tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60433912024-03-13T23:41:06.308-07:00What blows my skirt upDon't get excited, it's just a reading log.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger365125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-56620557706475359662011-06-22T14:30:00.000-07:002011-06-22T14:31:51.953-07:00You may have noticed I have moved on! Where I am now: My TwitterUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-54118717631387471982010-01-03T22:33:00.000-08:002010-01-03T23:18:42.632-08:00A plea for amnesty & my best of 2009This year just got away from me. Maybe I needed a break from blogging, maybe I got distracted by shiny new social media tools. Who knows? Anyway. I'd promise to keep up from now on, but I'd hate to make myself a liar. I will promise to try though.In the meantime, here's my 2009 rundown:This year my numbers were way down from last year's. I only read 108 books: Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-92011078504667925762009-04-19T22:57:00.001-07:002009-04-19T23:17:09.747-07:00As promised...I was excited for a new Vicky Bliss mystery with Elizabeth Peters' The Laughter of Dead Kings but it wasn't until the second half of the book that the action really got going. So while it was nice to revisit the characters (and Schmidt will always be awesome), it wasn't the best entry in the series. I won't get into why I picked up Linda Howard's Mr. Perfect, but it was okay for Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-31694295085832983392009-02-13T09:26:00.000-08:002009-02-15T23:19:50.672-08:00I loved Audrey, Wait! by Robin Bremer so much that I made a playlist of all the songs from the chapter headings to listen to while I read it. The plot is fairly basic - Audrey breaks up with her boyfriend Evan, who then writes a song about her that becomes huge, forcing her into the media spotlight. What makes the book special are the well-drawn characters, including Audrey's parents, and the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-33559125141033685552009-02-10T10:56:00.000-08:002009-02-10T11:14:17.146-08:002009 books (I'm already really far behind. Sigh.)I finished the Sean McMullen trilogy with The Miocene Arrow which moves the action to the North American continent and Eyes Of The Calculor which, while still interesting, felt less urgent and less complex than the previous two. Plus it had an almost literal deus ex machina character who I liked but the concept and execution of it didn't work that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-31491530950355864182009-01-31T22:42:00.000-08:002009-01-31T23:12:11.259-08:002008 (belated) end of the year round up.I read 80 adult fiction books, 10 adult non-fiction, 45 YA, 5 graphic novels, and 6 essay collections for a total of 146 books which I believe is my highest total since I started keeping track. My 10ish favorites (in vague order of when I read them):1. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron. I ran right out and bought myself a copy as soonUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-9848940280757742242009-01-31T16:40:00.000-08:002009-01-31T17:11:42.684-08:00Final 2008 push!Ellen Wittlinger's Blind Faith has been on my to read list for a while and while it was good I think I expected more of it because so many people said they loved it. Robin McKinley's Chalice, I'm sorry to say, didn't have much of a chance from me even thought I wanted to love it. See, I love The Hero And The Crown and The Blue Sword like whoa, but I don't think she's written Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-67325779677252694372009-01-28T21:53:00.000-08:002009-01-28T22:13:26.609-08:00Don't You Forget About Me by Jancee Dunn was okay, although I hope I was not supposed to like the main character Lillian all that much because she annoyed me for almost the entire book. But then, I'm not someone who views high school as the best time of my life, so maybe I'm not her target audience. I don't think so though because by the end Lillian does realize that she turned a blind eye to a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-49018118214563809052009-01-20T22:08:00.000-08:002009-01-20T22:37:31.485-08:00I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I might actually catch up this week. My new year's resolution is to not get so freakin' behind again.Okay! This entry is dedicated to Claire, without whom I would have missed out on some awesome YA this year. Mwah! Sarah Beth Durst's Into The Wild and Out Of The Wild are pretty cool. Julie, Rapunzel's daughter, has to save her mom and her other fairy Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-82522833179303123662009-01-18T23:04:00.000-08:002009-01-18T23:37:04.041-08:00I really liked The Summer Of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau. It's about a teenage girl of hippie parents who is struggling toward that necessary separation of self from her parents. But what do you rebel against when there are no boundaries? How do you have a sexual awakening when everything is frank and upfront? I read a couple of Elizabeth Scott books. The first, Stealing Heaven wasn'tUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-79661604955839963992009-01-16T18:42:00.001-08:002009-01-16T19:03:57.076-08:00Someone arrived here by searching for Scott Pilgrim fan fiction. That totally just made my night.Which naturally leads me to Jennifer Crusie. No really, it does. Anyway. Bet Me was decent and had its moments but there wasn't a whole lot of depth there (unlike, say, Marian Keyes) and the coincidences and luck thing as the two main characters got together kinda went over the line into cloying once Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-11791373263394800482009-01-15T20:11:00.000-08:002009-01-15T20:43:49.821-08:00Claire recommended Wild Girls by Pat Murphy to me and I thought it was great. It's about two preteen girls who meet each other in the woods and become friends. They start writing stories together and help each other through some tough family drama.I know I'd heard of Holly Black's Tithe a long time ago and I don't quite remember what prompted me to finally pick it up, but I was pleasantly Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-19680082441675969472009-01-12T17:08:00.000-08:002009-01-12T17:36:59.278-08:00In the interests of actually having a 2008 roundup before the end of January I'm going to try very hard to catch up this week. Onward!I really loved China Mieville's Perdido Street Station despite the, uh, "insect p0rn" as