bitch, but she was awfully cool about the fact that Ruby married their half brother. She also never put a voodoo curse on anyone. Paul is distraught and not just because he's insane and needs to grow a pair. He had threatened Ruby and said the plan would fail and she'd have to come home. Now, obviously, it's gone off without a hitch. Except what I don't understand is why everyone couldn't have just stayed where they were, waited for Gisselle to die, and then Ruby could have left her marriage that was never legal in the first place. But that's just me.

Shortly after the funeral Ruby gets a call from Gladys Tate, Paul's mother, who tells her that she knows about the switch and that her son told her everything because they were so super close. Sounds like someone should have been weaned off the teat a long time ago. Apparently Paul's gone missing and it's Ruby's fault for making him insane. Lady, your "son" has been insane for a long ass time, evidenced by the fact that he wouldn't stop sniffing around his sister's hoo hah. Ruby and Beau head back to the Bayou again and she knows just where to find Paul. He went to what was once their special place in the swamp and drowned himself. God, what a weiner.

Gladys wants to punish Ruby for pretty much killing her son, so she takes custody of Pearl, since everyone still believes she's the baby's grandmother. Their delightfully badly thought up plan is thrown out the window when a custody battle ensues and Ruby and Beau have to reveal that Gisselle is the dead twin and Paul knew it and went along with the plan. There's not a lot of evidence to use in the case even though one twin had been paralyzed and one twin had given birth. Both were born at home, never had a cavity, and crazy ideas like paternity tests, the lawyers tell us, are still a few years down the road. Except for handwriting samples, Ruby and Beau are pretty much screwed.

They're saved, though, when Ruby is finally like "screw it" and gets her lawyer to call Octavius Tate, Paul's father, to the stand. He finally admits that there's no way Paul is Pearl's father since Paul and Ruby are half siblings. The courtroom goes wild and the judge calls the counsel to his chamber. Personally, I don't see how that proves that Ruby is who she says she is (I mean Gisselle knew, too) but whatever. The judge gives the baby to Ruby and says he expects and invite to her and Beau's wedding.

They do finally get married and it's all rushed because of the media attention and the fact that Beau's parents hate the whole situation, it's a small wedding and not the grand one of Ruby's dreams. Soon, she finds out she's pregnant and surprise, it's twins! She and Beau name them Pierre and Jean after her father and the brother whose vegetative state he was responsible for. Ruby vows that her twins will love each other, unlike herself and the twin she had put a curse on. So basically anything they do will look like a dream in comparison to their mother and grandfather. Poor family...what a crappy legacy to live up to.

All That Glitters by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-06-17T12:15:00.002-05:00

I realized I haven't done one of these in a while and what better way to start up again than to re-cap one of the most ridiculous VCA books of all? This, the third book in the Landry series, is so convuluted that you're probably going to think I'm making it up. My imagination is not that great.

Ruby and baby Pearl (who like all VCA babies is so beautiful and so advanced for her age -gag me) have been living in Grandmere Catherine's shack while Paul, Ruby's ex boyfriend and current half brother, comes over every day to pathetically beg her to marry him. She feels sorry for him and needs someone to take care of her (Buster Trahaw the guy her Grandpere tried to sell her to tried to rape her and her inheritence doesn't kick in for three more years) and since those are such great reasons to marry the half brother you're not in love with, she finally agrees to marry him. They agree to have a sexless marriage in the separate (but adjoining) bedrooms in the huge mansion Paul built that's bigger than the Dumas mansion in New Orleans. Why they insist on having a marriage that isn't even legal if they're not even going to live as a married couple is beyond me. Meanwhile, Paul has already taken the liberty of hiring a whole bunch of servants whose minority status he's compelled to share (can you say quadroon anyone?), including a maid who practices voodoo and a nanny for the baby that isn't his (though everyone in the area thinks she is).

Meanwhile, Gisselle has been writing Ruby letters, updating her on Beau. Her letter about Beau being practically engaged to a French girl was part of the reason Ruby decided to marry Paul. Soon after she marries Paul she gets a visit from Gisselle who mentions that Beau has broken up with the French girl and is now seeing her. She's like "see, if you'd waited before getting married you'd be free to have him" and Ruby is all "woe is me, I hate my evil sister" even though Gisselle is right. Gisselle is strangely amused about her twin and half brother getting married, commenting she doesn't know whether to call him her brother or brother-in-law. I kind of love her. Again, Ruby's marriage isn't even legal, so technically she's free to be with Beau any time she wants. She just doesn't want to look bad in front of her Grandmere's friends and Paul's sisters who all think they have the perfect marriage.

Ruby feels so sorry for herself after the news that Paul tries to cheer her up by wearing a Confederate army uniform (because I know those turn me on) and giving her an 1860's ballgown and they have dinner while playing the parts of a soldier and his lady friend. When he tucks her in at night he refuses to let the illusion drop and as he starts kissing her, she says no, but since she can't push him off she decides to just go with it and let him do what he wants and they consummate their happy little incestuous marriage. Because that's exactly what you do when someone is giving you unwanted advances -you let them do what they want.

Gisselle calls one night to let Ruby know that Daphne was killed by a fall from a horse. Taking the opportunity to escape from Paul the human hover round, she goes to New Orleans for the funeral and an inheritance update. There, she sees Beau for the first time since his parents sent him to Paris. She explains that she married Paul for security and he tells her that he's only with Gisselle as a cheap substitute for her (which, Gisselle's not stupid, she's caught on by now). Soon after she gets home she finds out they're engaged. Paul calls her on the fact that she's still in love with Beau and Ruby doesn't deny it. He tells her she has no self respect if she still loves him since he abandoned her and the baby, which is technically true, but I say she has no self respect since she married that whiny deranged brother of hers.

Right after they're married Beau and Gisselle pay a visit to the Bayou and he finally meets his daughter. This is like five minutes into their marriage and Beau tells Ruby that he's rented an apartment in New Orleans for them to have sex in since he knows his marriage is a mistake, but his Catholic religion won't allow him to divorce. Ruby's all for it, so she and Beau make plans for a date and she tells Paul that she's going to New Orleans for art business. She checks into a hotel to save face, but stays at the apartment for sexy time with Beau her baby daddy/brother-in-law. When she gets home Paul tells her he knows where she was (he called the hotel and put two and two together) and again, Ruby doesn't try to deny it. Before they got married they made a promise that if either of them found someone to love the other wouldn't stand in their way, so Ruby's taking full advantage of that. Yeah, it's a shit thing to do, but it's not as though her marriage is legal or that Paul isn't a blood relative.

Meanwhile, Beau calls and says Gisselle is suspicious, so they'll have to cool it a while. They're going to vacation at the family ranch for a week or so to work on their marriage. When he calls a week later it's because Gisselle has been bitten by mosquitos, contracted encephalitis, become paralyzed (again), and is now comatose. Since just the doctor and a couple of servants know about Gisselle, Beau has concocted the fabulous plan for the twins to switch places. Ruby can pretend to be Gisselle and live with him and he can dump the comatose Gisselle, who his religion still won't let him divorce, on Paul, so that everyone can think Ruby is dying. Ruby's all for it and since only a moron would agree to be party to a scheme like that, Paul agrees.

Surely nothing can go wrong with such a great plan like this.

A New Blog

2009-06-16T16:07:00.003-05:00

No, not mine -my feet are firmly planted here at The Chick Manifesto. However, my good friend Ally has just started a blog of her own and I thought I'd tell you all about it. She's The Passionate Promulgator and she has great taste in books (as well as friends, hardy har har) and I'm super excited to see what she's going to write about. So check her out!

Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd - Edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

2009-06-13T12:42:00.000-05:00

If you've ever watched Star Trek, Star Wars, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, been into science or participated in a quiz bowl, gone to a sci-fi convention or had an online friend -or even if you haven't- this is the book for you. It's a compilation of short stories and cartoons about some of the geekier aspects of life, brought to you by a great group of writers -some familiar and some maybe not as much- who proudly post their geek credentials in their bios.

I really enjoyed the different takes on various kinds of geekdom and some stories definitely shown above others in that regard. Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci's "Once You're a Jedi, You're a Jedi All the Way" is a cute Jedi/Klingon Romeo and Juliet type story. Tracy Lynn's "One of Us" is a geek tutorial for a cheerleader trying to impress her comic book loving boyfriend. "The King of Pelinesse" by M.T. Anderson, about a graphic novel fan who might have a special person in common his favorite author, was simply fantastic and could have easily been from another era. David Levithan's (I'd never read anything by him before!) "Quiz Bowl Antichrist" was hilarious and had me rolling with laughter. I would love to see Wendy Mass' "The Stars at the Finish Line", about the years long academic competition between a guy and a girl, for a future career that only one of them wants, as a full length novel. It's the only story that I think could have worked that way.

Between the stories, which range from funny to sad to thoughtful, are fun comic type illustrations that serve as mini-guides for different aspects of geek culture. Unfortunately, since my copy is an ARC, it doesn't include all of what will eventually be in the finished copy -and I'm dying to know what the "Ten Words or Phrases You Need to Know in Klingon" are. But if it's as cute and funny as the others, like "How to Look Cool and Not Drool in Front of Your Favorite Author" are then I'm sure it'll be great.

As with most compilations, not every story is a positive and some ongoing themes got a little tiresome after a while. I thought that Scott Westerfeld's "Definitional Chaos" was just plain boring and less a story and more like him just throwing out words like "ConCom" and terms from Dungeons and Dragons. It was the third story in a row that dealt, in part, with a convention of some sort (not that I'm blaming him for his placement in the book) and I wish he'd written about anything else. John Green's "Freak the Geek" reminded me of how much I despise the "bookish main character has only one friend" cliche that some of the other stories (like Libba Bray's "It's Just a Jump to the Left") include. I just didn't feel like the story actually celebrated geekdom. Despite how confident the main character was in her own skin (which is always a good thing) it still resonated as kind of hateful to me, and I wish that such a geek like John hadn't made his main character such a disliked outcast.

Still, this was one of the most fun books I've read in a long time. I love the variety and the joy I could feel from the authors as I read about things that they obviously love and care a lot about. I was already versed in some of the geek culture contained in Geektastic, but now I'm inspired to learn more!

What's Your Geeky Pleasure?

2009-06-12T04:42:00.003-05:00

I'm currently reading a certain book that extolls the virtues of some of the geekier pleasures in life. It's definitely my kind of thing since I've been a fan of things like Star Trek and Star Wars for years (I even have a Star Trek action figure) and would love to dress up for a midnight showing of The Rocky Horry Picture Show. I've read fan fiction and have even played Dungeons and Dragons a couple of times (along with watching certain sporting events, it's one of the few things I've done in my life for a boy).

My question is, what about everyone else? Any Trekkies (Trekkers?) or Star Wars fans (Starwarsians?) out there or does your geekiness run deeper or differently than that? Please elaborate!

I Know This is a Weird Question, But...

2009-06-08T21:13:00.003-05:00

I've been getting a lot of referring URLs from Twitter lately. Since I don't have a Twitter, that's been confusing me. Does anyone know who's been linking to me on there? I'd like to thank them.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

2009-06-07T02:36:00.000-05:00

I'll be giving away no spoilers in this review. Not just because the book is still a few months from being released and that would be rude, but because the events in Catching Fire are so shocking that it would take away some of the spark and effect if you didn't get to experience them for yourself firsthand. If you haven't read The Hunger Games yet I suggest you do so. As far as I'm concerned, it's this decade's The Giver.

If you have read The Hunger Games by now you know that Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have been declared co-champions for their Hunger Games after outlasting the twenty-two other participants and then threatening to kill themselves, which would have meant there would be no victor, a huge embarrassment to the Capitol. Katniss knows that their act of defiance, winning the games on their own terms, will not go unpunished. Little does she know how extensive that punishment will be.

Though I've been excited to read this for a while, I was still hesitant to once I got it. Could it really improve upon the first book? Or, like other later books in different series, would it negate all of my positive feelings for The Hunger Games altogether? After reading the first couple of chapters I was afraid it would be the latter. My big fear was that this insane world that Suzanne Collins has created would be pushed aside in favor of an entire book about which boy the heroine was going to pick. Peeta or Gale? Gale or Peeta? The last thing I want is for people to come away from these books with only the thought that Katniss is a placeholder for their affections for one of the guys. Team Peeta! Team Gale! Sure, there's love and there's kissing, but other things happens, too, more important things -like 95% of the time!

But I shouldn't have worried. Catching Fire was in no way the letdown I was thought it might be. Some of the foreshadowing was a bit clunky and I definitely predicted some things before they happened (you're going to either really love or really hate the events of page 172, but no matter what you won't be able to look away), but I don't think anyone could have foreseen all of the surprises, twists, turns, and even brutality. Because every time you think the Capitol has shown how evil they can be, they bump it up a notch. Or fifty.

Not every chapter is a cliffhanger, but they don't all have to be. It's nice to have some subtlety once in a while. In fact, one of my favorite parts was the juxtaposition of the twelve districts, none of whom have enough to eat for their citizens, with the carefree residents of the Capitol who eat so much that they force themselves to throw up so that they can continue partying and feasting.

Suzanne Collins has done more than shed the "sophomore slump" that the sequels to so many successful books have fallen into. She's written an unforgettable companion to its equally fantastic predecessor.

Why Steph is the Best

2009-06-06T19:09:00.001-05:00

I've known Steph (aka Reviewer X) for a couple of years now. The short story is: she stalked me, but the longer story is for another day. Any way, she recently attended a little thing called Book Expo America and she was kind enough to send me some things. I don't usually do the whole "this is what I got this week" thing (especially since I don't usually get a lot of blog type books during the week), but I thought I'd make an exception since 1. I'm so thankful she sent them and 2. I've been a little sick today and getting that box has been a great mood lifter.

The Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

The Season by Sarah MacLean

Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Geektastic edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

aaaaaand

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Needless to say, I'm psyched to read all of them and I would marry her if such unions were legal.

Spotlight on Classic Films: The Bad Seed

2009-06-04T13:54:00.003-05:00

"I have the sweetest mother....the nicest mother."

The Bad Seed, from 1956, isn't necessarily under the category of a "great" film, but to me it's pretty awesome -partly because my mom introduced me to it and I like to freak her out with the "sweetest mother..nicest mother" stuff, which as you will see, can be pretty scary. Originally a book, then a Broadway play, the movie stars Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormack. Supporting actors include Henry Jones, William Hopper, Frank Cady, who you might remember as Mr. Drucker from Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies, and Eileen Heckert, who has been in approximately 2698379837 different things and you'd know her if you saw her face.

Christine Penmark (Kelly) and her husband, Col. Kenneth Penmark (Hopper) are a loving married couple, with one adorable blond haired, blue eyed daughter, Rhoda (McCormack), the most perfect child that anyone could ask for. Rhoda is neat, sweet, polite, and loving, but her mother still has the feeling that there's something off about her daughter. Shortly after Kenneth leaves for army duties, leaving Christine and Rhoda alone, a little boy drowns at the school picnic Rhoda was attending. Christine expects Rhoda to be traumatized by this, but she's actually quite blasé about it. Then Christine finds out that Rhoda was the last person to see the little boy alive and that his penmanship medal, the one Rhoda felt belonged to her, is missing. Christine eventually finds it....in Rhoda's room. Though Rhoda's usual trick of saying she "has the prettiest mother, the nicest mother" and being angelic has worked before, it's starting to wear thin and Christine has started to put the pieces together regarding mysterious deaths and people who had things Rhoda wanted. When the strange janitor (Jones) who always disliked Rhoda is killed, Christine's suspicions are confirmed: her daughter is a bad seed.

Patty McCormack is amazing as Rhoda the sociopath, the prototypical evil child, even though we don't actually see her do any of these evil things. Sometimes just the suggestion of something is better than seeing it carried out on screen, you know? There's also a little subplot involving nature vs. nurture, wherein Christine questions her father and Reginald Tasker, both notable crime writers, about whether it's the environment people are brought up in that makes them turn evil or are they just born that way. Though each man takes a different position, we find out which one is responsible for Rhoda.

Extra facts:

Because of the Hays Code (laws that used to regulate movie content) the film's ending is not the one that was originally in the book and play. In fact, I'd say it was quite the opposite. I'm not sure which I like better.

The reason the actors aren't incredibly well known is because it was decided to use most of the original Broadway cast. Nancy Kelly had won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Drama for her performance as Christine Penmark.

The voice you hear announcing that Claud Daigle has been drowned is that of Henry Jones, who plays Leroy the janitor.

Right after the ending, there's a hilarious "curtain call" where the actors are introduced so that we, the ignorant movie watchers, can be assured that the movie's events are fictional. Let's just say that a certain someone gets a spanking -deservedly so.

You can watch the whole thing on YouTube, starting here.

Twilight Cruise

2009-06-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Gee, what sounds more fun than traveling to the coldest state in the union in an enclosed space with a bunch of Twilight fans? In my opinion, almost anything in the world. Click here for information about next year's Twilight cruise, which I'm going to have to agree with Perez Hilton here, sounds so cheesy -and not in a fun way. What about you? Will you be forking over more than $1000 to go on a cruise with Twilighters and two of the movie's stars who aren't Pattinson, Stewart, or Lautner? Or, like me, would you rather be doing anything else?

If it's the latter, I bet we could start a great list of the things we'd rather be doing. I'll start the list off and say that I would rather go naked through the drive through at McDonalds during rush hour. You?

The President's Daughter by Ellen Emerson White

2009-06-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

Meghan Powers is an average sixteen-year-old with two younger brothers, busy parents, and good friends. Though she's average, her mother, powerful senator Katharine Vaughn Powers, is anything but. When the senator decides to run for and eventually becomes the first female president, Meg has to deal with constant secret service protection, media appearances, moving to Washington D.C. and attending a new school, and seeing her already busy mom even less than before. How does she tell the most powerful woman in the world that she hates her job?

This was a really cute book with a timely premise. I loved the way Meg and her family interacted -teasing each other, cracking jokes, but there never being any doubt at how much they love each other. In a lot of books, the parents are just sort of there, but don't really have personalities or play a role. In The President's Daughter, however, everyone has a distinct personality and deals with the pressures of the campaign in a different way. Meg, as most teenagers would be I would imagine, spent most of the time being embarrassed about all the attention.

