EricaO

CRAP!
I am of an age that I now empathize with these stories instead of just finding them amusing.
Damnation.

Ok. I don't relate to all the stories. For instance, I don't live in an apt. in NYC, though I do completely understand having a ridiculous amount of love for one's home and community.
I don't do the maintenance thing. Well, except now I've started paying more attention to my neck because maybe these last few years or months of preventative measures will make a difference.

"Consider the Alternative" was hard to listen to. And sad. I mean, it's supposed to be sad, it's about death. But hearing that best friends die, that's hard. And then listening to her talk about death and her saying, "By the time you read this, I'll be" and I thought, "Dead." Because that is how it actually worked out and that is also sad.

Regardless, many of these essays made me smile either with a knowing look or with joy or with a sense of smugness. I liked this book.

P.S.
I do not recommend following this with [b:Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.|17707582|Sister Mother Husband Dog Etc.|Delia Ephron|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1372679788s/17707582.jpg|24757111]. Delia starts it out with the Nora's end days. I've been crying in the car for two drives, now. It's been hard to go from Nora talking about death, losing her BFF and wondering who was next - and now I know she knew she was sick when she wrote that - to Delia talking about how her sister's death impacted her, both during and after and still, I am sure. OMG, it just hurts. And it's scary. I have a sister. We don't collaborate on books, we're not famous, but I can't lose her and this part of the book is terrifying to me because I don't want to think about the surviving sister syndrome. And it's sad. So I don't recommend it as a chaser.

Dear Allie Brosh,
You are my Blog-To-Book Author hero, probably forever but for sure this entire week. Month. Even year!
You were not kidding when you said, wherever it was you said it, that this gem of yours is 40% blog and 60% new stuff.
I have been disappointed in so many blog-to-book books because they're just reiterations of what I've already read and laughed over and they're not even compiled in a fashion that creates a larger story. That disappointment is what led me to create my Plan of Attack: Check the book out from the library first and then, if it is delightful, purchase it.
I checked your book out from the library. I read it at bedtime (because that's the only time I have to read) and my husband sort of hates you now because I was trying to giggle quietly only...well, it was quiet! For me, at least. I can't help it if my stifled giggles made the dogs in the neighborhood howl. He should have let me just laugh out loud like a normal person. Anyway, I stayed up too late each night to just read a little bit more, just one more chapter (and OMG! I LOVE that each chapter is a different color! That is an idea made of pure genius!) and I finally finished (and my husband was able to get full nights of sleep instead of sleep punctured by softly scary giggles) and I'm keeping it to read again because I don't have to return it for another 8 days. Because that is how good it was, how well-put-together, how storylike.
So I've purchased the book. Two copies, actually. One for me, one for my sister. If you ever come to a book signing here, I will need to buy another one, as well, because I'll need to have a signed copy and a loaner copy because I would never let anyone borrow a signed copy of anything. Well, except for my sister. She can borrow my signed copies but won't need to, in this case, because she'll have her own copy already.
So, thank you. Thank you for making yourself look like a fish with stick legs and crippled raptor hands. Thank you for making me keep my husband awake at bedtime. Thank you for being open and honest and making me feel a little cry-ey but then turning that around so that I was laughing again and didn't have to feel sad for too, TOO long. And thank you for doing the blog-to-book thing 100% correctly.
Very sincerely,
Erica

Yes, I am listening to Delirium.
I probably won't like it, since these books seem to just irk my face off, but I feel I should give it a shot anyhow. In the name of Librarianship. Or something.

Alright! I have listened to this and, surprisingly, I do not hate it! I know, it's like a miracle. Whod've thunk?

I liked the whole idea for a cure for The Love. Because, honestly, I hate love. HAAAAAAAATE It is so freaking exhausting, especially to be in love. I've never liked it, ever. A cure would be wonderful.
And then I got to thinking, "Who came up with and then sold that idea to an entire community, maybe a whole country?", then,"But how would one actually make that feeling stop?" and, from there, "How would society work if everyone stopped feeling love? All the attached emotions would also go. Dude, this totally could not work." And then I realized that this is a piece of fiction and it wouldn't kill me suspend disbelief and I just stopped thinking so much and went with it.
And it was fun.
Until the last disc which pissed me off, since the story crumbled into eye-rolling territory, but that's 8 discs of enjoyment and 1 disc of "Seriously?" so that's not so bad, right? Right.

You know what I really liked? There was no actual love triangle. That made me incredibly happy. Also? Our little heroine actually learned things and grew and stuff. And I loved her BFF, Hannah. Hana? I dunno. I loved her, though. She was a good BFF.
There were plenty of elements which were overlooked, underdeveloped, ignored altogether and I was alright with that. I think it was the reader. I credit her with helping me to like this book instead of loathe it; she did crazy voices. Hannah sounded like Jessie from "Toy Story", Alex sounded like a kid who was totally drunk but was trying to pretend he wasn't and thinking he was succeeding when it was incredibly obvious he was failing. Aunt Carol and Cousin Jenny had voices you'd expect to hear in a movie based on a Roald Dahl work. I just really enjoyed her take on how everyone spoke and I think that made all the difference to me in reading this book. Well, listening to this book.

Awww!
This book totally makes me squeal (in my mind, so as not to disturb those around me), "Awww!" Like the Portlandia dumpster diver. I can't find a Portlandia Aww meme and am too lazy to make my own, so just imagine it here and move along.