my friend so delicately put it, that happens in the first chapter. Sure, it was a little overwrought at times and the style could be a bit much, but once I rolled my eyes a fewUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-698767068941742622009-01-11T20:57:00.000-08:002009-01-11T21:22:32.574-08:00From worst to best: PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. I loved this book. It was like a fantastic Douglas Coupland and Neal Stephenson collaboration. It's got cryptography, pirates, corporate retreats, buried treasure, and a kickass geeky heroine who works for a toy company and is intelligent and interesting. When Alice gets a simple coded message, "Are you happy?" it starts her on making a change in her Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-73378077274907107512008-12-17T13:44:00.000-08:002008-12-17T14:08:52.125-08:00It's not often I can pinpoint the single worst book I read in a particular year. But oh boy can I this year. Stephanie Kuehnert's I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone has a great title that's absolutely wasted on some of the worst writing and characterization I've read in a long time. No one had brown hair - it was chocolate. And eyes weren't green, they were jade or sea-green. Not to mention their eyes Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-24593384934716466822008-12-16T14:12:00.000-08:002008-12-16T14:43:23.735-08:00The only note I have on Harlen Coben's Hold Tight is that it had a few too many cute connections at the end but overall it was pretty good. Although I don't remember a single thing about the plot, so maybe it wasn't all that good. Meg Gardiner, on the other hand, is my new favorite mystery/thriller author. Like most everyone else I first heard about her from Stephen King via Entertainment Weekly,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-58080004403582253542008-12-08T12:21:00.000-08:002008-12-08T13:05:40.088-08:00Non-fiction roundup:First is The Feminine Mistake: Are we giving up too much? by Leslie Bennetts, which read like she took every thought I ever had about marriage and put them in writing. It was really excellent and I thought she was wise in sticking to an economic focus and not getting bogged down in the moral and social aspects, although she didn't ignore them either. Here, have a couple of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-49105893978783009812008-12-03T21:20:00.000-08:002008-12-03T21:54:03.677-08:00Okay, I'm totally going to overwhelm you with books until the end of the year in an effort to get current. First up are Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, and Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, all of which I read atUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-53261899999645221132008-07-06T14:46:00.000-07:002008-07-06T15:04:20.083-07:00Reading David Mitchell's Black Swan Green after a long string of largely disposable mysteries and YA was just really lovely. It's his most straightforward book, not as playful or intricate as his others, but by no means is it simple or plain.Denise Mina's latest, Slip Of The Knife continues her Paddy Meehan character into the early 1990s. Paddy, now a successful columnist, has to deal with a son,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-73356721097843648922008-06-25T19:43:00.000-07:002008-06-25T20:09:41.874-07:00I read Laura Lippman's What The Dead Know because it was in The Morning News' Tournament of Books. I liked it quite a bit even though I guessed one twist really early on. I thought it was pretty well-written too. It inspired me to check out a bunch of her other books, but unfortunately they were less compelling. The Power Of Three felt like it was missing something and fell just short of being Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-75568507740255794612008-06-24T20:06:00.000-07:002008-06-24T20:43:38.472-07:00Let's talk YA.So Jonathon Scott Fuqua's King Of The Pygmies was pretty interesting. It's about a teen boy named Penn who starts hearing voices. His parents are concerned about mental illness, while his alcoholic uncle insists they have the power to hear other people's thoughts. I liked how the book stayed ambiguous enough to allow the reader to wonder and hope along with Penn, but also realize Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-52344025637219287432008-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:002008-06-23T20:50:58.230-07:00Forever ago I read Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer, which I mistakenly thought was the last book in the series, but no, apparently there's another one on its way. Which I will read as soon as possible even thought I just keep getting more and more annoyed with these characters.Cherie Priest's Dreadful Skin wasn't as good as her others, but still interesting. It's three interconnected novellas about a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-38202465744432700962008-03-20T16:49:00.001-07:002008-03-20T17:52:56.614-07:00Oh, hi neglected blog. Bragging to Daisy this morning about our new wireless router and how I could now email from the garage and blog poolside turned into me promising her a post before we went to dinner tonight. So here I am. Blogging poolside. But it's a little breezy, so I might go inside soon.So then. Let's talk about Charlaine Harris. I've been meaning to read her vampire series for ages Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-22912252483185488682008-01-31T13:58:00.000-08:002008-01-31T14:35:14.315-08:00While I went into Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain will Be Useful To You with high hopes, I still half-expected to dislike it. Instead I loved it so much I went right out and bought myself a copy. Right from the first page I just knew this book and I would click. It was so dryly funny and sarcastic and the main character James, a hyper-literate teen not sure about starting college in the fall, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-22254276803217552932008-01-24T11:30:00.000-08:002008-01-24T12:09:29.172-08:00Clearly my resolution to keep up with posting hasn't worked so far because I'm 12 books behind already. Oh well. The first book I read in 2008 was Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, a Christmas gift from Daisy. I was convinced I was going to hate it based on the reviews I'd read, but I actually loved it. I should have known I would because of my fascination with boarding schools and their insular worlds. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0