Beware the White Devil!

The White Devil by Justin Evans

Argh! I can’t think of what to say about this book. I was in the mood for another ghost story, so I picked this one up, but I was never really taken in by it, even though I toughed it out to the end. I think it was that the characters didn’t particularly click for me – none of them were very likable, didn’t make good decisions, and, honestly, I didn’t think that they were very well fleshed out or consistent. The ghost was certainly creepy – and frankly, a little gross toward the end – but I didn’t really buy his motivation. So a kid shows up at Harrow who looks like Lord Byron and the ghost of his spurned lover goes nuts and starts killing people? Just because somebody looks like his old boyfriend? I don’t know.

But I did manage to finish it, so I guess it can’t have been all bad – near the end I was skimming just to find out what was going to happen (not that I cared about the characters it was happening to). Frankly, I’d say that if you want a good ghost story, pick up Anna Dressed in Blood instead of this one.

My rating: D+

In which I am a self-published ebook author!

It’s no $1,000,000 advance from Random House, but at least Mary Clockwork is finally out there! Dad did a lot of work to get it all formatted and uploaded to Smashwords and it’s finally all set to go. There have actually already been two copies purchased and downloaded!

But I need a favor from those of you who have already read it – could you go to the book’s product page on Smashwords and leave a (hopefully positive) review of it? You’ll have to create a free account with Smashwords to review it, I think, but having reviews up on its page will definitely help convince people that it’s worth the read! So please take just a moment and click on over and review!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I’ve been putting this off for a couple of reasons…

Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

Mostly, writing this review is making me feel like I’m a pretty bad person. The author’s love for his wife and his grief at her loss really comes through and I appreciated Sheffield being so open and honest in his writing. And, I’ll admit it, I cried pretty darn hard during the chapters dealing with his wife’s death and his grieving process, but mostly I just couldn’t identify with either Sheffield or Renee. It may be because they are infinitely cooler than I’ll ever be, at least when it comes to music and being on top of the Next Big Thing – or it may be because they’re just enough older than me that even though I recognize some (about half, I’d say) of the bands and songs Sheffield mentions, I wasn’t grown-up enough to have the same sorts of memories associated with them that they do. I’m not sure I’m being clear – basically, when Sheffield and Renee were busy being a broke newlywed couple drinking beer and listening to The Smiths or Nirvana, I was a junior high kid singing along to Mariah Carey.

If you’re 10 years older than I am or you have an older sibling who was 10 years older than I was, you’ll probably find yourself liking Sheffield and Renee a lot better than I did. No matter how old you are, though, it will make you think about the fragility of life and love and cry a bit about it.

My rating: B-

What a lucky bitch!*

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

When I started this book, I kept thinking “Ugh, I’m gonna hate this lucky bitch” – I mean, she gets to eat at the most fabulous restaurants in New York City (in the 90s) on the New York Times payroll – jealous, much? But I didn’t hate her – she’s still a lucky bitch, but I definitely didn’t hate her.

She came across in her writing as funny and thoughtful and honest and, holy hell, does she know how to talk about food! It must be one of the hardest things to write about, right up there with music – how do you describe something in words that can be experienced with every sense except…well, reading isn’t a sense, but you know what I mean. But she definitely manages it – I could picture, smell, and almost taste every dish she wrote about, even the bad ones!

Part of the fun of the book is also the disguises she comes up with, completely disappearing into other personas in an attempt to dine anonymously – some bring out the best in her (Brenda) while others are the worst (Emily). I found her less pleasant identities a little awkward to read about as she really did go all out and very nearly become the characters she created, even the pretentious, rude ones and it wasn’t fun to read about her being horrid to waiters and every once in a while, her fellow diners. At her worst, Emily, it is Marion Cunningham of all people (not Ritchie’s mother, but the cookbook author instead) who brings her around and leads to one of my favorite moments in the book. I won’t ruin it for you, but it’s worth the slog through Emily’s night out to get to the end of the story.

