Awkward* Reading in Twenty Ten

More of this.

• Nonfiction.


• Graphic Novels.


• High Fantasy.


• Bestsellers and book club choices.


• Essays, articles, books, blogs on writing by writers.


• Audiobooks. This is one area of my own RA and everyone else's where I have trouble. I know what I like when I hear it but very often it takes a special book to draw me in and keep me listening and that is hard to find.

Less of this.

• Superhero stories, until someone does something that really surprises me like "Hero" by Perry Moore did.


• Comfortable fluffy reads (for emergency use only.)


• Bizarrely addictive blogs where people laud appalling behavior. (I think you know what I mean.)


• TV. Seriously way too much of my reading time goes to the evil USA and TBS crime drama marathon monster.


• Blogs about publishing. Why do I obsess about how to write a query letter when I haven't even written anything worth inquiring about?

*The reading itself isn't awkward, but as usual, I am.

A bunch of stuff that isn't as interesting as whatever you are doing NYE.

I don't want to write you a run-down of the books I've read or how well I did in the Year of Dangeresque reading. Mostly because over the course of reading a lot of things I considered dangerous I managed to throw myself into depression. I will say I did read a lot of great stuff this year (Demon's Lexicon and The Sharing Knife being just two standouts), and I read a lot of stuff that I couldn't finish. So I'll leave out all the end of the year round up stuff and move on to other obligatory NYE post: "goals for next year."



So these are the things I think are worth doing in the Twenty-Ten:

• Working hard on revision and with the critiques for my critique groups.


• Write something everyday. Don't watch all the episodes in a Bones marathon instead, I've probably seen them all even if I don't remember. Reading is good and necessary but don't forget about the writing too. That includes this blog. 1 post a week isn't asking too much now is it?


• Remember the positive, in my critiques and in my life and groups. So many of us (Librarians) get down and out when the people we are trying to help are rude or snappish or don't understand that we have policies and procedures in place and can't just "x,y,z" for them. Some much of our critiquing energy is taken up with what we think the other writers are doing wrong (which is of course constructive, but also depressing.) So more positivity, yes. Hopefully this will cut down on some of the frustrations that any customer-service type job will have.


• I'm pretty good at guessing what patrons are getting at when they ask a question that is not really what they want to know. People don't like to come out and say what it is that they need or want and reference is often a cat and mouse game. Just because I'm "pretty good" at guessing what people mean when they ask a question doesn't mean that I should make assumptions that I know what they want. Make sure I take I know which thing the patron means before I try to answer their question.


• Take more pictures.


• Generally and overall, be healthier.

2009 has been one of the best years of my life. As I write this, my fiance is making dinner before he goes into work tonight. Unfortunately, he won't be here at midnight, and I'll be making pouring myself some sparkling grape juice and kissing the cats to ring in the new year. I don't really mind because I'll be sending out 2009 in the same way I've lived most of it: calmly and with a book in hand.

Bibliovangelism

My soul was weary and downtrodden. The books I'd been reading, and the ugliness of the world, and the lack of sunlight (dark at 4pm? REALLY WORLD?) all got to me. I was depressed and even my old standby pick-me-up authors, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Terry Pratchett, weren't quite boosting my mood. Then I read this article by one of my favorite romance bloggers, Sarah Wendell (of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.) In the article she mentions a series called "The Sharing Knife" by Lois McMasters Bujold. My interest was piqued. New author! New Series! Fantastical Romance=New Genre for me. (I've had my fill of the paranormal stuff thank you very much.)

Lo and behold! All four books of the series were checked in and on the shelf in my Library. I ran and scooped them up and checked them all out. And then I opened "Beguilment" and all of the badness, the existential crisis, the depression melted away. I've since finished the whole series and want to spread the word of The Sharing Knife. These books are methodical and clear voiced, but still funny and fantastical. There are sexy bits, especially in book one when the main romantical characters are first getting together, but they made me laugh and smile, not cringe and quickly turn the page. The best part for me was the way the books dealt with a giant set of problems, tangled-up messy problems.The problems weren't solved by the end, but headway was made and the characters were realistically optomistic about the future.