One of my favorite aspects about the book was the way Meg hides her interest in politics. She doesn't want it to make her seem snobby or that she is interested just because her mother is a politician, but she regularly surprises her parents with knowledge of what was going on in the world and was usually seen reading a political book like All the President's Men. She's more similar to her mother than she'd ever admit.

Part of what makes the book so cute is that it's so outdated. It was published in 1984, before CNN and the advent of the 24 hour news cycle, so anyone who is living now is going to laugh at the Powers family's campaign which lasts just several months, is scandal free, and (the biggest difference) the family is treated with respect by the press. Meg is able to go to school and on dates (albeit with Secret Service protection) with no Perez Hilton, US Weekly, or Access Hollywood reporting on every detail of her life. Sure, it's tough being the new kid in school, especially when your mom is the President of the United States, but I think we all know how much worse things could be.

This is the first in a series of books and I'll definitely be checking out the second one at some point. The President's Daughter is cute, funny, and highly readable.

A Little Project

2009-05-31T20:41:00.001-05:00

Today was a busy one for me. I've been renting a storage building for a few months and this was the day I brought everything home. I had forgotten about this ugly little wooden table that was in there, so I decided to make it cuter (at least in my totally unbiased opinion anyway). So I bought some modge podge and brushes and proceeded to go against my strongest held belief and rip the covers off some old Baby-sitters Club and Sweet Valley High books I didn't need and the end result is:

Hopefully, clicking on the pictures makes them bigger. Obviously, I had a little trouble with the sides (as you can see), but all in all, since I have no artistic ability to speak of, I'm pretty proud of myself. I've never read Sweet Valley High, but I've always liked the covers, so I figured this would be a fun way to display them and some old extra BSC books no one wanted. So what do you think? Delightfully tacky or tackily delightful?

Who Wants to be Traumatized?

2009-05-30T02:56:00.000-05:00

First, I apologize for the lack of book related posts lately. I've been too busy writing Associated Content stuff (check the sidebar for the feed) trying to earn a few bucks and haven't really felt like reading anything. Also, if you wanted to be totally awesome you could click on my Associated Content profile and subscribe or read some articles. I've posted a lot of old reviews (the ones that met the word requirement) and some assignments I got from the site were posted today -and yes, be forewarned that anything health related comes from them not me and that I made a mistake in the Melissa Etheridge part of the women rockers article that was corrected in the comments.

Now that that's over, my last post about childhood tv shows reminded me about a cartoon that I used to love: David the Gnome. After not seeing the show for over a decade, I re-watched some episodes a while ago and cracked up at the pre-An Inconvenient Truth environmental message that I missed as a five year old. If you've never seen the show, it's about David and Lisa, two gnomes who live in a tree. He's a doctor, she keeps house, and in every episode David rides his trusty fox Swift to help with some kind of animal or gnome emergency, all while telling the kids at home that humans are destroying the forest. It's a cute show and David was voiced by Tom Bosley -Mr. C from Happy Days himself -and Christopher Plummer, the captain from The Sound of Music, did the narration. Sounds pretty wholesome, right?

Nope. I used to watch it on Nick Jr. (oh, how I miss the late 80s-early 90s)and I never knew that Nick Jr. had failed to air the final episode, which I found on Youtube. On the final episode, David the gnome and his chubby little wife Lisa? They die. Check it out:

How many kids saw this and were traumatized? Can you imagine the uproar if Dora the Explorer kicked the bucket and then her little backpack was taken to Goodwill? Parents would storm the studio if the show were to air today. Or maybe, on second thought, they would have been more pissed off by the fact that David smoked a pipe.

My Favorite Childhood Television Shows

2009-05-28T03:59:00.000-05:00

When I was little there were four different shows that my dad had to record for me every day while I was in nursery school and later kindergarten. My parents used to say that if I kept it up I was going to turn into one of the characters from the shows. Anywho, I thought it would be fun to talk about them for a little bit and then open it back up to everyone else and see what your first favorite shows were.

Reading Rainbow

I know I'm not alone in this one! Some of my favorite episodes were the one with the hats (the book was A Three Hat Day), the one with the Renaissance Faire (Rumplestiltskin), the one where he made that Rube Goldberg machine out of a dollhouse (Robbery at the Diamond Dog Diner), and the where Levar went to the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation (The Bionic Bunny Show), which I also used to watch him on.

Mister Rogers Neighborhood

This isn't a clip from the actual show -it's Mister Rogers testifying in an attempt to convince Congress to fund PBS. It's one of the few things that makes me cry, as I wish I was as passionate about anything as he was about making quality television for children. I've got at least a hundred memories from this show -from being scared to death of the man who used to come to the neigborhood of make believe to do operas to the videos about how to make balloons and crayons.

Today's Special

This one's going to require a bit more explanation since most people I've come across don't remember it. If you do, I love you! Anyway, it's about Jodie, who works at the children's department of a toy store with Sam the night watchman (who's a puppet). Every night they bring to life Jeff the mannequin by putting his hat on his head and saying the magic words (hocus pocus alamagocus!). There's also a (puppet) mouse named Muffy who only speaks in rhyme. This was my favorite of all the shows, but it's been so long since I've seen a complete episode it's hard to come up with specific things I liked. I have vague memories of a lot of balloons, multi-colored clogs, and a time when Jodie and Jeff (who totally should have hooked up -screw the whole mannequin thing, when he came to life I'm sure he was fully functional) were shrunk by a magician and had to stack a bunch of marshmallows in his hat in order to climb out. There was singing, dancing, and probably a lot more Canadian goodness that I'm forgetting!

Sharon, Lois, & Bram's Elephant Show

Speaking of Canadian goodness, this show had it all: singing, dancing, adventure, an elephant, and the best ending song ever in Skinnamarink. Sharon, Lois, & Bram were a singing group that has since disbanded that introduced me to songs that I bothered every adult around me with for years. There are a few episodes on youtube, including my favorite (search for Sharon Lois & Bram Curio Shop). I'd buy the whole series if it was ever released *hint hint Canadian powers that be*.

Now that I've talked about mine, what are some of your favorite earliest shows, ones that maybe not a lot of people remember?

Spotlight on Classic Films: Rebecca

2009-05-26T17:48:00.000-05:00

I thought it would be fun to talk about a classic film every once in a while since I watch more of them than contemporary films and when I reference one, people generally have no idea what I'm talking about. Also, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce people to movies they might not have heard of or watched.

The first film I'm going to talk about is one of my favorites: from 1940, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. Rebecca is based on a novel by Daphne DuMaurier, which I also highly recommend and forced a friend to buy a few weeks ago. It stars Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as his new wife, the unnamed second Mrs. de Winter, and Judith Anderson as the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.

The future second Mrs. de Winter is working as a paid companion to Mrs. Van Hopper when she meets the older, sophisticated, wealthy, recently widowed Maxim de Winter. The two have a whirlwind courtship, but Mrs. Van Hopper becomes the first of many people to tell her young, shy, unsophisticated companion that she's nothing compared to his first wife, the beautiful, talented, and charming Rebecca, who recently died in a sailing accident and whom he absolutely adored, but doesn't talk about. The two are married and everything is great until the honeymoon's over and Maxim takes his new bride back to his estate Manderley (I love love love houses that have names). There, Maxim suddenly has less time for her and she finds it hard to adjust to being the wife of a wealthy man and this anxiety is compounded by the fact that the head housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, seems to hate her and takes every opportunity to intimidate her. She, like Maxim and everyone else, loved Rebecca and hates to see anyone else take her place. The second Mrs. de Winter starts edging closer toward a breakdown as her marriage becomes rocky, Mrs. Danvers tries to sabotage her at every turn, and everywhere she goes she's haunted by the specter of Rebecca. That is, until one foggy night she hears an alarm at sea that triggers a series of events in which secrets are revealed about everyone around her, including Rebecca.

I love everything about this movie: the performances (Judith Anderson as Mrs. de Winter is practically nightmare inducing), the pacing, the claustrophic feel that surrounds the second Mrs. de Winter, and the fantastic twist at the end that reveals all. If you know the twist, please don't spoil it for anyone who doesn't.

Some extra facts:

This was Alfred Hitchcock's only film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. However, he didn't get to keep the Oscar -it went to the film's executive producer, David O. Selznik.
Joan Fontaine's nervous performance was achieved, in part, by the fact that Hitchcock told her that everyone on set disliked her.
Originally filmed in 1939, the release was delayed so that it wouldn't have to compete with another Sleznik production, Gone With the Wind, at that year's Oscars -a film that starred Olivier's then lover and future wife Vivien Leigh.
You can watch the entire thing online -part one is here.

Winner of the Dollanganger Series by V.C.Andrews

2009-05-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

First, a big thank you to everyone who entered and linked to this contest on their blogs. This is the biggest reception to a contest I've gotten so far and something tells me that I'm going have to try to track down all five books and do this again. That said....

Congratulations to Diana Dang! Send me your address and I'll get the books out ASAP.

Pearl in the Mist by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-05-24T13:31:00.001-05:00

Ruby and Gisselle come home to New Orleans for their father's funeral, where Gisselle hopes they can stay permanently. Ruby finds out that Daphne has been cavorting with Bruce Bristow, who was her father's pervy business manager and then she sneaks off to tell Uncle Jean that his brother is dead (though Daphne warned her not to) and can't believe that someone in a psychiatric hospital would freak out at news like that. As punishment for disobeying Daphne, Ruby has to skip her father's wake and stay in her room until the funeral. Naturally, she sneaks Beau up to her room and Daphne finds out about that and tells Beau's parents, adding more fuel to the fire of why they hate Ruby. Daphne sends the girls back to school the day after the funeral, after cutting their spending money in half.

When she returns to school, Ruby visits Louis, whose eyesight has been steadily improving -thanks to her. She's worried that he's going to fall in love with her or think that she loves him, but after he gives her a record of a symphony he wrote for her and a one carat ruby ring he says he knows she loves someone else and that's fine. He's going away in a month to special clinic that will help his eyesight improve. The next day she's called into the principal's office and accused of having sex with Buck, a gardener that she and Abby knew. Apparently, a teacher saw them. Ruby knew she was at Louis' the night before, but the principal refuses to believe it. There's an expulsion hearing set for later that day and just when she's about to get kicked out, Louis walks in -Miss Stevens the art teacher called him- and saves the day. Based on his testimony and that which his butler and grandmother would give, the school is forced to let her stay. Gisselle, who had already packed most of her stuff, is pissed. She thought Ruby getting kicked out meant that she could go home, too. Naturally, Ruby gets suspicious, so she hides in Gisselle's closet and waits until her sister rolls in, locks the door, and starts walking around! She's been walking for months and Ruby now has to keep it a secret or she'll tell everyone that Miss Stevens is a lesbian (because she's afraid of boys and wanted to teach at an all girls school).

The girls get to go home for Christmas, where they're surprised to find piles of gifts and Daphne in a great mood. She and Bruce are engaged and want the four of them to become a real family. Ruby's suspicious and Gisselle awesomely tells her that everyone says that even her paintings are depressing and that she's always hoping things are going to be terrible. While Daphne and Bruce go out at night they've allowed the girls to have friends over for parties as long as everyone behaves themselves. Ruby repays this kindness by boinking Beau every time they're alone. He gives her his class ring, which is the Creole equivalent of a pre-engagement, which his parents are going to be so thrilled about. On Christmas morning Gisselle "surprises" everyone with her ability to walk. Daphne is legitimately thrilled and says that Gisselle might get to stay home and go to physical therapy, while Ruby is a sour bitch about it. She brings Beau into the maid's room so that she can put a voodoo seal on their love, which, if I were Beau, is the moment I would have taken off like a shot. They're in bed "sealing their love" when Gisselle's friends trash the house on New Years Eve, which naturally pisses Daphne off and she sends them back to school.

When they get back to school Ruby finds out that "someone" has accused Miss Stevens of seducing them and that she resigned rather than face the scandal. I think we all know who would do that. The same person planted a bottle of alcohol in her room, which means Ruby gets to scrub the bathrooms clean. Around this time she starts getting sick and dizzy. Wouldn't you know it? She's preggers! She's the responsible, mature twin, but she can't ask Beau to pick some condoms up at the store before he comes over? Ruby gets sent home, while Gisselle has to stay. Daphne is furious, but mainly because she thinks it's unfair that the Landry women should be as fertile as Duggars, while she couldn't even have one child with her husband. Beau's parents have been informed and they've sent him to France to finish school, while Daphne sends Ruby to have the situation "taken care of". When she sees the shoddy clinic (which, this would have been the mid-sixties, so abortion wouldn't have been legal) Ruby runs away, back to the Bayou.

She's been corresponding with Paul all this time and visited a couple of times, so he's glad to see her. He still hasn't learned to love anyone else and tries repeatedly to get her to marry him. He doesn't understand why this would necessarily be a bad thing. Grandpere Jack drowns in his own filth and a bunch of Grandmere's friends come to the funeral and hint that they believe Paul is the baby's father. Ruby explains that it's actually a boyfriend from New Orleans, but no one believes her. Gisselle writes a few times, telling Ruby about an aristocratic girl that Beau's been seeing a lot of in France. Finally, a hurricane hits, right as Ruby is giving birth. She has a little girl, who she names Pearl, and promises Paul that she'll think about marrying him.

Retrospective (3)

2009-05-23T22:29:00.000-05:00

Retrospective was "started" by Steph as a way for bloggers to catch readers up on updates that they may have missed.

I'm having a contest to win the complete set of Dollanganger series books by V.C. Andrews. They're used, but most are keyhole covers and they don't make them for that series anymore.

I reviewed two, pretty different, books this week:
The Chosen One about a girl living in a polygamist compound who's being forced to do something hideous and
Cracked Up to Be about a girl keeping a terrible secret who's determined to push everyone and everything away.

I recapped part one of V.C. Andrews' Pearl in the Mist (book two in the Landry series). If you think it's pretty ridiculous, you won't believe part two!

And finally, I'm going to start writing some non-blog stuff and would love it if everyone checked it out!

Wow, not a bad week!

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

2009-05-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

Last year, Parker Fadley seemingly had it all. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad, had a popular boyfriend, and was a straight A student -the works. Then something happened that made her shut everyone and everything out. Now, as she does her best to show everyone that she's no longer "perfect" Parker, she still has to contend with parents, counselors, friends, and ex-boyfriend, and a prospective new love interest who are all looking for answers as to why someone who once had everything would disregard it so, seemingly, casually. However, she can't tell them -or anyone for that matter- what happened. If she did, they would find out that it was probably her fault.

First, I want to say that the twist, what sent Parker over the edge, wasn't what I was expecting at all. I went into this thinking that it would be a certain predictable thing that I've seen way too much recently, but Parker stated emphatically early on that this was not to be the case. This was definitely one of the few times where something major isn't revealed until the end, where despite clues being revealed, I hadn't already guessed it. And you know what? I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but I'd say it's definitely, at least partially, her fault.

Which brings me to Parker. See, this is why it's so hard to write about Cracked Up to Be. I really liked the twist and Courtney's writing (which was great, by the way), but I absolutely loathed Parker. She was just so freaking unpleasant that I couldn't believe that anyone wanted to be with her, let alone two guys. She says the most horrible things to them, her parents, counselors, and even the dog, yet they all give her chance after chance, hoping she'll pull her grades back up and graduate or at least have one pleasant conversation. I would have been more sympathetic if her attitude was supposed to be a recent development, the result of what she's been through (which is a considerable deal, so believe me, I'm giving her some leeway -I'm not totally heartless), but no, apparently she's always been this hateful to people!

For me, it's hard to like a book when I can't like or relate to the main character at all. However, because Courtney is such a good writer, she still managed to keep it interesting and suspenseful and I read it in one sitting. I just had to know what was going to happen next and now you should, too!

Non-Chick Manifesto Writing

2009-05-21T00:50:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not starting a new blog, but I am going to start writing some stuff for Associated Content (once my imagination gene finally kicks in and I'm able to think of something). I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in subscribing to or following me on there. My profile is here or, if you want, you can either post or email me your address and I can add you myself. I've already added some reviews from here and will probably continue to do that, but, to be honest, I get paid more for writing original content and since I'm not going to have a regular job after next week (unless some magically open up in my town) it'll be nice to have enough to at least get a burrito once in awhile, you know? So yeah, if you're interested in some things I have to say or have any suggestions for topics just let me know so that I can add you to my mental list of awesome people.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

2009-05-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

Kyra Carlson is thirteen years old and in many ways she is very typical. She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her sisters. She loves to read and absolutely devours books. She plays the piano very well and has a crush on a book named Joshua. However, Kyra's life is anything but typical. She has just been informed that she is to become her sixty year old uncle's seventh wife and marry him in one month.

In Kyra's world, a polygamous compound, such things are commonplace. Men have more than one wife (Kyra has three mothers, as her father has to have at least three wives in order to get into Heaven) and young girls are married at increasingly younger ages to old men. All who live on the compound are subject to the will of the Prophet, a man who they believe will one day sit beside Jesus in the kingdom of Heaven, who can read their thoughts and intentions, and on whose will marriages are contracted and lives ended. The books Kyra loves to read? She has to sneak away to check them out from a local bookmobile, because the Prophet has had all books but the Bible burned, believing them to be of the devil. Being caught with them or with Joshua, the boy who hopes to one day choose her to be his wife, means punishment beyond her wildest dreams. It is this man, Prophet Childs, who has ordered that the marriage between Kyra and her Uncle Hyrum take place. No one, not even her father, can dissuade him from this decision. Kyra has two choices: does she stay and marry her uncle or does she try to leave and risk being killed by the God Squad?

I've always been fascinated by religious splinter groups and polygamists in particular, so naturally I loved this book. Kyra's story was such a great look into the mind of someone who has been born into this life that so many of us find difficult to even comprehend. While she sneaks away to read such forbidden books as Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, Anne of Green Gables, and Hop on Pop, she's in a constant state of worry that the Prophet will either read her mind and discover her secret or that she will be discovered by the God Squad, the compound's police force. But because she enjoys reading so much, and gets such a thrill from every new story, she continues to sneak away and hides her books in her dress or in trees so that they won't be discovered.