Here are the things that just tickled me pink (I'm already pink, though)(well, kind of an olive pink, so...pinive. I'm pinive)(no, not oink. Don't even)
-The mayor sports ornamental canes and too-short shorts! Bwahahaha! Such perfect small-town imagery, it cracked me up so much.
--Finding out your dad(s) isn't your dad! YES! YES! I know all about this! And the worry, the "Crap! I may have dated my brother because I didn't know we were related!" when you're in a small town and both parents live there! OMG! YES!
---Yay for Library Love even if the librarians start out as stereotypes. But that the author moved beyond the stereotypes to explore the other stereotype (that librarians are quirky and hard to figure out until you get to know them) = SO MUCH LOVE!
----Awww! Monsters with little dead people dolls! Adorable!

I really enjoyed listening to this. I liked the reader quite well, I liked the story, I liked the family history being untangled (I'm a sucker for those stories), I liked the setting and how it was based on [a:James Fenimore Cooper|9121|James Fenimore Cooper|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1210528548p2/9121.jpg]'s town and works, I liked the dead lake monster. I liked it all...except Willie.
It's not that I didn't like Willie, per se, but that I was bored by her, specifically. In my mind, she was more of a hub, the reason we got to hear all these other stories. She seemed younger than her 27 (28?) years; she was ridiculously self-involved which didn't seem to make sense to my mind. She's been out in the Alaskan tundra, digging up bodies. Well, a body. Maybe. I figured she'd be tougher, would have a more sophisticated worldview or something. I dunno. I didn't think she'd act like a first-time-around college student who just realized she'd been knocked up by a professor. Maybe everyone reacts to being knocked up by a professor in the same fashion, no matter her age or experiences? I dunno. All I know is that when Willie was talking, I was yawning.
And that led me to have half-tepid feelings at the end. The discovery of her father seemed anticlimactic to me. Actually, I didn't even care. I loved her family history and everything she dug up, but the actual revealing of the dad? I was uninterested.
At the same time, the other part of the ending, the monster, made me happy. It was autorenewal for the town, much like Willie was autorenewal for the townsfolk in a way. Ok, actually no. She wasn't that at all. But the monster = a rebirthiness and now the town can enter another era, a new Glimmy era? I'm sure the monster signifies something deeper, grander than what I'm picking up, but I don't care because I just loved the whole concept.
And the ghost. The ghost in the house. I liked how that was treated as just another aspect of life in this strange little place that never changes.
But not Willie. I did not like Willie.
I am now determined to go read the rest of Cooper's works, having previously only read [b:The Deerslayer|246245|The Deerslayer|James Fenimore Cooper|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309206496s/246245.jpg|15188375] and [b:The Last of the Mohicans|38296|The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales #2)|James Fenimore Cooper|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320511322s/38296.jpg|2064030] So I will be a better educated individual thanks to this story!

I was left with one lingering question, though: Aristables Mudge (I'm taking a wild guess at that spelling), the apothecary and then pharmacist. What is his story??

I wanted to read this after hearing Adichie's interview on NPR. Her voice, oh my gosh. Dreamy!
But, mostly, I was struck when she said that she had to learn to be black when she came to America because, like her character Ifemelu mentions, she wasn't black in Nigeria. And I was all...Oh! Duh! Right! I get that! and it was like a moment of enlightenment because, when you break it down, I am a racist little shit based solely on ignorance and lack of compassion. So I really wanted to read this, hoping this women who had to learn about race in America could teach me something about it, too, because I'm pathetically behind in my education on this topic. Also? I lived abroad for a year in a homogenous culture where I was the weird foreigner. AND Ifemelu is a famous blogger in the story. I have a blog! It's like we're twins. I wanted to read about her trials and adventures so I could do a compare-and-contrast with my own.

I'll put my thoughts about the book up after I re-find my notes. There are some things I really liked in this story and some I really didn't and I don't want to mess them up by trying to remember it all without the aid of my brilliant little squiggles that I hurriedly scratched out while I was reading.

Notes have been found and now I will finish this review.

The main obstacle to my reading enjoyment was that the story was beautiful, melodic, and intriguing and then would suddenly, without reason, go clunky and jangly. It's not like the clunky, jangly bits happened at clunky, jangly moments, they would just appear and then just as suddenly disappear, returning to the beautiful, intriguing writing. I kept getting kicked out of the story on account.
I also found myself confused as to what was being said with too much regularity. For instance, sentence structure such as

She began to imagine a relationship.

His nails were clean. He was not wearing a wedding band.

Both of them waking up in the winter, cuddling in the stark whiteness of the morning light, drinking English Breakfast tea; she hoped he was one of those Americans who liked tea. His juice, the bottle stuffed in the pouch in front of him...
Wait, what? The dude with no wedding band, ergo available to have a romantic relationship, was going to drink tea with her on cozy winter mornings and now there's juice? In a pouch? What's happening?
Yes, I read it again until it cleared up and I understood, but this kept happening to me and it made me feel like I don't understand words and I hate feeling like that.
I think that parts that really put me off, though, were the blog posts. I wanted powerful, interesting, thought-provoking posts, things that would really make me think. In real life, I read blog posts to laugh, to learn, or to test and grow my ability to comprehend the world. These imaginary blog posts were unremarkable, for the most part, and they started out only in snippets until Ch. 17 when all of a sudden there's an entire post and then more show up later. I didn't understand that, either - why just snippets that weren't really relevant to the story and then entire posts? Why?
I didn't follow or even comprehend the transformation from mature, self-possessed young adult in Africa to scatterbrained, flaky, boy-centered young adult in America. Is this because America ruins everything with our self-centered, self-indulgent, blameless, Capitalist ways? America is the corruptor of innocence, goodness, and personal accountability?
And just as I was getting irritated with Ifem's regression, Obinze shows up with his own chapter, throwing me out of the story yet again.