But mostly it’s a love letter to the food scene in New York City – and not because all of the restaurants are fabulous, they’re not and she includes those reviews along with the positive ones (I think there’s only one restaurant that receives a 4-star review included in the book, I don’t know how many she [or, for that matter, other reviewers] handed down over the years she spent reviewing for the Times). It’s a love letter to the vibrancy of the variety and options available in New York – she goes to super fancy restaurants like The Rainbow Room, Le Cirque, and the Box Tree but she also goes to noodle joints (though it sounds like those aren’t cheap either) and a friend of hers takes her on a food tour of New York towards the end of the book that sounds like heaven.

I wish I had the financial resources – or the job at the Times – to gain her level of knowledge about food and wines because it sounds like it brings the experience to a whole other level.

My rating: B+ (I would have given her an A, but I’m a petty, petty blogger who can’t bring myself to give such a lucky bitch an A even though she probably deserves it)

*[Yes, I know she's not just lucky, she's talented and worked hard to get where she is, but I'm going to comfort myself with the lucky bitch thing.]

Ooh, a ghost story!

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

And actually a pretty darn good one! Thrills, chills, just the right amount of gore, and a romance that’s not a love-triangle (even if it is a little predictable). The premise is that some ghosts actually can hurt or even kill the living and Cas, inheriting his ability from his father who was killed doing his ghosthunting job, comes to town to kill Anna Dressed in Blood, a job that should be easier than it turns out to be.

Cas is likable, his schoolmates who get swept up in his exotic line of work are cute and not the stereotypes they initially seem to be (well, the jerk-jocks are, but that’s allowed), and Anna is pretty much a total bad-ass. My only beef is that, SPOILER, the cat dies (offscreen, but still). The rest is good, engrossing and a quick read – and apparently there’s a sequel, Girl of Nightmares! I’m really not sure how everything is going to wrap up because at the end of the day Anna’s, well, dead, but I’m anxious to be along for the ride.

My rating: B (I dunno, I liked it and I want to read more, but I don’t really feel like it is quite an A-worthy book)

New Year’s Resolution #2

Read. More. Books. (For fun, that is.)

Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked by Derek Landy

This is Book 7 in the fantastic Skulduggery Pleasant series and it certainly doesn’t disappoint! It has all the characteristics we’ve come to expect from Skulduggery and Co. – witty banter, Dickensian names, fights, chase scenes, mystery, spying, and, of course, magic.

As usual, the magical world (and the mortal world) is in danger from a big bad (or in this case, a big good) who is trying to destroy it for various reasons and it’s up to Valkryie and Skulduggery to save the day. But I think we’re nearing the end of the series, or at least near enough that Landy needs to get his ducks in a row for the big final showdown I’m expecting and he certainly follows through – I had to read the very last chapter quite a few times before I was so excited that he was actually going to go there. It involves a character that I’ve always found a little creepy for, until now, unfounded reasons and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next!

My rating: A

Fiction

The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons

I bought this book because the blurb on the front said that it was for “people who like Downton Abbey“…which is me! I loooooove Downton Abbey and I was in the mood for more upstairs-downstairs-romantic-history-type stories when I stumbled across this book.

I’d say the blurb is a little misleading in that, yes, it’s about an English manor house and, yes, it takes place during major English historical events (namely, World War II), but that’s about where the similarities to Downton Abbey end.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an enjoyable read! It took me a bit to get into it – the author’s writing feels a bit stilted at the beginning of the book and there are quite a few sentences that struck me as the kind of sentence that shows that the author is trying too hard to be evocative and, I don’t know, hyper-literary almost. But once I got into the author’s rhythms, I really found myself caught up in the story (well, the main romance I didn’t quite buy – I mean, I saw it coming and I wanted it to happen, but I didn’t really see where the emotions on the fellow’s side came from – the author did one of those tricks where the two mains meet and then, ta-da, we skip ahead a few months and they’re besties!).

It’s sounding like I’m being a little hard on the book, but it’s only because I was comparing it to Downton Abbey the whole time and it falls a little short of that, but as just a story, it was very engaging and it totally made me chuckle to myself and I was crying by the end, so I think, in the end, it was successful. I’d recommend it, but not necessarily in the same sentence as Downton Abbey.