I was incredibly surprised to discover that her parents were occasionally her allies. Kyra is so disgusted and appalled at the idea of marrying her father's brother and her parents share that disgust, though not quite as openly. Her father goes so far as to repeatedly speak to the Prophet, appealing on Kyra's behalf, though he knows that he could be punished. These fears are compounded when he is warned that further intervention could mean the loss of all his wives and children, as they could be placed with new husbands and fathers, an action that would result in his being condemned to hell. Her parents disagree with the Prophet, but they have been trained since birth that the word of the Prophet is the word of God. This life, the compound life, is all they know. Her mother, nearing the end of her pregnancy with her eighth child, is under considerable stress and having complications. I did the math and Kyra's mother couldn't be more than twenty six or twenty seven years old.

Kyra knows that a loving God would not permit such a marriage to happen and many painful incidents occur that help her become stronger in this belief and lack of faith in the Prophet. The only question now is, what is she going to do about it? Her story is one of suspense, hope, love, and determination. I can't impress on you enough how moving this story is, especially since it is one that is all too common in the polygamist societies that still exist in this country. The Chosen One is unforgettable.

Pearl in the Mist by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-05-18T05:30:00.001-05:00

What I really hate about Ruby is how self righteous she is. She's constantly moaning about how evil Gisselle is, but Ruby is just as big a bitch. The only difference is that Gisselle owns her bitchiness and Ruby hides hers better. Also, I'm pretty sure I haven't read this one since Clinton was president, so I'd forgotten how crazy this book is.

The two have been sent to Greenwood, a girls only boarding school for blue blooded Creoles. Gisselle is pissed about it, while Ruby just wants to do whatever pleases her father. They share a quad with some other girls and while Ruby is appalled that Giselle is rude to them, she feels the need to trash talk them: one girl is chubby, one's a daddy's girl, and the other has thin lips that look like rubber bands. When a pretty girl with dark hair and a tanned complexion comes in and Ruby declares that she's the prettiest of them all, that's who she becomes best friends with. Her name is Abby. They start sharing secrets right away and after Ruby tells Abby about her Cajun past, Abby tells her about how one of her grandmother's was Haitian (i.e. black), which makes her a quadroon and not a pure blooded Slyther- I mean Creole. Her family has moved around a lot, trying to keep it hidden and she had to break up with a boyfriend because his father found out about it. What I want to know is...how? They also bond over their shared fondness for voodoo and Abby's like "of course my dad practices voodoo -he's half black!". How does the ghostwriter sleep at night?

Greenwood is endowed by Mrs. Clairborne, a wealthy widow who lives in an old mansion with her thirty year old blind grandson Louis. All the new girls are invited to tea with her (if you're invited three times you get to keep your tea bags and become a tea queen -how very exciting). When the twins and Abby go, Gisselle mentions how she was going to sneak some cakes out for one of their roommates and Ruby actually tells her that the girl doesn't need the calories! On her way to the bathroom, Ruby stops to hear Louis (who no one from Greenwood has ever met before since he's a recluse) play the piano and she charms him because she's so "real" and not impressed by rich people. Louis is blind because he was traumatized by the fact that his father killed his mother and then shot himself. He's never been alone with a girl before, so he gets his grandmother to invite teenager Ruby over for dinner, which is a huge honor that no other Greenwood girl has ever gotten. After dinner she listens to him play the piano some more and then starts talking about how he's never touched a girl before and she lets him feel her up and kiss her (and yes, she's still with Beau and is constantly worried that he's cheating on her). Once she sees that he's aroused, that's when she decides it's enough. He gets angry, but calls her later to apologize. She comes over for a visit and he shows her his bedroom and talks about his murdered mom for a bit. He lays on the bed and gets Ruby to pretend to be mommy as he describes how he used to pretend to be sad or upset so that she would come in and let him run his hands down her breasts and she'd grab his crotch. This went on until his dad caught them and for some reason got upset. When Norman Bates' mother -I mean Louis' mom found herself "another boy to pretend to her son" that's when his dad killed her and himself.

Meanwhile, Ruby has been told by the principal that she's responsible for Gisselle's behavior as well as her own and because Daphne told her a bunch of things about Ruby, she's going to be extra hard on her. Gisselle uses this to her advantage, getting Ruby in trouble for having lunch and painting off the school grounds with her art teacher, Miss Stevens, causing her to be grounded to their room for two weeks. When that doesn't work she has Abby elected queen of their first dance of the school year and announces that she's Greenwood's first quadroon dance queen. She had gone snooping through Abby's letters from her parents and found out about it. For people so ashamed of their heritage, Abby's parents sure love talking about it, enough that they're constantly having to move. Abby runs out of the dance and her parents pull her out of school, but not before she tells Ruby to stay strong and not leave school (which would make Giselle win). Then, both Ruby and Gisselle are pulled out of class to discover that their father has had a heart attack and died.

Win a Complete (used) Set of the Dollanganger Series Books By V.C. Andrews

2009-05-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

I've had these books sitting around for awhile, so I figured hey, why not give them to someone who doesn't already have a set? Included are older (but still good condition) copies of V.C. Andrews':

Flowers in the Attic
Petals on the Wind
If There Be Thorns
Seeds of Yesterday (keyhole cover!)
Garden of Shadows

If you've been having trouble finding books to read for the V.C. Andrews Challenge, these are enough for almost half the challenge!

To enter, just comment on this post, saying you want to enter.
+2 entries for already being a follower
+1 for becoming a follower
+1 for talking about this contest somewhere else and linking me to it

The contest ends Monday May 25th.

Retrospective (2)

2009-05-16T13:35:00.001-05:00

Retrospective was "started" (as in she didn't formulate the idea herself, but thought it'd be nice to make it a meme) by Steph, who is as far or further behind on her blog updates as I tend to be. The gist is that it's a spot where you can catch readers up on what you've done the past week. Since this was a pretty slow week for me, there's probably no point in doing this, but I'm trying to get the habit down. It would have been more eventful if the book I'm reading now was more engaging, but so far it's not. I got some great stuff in the mail this week, though, so next week's Retrospective should have more content.

I posted a link to a list someone made about the worst mothers in literature (in honor of Mother's Day) and asked everyone who, in their opinion, are the worst mothers in literature. Maybe this is an area I don't read a lot about since I can't think of many more that the list didn't cover.

I reviewed Melissa Walker's newest: Lovestruck Summer. Since then, I've loaned it to a friend who loved it and has vowed to get a record company internship within the next couple of years.

I found out about a movie based on Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, which will star Al Pacino. It's weird to me that they're turning a pop-psychology book into a father/son bonding flick, but whatever. Maybe Malcolm will have a cameo!

Blink: The Movie?

2009-05-14T01:56:00.001-05:00

Okay, maybe I wasn't so thrilled with Malcolm Gladwell's Blink (at least compared to his other books), but you had better believe I'm psyched about the upcoming film adapation! Yahoo has the information here.

My love for Malcolm Gladwell and his writing has been fairly well documented, so I'm willing to give anything connected to him a shot. Ditto the amazing Al Pacino, one of my favorite actors. As long as the actors with "tween appeal" aren't surnamed Cyrus or Efron, I think it sounds pretty promising so far!

What about you? Does Blink sound like a movie you would be interested in seeing?

Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker

2009-05-12T11:44:00.001-05:00

Quinn Parker is spending the summer in Austin, Texas as an intern for Amalgram Records, her favorite indie label, home of the Walters, her favorite band. She expected to spend all her time catching as many shows as possible and having a fling with the ultimate hipster guy (black glasses, choppy haircut, obscure taste in music -the whole package). What she didn't expect was condo life with Cousin Penny, the sorority queen, and Penny's cross dressing cat or the idea that she could maybe, kinda sorta, possibly be interested in Russ, the frat boy cowboy who listens to *gasp* country music and is so not her type. Does Quinn really know herself as well as she thinks she does or does she need to re-evaluate her opinions of those around her, including herself?

First, I'm not feeling the cover at all. I've read the cover story that Melissa did about it, so I understand why it had to be this way. I just don't think it went with the actual story at all. Some people, who would really like Lovestruck Summer (like the friend I'm loaning this to after I finish writing the review because it's basically her life story) are going to be turned off by the cotton candyness.

All crabbiness about the cover aside, this book was just what I needed right now. It's fun, funny, mushy (but not bubblegum), and still managed to make me reconsider my own occasional musical snobbiness. Quinn is so judgmental about her surroundings: the music, people, and clothes that it's fun to see her attitude and tastes start to broaden a bit. She's so adamant that she hates country music that she never even considers actually listening to it. Her cousin Penny and neighbor Chrissy are in a sorority, so she automatically comes to the conclusion that they're airhead stereotypes. Sebastian, the hipster DJ, is everything she's always wanted in a guy, so why is it that it's Russ, the cowboy next door, whose playlists she keeps finding herself humming?

I'm already a big Melissa Walker fan, but the excitement I had about reading Lovestruck Summer is nothing in comparison to how much I enjoyed reading it. It's the perfect summer read, with lots of laughs, surprises, and even a reference to the Violet series thrown in for good measure. Plus, for $6, you really can't beat the price.

Worst Mothers in Literature

2009-05-10T16:06:00.002-05:00

In honor of Mother's Day, this blog has compiled a list of the worst mothers in literature. I couldn't agree more with a lot of the choices -especially number one- and have been trying to come up with some of my own. So far I've come up with just about every V.C. Andrews mother, Mrs. Lisbon from The Virgin Suicides, and the mother in The Hunger Games (did she have a name?). Apparently, I've been really neglecting the whole "evil mothers" genre of literature. Who would you say the worst mother in literature are?

Retrospective (1)

2009-05-10T10:42:00.001-05:00

Steph thought it would be a good idea if everyone who posted updates on what they had posted during the week had a place to keep up with everyone else who does the same thing. Most people subscribe to a ton of blogs and it's easy to get behind. Thus, Retrospective will hopefully be a nice addition to help everyone keep up with who's done what this past week. If you want to participate, head over to Steph's blog and add your link.

Over the past week I recapped both parts of V.C. Andrews' Ruby. Part one is here, while part two is here. The whole thing is a total trainwreck, which means you have to take a look. You'll feel so many smarter about yourself because you're not the one who read it.

I've discussed one of my favorite shows, Gilmore Girls, and there's currently some nice discussion going on in the comments section.

Finally, on the reviewing front, I've reviewed Meg Cabot's newest, Being Nikki, as well as Chelsea Handler's Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. Both books I liked, but for different reasons. Chelsea didn't have a brain transplant, while Nikki didn't have to pretend she was dating her dad to get upgraded to first class on a plane.

Gilmore Girls

2009-05-09T15:51:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite shows, and I know I'm not alone in this, is Gilmore Girls. Unlike a lot of people, I never watched it when it was on (I still don't know when exactly it came on), but one summer I caught the reruns, starting with the first episode, and started watching it religiously. Before long, I was hooked and had to have all seven seasons on dvd -$14.99 each at Target, baby! They, along with the Harry Potter audiobooks, are some of the only things I can have going on constantly in my life and never get sick of. I love that, unlike other WB shows, it wasn't a horribly cheesy, overwrought teen drama where everyone was constantly having pregnancy scares, trying out for the basketball team, and other cliches. Instead, GG (to this day, when I see Gossip Girl abbreviated as GG the first thing I associate it with is my show) was a purposely funny, witty, well written show, almost void of cliches (Chad Michael Murray was in seasons one and two, what do you expect?). I love the characters, the town, the clothes, the fast talking, and especially all the pop culture references. I love the abnormally co-dependent relationship between Lorelai and Rory and Friday night dinners with Emily and Richard. Again, I know I'm not the only one with some massive Gilmore Girls love, so why don't I turn this over to you so you can tell me what your favorite Gilmore Girls moments are?

Luke or Christopher?

Dean, Jess, or Logan?

Ha...Taylor or Kirk?

Paris or...who am I kidding? Paris is the greatest!

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

2009-05-08T11:40:00.003-05:00

I'm not going to do a regular review for this book since it would basically just be me saying "oh my god this is so funny about thirty seven times and no one wants to read that. Instead, I just want to talk a little about how much I laughed while reading it and how much I love Chelsea Handler.

Are You There, Vodka? is a collection of essays, stories really, that Chelsea has written about herself, her family, and her friends. If you're familiar with her, you'll know that her humor is really deadpan, so I have no idea if the things she talked about really happened or if she's exaggerating. All I know is please please please let her story about convincing her elementary school that she was going to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in a Private Benjamin sequel be true!

This was the first book I've read in a long time that I could have finished earlier than I did, but instead took it slowly and really enjoyed it. Each story is better than the last and now I can't wait to read her other book. Of course, I'm already a fan of Chelsea Lately, only now I wish she didn't talk only about celebrities and instead spent more time telling stories like these -like being charitable by dating a redheaded guy or the unsavory act one of her ex boyfriends committed with a dog. If you like to laugh and aren't easily offended (because there's something to offend most people in this book) you'll love it.

Ruby by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-05-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback on these VCA recaps. As long as everyone likes this format I'll keep it up.

Ruby has come face to face with her twin sister, Gisselle, for the first time since they were born. If you've been following these recaps at all, you'll have figured out that in the grand tradition of Clara Sue Cutler and Fanny Casteel, Gisselle Dumas is going to be a bitch. She doesn't believe that Ruby is her sister or that they look anything alike. What I don't believe is how a Catholic girl from Louisiana, like Ruby, wouldn't know when Mardi Gras is. It's right before Lent, right?

Beau, Gisselle's boyfriend, goes to find Ruby's father and stepmother, Pierre and Daphne. They come home and are stunned to see her. Pierre is excited and happy and Daphne, wanting to save herself from the embarrassment this will surely cause, offers to give her money if she'll just go back home. Pierre wins. They concoct the story that the maid they had when Gisselle was born stole Ruby away as a potential voodoo sacrifice and they've had private detectives looking for her all this time. Right away, they set out about making her into a real Dumas. Pierre takes her around the city in what I'm 99% sure was Neiderman's way of getting in every piece of New Orleans trivia he's ever learned, while Daphne takes her shopping and buys her short skirts that she later claims Ruby asked for. Pierre is the perfect father Ruby has always dreamed of and he tells her about a sailing accident involving his beautiful, perfect younger brother Jean. He makes him out to be dead, but he's actually living in a psychiatric hospital and is severely brain damaged. Pierre blames himself for the accident.

Ruby tries to bond with Gisselle, but their interests couldn't be more different. Gisselle drinks, smokes, has sex, and doesn't study, while the worst thing Ruby does is try some marijuana that Gisselle got for her. After a couple of puffs she started freaking out like a scene from Reefer Madness. Everyone at school loves Ruby and she makes a lot of friends and gets asked to be on the paper and in the choir and makes great grades. Gisselle gets jealous and plants liquor in her room and gets boys to jump out of a closet and take a picture of her changing at a sleepover. Soon, the picture is all over school and everyone starts talking about what a slut Ruby is and no one wants to be her friend anymore -except Beau. Ruby starts going out with him even though he hasn't broken up with Gisselle yet. When they're studying for the school play (because oh yeah, she's in that, too) he asks her to paint him in the nude. It's just like Titanic, except without the necklace and she's nervous painting his "manliness". He says he loves her, that she's prettier and nicer than any other girl, and gets her to have sex with him. Plus, when the twins and some friends were out, Ruby spotted the woman from the bus who helped her find her father's house. She's a prostitute and Gisselle wastes no time in telling their parents that sweet, innocent Ruby is friends with a hooker. .

Ruby is finally so pissed at Gisselle that she gets one of the maids to take her to see the voodoo queen, who she gets to put a spell on Gisselle. Right after that, Gisselle and a friend are in a car accident. He's killed, but she's paralyzed. Naturally, Ruby blames herself. The voodoo queen tells her it's not her fault, however, that the devil (Papa le Bas) had already gotten into her sister's heart. By this time, Daphne has found the nude drawing of Beau, so that, coupled with everything else, makes her trick Ruby into thinking she's going to visit her Uncle Jean (which she wanted to do anyway). Instead, even though they're at the same hospital, Daphne is checking Ruby in for observation, for suspicion that she's a nymphomaniac. Pierre, of course, has no idea. He's too busy being depressed and sobbing in Jean's room for hours, blaming himself for that accident and Giselle's. Ruby does escape, but not before meeting Uncle Jean, who says his first word in fifteen years: jib.

When she gets home Ruby finds her father in one of his melancholy moods . He snaps out of it when she tells her about Jean. The jib was the part of the boat that Pierre purposely sent swinging around the boat to hit Jean on the head, causing the accident. He was jealous that everyone loved Jean, especially all the women. Finally, Pierre agrees that it's time for the family to stop lying about everything and they tell Gisselle the truth about her and Ruby's real mother. She freaks out about being part Cajun, but slowly starts to ask questions about people and Ruby tells her about their half brother Paul (leaving out all the sex bits). Daphne says she hopes that one day Ruby can call her mother and Ruby says she wishes for that, too. They decide that it's best to send the girls away to a boarding school right now, since Gisselle needs special attention and Ruby, though she'd never admit it.

Being Nikki by Meg Cabot

2009-05-04T15:01:00.003-05:00

**If you haven't read Airhead yet and don't want to know any details, turn back. If you're looking for Being Nikki spoilers, however, this isn't the place.**

Emerson Watts, regular teenager, has waited a long time for her best friend Christopher to notice that she's actually a girl. Unfortunately, that day had to come after she was declared legally dead. As Nikki Howard, teenager supermodel, however, she's got more male attention than she needs: from an ex who won't leave her alone, to a British supermodel whose song about her is racing up the charts, to a long lost whose who is demanding answers about their mother's disappearance, to a boss whose company just might be evil incarnate. Add in school, finals, runway shows, modeling gigs, and more than a few mysteries surrounding her *ahem* operation and Emerson is finding out just how hard it is being Nikki.

Meg Cabot books are like the ultimate comfort food. Every new book possesses the uncanny ability to transport me back to the first time I read one. Her latest, Being Nikki, is not only no exception, but also possibly her best to date.