I actually wound up enjoying Obinze's story more, even if he did turn out to be a spineless drip. His tale still rang true to me whereas Ifemelu never felt right as a character. Despite the ex-pat theme, despite the having to go abroad to really grow up thing, depsite the blog posts, I never connected to her or her story at all.

While I am glad I read this and while I fully enjoyed a good half of the book, I was too frustrated by the end to give it more than 3 stars.

I am sure this will be enjoyed by the audience for whom it was intended, which I hope is new-teen girls who think they know a little something about the occult because they've watched TV shows, girls who haven't really been pushed much in life. I imagine this is the type of reader who would be able to identify with the angsty little heroine of this book.

As for me? This was a painful read. I don't know why I thought it wouldn't be. Granted, I never bothered with the [b:Beautiful Creatures|6304335|Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1)|Kami Garcia|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327873282s/6304335.jpg|6488966] creatures series so I didn't really have any basis on which to judge this author's writing. I just thought it sounded interesting and I liked the cover so I read the book. And it hurt.

So we've got Kennedy, the main girl. She's, like, 17. We meet her in a graveyard where she's looking for her runaway cat. I know my cats would love to run off to a graveyard, were there any nearby, so I was all for this beginning. And that was the best part of the book.
From there, her mother dies (NOT a spoiler. It happens in the first or second chapter) and Kennedy is whisked away by a pair of hot twins whom she was NOT surprised to find saving her life in her bedroom early one morning. She quickly becomes insipid, ridiculous, and more self-involved than anyone with no personality has a right to be. She's got this idea from lord knows where that everything is about her, she's the cause of every bad thing in the world (I now blame her for the destruction of the Library at Alexandria since everything is her fault), and she's not lovable or good enough and she doesn't fit in and so on and so forth. But the thing is, prior to her mom dying, this Kennedy girl had a fun and delightful best friend, was doing well in school, and didn't have any real problems. I think we're supposed to believe that her reluctance to embrace any form of self-confidence, communication skills, or ability to be a...well, person, really, come from watching her dad leave the family when she was a tyke. A six-year-old kid. She's been carrying around this fear of abandonment and unworthiness since then and it manifests as soon as she's around the two cute twin boys and the other kids in her new familial group that she doesn't feel she's part of but, at the same time, wants to be part of though even when they try to convince her she's one of them, all she wants to do is deny it and run. Had she gotten over that little diva tantrum by the end of the book, I'd have been more ok with her attitude but because her "NO! No, I can't...[be part of your club] [be loved by a twin] [be locked in a dark space yet be ok...wait, yes I can. I forgot I'm not traumatized by that anymore. Wait! Wait! I just remembered that this is my biggest fear and I need to be freaking out] [etc]" was so pervasive and irritating, I was really hoping something would come along and kill her so I could learn more about Alara (who, granted, is fairly trite and 2-D but was, at least, interesting) and Priest (ditto Alara but if I were 15 and reading this and had to pick to be on one of the boys' teams, I'd have picked him because at least he tries to be funny).

And then there was the writing. While things were spelled correctly and the grammar and punctuation were mostly in place, there were constant gaps in the story, leaving me wondering, "How did they get there/know that/figure this out?" It's fast-paced because there's information missing - the reader goes from one moment to the next and rather than those moments being bridged, the reader is just tossed into one after another. The writing style was...odd. Stilted, maybe? And weird. Like, here's the piece that tripped me up so hard, I wrote it down:
He sounded so lonely. I fought the urge to put my arms around him and breathe in the smell of salt and copper that clung to Jared even when he was only bleeding on the inside.
Out of context, it sounds like maybe this guy is in the hospital because he was hit by a truck and is suffering from internal bleeding. It's probably late and no one has come to visit him so Kennedy is feeling all sad for him and wants to give him a hug.
But that's not what is going on. Kennedy is just denying her feelings for this guy who is standing there with her and she thinks he smells like blood, apparently, and she likes that smell and wants to envelope herself in that heady scent. No, she's not a vampire, at least, not to the best of my knowledge. I don't know why he's bleeding on the inside. I think that's supposed to mean that's where he's keeping all his feelings? Painful feelings, it would seem. Glass-shard-, shrapnel-, and jagged razor-type feelings that make one bleed when they're left inside? At least, that's how I had to explain it because WHAT? Bleeding on the inside and he smells like copper and salt? He's not having his period, dude! WTF.
Lastly, all three of my pet peeves were highlighted:
1) the stupid love triangle. I am so sick of this that I want to kill off characters before they can ever even meet. I hate the love triangle.
2) Songs and bands. So many references to songs and bands, mostly mopey stuff, too (and I know this because I listened to them all the time in the 90's) except for Beastie Boys who were singing "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" from a pair of headphones. Because 15-year-olds still listen to Beastie Boys, it seems.
3) The pathetic female lead who cannot grow the hell up and learn stuff but, instead, is all self-suffering and willing to sacrifice her very life just so she can be useful for one second because maybe then someone will love her.