I feel better now, and now you've been properly proselytized about The Sharing Knife.

Merry Festivus everyone.

A small rant about "Fire" by Kristen Cashore

As you all can see with your own eyes, I loved "Graceling." It was the perfect YA novel, especially for a girl, but really for anyone.

Fire, oh Fire, how you disappointed me. I'm fine with a book that mentions menstruation. I'm fine with menstruation as a plot device. I'm annoyed when it is used to facilitate giant swaths of necessary plot and is mentioned every other sentence or so. Unnecessary!Also, small detail, Please use different words than "monthly bleeding!" Because there are other words, but mostly just cut about 1/2 to 2/3 of the mentions out of the book and we'll be okay.

This brings me to my second point: This is not a YA novel. I don't care that Fire is seventeen to eighteen years old through the course of the novel. For instance, one of the main issues she grapples with is the decision of whether or not to have children and therefore pass on what is basically a hereditary condition that is guaranteed to be passed on if she has a child. Other issues include her becoming a stepmother-type character, and how to be ethical while still maneuvering to win what you believe is a just war. Oh, and finally a major problem addressed how to deal with the fact that you are just so beautiful that everyone either is so struck by your beauty they instantly love you or instantly hate you. Actually, for the most part that isn't such an invalid point about the values society places on beauty, especially female beauty, but she way over-emphasizes the point. Much like everything in this book is drawn out and rehashed a million ways.


SPOILER ALERT:



The book literally ends with the main character crying to her lover about how she's not just another pretty face and she has all these crazy FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. Which her current lover tells her he understands. Then makeouts. He's spent the entire book showing her how well he knows her and how little he cares about her outer beauty, but for some reason we needed this last chapter just to over-drive home the point again. AGRGH!



END SPOILER ALERT.

Do you see where I'm going here? Fire doesn't deal with issues teenagers deal with, she doesn't even deal with issues that MOST PEOPLE deal with, but those that do are typically older and in odd places of power. I just thought this book shouldn't have been marketed as YA despite the success of Graceling as YA novel. I might have liked it more if I'd picked it up in the adult fiction section with that framework functioning in my head.

Oh, but the one thing I will say is that I made it through the audiobook because the narrator Xanthe Elbrick is amazing and could have read me the phone book and I would be riveted for quite a long spell.

NaNoWriMo

I'm writing a novel in a month.

Other people like Abby (The) Librarian can do that and post blogs, but I don't have the energy. I really respect Abby's commitment to posting and writing her novel. Good work!

Needless to say, I haven't gotten a lot of actual physical reading done, but I have listened to one fantastic audibook.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It took me a few discs to get into this story, but once I was in, I was hooked and didn't want to get out of my car to go into the Library...or into my house. The full cast audio recording of "Graceling" is wonderful.
Katsa is graced--she has two different colored eyes and special powers--she is rare, a girl graced with killing. Her uncle Randa, king of the Midlands, uses her as his own personal attack dog. She hurts people so they obey him. She hates him, and herself for doing his bidding and so together with her cousin and some guards of Randa's, she starts a council to do good around the seven kingdoms. When she rescues the father of the king of one of the far away peaceful kingdoms she doesn't know what a can of worms she is opening. Nor does she realize she'll be opening her heart to the old man's grandson.

View all my reviews >>


I'm currently listening to the companion novel "Fire" which is not full cast audio, but is still awesome.

Not so cozy mysteries.

Don't you really hate it when people post just to tell you they are sorry about their recent lack of posts? But you know, life is really busy what with the kids cats,conventions,commuting, and...all.