Part mystery, part sci-fi, with lots of comedy and teenage angst and worrying, Being Nikki has more than transcended the dreaded "second book slump" that so many other series fall into. If Meg had a quarter every time someone said this she'd have more money than God, but I simply couldn't put it down. There are so many twists and turns that it's hard to keep up with who knows what -and believe me, lots of characters find out lots of things, some you might have predicted and many you probably haven't. I've read some criticisms of Meg's work that say her books are too predictable and formulaic, but unless you're Nostradamus you're going to be in for a major ride with this book!

My one major criticism is the forced use of brand name dropping. I've seen it worse in other books, but it bothers me that Em's boots can't just be boots, that they're Marc Jacobs boots. And a Miu Miu bag. And on and on. I think it's unnecessary and makes it harder to find Emerson believable, that such a self professed geek would suddenly find it necessary to comment on the designer of every article of clothing she wears or gives away. It's more believable on a character like Lulu, who is the ultimate comic relief and breath of fresh air. It would be so easy to hate a character like her, a celebutante who's never had to work a day in her life, but she's just so sweet, with the least self aware approach to life, that it's impossible not to find her totally loveable.

I hate having to be so vague, but since Being Nikki is to be released tomorrow I don't want to give anything away or spoil it for anyone. Suffice it to say that longterm Meg fans, sometimes Meg fans, and new Meg fans will all love it, get a kick out of some great returning characters, and be on the edge of their seats waiting for part three!

Shows About Books

2009-05-03T20:26:00.000-05:00

Other than Reading Rainbow, how many television shows can you name that are centered around books and reading? In a previous post I asked for help in identifying a show that I remembered from when I was little. Someone (awesomely) told me it was Cover to Cover, a show that hasn't aired in more than a decade as far as I know. I vaguely remember another children's show about puppet mice that lived in a library. Except for C-Span's Book TV, which airs during the weekends and is centered around non-fiction, I can't think of any others.

I can't be alone in wishing that there was a television show out there that catered to book lovers -sort of a telvised version of what we do on blogs: reviews, interviews, contests, opinions. Reading Rainbow, though I love it and will admit to still watching it occasionally, is catered toward children and Book TV is centered around more adult non-fiction that most young people aren't interested in. As far as I know there's never been anything out there that catered to people who fall somewhere in between those two demographics and especially nothing that catered specifically to teens and young adult book readers. Do you think that such a show could be a success on American television or would it be dumbed down and vapid?

Ruby by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-05-02T01:39:00.000-05:00

This is the first book in the Landry series, which I haven't read in several years since (for reasons you will soon come to understand) Ruby is not exactly my favorite VCA heroine. For future reference and because I like feedback, do you guys like the recapping format I've been doing or would you like to read something different, longer, or shorter? I'm up for whatever you want to do.

Ruby Landry is a fifteen year old, red haired beauty with butt tons of artistic ability who lives in a shack in the swamps of Louisiana with her Grandmere Catherine. Grandpere Jack is an old drunk who lives separate from them and hardly ever comes around. Ruby's mother Gabrielle died giving birth to her and she doesn't know who her father is since her parents weren't married. She's been seeing Paul Tate, whose rich parents don't approve of their relationship since Ruby is poor and illegitimate. Grandmere is a Cajun traiteur, which means she heals people and talks about evil spirits and is respected by the community. Grandmere is pretty selfless and will walk fifteen miles up a hill both ways to care for some kid's toothache, even though her arthritis is worse than what a lot of these people have to deal with.

There's a lot of random information about Cajuns and healing and voodoo and stuff like that, so for future reference with this series, every Cajun person is poor and superstitious and every black person is into voodoo and either a maid or a prostitute. It's not even fun to snark about because it's something that shows up in all of these books, the racism, classism, and misogyny, and so blatant and without irony that it makes me wonder about what kind of person ghostwriter Neiderman is. Besides the whole being a shitty writer thing.

Grandmere and Ruby have a stand where they sell food and crafts to the tourists who come around to gawk at the quirky poor people. A New Orleans gallery owner spots Ruby's paintings and pays her to put them in his gallery and sell them for more money. It's Grandmere's dream for Ruby to make it big as an artist in New Orleans, so she's very proud.

Meanwhile, Paul Tate and Ruby are becoming more serious and he's about as interesting as Heaven's Logan Stonewall or watching paint dry. His whole personality consists of telling Ruby how pretty she is and how he'll defy his father to be with her. Oh and he has a scooter. That's seriously the extent of it. After he gets in a fight defending Ruby's honor and Grandmere sees that this might be going somewhere she finally decides to let her in on the big secret that Paul is actually her half brother, that his father "seduced" (why they can't just say rape, I don't know) their mother in the swamp and Grandpere sold the Tates the baby. Gabrielle hid her pregnancy, while Gladys Tate faked hers. Grandmere makes her promise not to tell Paul the truth since it would shatter his relationship with his parents. Ruby's devastated, but she breaks up with him, saying she wants to concentrate on being an artist, and he tells her what she really wants to concentrate on is being a whore.

Meanwhile, Ruby spots a picture of herself as a little girl with a strange man she's never seen before. When she asks Grandmere about it she tells her that the man is her father, New Orleans millionaire Pierre Dumas, and the girl is actually her twin sister. Soon after Paul was sold Gabrielle got pregnant by another married man, except this time they were in love so it's supposedly okay, and was planning on keeping it until Grandpere talked to Pierre's father about it and made plans to sell the baby since Pierre's wife couldn't have any children. Except Grandmere figured out it was twins and kept that a secret. When the first baby was born he took it to the Dumas and Gabrielle lived just long enough to name the second baby Ruby before she dies. Grandmere makes her promise that when she dies Ruby will find her father.

Grandmere does die and when Paul comes to pay his condolences Ruby lets him in on their little genetic connection. Paul? Could care less. He keeps trying to kiss her and tell her that they can get married and adopt babies and that Ruby can just pretend to be pregnant like Gladys did. He gets in bed with her and almost forces himself on her, but this is where I totally lose respect for Ruby because if she had ever just said "NO, get off of me, this is gross and wrong" he would have. But she just lays there, not wanting it, but not making any effort to stop the situation. Luckily, Grandpere stumbles in and makes him leave. Not so luckily, he's sold Ruby to a middle aged plantation owner named Buster who needs a wife. Ruby feels the need to vocalize this disgust, but Grandpere just chains her to the bed and wanders off. She escapes and gets on the first bus headed to New Orleans. She sits with a prostitute who talks about voodoo and stuff and gets Ruby to pay her $10 to cast some spell on the phone book to make her know which Dumas is her father. (There's totally only one Pierre Dumas in the phone book, too)

It's Mardi Gras, so the city is insane at the moment. She hops a trolley to the Garden District where her father's house is. When the Real World was in New Orleans I totally knew what neighborhood they were in thanks to this show. Just as she's about to go through the gate a hot guy pulls up to the house and starts calling her Gisselle, asking if that's her costume for the party. Ruby knows this is her father's house and she knows that she has a twin sister, but it never occurs to her that the guy, Beau, might actually think she was her twin. She's all confused and trying to tell him that her name is Ruby and finally he suggests going inside to find the real Gisselle. They step inside and walking down the staircase (in a costume a bit more ornate than Ruby's homemade outfit) is Ruby's twin sister.

I'm Trying to Remember the Name of a Show

2009-04-30T19:40:00.002-05:00

I bet someone out there can help me. I've been trying to remember the name of a PBS show that used to come on when I was little. It had an old man who wore a blue smock or something and he would draw a scene from a book as an excerpt was being read. At the end he'd stick a little sticker of himself on the drawing and that's how you knew he was done. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Hopefully it wasn't a regional thing that just aired around my area, like the (freaking awesome) Jellybean Junction or Mrs. Cabobble's Caboose.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

2009-04-29T02:07:00.000-05:00

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell looks at instinct and the opinions formed within those first few fleeting moments when people are introduced to new people, objects, and ideas. While negative connotations associated with prejudice involving race and gender are generally believed to be the wrong attitudes to have, Gladwell goes one step further and looks at subconscious prejudices that even the most open minded, warm hearted person might not know they have. He also includes many examples where these first impressions are in fact a good thing, the results of experts in certain fields possessing a certain extinct that even they cannot properly describe.

Stop the presses, folks. Can you believe that I've finally found a Gladwell book that I didn't love? I read this on a day where I was stuck at an office desk, bored out of my mind, when just about anything would have sufficed. I got more joy from the office supply catalogue.

My main problem was that, unlike The Tipping Point and Outliers, Blink seemed like and endless discussion of studies and clinical trials and very little in the way of real world action. What examples there were were intriguing, but unfortunately few, far between, and far too short. Not every study was a snoozer -I loved reading about the Pepsi Challenge and the resulting creation of everybody's favorite disaster, New Coke- but reading about a man who assigns numbers to facial expressions, with very little in the way of descriptions of those features, was pretty freaking torturous. The only good part of that story was the man talking about how, in 1992, he noticed that Governor Bill Clinton had a peculiar expression that looked like a child with his hand in the cookie jar, about to get caught. Though he offered to help Clinton change this expression, his handlers declined the offer.

See, it's not all bad. If you like reading about scientific studies you'll love it. I, on the other hand, am glad this wasn't my first Gladwell book -I probably wouldn't have attempted the others. Just to end this on a positive note, I leave you with the link to the quiz he discusses that deals with different subconscious prejudices. I read about it a few months ago on his blog and took a few different tests. I'm proud to say that I showed no bias toward any race, gender, or most religions -apparently, I really love the Jews.

That Summer by Sarah Dessen

2009-04-27T23:35:00.000-05:00

For fifteen year old, almost six foot tall, Haven, this is a summer of change -and not necessarily the happy kind. Her parents are divorced, her father is marrying the local "weather pet" and her sister Ashley, once her confidante, is preoccupied with her wedding to a guy with no discernable personality. Watching her mother avoid the former and play damage control throughout preperations for the latter, Haven is worried that she no longer fits in anywhere. What was once a perfect family of four will never be the same again. When Ashley's old boyfriend Sumner Lee comes back to town Haven is reminded of another summer, one in which her parents were happy, her sister was carefree, and everything seemed perfect. But was it -and can Haven ever learn to move past what once was?

This is my first Sarah Dessen book and I was pleased with it. It didn't blow me out of the water, but it was really pleasant, a humorous look at a teenager trying to figure out her place in life. It's because of this that I've waited a couple of months before attempting to write this review, as it's so much easier to hate a book or love a book than to borrow from Randy Jackson, American Idol judge, and declare it to be "just aight with me, dawg".

Sarah Dessen captures the teenage experience perfectly, as well as the awkwardness that comes from being an almost six foot tall giant amidst a sea of petite beauties. Haven is stuck in the middle of one of the worst times in anyone's life, that crucial juncture between childhood and adulthood, one foot in each, not really belonging to either. Unlike many people, she doesn't really have any family to lean on, as they're all preoccupied with their own lives. Thus, in Sumner , or at least the idea of Sumner, she's more motivated to regress to childhood and its seemingly happier times than to face the now even more uncertain years ahead.

I feel like this is thing that a lot of people do, not just teenagers. Aren't there times when we all idealize the past and try to recapture a part of it? The further back the events, the less we remember the imperfections and concentrate on the good times, the innocence of youth, and the lack of responsibility. What Haven initially remembers as perfection, gradually is revealed to be perhaps just as dysfunctional as her current situation. At fifteen, she's lucky to have learned that lesson relatively early.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

2009-04-26T20:04:00.002-05:00

In the emergency room Cecelia watched the attempt to save her life with an eerie detachment. Her yellow eyes didn't blink, nor did she flinch when they stuck a needle in her arm. Dr. Armonson stiched up her wrist wounds. Within five minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger. Chucking her under her chin, he said, "What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets".

And it was then Cecelia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, an a useless one at that, because she was going to live: "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen year old girl".

Cecelia Lisbon was to be the first of the suicides, followed a year later by her sisters Therese, Mary, Bonnie, and Lux. This was many years ago and though the nameless young boys who loved the Lisbon sisters from afar are now grown, they are still haunted by their memories. Piecing together their own personal recollections and what they've learned from others and from the girls' own personal items that they have managed to salvage, the boys continue to struggle to understand the Lisbon sisters and their actions -actions that would prove to be the beginning of the end of their idyllic suburban neighborhood.

I've had this book for a long time, but only thought to pick it up last night and finally had to put it down when my eyelids were too heavy to stay open. In a word, I would describe it as brilliant, an absolute must read.

I loved that even though the boys, this nameless faceless group of the Lisbons' neighbors and schoolmates, knew everything about the girls -what clothes and makeup they wore, what they ate and listened to, what they read and received in the mail, where they wanted to travel- they still didn't really know anything. In fact, according to their interviews with various people whose lives intersected with the girls at different points, from doctors, friends, sexual partners, even their overprotective mother, no one really knew the Lisbon girls and their motivations remain unclear.

It's so difficult to discuss a book that is so internal and descriptive. I'm a fan of the movie, but now that I've read the book I'm amazed that the movie was even attempted. Quirky and comical, yet morose and contemplative, The Virgin Suicides is a fascinating modern day classic.

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

2009-04-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

Sookie Stackhouse would be more than happy to lead a quiet life with her new vampire boyfriend Bill, but things keep getting in the way of that. First, (the cliffhanger from Dead Until Dark) she finds out that a friend of hers has just been murdered and shoved into the sheriff's car and no one seems to want to investigate further. Then, if it wasn't strange enough finding out that vampires and shape shifters exist, she's attacked by a new kind of creature and it's up to Bill and some of his vampire friends to save her from the creature's poisonous bites. One favor deserves another and when head vampire Eric asks Sookie to investigate the disappearance of a fellow vampire in Dallas, she goes along with it (under certain conditions). Things start to turn deadly, however, when she meets up with members of a certain church that would like nothing more than to see vampires and those who sympathize with them disappear for good.

I really enjoyed this second book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I love that the civil rights issues facing vampires parallel the current struggle for gay rights and past struggles for African Americans, without being preachy -because regardless of how I feel about issues and especially if I'm for them, I can't stand heavy handed preaching in books. It's called subtletly, people! It cracked me up that even though the government can't decide if vampires are alive, they have no problem with taxing them. Then, if they're getting taxed, naturally they should get the right to vote (absentee of course, since they can't come out in the daytime). Though (with some exceptions) they're happy to have these rights, there are some rights that still aren't available to them and quite a few people around to make sure that they don't get them.

The Fellowship of the Sun (the church who are against vampire rights) continues to fascinate me and I was so glad they play a larger part in Living Dead in Dallas. It's really amusing that there's this large mega-church whose one goal is the extinction of an entire race of beings. Picture the Westboro Baptist Church on a grander scale and slightly less crazy first impression. They're certainly more of a parody of them than of 99% of the less violent religious people, so don't think that the books or Charlaine Harris are trying to issue this scatching indictment of all religion or religious people or anything -just of bigotry in general. Many of the characters, including Sookie, attend church. It was she who hilariously pointed out that the sign on the church's lawn "Only Jesus rose from the dead" was a fallacy. I just really enjoy reading about crazy splinter groups.

Sookie and Bill's relationship was interesting to me, because unlike a lot of books I've read, the relationship wasn't the focus of the whole book. Sure, they're together and they love each other, but Sookie isn't sure about how long it'll last or even if she's necessarily in love with him. They have problems, just like every other couple. The only exceptions are that they're not allowed to marry (not that Bill's asked!), she can't give him children, and he has to be out of the sun by morning.

It was really strange to me how the murder (the victim's name I will not reveal) played out, however. It's dealt with at the very beginning of the book, sort of forgotten, and then only at the end dealt with again, as though Harris thought to herself, "oh yeah, I guess we need to find out who did it, huh?". I can understand why it had to be this way, as elements involving finding out who the murderer was were made possible by earlier events, but it was just so random.

The world of the Southern Vampire series has been an interesting and often hilarious one to discover. Even if you're not really into vampires (and I wouldn't blame you) the mysteries and social issues are clever and interesting enough to sustain the books. This is only book two and from what I understand it keeps getting better and better!

Baby, Forgive Me My Stalking: Taren's Story, aka My Love Affair with Lifetime Movies

2009-04-24T05:53:00.001-05:00

The made for television movie can be and often is a thing of beauty. You've got your Roots, your Thorn Birds, and your John Adams, all of which are award winners with all star casts. But for every Grey Gardens there are about ten Mother, May I Sleep with Dangers: made for tv movies that aren't quite as prestigious, but make up for it by being totally campy and over the top.

If you're anything like me, you can appreciate an incredibly bad made for tv movie once in awhile. Among all the channels on television today, one rises above them all to be the queen of all that is both dramatic and hackneyed, fictional and based on a true story, man hating and man hating even harder: Lifetime, television for women.

Lifetime has a bit of a bad rap, sometimes deservedly so. Not only did they take away my Designing Women and Golden Girls, but for a network devoted to women (and one would presume, by association, female empowerment) they devote a lot of airtime to women being raped, murdered, kidnapped, and abused. However, occasionally some little gems will rise above all the melodrama to be campy classics full of tons of unintentionally hilarious cheese. The following is a list of five of my favorites.

Invisible Child
Rita Wilson stars as a mother with two real children and one invisible one that she made up after her husband started spending too much time at his job. The husband, the oldest daughter, and even the nanny go along with this whole thing because, for whatever reason, Rita Wilson is emotionally unstable and couldn't handle the truth. Highlights include the time the nanny loses the invisible daughter at the amusement park and has to find her and the time the oldest daughter puts up drawings in kindergarten that invisible child "made" so that Rita Wilson will have something to brag about on parent's night. It's been a long time since I've seen this one, but I'm pretty sure it ends with Rita Wilson's husband paying more attention to her, thereby causing invisible child to die so that she can be buried in a creek somewhere.

No One Would Tell
Okay, yes, movies where women are beaten, raped, and killed typically aren't what you think of in regard to cheesy, Lifetime movies. However, that's probably because you haven't watched this one, featuring The Wonder Years' Fred Savage as the abuser and Full House's Candace Cameron as the abusee. I'll admit that I was a little scarred when I watched this for the first time, somewhere around the mid 90's. I was a frequent viewer of both shows, so watching little Kevin Arnold go all Ike Turner on DJ Tanner was freakier than the day I found out that George Carlin wasn't as cleancut wholesome as his Mr. Conductor persona. Watching it now, however, is a whole other story. Fred Savage is totally laughable as a big scary wrestler. I mean, come on! Was one of the boys from 90210 not available? And then the judge at the end, who hands down the sentence of lifetime without parole, is none other than Sally Jessy Raphael, thereby completing the little 90's time capsule trifecta. They should have had the Macarena play over the closing credits.