Yeah. I really was not a fan of this story. But, again, I think it will be a fun and delightful read to its audience, providing no one in that audience has read very widely, has engaged in introspective activities, or is turned off by this kind of story.

Prologue
This book is not library-friendly. It was a bitch to catalog because...what is it? And which information is the proper information? And how much goes in the catalog record? And where?
Then there are all the little pieces. What to do with those? My library attached them into the book so that they could be accessed, read, but not lost, and so that they would stay with the passages of the book that are relevant to the bits of paper. It took a really long time for the processor to do this because she had dozens of copies to put together.

And yet, this book belongs in a library. This volume is both the book in the story and the container of the story and it is a library book...a double library book, having been stolen from a high school library and now living at a university library. If you can find this at your library, look it over. If it's packaged well and still has all the little bits and pieces, check it out because even if the story is too much, it is the perfect library book and is super fun to look through.

I full-up admit that I wanted to read this book because the summary said the middle child in a grief-stricken family embarks upon a journey to figure out who she is and what she means to the greater world via sexual exploration with a much older man. This Lolita topic is something that always piques my interest, probably because of my own not-even-anything-like-that experiences; I think it's a topic that I want to know more about, hear more about, because I am still trying to put my own thoughts on the matter into some sort of coherence.
So, yes, I was drawn in by the titillating lure of childhood sexual abuse because, apparently, I am a sicko. Not a big surprise there.

But guess what? That's not what this book is about. Whereas I had assumed, via the book's summary, that this would be a look at how divorce and then, later, the death of a beloved stepfather impacts the three children of the family, it was more about the parents, Eva and Mark, and how they survived both their divorce and then the death of John, Eva's husband after Mark. And about sex. I was actually a little surprised at how everything seemed to come down to sex. Sex was the reason for the divorce. After John died, Eva wanted sex and she reminisced on the sexual differences between Mark and John. Mark wanted sex but couldn't always get it because sometimes the kids were at his house. Eva's BFF, Gracie, wanted sex and not marriage. Gracie got married and the sex was great. Emily tells Daisy about sex. Daisy learns about sex, though a weird form of sex. Sex Sex Sex. I guess marketing has it spot-on: It really is all about sex. And when sex isn't the topic, the rest of life shows up and does its thing, but then it's back to sex.
It sounds like I have a problem with sex. And you'd think that I'd have been ready for it, since I was expecting, essentially, child-molestation but you know what? I didn't expect it everywhere, all the time. But the ending explains that the sex was important to the story, via Daisy's amazing revelations about herself and her childhood.

So why was I left unimpressed by this book?

Well, I was put off by the clunky movement of time. Time does not unfold in a mysterious fashion, but in a confusing way. For instance, Gracie goes off on a rant about how Eva should remarry but Gracie won't ever marry because she likes having lots of guys and doesn't want to settle down with one. Essentially. Then a few chapters later, Gracie's husband walks onto the scene and I was all, "What? Who is this guy? Gracie's not married!" Only, she is now and they explain it a little later and that was confusing. There were also grown-up Daisy at the therapist, written in here and there as needed, though I didn't realize there was going to be grown-up Daisy moments until they started cropping up. This type of loop happened with too much regularity for my brain. It hurt my ability to follow the story and it made me feel lost. Maybe that was the point, so that I would feel lost like Daisy. But I never felt like Daisy. I felt like a confused reader.

And The Mexicans. What was going on with The Mexicans? Why did they come up? Like, three or four times, randomly, throughout the book, The Mexicans were mentioned for no apparent reason and seemingly out of context. Mark is driving somewhere and there's no one out on the streets except for this one area where there's a group of The Mexicans. And then nothing else was said about it. Until the next time someone mentions The Mexicans. ??? What on earth?

The whole story does actually focus on Daisy without ever focusing solely on her. The set-up is essentially she's the sullen middle child full of burgeoning sexuality (as noticed by her father) who lost her father to divorce and then her step-father, on whom she doted, to a car accident. She was left bereft and needing a father figure so she was easily seduced by the family friend's intimidating and creepy husband (who shows up out of nowhere) while going through some I Need Attention teenage rebellion (stealing money from her mother's bookstore. And why, btw, did NO ONE notice there was that much money missing from the till? Seriously? There are businesses out there that don't count their money at the end of the day and tally the results against what was sold? Really? Wow. It's a miracle that bookstore stayed in business long enough to have someone else buy it out) Meanwhile, while the creepy old guy (he's, like in his 50's, I think, while Daisy is 15) is molesting a trying-to-find-her-way teenager, Daisy's parents are having an awkward sort-of getting back together thing, full of sexual tension and kissing and stuff and I had to wonder: Was the comparison of Daisy's new molesty relationship to her parents' newly sort-of-renewed relationship supposed to mean something? If so, I missed it. I also missed the significance of Creepy Old Guy's need to be all over Daisy but to never be involved, sexually, himself. I don't think he ever got undressed. It was all about him controlling her body yet she was the one who thought she was in control. I'd have liked some help from the therapist on that one, an explanation as to why it all worked out that way and what Creepy Old Guy was getting out of all this. I also missed why Mark didn't flip the fuck out when he realized what was going on between the creepy oldster and his nubile daughter. I thought maybe pressing charges were in order, but it appears I overreact? He, apparently, merely felt that the whole thing was his fault because he hadn't been around to take care of his little girl, and so he paid for her therapy later but...ok, what? And then to tie it all up in a nice little bow with Daisy becoming and adult and playing the character of Miranda from "The Tempest" in a Shakespeare production theater act and describing her poignant role as an innocent who is trapped alone on an island with only her father and a monster and who then realizes that there are all sorts of other people in the world and what a revelation. It was a little bit too much for me.