Downton Arby’s, on the other hand, is a completely different matter.

My rating: B-

“The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” Or, Maybe you should’ve written about the leech, Watson…

The Strand continues its dominance in the industry by publishing “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” a good three months before Collier’s managed it, in July of 1904.

Fiction: I’m not calling this LGBT Fiction on principle.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Heather and I made a deal – I would read her favorite book (Fingersmith) and she would read my favorite book (Three Men in a Boat). Clearly I love her more than she loves me because…voila! And I don’t see any reviews of Three Men in a Boat around anywhere, do you?

This book was really good! I’m not sure I bought the love story – the two main characters’ behavior did not convince me that they loved each other, let alone deserved to be together – but Sarah Waters really weaves a compelling tale. It’s also tres Dickensian – so many characters that seem unconnected and then one by one, everything clicks into place. And this book got me – I literally gasped and put it down and had to say “Heather! I just got to the part where (I’m not going to ruin it for you here)!” I think book 6 of Harry Potter was the last time a book made me do that (on a particular page turn), so that’s the company Sarah Waters is in.

My rating: A- (if the characters had been a bit more sympathetic, I would have upped the grade)

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLE!

Welcome to the first ever Three Men in Various Places SMACKDOWN!

In this corner, written seven years before our current champion but lacking a dog…it’s Three in Norway (By Two of Them)!

And in this corner, still laugh-out-loud funny over a hundred years after its publication and holding a very special place in your announcer’s heart; it’s the book that’s so good, its author was named twice…it’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)!

Okay, we all know how this is going to end, but when I saw that this Three in Norway (By Two of Them) was the inspiration for my favorite book in the history of the ever-ever, I figured I should give it a read. And, actually, I’m glad I did because it makes me appreciate Jerome K. Jerome’s writing ability even more. Not that Three in Norway is bad, it’s just…different. While they’re both ostensibly travelogues, I think only Three in Norway really is and I’m afraid I think that’s what makes it less enjoyable.

The authors’ voice takes a little getting used to as its written in a strange mix of third person and first person (no one ever refers to themselves as “I” but they do say “we”), but mostly it’s just quite…dry. I never really felt like I cared about the three characters and the three of them all seemed fairly interchangeable – unlike George, Harris and J. who are both charming and memorable.

Also, there’s a lot of fishing. I mean, a LOT of fishing. And reindeer hunting. Neither of which are really my thing and I don’t think it’s possible to make fishing seem exciting, so there are quite long stretches of story where I was just bored. One person I lent Three Men in a Boat to gave it back to me after they’d finished it and said “I didn’t really get it – nothing happened.” Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last much longer. Turns out all those asides and tangents that Jerome incorporates keeps things lively and interesting – otherwise it would just be three dudes in a boat on the Thames. Three in Norway, on the other hand, never ventures out of the present moment (or hardly ever does).

To be fair, I think the Two of Them were not going for the same comic effect that Jerome was – and if you’re wanting to go hunting and fishing in the wilds of Norway with Three in Norway as your guide, you’d probably be glad of that. But, really, apart from there being three men and the fact that they’re going somewhere, I would say there are actually very few similarities between the two (yes, I know Jerome originally did intend his book to be a genuine travelogue – thank goodness that didn’t work out!).

I dogeared a couple of Jerome-esque pages to show you that there are glimpses of a similar wit here and there:

Lighting a fire for breakfast was a toilsome busines, but at last we found some wood dry enough to burn. It continued raining in a nice keep-at-it-all-day-if-you-like kind of manner, so we resided in the tent, and read, and indulged in whisky and water for lunch to counteract any ill effects of the reading–for some of it was poetry. (p. 38)

They also get into one or two situations that would do George, Harris, and J. proud:

Soon the cauldron was heated and brought into the tent, and the eager crowd drew near with cups and spoons, and one lifted the lid, while another plunged his cup into the steaming savoury mess. And then arose a great cry of horror and desolation, and the sleeping valley rang with the wail of men in despair, for John had put the wrong pot on the fire, and we had been presented with boiling, dirty water in which the dinner-things had been washed up; while all the time the soup pot was quiet, untouched and cold in the corner of the tent where it is kept.