The Haunting of Lisa
Anything ghost related tends to scare the hell out of me, so you can imagine what I went through while watching Cheryl Ladd deal with her eight year old daughter's psychic visions of dead people, while trying to solve a thirty year old murder mystery. Poor little Lisa is on a school picnic or something when she comes across an abandoned house where her world starts spinning and she's confronted by a woman and her little girl who were murdered. Again, details are sketchy here, but I'm pretty sure we find out that the murderer is Cheryl Ladd's fiancee's police officer co-worker, who was the dead woman's little boy. In a severe case of Oedipus complex rage, he kills his mom, sister, and mom's fiancee because he's pretty much in love with his mom and doesn't want her to love anyone else. He mistakes Cheryl Ladd, her daughter, and her fiancee for his victims and starts crying on Cheryl Ladd's lap about wanting her to love him. Also, similarly to Lois Duncan's The Third Eye, we find out that, like her daughter, Cheryl Ladd is also psychic, as was her mother, so there's a history of crazy visions.

Death of a Cheerleader
This is pretty much the Citizen Kane of Lifetime movies. Life gets no better than this. Kelly Martin is poor and naive and starts high school with desperate attempts to become popular. There is no better way to get there than by befriending Tori Spelling, the leader of The Larks, who are ostensibly a community service organization, but really just an excuse for Tori Spelling to make fun of people. So Kellie Martin tricks Tori Spelling into going to a party with her, but when Tori finds out they weren't invited she starts making fun of Kellie, telling her that she'll tell everyone what a loser she is and Kellie goes nuts and stabs her with a knife that her sister keeps in the car to cut vegetables with. Kellie Martin does become more popular, but when she's questioned by police she fails the lie detector test and eventually turns herself in or gets caught or something. This is horrible for her poor, long suffering mother Valerie Harper. Best part of all? It's based on a true story!

Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story
There are no words for how much I love this movie. As soon as this entry gets posted I'm going to try to find it online. Lesley Ann Warren and Tess Harper play mothers whose daughters are best friends and cheerleading rivals. While Tess Harper's daughter is more naturally talented, does well, and always makes the squad, Lesley Ann Warren's daughter has to try harder and tends to finish second to her friend. High school is coming up and apparently if you're not a cheerleader in high school you're nothing, so Lesley Ann Warren snaps and contacts her ex con ex brother-in-law to put a hit out on Tess Harper, which would make her daughter too distraught to try out for cheerleading, thereby guaranteeing her own daughter a place on the squad. Brother-in-law totally turns her in to the police, however, and she's sent to jail. Presumably, her daughter doesn't make the squad. It's totally worth watching for the fact that Tess Harper and Lesley Ann Warren put on some of the most hideous southern accents I've ever heard and their hair gives new meaning to the expression "the higher the hair, the closer to God". Again, best part: totally based on a true story.

I leave you with this Lifetime Movie Title Generator (the source of the title of this post) and my favorite clip from my beloved Designing Women. Bring it back, Lifetime! Bring it back!

The Third Eye by Lois Duncan

2009-04-20T16:51:00.001-05:00

First of all, let me just say that Lois Duncan owns my face. It seems like just yesterday I was reading her books in middle school to get four points on an Accelerated Reader test. I remember when The Family Channel made a movie based on one of the more awesome books and then it sucked and I was pissed.

Anyway, lots and lots of spoilers ahead, as this is more recap than review.

Karen Connors is about to graduate from high school and for once things are starting to go right. She has a popular boyfriend and the kids who have always subconsciously ignored her are including her and she's becoming more popular. But then when a boy she's babysitting goes missing and suddenly she can see where he is in her mind everything starts to change. The boy gets found (safe), but her asshat boyfriend wants her to use her ability to help him cheat on tests and when she says no they drift apart and break up before graduation. Strangers start calling and sending letters, begging Karen to help find their kids, but Karen's not even sure she has any psychic ability. Her mom sure refuses to consider the idea. She just wants Karen to be normal and popular like she was.

One person Karen can't say no to is hot police officer Ron who was there when the kid she babysat for was found. He's had experience with psychics before and believes she can help him find a little girl who's missing. Unfortunately, when they find her, thanks to Karen's visions, she's dead. Karen is so shook up that she stops taking Ron's calls to help with more cases. Instead, she just wants to be normal and work at a daycare center during the summer. That doesn't go over too well when she's kidnapped and locked in a motel room while one of the kidnappers poses as her aunt in order to work at the daycare center. By the time she's free they've taken all the babies and hit the road. Officer Ron comes calling again -he's not on the case, but one of the babies is his nephew. Since Karen feels partially responsible for the kidnapping she agrees to help.

She starts having visions of where the kidnappers could be and they're interspersed with dreams about a little girl she's never seen before, but who she feels a strong connection to. They travel for a few days and Ron opens up about how he really wanted to be a lawyer, but when his golden god of a brother decided he wanted to be lawyer, too, and join their dad's practice he quit school and joined the police force. She convinces him to go back to college since he's got too much heart to be a police officer and he still really wants to be a lawyer. Annnnd of course they start to fall in love because they get each other.

They find the babies and Ron gets shot, but the kidnappers are arrested and all is good. Karen's mom reveals that she wasn't really popular like she says she was -she, too, was shunned by classmates because she was different. She has the same psychic visions, but blocks them out because they're too painful. Her only really positive moments were when she dreamed about Karen years before she gave birth to her and only married Karen's dad because she knew that Karen was waiting to be born, which is kinda sad. That night, Karen dreams about the little girl again and realizes that she is her daughter. When she asks the little girl who her daddy will be she turns around and Karen sees she has the same bright blue eyes that Ron has. Aww!

Fallen Hearts by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-04-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Yes, Fanny is having Logan's baby. He's done nothing but whine since book one about how he dislikes girls like Fanny, but obviously he has no problem sleeping with one. He doesn't even really deny it either. Instead, he actually tries to play the rape card and says that since he was drinking that night and Fanny came on to him that it must have been rape. I do not think that word means what he thinks it does. Heaven momentarily considers that she might have done the same thing as Logan when she slept with Troy, but since she actually loves Troy and Logan's just a walking penis with an IQ of 37 that makes it different. Normally, I'd disagree, but my hatred of Logan and love of Troy is just that strong. Naturally, she's pissed about the situation, but after a bunch of crying sessions she and Logan have make up sex and he resolves to stick by her like a Siamese twin. Before Fanny can embarrass her publicly with the news she goes to see her and decides to pay her $2500 a month for her and the baby's expenses, provided Fanny never tries to make trouble for them, at which point she gets nothing. Since the "seduction" happened at their cabin in Winnerow Logan decides to buy Heaven the large colonial style mansion in their town that she's been dreaming about since she was little. Right after that she discovers she's pregnant. Ahh...but whose baby is it?

Heaven decides she doesn't care and I guess if my choices were between a relative and a moronic asshat the paternity wouldn't bother me too much either. Logan and Tony are thrilled and Tony morphs into me with a diatribe about the crap names people give their kids. When Heaven says if it's a girl she wants to name her Annie (after Granny Casteel), Tony's like "shouldn't it be Ann?" and YES, that's a huge pet peeve of mine when people name their kids nicknames! Anyway, they come home and Tony has gotten a telegram about Luke. Luke and his new wife were killed in a car accident, which means Heaven never got to make peace with him. Heaven flies to Atlanta to bring his son Drake home with her and get things settled with his circus. There, she finds out that Tony bought Luke's circus for him on the grounds that Luke never has contact with Heaven again.

She confronts Tony about it, who claims he did it for her because he didn't want her to roped back in to the Casteel world when she was really a Tatterton. He only bought it after having secret calls with Logan before the wedding, where he found out Luke was invited. Heaven goes off on him about all of his manipulations and lets him know that she knows Troy is alive (because if he had just let her know that she would have come back to Farthy in a heartbeat). When Tony tries to act like it's was Troy's idea to not let her know, Heaven decides to leave Farthy -for good this time. Then, when she's in bed that night, a drunken Tony comes into her room (believing she's her mother Leigh) and tries to rape her. She chases him off and the servants find him in Jillian's suite the next morning, passed out while wearing her nightgown and perfume. That seals the deal and Heaven is out of there.

Logan is surprised when Heaven and Drake show up in the Willies where Logan is still supervising the construction of the new toy factory. When they finally get a moment together for Heaven to explain why she left, Logan actually sympathizes with Tony! Heaven is as pissed as I am and starts to tell him about how Tony tried to rape her and Logan said it was something he actually suspected that Tony might do! It's only when Heaven finally tells him the truth, that Tony is her father, not her step-grandfather, that Logan finally gets pissed at Tony. Of course he still wants to continue with the toy factory and Heaven agrees since it will benefit the community. They have a party to celebrate the opening, but when Heaven looks up she sees that Drake is missing. Fanny took him as just another way to get something that Heaven wants.

They have a hearing and all the dirty laundry comes out. The reverand admits his daughter is his and Fanny's, that he paid $10,000 for her. Fanny's old land lady tells everyone she used to be a prostitute. Fanny tells everyone she's pregnant with Logan's baby. Heaven starts to feel sorry for her since she had plenty of opportunity to help her and give her money and she didn't. Fanny only slept with Logan as payback. Then the lawyer tells Heaven that Fanny knows Heaven isn't her and Drake's blood sister and that Tony is prepared to testify to that fact, which will surely mean Drake will have to stay with Fanny. Heaven goes to Fanny's house and offers her one million dollars for custody of Drake. Fanny totally calls her on the fact that she's no better than Luke for selling his kids and no better than the reverand or Kitty and Cal Dennison for buying them. Fanny breaks down and admits that anything she's ever done she only did in an attempt to get people to love her like they love Heaven. Heaven apologizes for not doing more for her and tells her that now that she's pregnant she has someone who will love her. Fanny takes the million.

A few months later, in a happy little coincidence, both Fanny and Heaven have their babies on the same day. Fanny's son Luke and Heaven's daughter Annie would have been half brother and sister if not for the fact that Heaven notices certain resemblances that only a child of Troy's could have. Luckily, she doesn't have a tail or any other weird birth defects, so Heaven doesn't tell anyone who Annie's real father is. When she comes home Heaven gets a package in the mail with no card. It's a Tatterton toy model of Troy's cottage and the surrounding maze. When she lifts up the roof it plays Troy's favorite Chopin prelude. Troy knows Annie is his baby and wants Heaven to know he knows. Despite her problems with Tatterton toys in general, that will be one Tatterton toy that Heaven will be keeping.

Baby's Named a Bad Bad Thing

2009-04-17T22:49:00.000-05:00

The results of my poll came out in my favor: it's Anne with an e all the way! However, my friend still doesn't agree, so we've agreed to just pretend the name doesn't exist.

As you've probably guessed I have some very strong opinions about names. I have a strange name with an even stranger spelling and it's such a pain in the ass. People always go "oh, your name is so pretty", which is nice, but they have haven't spent 20+ years having the same conversation every single day:

What's your name?

Taren

Karen?

Taren

Tara?

TAREN! TEAR-IN!

Oh, hi, Karen
*sigh* Hi, it's nice to meet you

I answer to anything. It's just easier that way. If I ever have children I know that I most definitely will not be saddling them with a similar name. I seem to be in the majority, however. I've been a substitute teacher for a few months now and every class list has at least one name that I wouldn't give to a stuffed animal, let alone a child. I do my best to sound it out phonetically, but inevitably some smart ass child takes a superior tone and announces that it's pronounced "__". No. No, it's not. How do you tell a kid that their parents spelled their name wrong? That maybe it doesn't need all those extra y's and k's. That maybe Brittany doesn't need a z.

If you're like me and find bad baby names endlessly entertaining (as long as they're not your own of course) you have to check out this hilarious site: Baby's Named a Bad Bad Thing. Let me know some of the craziest names or name combinations you've seen or heard.

Just Trying to Prove a Point

2009-04-15T16:55:00.003-05:00

Okay, it's a long story, but I need some feedback on the best way to spell a particular name, so I created a poll about it. I have my opinion, a friend has theirs. I think it would help my argument to have a little research done by the time the subject comes up again -unless of course it doesn't turn out in my favor, at which point we'll all pretend this never happened. Vote please!

Fallen Hearts by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-04-14T15:31:00.001-05:00

It's been awhile since I've done a Casteel book, so check out the recaps of the first two in the series if you're lost. Where we last left off: Heaven found out she was Tony's daughter and therefore not a Casteel. However, she is the wonderfully perfect and awesome Troy's niece. He's so devastated that he kills himself by riding a horse into the sea, leaving Heaven to go back to dull, boring, annoying Logan.

Heaven is living back home in Winnerow, teaching like she always wanted. Logan proposes to her and they have a big wedding (still wanting acceptance from ex-father Luke, she invites him but he can't come) in town, followed directly by flying to Farthy for a huge reception. Logan gets a total hard-on for the house and would rather have Tony show him around than consummate his marriage. Like the next day, Logan tells Heaven about an idea Tony has "just" had to build a Tatterton Toy factory in Winnerow, with Logan becoming an executive vice-president or some such nonsense. Heaven's like "what do you know? you're just a pharmacist". Uhhh...BURN. Of course this plan includes the two of them moving into Farthy, where Tony just happens to have his grandparents' suite all ready for them, including a closet full of brand new clothes for Heaven. Logan can't understand why Heaven would think Tony had planned this out. Anyone else think that Logan and Dawn Cutler are soul mates of idiocy?

What should be a happy first few months of marriage is spent with Logan flying back and forth to Winnerow constantly, acting like some bigshot businessman, ignoring Heaven. Heaven doesn't say anything about it though, since she knows that Logan prefers his women quiet, sweet, and submissive -as opposed to Fanny, whose sexuality is all in your face and has been trying to steal Logan from Heaven since they were kids. Heaven visits Jillian a lot and discovers that her beauty has started to fade and her sanity has slipped even more. She (and a lot of the servants) is always talking about seeings ghosts and people coming back from the dead. Heaven is spooked and goes to Troy's cottage a couple of times until she finally sees someone who tries to hide from her.

It's Troy! Who faked his death! He was the ghost everyone kept seeing and hearing and he even snuck in Heaven's room to watch her sleep one night. Because Troy is Edward Cullen now. He was going to come back for her and they would find some way to make their crazy incestuous union work, but then he found out she was engaged and figured she'd be happier with Logan. Obviously, Heaven's not happy, though. I mean she openly laughs at her husband's sad attempts at being a businessman. Her brand new biological father is a total puppet master, pulling everyone's strings. What's a girl to do? She and Troy make sweet sweet love of course. Troy refuses to make it an ongoing thing, though, since he says Logan will figure out that Heaven is holding her passion back. He's giving Logan waaay too much credit. Heaven leaves and later that day Jillian dies. She overdosed on pills, wanting death to be on her own terms. Dear sister Fanny calls and asks Heaven if she's pregnant yet, because she is! Care to guess who the father is?

It's Logan!

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

2009-04-13T15:14:00.000-05:00

Someone remind me to hug my high school history teacher. According to Lies My Teacher Told Me, he would be one of the few who were capable of and who did an excellent job, in spite of having to teach from a sub-par textbook. In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen examines twelve of the most used high school history textbooks (including the one I used) and concludes that not a single one makes history interesting or memorable, they're also guilty of the sin of omission in many important areas.

One of my favorite chapters deals with the concept of hero building, where textbooks take prominent figures and completely whitewash anything negative or controversial. Not only is this lying, but it also gives the students who are learning about these people the false impression that they can never be or accomplish anything like these perfect people. Helen Keller was a radical socialist (we're talking practically left of Lenin here, while Woodrow Wilson was a racist who considered Birth of a Nation to be totally factual, and Christopher Columbus didn't actually discover anything and is resonsible for a genocide. These things don't necessarily discredit the positive things that these people brought to the world (nor does Loewen want to discredit them), but it is dishonest to present their lives as one way when they were decidedly another -indeed, at least one text blatantly lies about Wilson's racism and feelings toward African Americans.

History gives us the possibility to learn from the past. However, when events are presented in a vacuum, with the events of chapter 8 having little to do with chapter 9, that affect is lost. For example, in many texts Reconstruction is treated with kid gloves, ostensibly to not hurt the south's feelings (as though anyone who participated in it is still living) and in some cases students are actually lied to and told that the freed slaves were put in charge of Southern state legislatures and messed things up so badly that whites had to take charge once again. Ha! That Reconstruction led to segregation and Jim Crow laws, which led to the Civil Rights movement, which has led to affirmative action is lost to all but those who are curious enough to learn more from other sources.

Obviously, I really enjoyed this book. As someone who hopes to teach history one day I've become inspired to be better than the material given to me. The only criticisms I have are that occasionally Loewen drags the subject on for too long, to the point where I'm going "I get it, I get it" and that the chapters on subjects I've always found boring: Columbus, early exploration, etc. were uninteresting to me. I can't exactly fault Loewen for not making interested in something I've never liked, just as I couldn't fault Paula Deen for not making corn anything but gross to me.

All in all I loved the feeling of being simultaneously enthralled by things I didn't know about, like secret wars with Russia, and disgusted while reading, verbatim, some of the outright lies that so many students are raught. Loewen knows what he's talking about and hopefully, with some future textbook rewrites, other people will, too.

Movies Based on Books

2009-04-12T18:02:00.002-05:00

The past couple of days I've watched a couple of really good movies (Postcards from the Edge and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) that happen to be based on books, both of which I have not read, but plan to at some point. The coincidence that I should watch two films based on other work didn't occur to me until after I had finished them, but when it did I started thinking about the process of book to movie adaptations in general.