Also bothersome was the supreme effort to place this story in a certain period of time without ever saying what period of time we were in. It was made overly obvious - they were discussing whether or not to go see "A Fish Called Wanda" at the theater; party talk was of Salman Rushdie (which made me think of Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones, vacuuming her apartment and saying "Salman" in a thousand different ways); they made George Bush (not GW) jokes. I think one of the kids even had a birth year mentioned. So, I get it. I can do the math. I was alive during that time period. But was it necessary to be so very hint-dropping instead of just saying This All Happened In the Late 1980's? Maybe that was actually said at some point. I don't remember, now. I just remember rolling my eyes at the unnecessary reference points to time frame.

The writing is good. I imagine I'll want to check out other books by this author and I will just hope they are not misleading in their summaries and I will also hope that they're not so over-the-top smacking me in the head with "GUESS WHEN THIS TAKES PLACE? GUESS, GUESS, GUESSSSS!" But this one? It was just ok. I don't know if I would recommend it but I'm glad I listened to it despite not getting what I wanted from it.

I think this is a cautionary tale to irresponsible writers. When you don't do your research, when you don't follow through on your stories, when you're a lazy writer but achieve acclaim anyhow, bad things happen. Angry ghosts pee in your home. That's about the only horror aspect I can find in this story.

The idea that a writer's characters can manifest on the same physical plane as the writer, himself, is intriguing and sort of awesome. I mean, think about it, you could write your own super best friend. How fun would that be? It's sort of like the idea of personal robots who can be programmed to be however you want them to be. You get to play god and you get a perfect being in return. Win!
It's not a new idea, no, but it's always a fun idea to me. Thus, knowing that the basis of this story was a writer and his character coming face to face to solve a mystery was what made me want to listen to this book.

It didn't pan out as I'd hoped.

You know how...what's his face - Google says it's Chekhov - says that if you introduce a gun in the first act, it had better have gone off by the last? Well, there are a lot of guns in this story, scattered hither and yon, and most of them just tumble about but never go off - like the goons (see how that looks and sounds like "guns"?) - except for the angry janitor angel who turns out to be more of a squirt gun and generally useless. Because, really, why couldn't he have just gone and cleaned up the whole mess by himself in the first place? Why'd he need SuperWriter Tim Underhill's help in any way? And HOW does Tim Underhill even have the power to begin the cleansing of the superhaunted house?

I wanted different things from this story. I wanted to be scared but I never was. I wanted to be caught up in the mystery but I never was. I wanted to have some sort of connection to the characters but I never did.

Then there were the aspects I over-analyzed, the things that began to bother me.
1) I hate that Willy is so much the perfect woman that everyone is entranced by her AND she turns a gay man straight, even if it's just in her case. And I'm not saying that there aren't women out there with whom gay men would have sex because I know there are and that's fine, but our gay writer is all, "Oh, I am SHOCKED to feel arousal for a woman because I have NEVER found ANY female REMOTELY hot at all before! I am as gay as the bluebird that sings on a summer's day!" and I have more to say on this issue but not yet. Anyway, Willy's the pouty and mercurial female who is stunningly beautiful, 12-year-old-boy thin, and eats like a cow but only because she's a fictional character come to life and not because she likes to eat.
Poor women. It's so hard to live up to these ideals of perfection.
I never understood, beyond the basic love thyself idea, why Willy and Tim loved each other so very much. I never saw it, never believed their relationship.
2) Back to Tim and his sexual appetites. So he has never been attracted to women, sexually, and yet he can't keep his paws off Willy. Let's look at this.
Willy is an extension of himself and I don't mean as a euphemism for "penis" so, pretty much, he is making mad, passionate love to himself. Ok. That makes sense. He's a writer, they're self-involved, of course he's going to want a piece of himself, even if it's in the shape of a woman, more than he's ever wanted anyone before. He wants himself/her sexually but also as a companion, though it's more of a mentor/apprentice relationship when they're out of bed. He's got so much to teach her because he is her god because he created her. So he's ego-tripping and is sort of an asshole but it's understandable. Maybe not altogether pleasant but still, understandable.
3) But then the reader finds out that Willy looks like Tim's missing-and-presumed-dead nephew, Mark. What does THAT mean? Are we now entering the realm of incest and pedophilia? Mark was 15 when Tim last saw him + Willy's gamine body is mentioned with regularity for the first half of the story; she's shaped like an adolescent boy. So is Tim living out some sort of fantasy about his nephew? That skeeves me out especially since no one in the story wants to think about it. People have strange and sometimes horrible and unhealthy impulses because that's just what people do. I can't judge; I want to bite babies. I want to bite their sausagey-little arms and legs, to gnaw on those fatty little pockets. That's strange and horrible. But I know and acknowledge this about me and I refrain from biting babies because I know I am not supposed to. (Except for the babies who give me permission. Then I nibble them gently. And drool on them. But no one notices because babies are covered in drool all the time anyhow) Tim never acknowledges the possibility that he's having sex with the memory of his nephew and that just disturbed me because it shows he doesn't have to deal with self-awareness or consequences.
4) And finally, unrelated to sex, the meta-fiction. I have come to loathe meta-anything. I actually hate the term "Meta"; it pisses me off. So we have a story written by Peter Straub about a writer named Timothy Underhill who writes about a writer named Willy Patrick, who has a best friend named Tom (so similar to Tim. On purpose) who is also a writer and whose character has self-awareness, as we see in one paragraph which turns out to be one of those guns that just sits there. It's like the cheese that stands alone - so many layers yet no depth; it was far too cutesy, too precious. Like I said, I love the idea of one's characters manifesting but this dream within a dream within a dream within yet another dream thing was overkill and it made me irritated.