And speaking of their tent, these guys have a pretty sweet setup going! I mean, an actual camp with a stove they built themselves and everything – and they bake bread in it!

The one place where these three outshine George, Harris, and J. is in their actual woodsmen skills – George, Harris, and J. would have starved to death on the first day if they’d relied on fishing and hunting for their sustenance.

And I do have to give them credit for recognizing genius when they see it:

We all think Mark Twain the best writer for camp life that has yet been discovered, and we have three or four of his books here. Besides our library of light literature consists of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dr. Johnson’s Table-talk, and novels by Whyte Melville, Walford, and Thackeray. But Mark and William get more work than all the rest. (p. 173)

Let’s be honest, we all knew this was never going to be a fair fight, but I think Three in Norway does an admirable job at the attempt even though it doesn’t quite make it. But if I ever go fishing in Norway, it’ll be the first book I turn to.

I’m keeping it short and sweet…

Sleepwalk With Me: And Other Painfully True Stories by Mike Birbiglia

You know what? I’ve been staring at this post for a while now, trying to think of what to say and I’m just going to have to take my cue from Virgil Thomson: I like Mike Birbiglia; I also like his comedy and his book.

My rating: B+ (And that’s only because he includes bits that he’s already used in his standup – if it had been all new material, I would have given it an A.)

 

I have finally vanquished Scott Westerfeld’s trilogy!

Uglies, Pretties, and Specials by Scott Westerfeld

It was exhausting and took me waaaaaaay longer than it should have for me to get through these three books, but I finally triumphed!

It’s an intriguing premise and Westerfeld’s a good writer, but the reason it took me so long to finish these books is that I didn’t care about the characters. Not a single one. The main character, Tally, is not very bright and just gets lucky most of the time. She makes terrible decisions and doesn’t seem to learn from her mistakes. Her friend, Shay, is wasted – she starts out a protagonist, but then turns into a selfish, whiny, reckless (and not in an interesting way), flat character who doesn’t seem to have any motivation behind her actions. I’m still not sure if she ended up a good guy or a redeemed bad guy somehow.

By the third book, when Westerfeld opens up the focus of his world to include other cities and governments, I found that more interesting – probably because he was expanding upon the aforementioned intriguing premise – but still could not have cared less for the fate of any of his characters. What a waste.

My rating: D+

Dammit, Janet!

Er, dammit, Suzanne Collins (but that doesn’t have the same ring to it)… Now I have to read Battle Royale.

TA DA!

Done!

Kind of. I thought the books with brightly colored spines would take up the whole shelf space in my living room. Alas, there are more black, white, off-white, and multi-colored spines than I thought and I’m left with nearly two empty shelves still! I’m thinking I’ll finish them off with black books to make the colorful books pop more, but I haven’t decided what to do with the rest of my books that go on the shelves in my bedroom. If I’m not careful it’ll look really bland and dark in there!

And if you want to see me put these all together, here’s a video! I was thwarted by my technology (I couldn’t get far enough away with my iPhone to video the whole width of the shelves and it cut out while I was doing the blue books and I didn’t realize it until I was done with them. Boo, Richard III!), but it took me long enough to do it that I’m going to make you watch!

Or at least give you the option of watching. Hope you like it!

If you see any out of place books, feel free to give a shout – I mostly just wanted to get them on the shelves and up off the floor, so I did it pretty quickly. I expect I’ll spend the next month or so staring at it while I watch TV and leaping up to adjust a book here and there…

ETA: Is it me or does the back of my pink shirt look like an angry face?!

It’s going to get worse before it gets better…

It’s like doing one of those little shifty tile puzzles in here. I’ve just gotta keep my head down, my game face on, and power through these bastards!

Keep your fingers crossed that I have a finished project to show you tomorrow, otherwise it may mean the books have become sentient and taken over my apartment during the night.