Few subjects can upset an avid book reader as much as when one of their most beloved reads hits the big screen. When a person reads a book their imagination sets standards for the characters and events in that book that even the most accomplished filmmakers will have difficulty living up to. Each fan of the book has a different favorite part that they want to see on screen and unless the source material is relatively short, pleasing everyone will be impossible. For example, my favorite part of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a small scene in which Harry and his friends spot Neville visiting his parents in the wizard hospital. It wasn't included in the film as it was, but rather changed and reworked to a few lines spoken at Hogwarts. I was a little disappointed, but it didn't affect my overall opinion of the film. Conversely, others refuse to watch the Harry Potter films because Hermione's hair isn't bushy enough and she doesn't have buck teeth. A friend told me about a girl he saw Twilight with and how her whole opinion of it was shot to hell after she saw that the color of the carpet in Edward's room was wrong.

Of the ten films nominated from 1939 (my favorite year for movies) for the Academy Award for Best Picture, five were adapted from books or plays. Three of the most famous are Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights. All three vary greatly from their original source material (Gone with the Wind left out two of Scarlet's children, The Wizard of Oz made the whole thing a dream, and Wuthering Heights left out half the book -and all this is just for starters), yet all are almost universally beloved, even by rabid fans of the books. Why then do you think that some fans can be riled by minor changes in one instance when others are satisfied and even enthralled by huge changes in others? Surely changing a carpet's color is nothing in the way of leaving out children or changing the ending to a story. Regardless of what may think of one or more of these books (that's an argument I'd really rather not get into right now), all have sold millions of copies and have untold numbers of fans. Do you think that one is more inclined to ignore the 1939 examples now because they have been around for generations and we are more inclined to think of them as "classics", whereas the Harry Potter and Twilight series have only been around for the past few years and therefore we're closer to the situation? Or do you think that, regardless of one's opinion on the Harry Potter and Twilight books, the movies fail not only as adaptations, but as being good movies in general?

There are also situations where (and I'd be happy to be proven wrong on the point if this is the case) that the movie overtakes the book in popularity, to the point where many would be surprised to learn there was ever a book at all. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are both amazing, critically acclaimed, award winning films. However, Mario Puzo's source novel, despite being a bestseller with a few sequels, is perhaps not as well known now as it once was, even with the longterm, continual success of the films. The Princess Bride was a successful book, but I would argue that the movie, especially thanks to the hilarious catchphrases, has become much more well known. I remember reading it at school one day and having people ask if it had anything to do with the movie or if it was written because of the movie. Interestingly, both Puzo and The Princess Bride author William Goldman either wrote or co-wrote to the screenplays to the films, helping to ensure accuracy. The Shawshank Redemption, based on a short story by Stephen King, has become one of my favorite films and is generally regarded as a modern classic, though the short story is much less well known, especially in comparison to other King book to movie adaptations like Carrie and Misery.

Two films that I believe work very well in both mediums, without drastic changes, are To Kill a Mockingbird and Rebecca. Both are true to their source material, yet both feature incredibly memorable performances that the actors have managed to make their own. These two seem to be in the minority. Can you think of any other similar adaptations that equal their source material in popularity?

As I gaze at my own collection of movies I notice something I've never thought about before: a huge percentage of them are book/play to movie adaptations. Even Clueless was Emma, while 10 Things I Hate About You was The Taming of the Shrew. Mommie Dearest and Coal Miner's Daughter were memoirs. Interview with the Vampire, Rosemary's Baby, and The Devil's Advocate are all thrillers (and, as things tend to do on this blog, it all comes back to V.C. Andrews as her ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman wrote both the book and screenplay of The Devil's Adovcate). Likewise, on my bookshelves I see entire shelves made up of books that would later become movies. I encourage you to do the same on your own movie and bookshelves, just to see how many there are. Chances are, if it's a current book you like very much, it will be made into a movie at some point.

I've put my opinions out into the world, with nothing substantial to back them up, so now I ask you to give it back to me. Do you agree with how I've described certain examples? What are your favorite or least favorite book to movie adaptations? Which movies surpass the books and which movies have forgettable (or unforgiveable) errors? This is something I had never given a lot of thought to before (except on a case by case basis of comparing one book to one movie) so I'd love any feedback on this.

Books I've Discussed

2009-04-11T11:55:00.024-05:00

By Author's Last Name:

A
Andrews, V.C. - All That Glitters (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Dark Angel (1, 2, 3)
Andrews, V.C. - Dawn (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Fallen Hearts (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Gates of Paradise (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Heaven (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Pearl in the Mist (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Ruby (1, 2)
Andrews, V.C. - Secrets of the Morning
Andrews, V.C. - Twilight's Child (1, 2)
Asher, Jay - Thirteen Reasons Why

B
Black, Holly and Cecil Castellucci - Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd
Brown, Jennifer - Hate List

C
Cabot, Meg - Airhead
Cabot, Meg - Being Nikki
Cabot, Meg - Forever Princess
Cabot, Meg - Ransom My Heart
Carey, Lisa - In the Country of the Young
Collins, Suzanne - Catching Fire
Collins, Suzanne - The Hunger Games

D
de la Cruz, Melissa - Blue Bloods
de la Cruz, Melissa - Masquerade
de la Cruz, Melissa - Revelations
Dessen, Sarah - That Summer
Duncan, Lois - The Third Eye

E
Eugenides, Jeffrey - The Virgin Suicides

F
Fisher, Carrie - Wishful Drinking
Forman, Gayle - If I Stay

G
Gelardi, Julia P. - Born to Rule
Gladwell, Malcolm - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Gladwell, Malcolm - Outliers: The Story of Success
Gladwell, Malcolm - The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Green, John - An Abundance of Katherines

H
Handler, Chelsea - Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
Harris, Charlaine - Dead Until Dark
Harris, Charlaine - Living Dead in Dallas
Holstein, Dr. Barbara Becker - The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart, and I Know Everything

I

J
Johnson, Maureen - 13 Little Blue Envelopes

K
Kassem, Lou - Listen for Rachel

L
Loewen, James W. - Lies My Teacher Told Me

M

N
Neiderman, Andrews - Sister, Sister

O

P
Pearson, Mary E. - The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Powell, Julie - Julie & Julia

Q

R

S
Sherman, Theresa - The Royal Mob
Sittenfeld, Curtis - American Wife
Spark, Muriel - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Summers, Courtney - Cracked Up to Be
Susann, Jacqueline - Valley of the Dolls
Sykes, Plum - Bergdorf Blondes

T

U

V
Vowell, Sarah - The Wordy Shipmates

W
Walker, Melissa - Lovestruck Summer
Walker, Melissa - Violet by Design
Walker, Melissa - Violet in Private
Walker, Melissa - Violet on the Runway
Westerfeld, Scott - Pretties
Westerfeld, Scott - So Yesterday
Westerfeld, Scott - Uglies
White, Ellen Emerson - The President's Daughter
Williams, Carol Lynch - The Chosen One
Williams, Kathryn - The Debutante

XYZ

By Title:

#
13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson

A
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Airhead - Meg Cabot
All That Glitters - V.C. Andrews (1,2)
American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld
An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea - Chelsea Handler

B
Being Nikki - Meg Cabot
Bergdorf Blondes - Plum Sykes
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Blue Bloods -Melissa de la Cruz
Born to Rule - Julia P. Gelardi

C
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
The Chosen One - Carol Lynch Williams
Cracked Up to Be - Courtney Summers

D
Dark Angel - V.C. Andrews (1, 2, 3)
Dawn - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)
Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris
The Debutante - Kathryn Williams

E

F
Fallen Hearts - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)
Forever Princess - Meg Cabot

G
Gates of Paradise - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)
Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd: Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

H
Hate List - Jennifer Brown
Heaven - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

I
If I Stay - Gayle Forman
In the Country of the Young - Lisa Carey

J
Julie & Julia - Julie Powell

K

L
Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W. Loewen
Listen for Rachel - Lou Kassem
Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris
Lovestruck Summer - Melissa Walker

M
Masquerade - Melissa de la Cruz

N

O
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

P
Pearl in the Mist - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)
The President's Daughter - Ellen Emerson White
Pretties - Scott Westerfeld
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark

Q

R
Ransom My Heart - Meg Cabot
Revelations - Melissa de la Cruz
The Royal Mob - Theresa Sherman
Ruby - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)

S
Secrets of the Morning - V.C. Andrews
Sister, Sister - Andrew Neiderman
So Yesterday - Scott Westerfeld

T
That Summer - Sarah Dessen
The Third Eye - Lois Duncan
Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell
The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart, and I Know Everything - Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein
Twilight's Child - V.C. Andrews (1, 2)

U
Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

V
Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann
Violet by Design - Melissa Walker
Violet in Private - Melissa Walker
Violet on the Runway - Melissa Walker
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

W
Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
The Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell

XYZ

Suggestions?

2009-04-10T10:56:00.000-05:00

I'm currently dealing with nausea and a terrible headache that won't go away, so if death is on its way like I think it is, I don't know when I'll be able to read another book. Instead, if death hasn't claimed me by then, I wanted to ask you guys for some suggestions on something that's going on during the summer.

I've been asked to help out during summer reading at my local library this summer. I'll have the 7+ year olds for about an hour a week for six weeks. During that time there's going to be reading involved (duh) as well as a craft and any other related project I can think of -like something dealing with poetry. I haven't had a lot of time to think about ideas yet (what with the whole dying thing I'm currently dealing with) so I thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas that I could work with, like a book/craft combo idea. The book(s) should hopefully appeal to both boys and girls, since at that age kids can be very particular about reading books that aren't "designed" for their gender. Harry Potter and Twilight won't work for a great many reasons, plus there have already been release parties for their latest books over the past couple of years. So what do you think? Does anyone have any ideas for me?

Cutler Series Books Winner

2009-04-09T22:31:00.002-05:00

Sorry for not posting this sooner, but I've been sick most of the afternoon and trying to sleep it off. Anywho, I did the drawing a minute ago and the winner of Dawn, Secrets of the Morning, and Midnight Whispers is.....

Amee!

Congratulations -I think you'll really enjoy them! As for everyone else, don't worry, you'll have plenty more opportunities throughout the year to win one or more VCA books. Like I've said before, I go to Goodwill fairly often and whenever I see one related to the challenge I pick it up. Used are definitely best for these anyway -most of mine were bought for $1 from my friend Brandy so that she could buy a Dr. Pepper at school. If there's a used bookstore or even *gasp* a library I definitely encourage you to pick up a couple for some light, trashy reading.

Twilight's Child by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-04-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

I've been subbing in a class that's been doing busy work this week, which is why I've had so much time to read this book and write about it so quickly. I'll have to pick something else for tomorrow and Friday.

After her miscarriage Dawn mopes around for months until finally it's time for her, Jimmy, and Christie to move into their new house on the hotel property that Jimmy built. That way Philip and his future wife Betty Ann can live in the family section of the hotel. For someone hoping that her brother will move on from her, Dawn is a total bitch in regard to her future sister-in-law. When she meets her she goes on and on about how plain Betty Ann is and how her accent is different and how she doesn't say a lot. It doesn't help matters when, on the wedding day, she sees that Betty Ann has died her hair blond, just like Dawn's. Philip is using her a substitute for Dawn, which becomes very apparent when Dawn finds out that Philip has taken one of her nightgowns and a bottle of her perfume on his honeymoon. Then, they move into Dawn and Jimmy's old room at the hotel, where Philip just has to know what side who slept on, presumably to replicate it.

Meanwhile, Clara Sue has left school and moved in with an older man who thinks he's found an heiress and tries to tell Dawn that Clara Sue as the legitimate child should have the bigger inheritance. Dawn's like yeah....no and tells her that they're both illegitimate and Clara Sue actually has no Cutler blood in her at all -she can talk to Bronson Alcott about it if she wants. Clara Sue runs out and some months or years later she dies in a crash with the truck driver she's living with.

Dawn once again thinks Philip has finally moved on from her when he and Betty Ann have twins: Richard and Melanie. Nope. He tells her he's glad he has twins because that way he can pretend that one is hers and one is Betty Ann's. He also tries to rape her again when Jimmy is away one night, but luckily Christie walks in.

Thanks to a private detective Daddy Longchamp met in prison, Dawn and Jimmy finally find baby Fern, who is now ten years old. Her adoptive parents and jerks and Fern snooped and found out years ago that she's adopted and that Jimmy is her brother, so she begs to go home with them. She tells them (in the first of many lies)that she was sexually abused by her adopted father. She hangs out with older kids, smokes, steals money, fails every subject in school, and sneaks around with the bellboys. Because Jimmy is a moron, he refuses to believe any of it. Fern tries to act like Dawn is just jealous of their relationship, but since no one has weirder sibling relationships than Dawn, it's not true. When Daddy Longchamp comes to visit for the first time and brings his new wife and son Gavin, Fern could care less (frankly, I don't blame her -he doesn't even pretend to consider bringing her to live with him) and instead gets Christie and Gavin in a room together to play you show me yours, I'll show you mine. I'll never forget the first time that happened to me. We were in the backyard and after he showed me his I ran inside the house. Anyway, Dawn catches them and doesn't bother to tell Jimmy since he wouldn't believe it.

Dawn gets a call from baby daddy Michael Sutton and when she takes Christie to meet him finds out that *surprise surprise* he just wants to blackmail her and contest Jimmy's adoption of Christie. It all gets taken care of, but Fern finds out and tells Jimmy (since Dawn didn't) which drives a bigger wedge between them. When Dawn discovers Fern's lies about being abused (she'd memorized magazine passages) and her pile of stolen cash, Jimmy finally believes her. If Jimmy was real I bet he'd be like "you know, I don't think Bill Clinton was telling the truth about that Lewinsky woman" -that's how far behind he is. Dawn and Jimmy tell Fern that she can stay with them if she cleans up her act. She doesn't. And Jimmy always believes her excuses.

Luther from The Meadows calls and tells Dawn that Miss Emily has died. Dawn and Jimmy go there to take care of things and Luther tells them that poor slow Charlotte is actually Grandmother Cutler's daughter, as well as sister, the result of Grandmother being raped by her father at a young age.

"She's my sister! She's my daughter! She's my sister and my daughter"

They made her mother pretend to be pregnant to cover up the shame. Dawn supposes that's why Grandmother was the way she was.

Meanwhile, after Clara Sue's death, Laura Sue (as beautiful and vain women do in VCA books) has gone slightly crazy and doesn't recognize people of the time. She stops dyeing her hair and embraces getting older, so because she's acting her age, Dawn assumes there's nothing to worry about.

After all the stress and crazy family drama Dawn, after years of trying, finally finds out she's pregnant by the guy she thought was her brother for half her life. Isn't that romantic?

Twilight's Child by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-04-06T14:15:00.001-05:00

Wondering what you've missed from the Cutler series so far? Click here and find out.

Dawn and Jimmy find out where baby Christie is and they go get her. The adoptive parents put up a fight and they go to court, which recaps the end of the last book (Dawn is the child of "Grandfather" Cutler and his son's wife Laura Sue). Dawn wins and the baby comes home, where she's the smartest, cutest, quietest baby anyone has ever seen (even Stephenie Meyer would be like cool it, this is ridiculous). Laura Sue doesn't care for being a grandmother, nor does she care for Dawn's upcoming marriage to Jimmy (he's poor and now Dawn isn't) until Dawn lets her take over wedding prep.

Philip comes home for the wedding and to make amends. He tells Dawn that he wants to have a normal family relationship with her and that he's dating a girl in college and they're practically engaged. Jimmy's like, "you know what, I think he might still have a crush on you" because Jimmy is what my grandmother would call "a day late and a dollar short". If he were a real person he'd be the guy who still says git er done and is that your final answer.

On Dawn's wedding day Clara Sue doesn't come, preferring to stay at school causing trouble. Neither do Jimmy's father/Dawn's ex-father and his new wife, so Philip takes over best man duties, mouthing the vows alongside Jimmy at the altar. I bet Jimmy thinks that's what best men do and that they get the first crack at the missus on the wedding night. Randolph was supposed to walk Dawn down the aisle, but he was busy counting cups of washing powder and paperclips and thinking his mother is still alive. Instead, Laura Sue enlists her special friend (of the sexual persuasion) Bronson Alcott to do it. Bronson is rich and powerful and his bank holds the mortgage of the hotel. We all know him as the name of the school in Clueless. Dawn and Jimmy go to Cape Cod on their honeymoon and have just enough time to consummate the marriage (making Dawn the only VCA heroine to wait until marriage to have sex with her husband) before they have to go back to the hotel since Randolph has literally pined away for his mother and was found dead, collapsed on her grave.

Dawn's a jerk to her mother since she doesn't think Laura Sue grieves properly. If Dawn had so much as shed a tear herself I'd be on her side. Soon after the funeral Laura Sue and Bronson start seeing each other openly and soon she, Dawn, and Jimmy are invited to dinner at his estate. Bronson talks to Dawn privately and tells her that after Grandfather Cutler/Dawn's dad raped Laura Sue, she and he started seeing each other secretly. As a result, Clara Sue is his child. Bronson thinks it's best to get this out in the open before he asks Dawn's permission to marry Laura Sue. Dawn approves, even though she's disgusted at all the lies.

Dawn finds out she's pregnant again and Laura Sue can't believe that Dawn could dare do this to her -make her a grandmother for the second time. Jimmy and Philip smother her and don't let her lift anything. This pregnancy is really moody for Dawn, as she cries constantly, worrying that because she's doing such a good job at the hotel and has become a good businesswoman that she's becoming Grandmother Cutler. Clara Sue (who still doesn't know about her real father) comes home and finds out that Dawn has moved all of her things to Bronson's and she freaks out, hitting and kicking Dawn and causing her to lose the baby. Deciding not to press charges against Clara Sue, she and Jimmy vow to make it through the rain...or whatever cliche the ghostwriter decided to throw in.

Cutler Series Contest

2009-04-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

I have three books from the Cutler series to give away: Dawn, Secrets of the Morning, and Midnight Whispers. Dawn and Midnight Whispers are both keyhole covers, while Secrets of the Morning is hardcover. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find the third book in the series (these are 1, 2, 4) but I promise to recap it thoroughly and you don't really need it anyway if you want to read the fourth, since it's Dawn's daughter's story.

If you (Americans only unfortunately) want these books the same rules apply as before:
+1 entry for commenting, saying you want them
+1 for posting about it somewhere else
+1 for becoming a follower
+2 for already being a follower

The contest ends Thursday 9th.