The actual writing is fine. Straub can call up some good imagery, can write a scene well when he's not trying to be too clever. I moved through the story, understanding it all as we went, following the plot, understanding the characters even if they were boring or ridiculous or even pointless (looking at you, evil fiance). I had no problems with the writing.
It was the story, itself, that bugged me and a lot of that is because it just never bothered to live up to what I wanted to to achieve.

No, I didn't read Ghost story or Lost Boy, Lost Girl because I didn't realize I needed to before reading this, but I don't think it would have helped anyhow. I'm assuming there's a Kalendar's Realm to be published; I probably won't read that, either. That's more a note to myself, really.

This is a follow-up to the Hex Hall series, focusing on Sophie's little cousin Izzy.
It all starts out with Izzy being all morose about her missing sister and me going, "OMG, I have dementia! I JUST finished that last book and I do NOT remember Finley going missing! Last I heard, the whole family was fine! Why have I already forgotten everything that has happened?"
But then, like a chapter later, it's all explained. Turns out, it's not me losing my mind. It's just a bad set-up.

I now know better than to expect amazing things from Hawkins books but I keep reading them because, honestly, I love the voice she gives to her sassy little heroines. The stories falter, yes. I roll my eyes a lot, yes. But I still like the way this woman tells a tale so I am going to keep reading her stuff.

It was lovely to listen to a more-than-cozy/not-actually-graphic murder mystery! I haven't had one of those for awhile; I found this comforting.

Straight up, I will say that I was disappointed in Claire. She's an Episcopalian priest and, apparently, also a moron. Some of her rash, impulsive, poorly-informed (stupid) decisions made sense. Others, not so much and those came across as a vehicle to get Claire into trouble in order to prove she's totally kick-ass in some fashion or another.
We know she's kick-ass. She doesn't have to go on ridiculous solo escapades to show us her kick-assery.
And the whole romantic tension thing is there, setting itself up nicely to warrant a divorce, a fling, a breakup, seeing other people, and getting back together again storyline. Which...I hate. You know, cuz romance yucks me out. But, still, in this case, I really don't think it's necessary. Claire and Ross are a good team and don't need the potential spark of swooniness between them. I think they'd work fine without it. I hate it when men and women can't just be good friends. Ugh.

So those were my peeves, the irritants that kept me from giving this another star. They're relatively minor but also consistent. And irritating.

The rest of the story, though? I liked the setting quite well. I liked the snow, I liked the railroad trestle that people jump from to kill themselves, I liked the murder mystery part. I liked Harleen. And I like this reader quite well. So, all in all, I had a lot of fun listening to this and can't wait to get the next one. Which, by the way, my library does not own on audio. :/

Crossposted from Goodreads. For posterity.

It was lovely to listen to a more-than-cozy/not-actually-graphic murder mystery! I haven't had one of those for awhile; I found this comforting.

Straight up, I will say that I was disappointed in Claire. She's an Episcopalian priest and, apparently, also a moron. Some of her rash, impulsive, poorly-informed (stupid) decisions made sense. Others, not so much and those came across as a vehicle to get Claire into trouble in order to prove she's totally kick-ass in some fashion or another.
We know she's kick-ass. She doesn't have to go on ridiculous solo escapades to show us her kick-assery.
And the whole romantic tension thing is there, setting itself up nicely to warrant a divorce, a fling, a breakup, seeing other people, and getting back together again storyline. Which...I hate. You know, cuz romance yucks me out. But, still, in this case, I really don't think it's necessary. Claire and Ross are a good team and don't need the potential spark of swooniness between them. I think they'd work fine without it. I hate it when men and women can't just be good friends. Ugh.

So those were my peeves, the irritants that kept me from giving this another star. They're relatively minor but also consistent. And irritating.

The rest of the story, though? I liked the setting quite well. I liked the snow, I liked the railroad trestle that people jump from to kill themselves, I liked the murder mystery part. I liked Harleen. And I like this reader quite well. So, all in all, I had a lot of fun listening to this and can't wait to get the next one. Which, by the way, my library does not own on audio. :/

Turns out, Santa Claus is the youngest of seven children. Who knew? Also, his North-Pole-living family is a miserable unit of chores and cold comfort. Not child Santa, though. (His name is actually Santa) No, he's an upbeat kid, always decorating the trees and helping out here and there. He loves the North Pole and all it offers...and then his family decides to move to Florida.