Yeah. I hate that too. *looks about shiftily*

So, as a special treat I'm going to spout off for a moment on something that has been occupying my thoughts ever since I got back from Bouchercon: Misogynistic violence against women in crime novels. At one of the panels I attended at Bouchercon someone randomly through out the fact that women are actually LESS LIKELY to be the victims of violent crime in real life, but in crime fiction the victims are almost always female. I decided to check this out and found a tidbit, at least for American crime: According to the 2008 Bureau of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey "Females were more likely than males to be victims of rape or sexual assault. Males experienced higher rates of victimization than females in all other violent crimes measured by the NCVS."

Of course, these statistics have one major flaw, they only include reported crime (well, how would they include the unreported stuff, now really?) One of the things that I remember from back in the days of getting my degree in Criminal Justice is that most crime goes unreported, and most men who are raped never tell anyone. So, maybe the reported crime statistics can be extrapolated to all crime statistics, but maybe not. Either way, I do believe that crime fiction is really really still skewed inappropriately to violence against women (and, children too.) The question is, why? Why do so many books feature horrible horrible crimes against women?

I'll admit that this question didn't even occur to me until that panel at Bouchercon, but once it was asked I couldn't stop thinking about it, but I don't have any good answers for you. All I've got is a link to an article focusing mostly on Steig Larsson's supposed "feminism" that was originally brought to my attention via Twitter by Barbara Fister, one of the women on the panel that opened my eyes.

Vampire Weekend.

No, not "Vampire Weekend" the band, who I sort of like and sort of want to punch in the face. I'm having an undead moment and everything I want to read right now, maybe for the foreseeable future, is about those who returned from the grave. Maybe my own fear of dying is acting up, maybe my inherently gothish nature is trying to resurface through my earth-toned wardrobe. Maybe it is just the beginning of Fall, the perfect time to think about death and reaping and the possibility of rebirth/new life. You might have noticed from the EPIC review that this kick has already been going on for a while, ever since my obsessive reading of all the entries on the blog Vampirely.
Uninvited by Amanda Marrone


My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Jordan is a smart kid, she makes good grades even though her school attendance is sporadic at best. Her attendance problems and social anxiety were bad and are now terrible, because her ex-boyfriend, Michael, is a vampire whose haunting her every night. The vampire in this book follows very Dracula/folkloric traditional rules. Crosses and holy water, stakes through the heart are all going to hurt, he can turn into mist and bats. And he has to be invited in order to enter a building.

Gorgeous Michael, despite telling Jordan that he still loves her and begging her to let him come in, is no Edward Cullen. He's a monster, and Jordan determines that quite likely he always was. The day she broke up with him because of her social anxiety he hooked up with a cheerleader later that day. He hung out with jerks, he thought he was god's gift to everyone. This book, as much as it seems like it might about paranormal love paradoxes is really and truly about issues. Jordan has social anxiety, a completely unstructured life with parents so laid-back it is hard to tell if they even care, and to top it off she self-medicates with any substance she can get ahold of...booze, coke, etc. Her friends Jordan's life has gotten so bad that she's starting to wonder if maybe she shouldn't just let Michael in. One of her three friends in the world is actually someone she truly likes, but they all feed her dysfunctions. I like the way Jordan goes from letting her issues get the best of her to getting the best of them, and her blood-sucking ex-boyfriend.

I love the way that the creepy manipulations of Michael and his overuse of the word "Love" actually comes off as creepy and horrible, instead of Twilight-esque sparkly vampire love manipulations. Really I was a little pleased and surprised by the directions this book took, and even though it was slow in parts (how many examples of vomiting from excessive substance abuse do you really need?), I'm glad I stuck it through.

View all my reviews >>

Later I will probably update you all about the second Generation Dead novel "Kiss of Life" which corrected what I didn't like about book one and was actually really a great sequel! Hooray! And, tonight I've got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Silver Kiss and Vampire Academy and so much other paranormal stuff to read that I could cry in relief that is going to be all vampires all the time on my days off of work. Now if Rachel at Vampirely would just update, my vampire weekend will be complete.