Driving Miss Fried Green Magnolias of Endearment

2009-04-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

First, I'm totally overwhelmed by the response to the VCA Heroine Quiz -almost one hundred people have taken it so far. I'm a little concerned , though, since at least one person put that their brother is their lover. They should probably stay away from the books since, obviously, they're living them. I'm not even going to get into the number of dead people who've supposedly taken it.

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite film genres: tearjerkers. I was talking to a friend earlier about some of our favorite sad movies and movies that were supposed to be sad, but left us cold. Generally, I'm not a crier, but every once in awhile it's fun to watch a totally sappy movie and at least sniffle a little bit. Conversely, there are some movies that I can't stand to finish and will do whatever I can to avoid the sad ending.

I love Steel Magnolias (you wouldn't believe the number of conversations I've had about bleeding armadillo groom's cake) and adore the actresses in it, but most of the time, once Shelby announces she's pregnant, I turn it off. Fried Green Tomatoes, on the other hand, I have no problem finishing. One of my fondest second grade memories is having an in depth conversation with the boy I had a crush on about whether or not Jessica's Tandy's character was the older version of Mary Stuart Masterson's character. Not to give anything away in case you haven't seen these movies, but both feature the death of a beloved character. The Notebook provided an altogether different reaction when my best friend and I watched it in the theater. While everyone around us was sobbing, we started shaking our heads, going "huh? what? that didn't happen in the book". What can I say? We're coldhearted bitches when it comes to book/movie continuity (the Fried Green Tomatoes discussion came years before I actually read the book and are so different they defy the continuity bitching).

What I'm curious about is everyone else. Do you like to watch tearjerkers? If so, which ones?

Which V.C. Andrews Heroine are You?

2009-04-01T17:04:00.005-05:00

I made a quiz to determine which V.C. Andrews heroine you are. If you're a challenge participant and don't know what to read next, maybe this will give you some idea. Let me know what your results are!

Which V.C. Andrews Heroine are You? » Free Online Quizzes

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

2009-03-31T23:48:00.000-05:00

Sookie Stackhouse was born with a peculiar disability: she can read minds. Her family never talks about it and everyone in town knows there's something strange about her. When she meets the handsome Bill Compton she's thrilled to finally be able to let her guard down around someone, as his is the only mind she can't hear. One slight problem, however: Bill is a vampire, who, thanks to the advent of synthetic blood, has finally been able to "come out of the coffin" along with the rest of his kind. Soon after his arrival in her small Louisiana town (he's Bon Temps' first vampire) several mysterious and incredibly violent murders start happening. As Sookie and Bill begin to fall in love, Bill is accused of committing the murders and Sookie is dragged into the affairs of some seriously scary vampires who aren't quite as adept at mainstreaming (i.e. not drinking human blood) as Bill. This is the first book in the Southern Vampire series.

If this book sounds familiar to you it's probably because the series is the basis for the HBO series True Blood, which will start its second season in mid June. I was a fan of the series, so it's difficult for me to judge the book against the series, which I saw before reading Dead Until Dark. Obviously, there are going to be some differences, but I really felt that the book improved where the series was lacking. I've never been a huge vampire fan and the traditional mythology has never appealed to me, so it was really fun to read a "what if" scenario about present day America dealing with a new minority who are asking for civil rights and acceptance. The vampires have only just "come out of the coffin" a few years prior and already this entire subculture has formed, including churches who preach that vampires are evil and women who have sex with the vampires ("fangbangers"). Even though many vampires own businesses now and are trying to mainstream, they still operate under a separate set of rules and hierarchy that I can't wait to learn more about.

The vampires aren't the only interesting characters. I've read broad spoilers for later books and I know to expect more fantasy type characters at some point. There's something a little different about Sookie's boss, Sam, that I won't tell you about -it comes out of nowhere and is a great set up for future stories. Sookie herself is a fun character because, despite her "disability", she's a normal woman who's just as in awe of the whole vampire situation as I was. When she meets Bill she cracks up after he tells her his name -Bill is such an ordinary name for a vampire and she was expecting something a bit more exotic. The other townspeople are the best kinds of supporting characters: both familiar and hilarious. Since I'm from a small southern town I could totally relate to them and all their drama (of which there is a ton).

If you're like a great many people in this world you're totally burnt out on vampires right now -believe me, I understand. But trust me, this book is in no way similar to other vampire books you may or may not be sick of. These vampires are allergic to silver and the sun, can't procreate, their blood has some intense side effects when drunk by humans (yes, the blood drinking goes both ways), and they won't make you get married before you're old enough to drink before they'll have sex with you. This is a fun, interesting series that I can't wait to finish!

Secrets of the Morning by V.C. Andrews

2009-03-30T15:33:00.000-05:00

No clue what this is? Check out part one and part two of the first book in the Cutler series.

This book is just going to be one part since everything that happens can be easily condensed.

Dawn moves to New York to attend the prestigious Sarah Bernhardt School and develop her craft (by the way, have I ever told you how much I hate it when people talk about their "craft"? Ugh). It was years after I first read this when I found out that Sarah Bernhardt was actually a real person. Dawn quickly becomes best friends with her roommate, Trisha, who's studying to be a dancer and doesn't plan to get married until the ripe old age of thirty. Dawn's teachers think the sun shines out of her ass and the only dark spot is that her house mother, Agnes Morris (picture a more delusional Norma Desmond or Baby Jane Hudson) got a letter from Grandmother Cutler about how Dawn is a lazy, troublemaking slut. Dawn gets put on probation.

Jimmy comes to visit and they make a big deal out of the fact that they can't get used to not thinking of each other as brother and sister. So maybe they should stop trying to have sex then. Just a thought. All thoughts of Jimmy are pushed aside, though, when Dawn gets accepted to study under world renowned opera superstar Michael Sutton. Michael sees in Dawn innocence and purity (read total naivete) and promptly seduces her, complete with a scene describing how his hot juices spouted forth, which is simultaneously disgusting and reminds me of a juicer we used to have that made the worst apple juice ever. Don't ask. She keeps it a secret from everyone, including Trisha, who she tells that she's seeing a thirty something widowed businessman named Allan who tries to give her his late wife's clothes and jewelry. Because that scenario isn't creepy at all.

Because Dawn is a dumbass with absolutely no knowledge of birth control (Michael the asshat is no help in that department either) she gets pregnant. At first, Michael pretends to be all excited about it and says they can get married and he'll put Dawn in shows with him (Dawn is officially the dumbest, most gullible VCA heroine), but then he runs off to Europe at the first chance he gets, leaving her alone. She gets in an accident and the doctor tells the family she's pregnant. Grandmother Cutler sends Dawn to live with her sisters Emily and Charlotte at their plantation The Meadows. It's run down as hell and Emily is a religious zealot who makes Jerry Falwell look like Barney the dinosaur. She preaches hell and damnation and sees evil in everything, especially unwed expectant mother Dawn. She boils her clothes and makes her wear sack dresses and scrub floors all day while feeding her food filled with vinegar. Charlotte has the mind of a small child and keeps talking about hearing a baby crying and how Emily took it away because it was evil. It turns out that the father is their servant, Luther, and Emily has kept him around all these years, treating him like a slave, as punishment. Dawn gives birth to a daughter named Christie who is promptly taken away from her on orders of Grandmother Cutler. Jimmy shows up at The Meadows and they plan to ask her where the baby is.

However, Grandmother has had a stroke and can't speak except to say that Dawn is her curse. She dies and while Randolph is beyond distraught, Laura Sue is over the moon. At the reading of the will the family discovers that Grandfather Cutler left a note to be read after his wife's death, to spare her from embarrassment, that says Dawn is his child and he's leaving her 60% of the ownership of the hotel. Dawn says she'd trade it all in for a normal life, which she makes no attempt to do, and berates Laura Sue for using her womanly wiles on Grandpa Daddy, even though it was totally the other way around. Way to blame the victim, Dawn. Philip thinks it's funny that Dawn is his and Clara Sue's sister and aunt, even though that makes what he did to her doubly gross. Grandmother's lawyer knows where the baby is (he was under the impression that the adoption was consensual) and when our story ends, Dawn and Jimmy (who's fine with the whole woman he loves having another guy's kid thing) about to search for her.

Other things:

*It really bugs me that Dawn has to point out every time someone is black. There are employees at the hotel and then there are black employees, people on the street and black people on the street. Enough already!

*No one in VCA world is both normal and religious. It's fire and brimstone or big fat fornicating whore. No middle ground.

*After Dawn has sex she can sense that everyone who sees her can tell because of the look in her eyes. This is a common theme in VCA world wherein you lose your virginity and it's like you're wearing a scarlet letter on your chest because it's so obvious and you're to be so ashamed. Someone make these things required reading for high school sex ed classes.

*Dawn is seriously the dumbest person alive. When she arrives in New York someone makes a joke about how they're from Brooklyn, the fifty-first state. Dawn's all "Brooklyn's really a state?".

*Daddy Longchamp has gotten married again to a woman named Edwina in hopes of having a chance to get Fern back. Edwina's pregnant and they're hoping to have a daughter like Dawn. Someone keep it away from Jimmy so he won't try to have sex with it.

Lost in Austen

2009-03-29T16:40:00.000-05:00

I just got finished watching the most hilarious miniseries that I just had to talk about. I was a little hesitant at first since I watched it on a random cable channel I'd never heard of before and figured most people either have access or wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about, but I just found every part of every episode on youtube, so now you have no excuse not to watch it!

Amanda Price is a huge fan of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She reads the book and has watched the Colin Firth version (my personal favorite) more times than she can count. Like many women, she lusts after Mr. Darcy and has placed him on a pedestal that no man can live up to. One night she's surprised to discover that none other than Elizabeth Bennet has arrived in her bathroom via a door that connects their two worlds.

When Amanda steps through the door it shuts, locking her in and Elizabeth out. She concocts a story that Elizabeth and she are friends who have traded homes for awhile. From then on she's sucked into the familar story of the Bennets, the Bingleys, and of course Mr. Darcy. Except nothing happens the way it should. Almost at once the wrong people are interested in each other and the wrong couple marries, followed by the wrong couple running away together, and one character almost being killed in a duel. Some characters who are familiar to fans of the book and movies are revealed to be entirely different than they've been perceived to be. One is same sex oriented, one becomes a drunk, one has been lying about the past wrongs perpretated on them by another, and one pretends to be more selfish than they really are. The more Amanda tries to make the story go the way it's supposed to the she screws it up. The only person who can seemingly set things right is Elizabeth, but unfortunately she's still stuck in present day Hammersmith.

This miniseries was insanely funny and unlike traditional adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, you never know what's going to happen next. Whether or not you're a fan, you will be after tracking down a copy or going to Youtube to look for Lost in Austen.

Sister, Sister

2009-03-26T00:20:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited to talk about this book -not because it was good or anything (it wasn't) but because of who the author is. More about him later though. If you're anything like me (i.e. awesome) you'll find it hilarious.

Neil is a special education teacher brought into this secretive institute to be a tutor to two "test subjects" who happen to be conjoined twins. And this is where the book becomes one of the most offensive things I've ever read. The twins are joined at the abdomen, so while they have two heads and sets of arms and everything, they have only one pair of legs. The doctors, who are supposed to be I don't know....professional talk about this like it's the grossest, most hideous thing ever. Even Neil, the special ed teacher is visibly grossed out. They're also twelve years old. There's this whole bit where they call them Siamese twins, which even in 1992 had to have been a phrase that was on the way out. The twins have lived since birth in this institute and are actually named Alpha and Beta, because get it, they're not really like actual people at all.

It's okay though, because the twins are EVIL -at least Alpha is. Beta is the nicer one who controls the legs and Alpha is the mean one who tells Beta what to do and can electrocute people with her mind. Alpha can also make people do what she wants them to, like when she makes Tania the hot psychologist come on to Neil in his office. Eventually, Neil and Tania catch on to the fact that the twins are a science experiment by the evil Dr. Henderson and that Alpha has been genetically engineered to kill. He plans on cutting Beta away, effectively killing her, and mainstreaming Alpha so that she can go out into the world and KILL KILL KILL. They go to rescue the twins, hoping they can eventually curb Alpha's bitchy, homicidal impulses, and there's a confrontation with the doctors and a fire and Neil and Tania barely make it out alive. The twins are presumed dead.

Fast forward a year later and Neil and Tania are married with a baby on the way when Tania gets a call from a nurse at Crystal Lake Hospital for the Mentally Disabled. She has a patient named Beta who wants to see her. Neil and Tania drive up there together, where they see Beta who has somehow escaped the fire and has been removed from her sister. Alpha is now living inside of Beta and can still manipulate situations the way she did before. When Neil and Tania leave they swear they can see both twins sitting on the couch.

If this book sounds at all interesting to you it's because I left out page after page of absolutely nothing happening. It was boring, offensive, not scary, and written so badly you wouldn't believe it. So now you're probably wondering why I'm talking about it. I bought this book for two reasons: one that it was written by Andrew Neiderman and two that there's a quote from V.C. Andrews on the cover that says Neiderman is "a master of psychological thrillers!". This wouldn't be so great if not for the fact that by 1993 when Sister, Sister was published, Andrew Neiderman was V.C. Andrews! The real Andrews died in 1986 and her family hired Neiderman to complete/write new books with the Andrews name. I'm glad that Neiderman thinks of enough to use a pen name to call himself a master of horror. I just think he needs to stick to the VCA brand, where at least the books have some sense of awareness as to how bad they are!

Dawn by V.C. Andrews: Part 2

2009-03-24T14:00:00.001-05:00

Previously, in the first book of the Cutler series....

Dawn's sitting in the police station, trying to process the information that she was kidnapped and the policewoman is literally the least compassionate person on the planet. She tells Dawn that if she doesn't calm down she's going to put her in a strait jacket. Finally, she calms down enough to ask what her name is and it turns out to be Eugenia Grace....Cutler! She's the daughter of Randolph Boyse and Laura Sue Cutler and the sister of the chick who hates her and the dude who almost got into her panties last night. Awk-ward!

They take her home to the hotel, where instead of meeting her parents she meets Grandmother Cutler, who she finds out is the real boss around these parts. Grandmother couldn't care less that Dawn's home. Instead, tells her that she won't tolerate the name Dawn, she's going to put her to work as a chambermaid, and the rest of the staff hates "Eugenia" already, since she fired someone in order to give her that job. Her new father is too busy to talk to her right now and her mother's in bed having some sort of nervous breakdown. Dawn can't understand why no one's giving her any time to adjust , so she goes for a walk and finds the family cemetary. Inside, she finds a small stone with her name on it. Eugenia Grace Cutler: Gone but not forgotten.

Finally, she meets her father, who shakes her hand and is too scared of his mother to not call Dawn Eugenia. After a day or so her mother is finally ready to meet her. Randolph explains that Laura Sue is very delicate with frayed nerves and he loves her because she needs to be protected and a bunch of other chauvenist bullshit I scanned over. Laura Sue is also too scared of Grandmother to defy her, but at least she comes up with the compromise of calling her Dawn in the family quarters. She's weak and stays in bed (but with a butt ton of makeup and jewelry on), basically playing the martyr all day. She's also incredibly beautiful and ever so modest Dawn can't help but notice the resemblance.

Dawn still has her ex-mother's pearls from the night of the concert. She's wearing them for comfort while she's in the attic, trying to learn about her family. Grandmother comes in and screams at her for snooping and then rips the pearls off and pushes her down, telling her that the pearls weren't a Longchamp heirloom -they were stolen just as Dawn was. Then Laura Sue sends Dawn a bag of Clara Sue's old clothes, what she doesn't want anymore, even though most of it is too big big.

Philip comes home and tells Dawn he can't accept that she's his sister. He promises to ask Grandmother to be nicer to her and then tries to kiss her and looks surprised when she tells him they have to think of each other differently now. Clara Sue comes in is still basically the same jealous bitch she always was.

Dawn is asked to play the piano and sing for her mother. Because she's a VCA heroine it's perfect and wonderful and Laura Sue, Randolph, and Philip all love it. Clara Sue's jealousy at the attention Dawn gets is off the charts. Grandmother forbids Dawn to spend any time alone with Philip since they used to date. I'm going to side with Grandmother on that one since Philip keeps finding any excuse he can to touch her. Grandmother also wants Dawn to wear a Eugenia nametag around the hotel and refuses to let her eat until she does so. When Dawn tries to talk to Laura Sue about it she won't listen and says she's too weak to deal with any problems.

Grandmother accuses Dawn of stealing a necklace from a hotel guest and has her strip searched and locked in her room. Philip pulls Dawn out to show her that Jimmy has arrived. The two of them sit in Philip's hiding place and Jimmy tells Dawn about where he's been. Clara Sue put the stolen necklace in Dawn's room and she sneaks away and puts it back. That, coupled with Randolph convincing her to wear the nameplate, means she gets to be let out of her room again. She sneaks out to see Jimmy and he tells her that he was always interested in her and has always wanted only her and the two people who were siblings until a few weeks (months?) ago kiss until Dawn feels "that male part of him grow hard against her" and pulls away. The VCA way of describing anything sexual will never not be funny.

Clara Sue discovers Jimmy and promises not to tell as long as Dawn cleans her room, which is a pigsty. The housekeeper, who had previously been a bitch, warms to her and tells her and gives her some information about the nurse she had as a baby, the one whose nose she was kidnapped right under. Oh and then when Dawn's in her room changing, new brother Philip comes in and rapes her. She doesn't tell Jimmy about it, but instead just makes out with him. Meanwhile, Clara Sue has called the police and they arrest him. When she confronts her sister about it, Clara Sue starts in about how she was the baby born to replace Dawn and how she's hated her all her life and will do whatever she can to make Dawn's life miserable.

Dawn goes to see her old nurse Mrs. Dalton, who tells her about the circumstances surrounding her birth. Grandmother has never approved of Laura Sue and after Philip's birth Laura Sue started cheating on Randolph with random men. She got pregnant and Grandmother was going to make her get an abortion until Randolph found out about the pregnancy and thought it was his child. After she gave birth, Grandmother told her she had to give her baby up if she wanted to stay in Cutler's Cove and live the life of a princess. She did so without complaint. Grandmother paid off the Longchamps with money and jewelry and Randolph still doesn't know the truth.