The best takeaway from this book: Knowing that elves say, "Holy snowflakes!" That is just hilarious.

I can't figure out for whom this book is written, audience-wise. The solitary subject on the CIP page is Women's fiction but this is a story about a 10-year-old girl and her best friend who experience death and guilt, who test the boundaries of their friendship, and who unravel a mystery one summer. Also, there's an element of the supernatural in that Mary, the girl in question, holds seances and calls up ghosts.
It's written in the voice of an adult remembering childhood and trying to simplify the memories in order to recapture the feeling at the time, but it misses its mark. I wonder if kids would feel they were being talked-down-to when reading this? That's what makes me wonder if it's really supposed to be read by adults. I don't think it falls in the YA category, which would actually simplify things for my job because I could place it between JF and adult.

The story, itself, would probably be more enjoyable for the 8-12 set. It's just violent enough, suspenseful enough, and adventurey enough to be appealing but without any real adult situations or overtones. However, like I said before, the writing style could hamper the reading enjoyment; to me, it smacked of "kids aren't smart enough to get or convey the subtle nuances going on, so I am going to spell this out very carefully" writing.
It's a short book, but wordy. There's a lot of needless repetition among paragraphs and the first chapter is really long (24 pages out of a 124-page story with 12 chapters and an epilogue)

The writing is technically sound and the story flows in a forward direction. The main characters, while nothing new, seem to stay true to themselves throughout, though some of the minor characters are a little confusing or oddly-written. I think if this were tidied-up and aimed at a younger audience, it would be quite enjoyable not only for that audience but for their parents, as well. It could be a good read-together-and-discuss book, since it espouses some great values for children (trust yourself and your instincts, be aware of your surroundings, stupid decisions can have horrible consequences, etc)

Phwah!
I finished.
I'm glad.

It's October and, as so many of us have, I found myself with a hankering for scary stories. I wanted a ghost story and I wanted to try someone I'd never read. Bentley Little has a decent reputation so I gave this book a shot.

It wasn't to my taste.

To me, this seemed like a remade, updated version of "Poltergeist" with some themes coming scarily close - family moves into new house ( There were even three kids and the two parents only, in this case, instead of the youngest child being taken out of the picture for much of the story, it was the oldest child who wasn't there but did show up, in a way, toward the end. Also: ancient Indian burial ground built upon because developers wouldn't listen/Ancient evil the Indians warned against but nobody would listen) and weird things happen ; dad rescuing son from the muddy swimming pool hole/dad rescuing son from deep hole in dirt. You know. That sort of thing.
My sister and I discuss "Poltergeist" often; the thing that makes it scary even into adulthood is that it seems like something that could happen. Even if it really can't, it seems like it could what with the spirit world threatening the whole family, focusing on the children, tearing apart the house and NO ONE BELIEVES YOU except for the weird ghost hunters.
I never felt that with this book. I didn't get that, "OMG, what would I do if this did happen?" feeling, I never got that "We're alone in here" feeling (mostly because it seems everyone in the 'hood knows about the haunted nature of this house) Instead, I wondered why this family was so terrible at communication, something they'd apparently been fostering for years and years. It was almost like a parable: If you can't have earnest, heartfelt talks when you're married and you can't do so with your children, there's a good chance you're going to move somewhere and have your asses haunted and you STILL won't learn how to communicate and PEOPLE WILL DIE! Only there was no epiphany where the family learned how to work together and be a family. So I guess it would be a fairly lame parable.

In addition to not being scared, I was confused by the evil spirit. It seems this particular presence can break all corporeal boundaries but has a serious respect for emotional and psychological lines. Because here's the thing: If I were this evil spirit, there's no way I'd tailor my terrorizing to appropriate age groups. No, because I'm evil. I want to scare the crap out of every family member in the most horrific ways possible. I'm not going to be Casper The Pervy Ghost (Rated R) in the marital chamber but then text the teen girl to "take off your pants" (Rated PG13)and then give the even younger boy strange urges that have nothing to do with sex (Rated G). No, it's going to be equal all across the board. I'm going to put awful perversions in all their minds and watch them act it all out because I don't care who gets hurt. I AM EVIL, remember?
This entity, though, despite making people do some questionable things in the past, is fairly tame in this day and age. Also, it knows how to use modern communication devices, which is pretty hip. It's more like a rowdy teenage boy who has a little too much freedom than an ancient and terrible force full of mayhem and horror.
I think what I'm taking up way too many words to say is: I found the whole haunting situation to be a tad silly. And that's probably why it didn't scare me.
That's not what dropped it down to the two-star rating, though.