Dawn confronts Laura Sue, who doesn't deny it. She said Randolph never had time for her and was too stuck up his mother's ass, so of course she had to stray. She knows what she's done is wrong and apologizes and says that now that Dawn is back she can buy her lots of new clothes and take her to the beauty shop and won't that make up for everything. Laura Sue is a child and Dawn agrees with me. Dawn confronts Grandmother she also confirms everything. She promises to try to get Mr. Longchamp out of jail and to drop the Eugenia business. All Dawn has to do is go to a performing arts school in New York and get the hell out of dodge. Everyone's thrilled about it. Dawn confronts Philip (who still can't get used to the new brother/sister dynamic) and says that while she doesn't hate him, she lost any amount of feeling she could ever have for her new brother. Her old brother, on the other hand, she's anxious to explore a relationship with. Oi vey...

The End.

An Interview and a Contest

2009-03-23T10:35:00.005-05:00

No, not my contest, but if you liked my review of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, check out Nikki's blog and enter to win a copy for yourself. In a roundabout way that I can certainly identify with, she ended up with two copies and is giving one away.

If you've been following The V.C. Andrews Challenge (and I know you have because you're awesome) you'll want to check out this interview with Steph and me on I Heart Daily that the always awesome Melissa Walker conducted.

Also, I'd like to welcome newest contributor Kyria to the blog! Once her busy-ness settles down I can't wait to see what she's going to write about!

Dawn by V.C. Andrews: Part 1

2009-03-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

First, sorry for the delay on...basically everything. The past week was pretty crazy, but I think for the time being things have calmed down enough to get everything back on track. Anywho, the poll results showed a slightly bigger interest in reading about a blond in a hotel, so here we go.

This is the first book in the Cutler series. Just keep that name in mind.

Like Heaven Casteel before her, Dawn Longchamp is the gorgeous heroine that all the boys love. The only difference is that she has blond hair instead of black. Her mother told her she got her name from the time she was born, which turns out to be a lie. Anyway, she lives with her parents and older brother Jimmy in a bunch of shabby apartments and houses as they constantly move around the Virginia area. Whenever they start to feel at home, Daddy Longchamp moves them somewhere else. They're so poor that Jimmy and Dawn have to share a couch bed that's getting too small for both of them and sometimes Dawn catches Jimmy looking at her funny when her nightgown slips down and exposes too much cleavage. Yeah. You're not stupid. You know where this is going. Also, Dawn is short and dainty and blond, while the rest of her family is tall and dark, so she feels out of place about that, especially after her mother gives birth to Fern, who looks like the rest of the family. And in the grand tradition of most VCA heroines, she's ZOMG AMAZING at a particular talent. This time, it's singing.

One day Daddy tells Dawn and Jimmy that he's gotten a new job as a janitor at a fancy private school, which means they can go for free. She's nervous, but excited, and Jimmy is pissed because he knows the rich kids will be jerks. Right off the bat she gets on the wrong foot with blond haired blue eyed Clara Sue Cutler, a popular girl we're supposed to know is bad because she smokes. As soon as the other girls (who all have double first names incidentally) find out her father's a janitor they snub her, too. One person who doesn't snub her is Clara Sue's equally blond haired blue eyed brother (see where I'm going with this?) Philip. He tells Dawn about his family, who are from Cutler's Cove and own a large hotel. He lays it on thick and tells Dawn she's got the prettiest eyes he's ever seen -the only person who comes close is his mother. Yeah, that's not Freudian at all. Jimmy doesn't trust him (jealous much?) but Dawn thinks he's hot and likes their mutual dislike of Clara Sue.

Momma's been weak and sick since Fern's birth. Dawn's worried and Momma promises she'll go to a "fancy doctor" to get checked out soon. Lady, you don't have to go to the Mayo Clinic. Just a quick trip to the gyno should suffice. Geez.

So on the second day of school Philip asks her to go for a ride with him and Dawn starts picturing them getting married and living in his family's hotel. Clara Sue is jealous because Dawn might get the solo at the next choir concert and tells Dawn that her brother makes girls like her into mothers once a month. They go for a ride and park and kiss and he gets into her bra and all the usual stuff. When she gets home her parents are pissed. For some reason, when Jimmy told Daddy who she was with he flipped out.

Clara Sue claims that Philip told her he slept with Dawn, so she spreads it around school. That, coupled with Jimmy getting suspended for fighting, makes the school experience even worse until Dawn gets the solo at the spring concert. The whole family is psyched until Momma gets sick the night of the show and gets put in the hospital. She gives Dawn a string of pearls, her family heirloom, to wear. When Philip picks her up Daddy's all weird about it. I'm not sure how much time has passed, but Philip is basically crazy in love with her and spends his days and nights dreaming about her. Oh yeah and everyone who shows up to watch this highschool choir concert is in a limo and wearing silk ballgowns and diamonds. I'm so sure.

Clara Sue and the rest of the girls make nice with Dawn to get her into the bathroom. There, they spray her down with perfume until she smells like death. Dawn doesn't know why oh why these rich girls with their fabulous houses and respectable names resent her so. There's a similar speech in every VCA book where a heroine meets rich girls. Her choir director gets her a new uniform that's a little tight and just so happens to cling to her bosom. She's wonderful and impresses everyone but the rich girls. Philip takes her out for pizza afterward and instead of eating with everyone else they drive off to his special spot where he tries to get into her panties. She wants to say no, but can't, and she's saved by some other kids parking there. He takes her home where she hops in the car with Daddy and Jimmy to go to the hospital. Momma died while Philip was teaching Dawn about the art of French kissing.

After the funeral some policemen, including the security guard from the hospital, show up to arrest Daddy on the charge of kidnapping. He doesn't deny the charge. Dawn doesn't understand and asks who he could have possibly kidnapped. They're like "uh...you, actually". And scene!

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

2009-03-15T19:02:00.001-05:00

Many, many thanks to the friend who let me borrow this one. You're the greatest!

Before I start, there will be spoilers down below, so you might want to skip this one if you haven't read Uglies yet. And if you haven't read Uglies yet, do so. You'll love it.

Tally has become a Pretty and is enjoying all of the privileges and parties that go along with it. She's forgotten virtually everything about her life as an Ugly, including her time in the New Smoke and the promise she made to try to reverse the operation's effects. She does remember all of her old pranks, however, which gain her entry into an exclusive clique called the Crims, led by the charismatic Zane. As Tally and Zane become closer they both start to have moments of clarity about the operation and what it's done to their minds. When a visitor from New Smoke delivers Tally's cure she refuses to take it without sharing it with her new boyfriend. But when his share starts making him sick, Tally has no choice but to get him to the only people who can help him -in the New Smoke.

I absolutely devoured this book. I didn't love it like I did the first, but that's because it's the second in a trilogy and I've noticed they don't usually end on happy notes -Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite, Michael has Fredo killed, etc. Still, it's a great series, one that I wish I'd read years ago. However, there wasn't as much character development or discussion as I would have liked. Instead, Pretties includes more action and adventure, which helps to make it a pretty quick read since it's hard (for me at least) to read about an escape or a hovercraft chase slowly. I wasn't a fan of the Tally/Zane relationship at first (I was firmly on Team David), but the two are just so similar and have so many things in common that it won me over. I'm already a little spoiled for Specials, since I, you know, read the title of it, but I can't wait to read it and finish up (*sob*) the series. Again, if you've been reading about this series for awhile and have been putting off reading it, it's never too late to start!

The Next VCA Read

2009-03-11T12:55:00.004-05:00

Since I'm through with the Casteels for the time being I decided to start a new VCA series to recap. I put a poll on the sidebar to see what people would be most interested in reading me pick apart and make fun of. So based solely on those descriptions (a redhead from the Bayou in Louisiana or a blonde who lives in a hotel in Virginia) what sounds more interesting? I've read both series before and can really go either way.

Aaaand I just realized I spelled Louisiana wrong on the poll, which is very shameful since I've actually been to the state. Also, even though it says the poll is open a week or so I'll probably make the decision in a day or so, depending on if it's swinging one way or the other.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

2009-03-10T20:23:00.002-05:00

I just finished this book and couldn't wait to talk about it. Wishful Drinking is easily one of the top five funniest books I've ever read.

It's Carrie Fisher's memoir and even if you know nothing about her, no worries -she'll tell you everything you need to know. Like how her parents' (America's sweethearts Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher) marriage was broken up by Elizabeth Taylor or how her mother got Cary Grant to call her in attempt to quell her LSD addiction or how George Lucas wouldn't let her wear a bra in Star Wars because "there's no underwear in space" -and those are probably the tamest examples! It's just page after page of these crazy, hilarious stories that, if this were fiction, would be totally unbelievable. But this is her life and despite some setbacks (drug and alcohol addiction, a friend dying in her bed, the father of her daughter just happening to forget to tell her that he's gay, just to name a few) she handles and writes about it so well and so candidly that it all seems totally natural.

Probably the best part, what sets this apart from other celebrity memoirs, is that Fisher is a damn good writer. She didn't use a ghostwriter and have someone else write it for her. No, even if she was plain old Carrie Smith, with no Hollywood connections, she'd still be fantastic (albeit a bit less notorious). She's incredibly self aware and knows that her life has been unlike oh, around 99.9% of other peoples'. She fills her stories with little asides that acknowledge the absurdity of some of the most insane stories I've ever read -many of which that involve her mother. They could only happen to someone like Carrie, "the product of Hollywood inbreeding".

Read it and you'll laugh the entire time.

The Tipping Point Contest Winner - Take Two!

2009-03-10T16:13:00.003-05:00

In a strange turn of events I ended up with another copy of The Tipping Point! Instead of keeping it for myself I decided to hold another drawing from the entrants in the original post. So the second winner of The Tipping Point is....

Nikki! Yay, Nikki, send me your address and I'll get it out ASAP!

The Tipping Point Contest Winner

2009-03-09T16:04:00.002-05:00

I'm really happy with the way this contest turned out. If I can get another copy we'll have to do this again.

Anywho, the winner of the copy of The Tipping Point is....

SweetMelissa818!

Yay, Melissa! I'll email you about this and have your book out ASAP.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

2009-03-08T23:13:00.001-05:00

"Who is the greatest Italian painter?"
"Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie."
"That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto. He is my favourite."

Miss Jean Brodie, a maiden teacher in the prime of her life, has chosen six students from her class (the ones whose parents are less likely to complain about her unorthodox methods) to train to become the crème de la crème, the very best. She tells them about her travels through Europe and love of art, as well as of her admiration for Mussolini, Franco, and later Hitler. Even as the girls move up to the senior school and are no longer her students she still meets with them to make sure that they've set themselves apart from the rest of the students, eschewing team spirit in favor of their status as the Brodie set. One girl is trained to become the lover of the man Miss Brodie wants but can never have -the married art teacher, Mr. Lloyd- while another girl surprisingly takes that position. As the story is told in flashbacks and flash forwards it is revealed that Miss Brodie lost her job after World War II because one of her girls betrayed her. But which one? And why?

First of all, drop what you're doing and track down a copy of the film. Maggie Smith (probably best known to all you young whippersnappers as Professor McGonagall) is amazing in it.

I made the mistake of keeping the movie in mind the entire time I read the novel. As a big fan of the movie for years it's hard to get used to the story being told any other way --as with most films, it includes only a few incidents and characters from the novel. Nevertheless, the story itself (whether book, movie, play, or puppet show) is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone who likes good books in general.

I really need to do some digging into Muriel Spark's life and find out what she was going for here. The whole thing has this conservative, anti-feminist slant to it that should be exasperating, but I actually find quite funny and interesting. Miss Brodie, despite her political leanings, really knows nothing about politics. She loves the romance of war and overall regime changes, but never really shows any signs that she knows what it's all about. Her opinions and views are law in her classroom and (because she is a feminist apparently) has opinions and views on everything. In the book she's compared to the God of Calvinism because of the Calvinists' beliefs of predestination and the way she tries to play God with her girls' futures. This inspires one girl to eventually convert to Catholicism, a religion Miss Brodie has no time for. Usually in books and movies it's the students that are liberal and free-thinking, while the teachers are conservative and traditional. Regardless of my or anyone else's politics, I thought the role reversal was interesting.

On some level it reminded me a lot of Lois Duncan's Daughters of Eve, with teenage girls trying to understand their burgeoning sexuality and place in the world while under the negative influence of a teacher.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is quick, enjoyable, and a must-read. Check it out!

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

2009-03-07T20:58:00.000-06:00

The latest word from Melissa, Alexa, and Steph is that I (or at least my blog) am fabulous and they've given me a Fabulous Blog Award! Thanks again, you guys!

Usually when I've gotten something like this I forget that I had intended to post about it. This time, though, I remembered. The only catch is that I have to list five things I'm obsessed with. This is a hard one because if you know me at all you'll know that I'm obsessed with a great many things. The trick is to list the ones that make me look the least freaky. Here we go:

1. Royalty. Not the tabloid junk, but the actual institution and the history and stories about the people. It's fun for me, thinking about how in some ways World War I was just one big family feud or the ways the different families were (and still are) connected. Steph has known about this interest for awhile, so when she started asking questions I wrote her a 6 page, mostly single spaced introduction (part 1 -part 2 is for when I get my computer back full time). I don't know anywhere close to everything, but what I do know I enjoy.

2. Old movies. No, not in the sense that Back to the Future or The Breakfast Club are old (bite your tongue). I'm talking black and white, studio system, classic films. I'm 41 films into the AFI 100, which is 123 films when you combine both lists. With so many stories today being considered cliche, it's fun to see where the cliches originated. There's no better example of this than The Godfather. Watch it.

3. The Baby-Sitters Club. Specifically, collecting the whole series. As you can see, I'm close -thanks to an awesome bunch of people who have been helping me out. It's all about reliving the golden days of my youth (it's called the mid-nineties and they're back, baby!) since I lived on those things as a kid. I also like the idea of owning a complete set of something and if I ever have kids I think they'll be something nice to pass down -unless Scholastic decides to reissue them and the characters get Bratz style makeovers.

4. Books. In general. Perhaps you've seen my bookshelves. It's a bit of an obsession -according to Excel I have 950 of them, not including the ones to trade- and again I have a lot of people to thank for it (especially my parents). I can even remember where/when/from whom I got most of them. I love to read and someday will work my way through all that I have.

5. Sundrop. The delicious citrus soda that is only available in certain parts of the country. It tastes great, is addicting, and is so freaking bad for your kidneys it's not funny. Still, I love it. I drink at least a can a day, but only if I drink a lot of milk and water after. I'm pretty sure you can buy it online somewhere.

Now, for the five equally fabulous people I am to tag so they can tell us their obsessions:
1. Alea
2. Adele
3. Becky
4. Lenore
5. Melissa

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell / Contest!

2009-03-05T23:36:00.000-06:00

I'm very sad at this moment because I was reading this book in the bath (1. yes, I'm strange and 2. yes, I'm aware that reading in the bath is a bad idea) and now it's got a little water damage.

Anywho, but for the damage to the book, I really enjoyed The Tipping Point. It's about a million different things, yet one thing: the moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior catches on and spreads like wildfire.

When I first heard about this book, somehow I was operating under the misapprehension that the whole book was about crime in New York City and how it has lessened over the past decade. I was like yeah, that sounds like watching paint dry. Luckily, I was wrong! There's seriously something in here for everyone. As Gladwell poses new and troubling questions and discusses how and why things catch on he offers up a multitude of examples and goes into detail about the most random things: Hush Puppies shoes, syphilis, the Columbia Record Club, the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game, teenage smoking, Blues Clues, Sesame Street, and yes, even the decline of crime in New York City (which, at times, was one of the funniest chapters!), and many more. There's seriously something in this for everyone.

What I love is that it's written for everyone. He makes the information accessible and writes it so that even a twelve year old can read it and comprehend what's going on. He could have written an entire book filled with boring statistics and charts and graphs (and people would have probably loved it), but instead he offers up stories about how Sesame Street was created, which movie star can be connected to other stars in the fewest steps (and it's not Kevin Bacon!), and how The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood became such a huge bestseller.

One of my favorite parts is when he discusses e-mail and how when it was a new phenomenon he couldn't wait to get home and check it and would rush to reply. But now that he's had it for so long the newness has worn off and he takes his time replying. As someone who has emailed the man twice now, I found myself going "you don't say!".

This is my second Gladwell book and I can't impress upon you enough how much his books have affected me and what I've learned from them or even how much I've laughed while reading them. But maybe I don't have to. Maybe you can find out for yourself.

I happen to have a spare copy in front of me that I'm giving away on Monday the 8th. If you're interested in winning a copy just leave me a comment saying so (if you want to comment, but don't want to enter, just say so). The same rules as usual apply to the contest. Be an American (because foreign shipping is expensive and the American dollar is worth less than a bottle cap) and you get one entry for entering, one for becoming a follower, two for already being a follower, and one for posting about this contest somewhere else. Pretty easy stuff.

Oh and no worries -this isn't the water damaged copy!

Movies I've Watched This Year

2009-03-04T04:01:00.019-06:00

I thought it'd be fun to keep track of the films I watch this year since I noticed they're definitely outnumbering the books I've read. I'm slowly but surely working my way through the AFI 100 Movies of All Time list (there are actually two lists, so when combined that's 123 films). Some I've watched more than once, but they still get listed.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Some Like it Hot
4. All About Eve
5. Psycho
6. It Happened One Night
7. The Philadelphia Story
8. Clueless
9. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
10. The Apartment
11. Wedding Crashers
11. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
12. Lilies of the Field
13. Born Yesterday
14. Woman of the Year
15. Ninotchka
16. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
17. Oklahoma!
18. All the King's Men (1949)
19. Juno
20. Sophie's Choice
21. Roman Holiday
22. Kill Bill Volume 1
23. Kill Bill Volume 2
24. The Children's Hour
25. Gaslight
26. The Private Life of Henry VIII
27. Fantasia
28. Forrest Gump
29. Beauty and the Beast
30. Bye Bye Birdie
31. W.
32. Milk
33. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
34. Rachel Getting Married
35. Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte
36. Harold and Maude
37. Tropic Thunder
38. Slumdog Millionaire
39. Postcards from the Edge
40. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
41. Jezebel
42. Doubt