There was one message, one aspect of this story that really bothered me. It took me awhile to suss it out but I finally realized what made me so uncomfortable with this tale: SEX
I put that in all-caps because it's a popular word and gets a lot of attention.
Specifically, it was the messages about sex. I've already touched on how the parents are getting all down and dirty while the teenage daughter is getting pervy-but-not-dangerous text messages. She does see one of her little friends molested at a sleepover and the spirit leers at her when she's showering and stuff but it's all very ... teen-movie-ish. So there's something in the house that enjoys the idea of being a creeper to teenage girls, right?
The thing is, the parents are suddenly always horny since they've moved into their haunted home. That's great! Only, apparently, it isn't because it's mentioned a few times that oldly-weds don't ever feel this way so something is obviously wrong. Which...ok...yeah, oldly-marrieds who have a family and have jobs often stop being all in each others pants all the time. That's true for some couples. But then when this particular couple starts trying new things - like talking mildly dirty and having anal sex - that's when they know something is wrong, so horribly wrong. And to show how wrong this has all become, the husband even rapes the wife at one point and she doesn't even care. They never mention it again (remember: Poor Communicators) but there is one instant in which they have normal, old-fashioned, love-centered sex and it's all like it was and how it should always be and that was the one time they didn't feel like something was wrong. So the message I am hearing here is that old, boring couples need to focus on not spicing things up but should, instead, rely on tried-and-true methods to express their love. Always. Because it is deviant to do anything else and if you even start wondering what it would be like to ask your husband to perform cunnilingus upon your person without having washed first, well, that just means that you are possessed by something abominable and before you know it, PEOPLE WILL DIE! In addition, this perverse behavior is similar to sexually harassing a minor. IT IS ALL VERY GROSS and is all the product of the devil.
Yes, yes, I KNOW I'm reading waaaay too much into this. Way too much. I'm sure that message is not there at all and I'm making crap up because...well, because I do that, apparently. But at the same time, I felt sorry for a couple who can't have fun with sex, who has to have tender and meaningful, loving intimacy all the time because to do otherwise is a sign of being taken over by an evil spirit.
I think the quick-n-dirty sex moments were so not-in-line with the rest of the story that they grabbed my attention more than they would have. It's almost as if there were multiple spirits in the house, a malicious one, a pervy one, a teenage boy one, a old-fashioned spooky one that leaves random and scary messages...and in a way, I suppose that was true but it's not like the reader ever really finds that out.
I dunno. I sort of felt like I'd been in marriage counseling and learned that it's important to communicate open and honestly, not hide things from the spouse, and also, only loving, tender sexual relations are healthy. Everything else is demonic.
And on the ending: Does a person really just peacefully fade away half an hour after downing a bottle of Advil? Seriously? I'm surprised there aren't more Advil-related suicides. And also: No. Just, no. This ending? I rolled my eyes and sighed with the easy-out melodrama of it all.
Like I said, this just wasn't my cup of tea.

I think the title made me believe there would be magic in this book, something to do with birds. And that is why you don't assume content based on cover.

I enjoyed about half of this story. I liked little Milly and little Twiss, I liked that one summer their asthmatic, insecure, and bullying cousin Bette (is that her name? Bed? Bet? I couldn't tell with the smug-cat-voiced reader)(who also made all the women sound sleepy or stoned, by the way) came to visit while there was also a problem between Milly and Twiss' parents.
I assume this took place sometime after World War II? There seems to be some rationing going on but cars are prevalent so I didn't think this was during the Great Depression. Maybe I was told the timeframes - both the girls as girls and the girls as old women - and just didn't catch it. At any rate, Milly and Twiss are used to doing without, though their France-traipsing mother is not and the fact that she must make do with whatever paycheck is left unsquandered by her golfing husband pisses her right off. So, I felt we were off to a good start with lots of things going on - pride and poverty, first love, disruptive visiting relatives, growing up and finding your parents are human, summertime adventures, small towns, all that fun stuff.

I liked Bette/Bed/Bet best because I understood why she was the way she was, why she hated Milly, why she loved Twiss, why she made the decisions she did, why she was so desperate and how that shaped her being. I understood Twiss and Milly, not so much because all their complex parts created a whole, but more because they are characters with whom readers are already familiar. You can see Tom Sawyer and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pippi Longstocking in Twiss while there are remnants of every good girl you can think of from favorite childhood stories in Milly. They're respins of the pre-made and there's a comfort in that, in picking up new versions of characters you already like. I was good to go with the girls.
What I didn't quite understand was the parent's relationship. I got that she came from privilege and he came from the opposite; that they married for love and she was kind-of-disowned by her family; that they didn't find their fairy-tale happily ever after and that she was especially discontented as a result. What I wasn't clear on was the nature of their rift. Was there philandering going on while dad was still Golf Man? It sounded that way what with the private lesson with the young woman and then the resulting accident with the car in the river. But then it couldn't have been too big if it was so easy to temporarily repair with a simple note saying "I'd love to go to the fair with you!" and then: also we shall ride airplanes and will be back in love by the end of the day!

When the big turning point came, I lost all hope. It was if the story went from Girls Grow Up to Victorian Women Do Their Duty At All Personal Cost. It seemed unrealistic that Twiss would just give up everything to stay home for the rest of her life to keep Milly the Martyr company, virgin spinsters until death do they part. In fact, I don't think half the people in town would have allowed that, especially since they could have easily petitioned the state for guardianship - that was glossed over like crazy - and made sure the girls went to college or traveled Europe or did whatever accomplished young ladies of the town should have been doing. It seemed out of place and maudlin to let two characters give all up for the greater good and simply live together, fixing birds, growing old and dusty, and allowing themselves to become crazy lady legends down in the town If I wanted to read about girls sacrificing everything for the good of their family/society/what have you, I'd go read some Gothic romance novel where everyone ends up miserable in the end and those have never appealed to me; similarly, this ending also did not appeal to me.

To sum up: I though it started out strong and fun and with lot of potential but it ended in a way that was just not to my taste.