Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My first review of 2008!

You can't be a reader of these literary blogs without hearing about Twilight. It seems that everyone read it last year, and everyone loved it. The same is true about it's sequel (New Moon), but when it came to the third book (Eclipse) reviews were mixed. Twilight is the young adult version of Anita Blake or Sookie Stackhouse. Bella moves to gloomy Forks and discovers that vampires DO exist. She falls for one of them and (not surprisingly) dangerous things happen.

Unlike every other reader, I didn't LOVE the book. It was good. I read it quickly, and my quibbles with it are minor. However, I don't feel a burning need to read the follow up. The vampire world is believable, I like her twist on it a lot. I loved Edward and all of his family. I love the humanitarian aspect of Carlisle. I liked most of the other teenagers.

What didn't I love? Bella was just ok. The clumsiness was unbelievable which meant that by the end, when her clumsiness is the Big Explanation, it was an obvious plot point. I was also annoyed by how conveniently her father (the sheriff) was always absent until the night he was suddenly home and didn't trust her AT ALL. She had an awful lot of freedom for a 17 year old girl in a new town, living with a parent she's never lived with before. The Epilogue comes out of nowhere with Jacob, clearly just there to set up the sequel. Overall, I thought I could see the plot mechanisms way to easily.

I read a good number of young adult fiction last year, and while this one was good, so much of what I read was better. I'm having a hard time deciding on a rating. It seems like I must be missing something to not want to give it a high score, but I keep coming back to a 3/5.

It's Christmas Eve Eve!

Everyone ready? We're almost ready here, just the baking left to do which will be done today. My sewing is very very close to done- I have three or four mittens left and one overgrown crayon roll that's all, I think. I'm pondering making a little rag doll to go with one gift, but it is not necessary. Oh, and might still make an apron for the monkey since we're giving him a ton of fake food. Hopefully soon I can post pictures of all the lovely things I've made.

Today we're making coconut cookies, chocolate chip cookies and Shasta cookies for Santa. I'm also making little sausage balls for work. This evening we're headed over to Grandpa's for dinner and to see all the cousins. Christmas Day we'll be home just the three of us. Next weekend we're meeting my mother in Sioux Falls (360 miles from home for us, 980 miles from home for them- but they'll be coming from Iowa, so only a few hours drive that day.) My mom sees the monkey once a year, so even this quick trip is worth it. Then on Sunday we're meeting up with my in-laws (all 23 of them) to exchange gifts. Whew. Half day of work on the 31st and then a full day to recover. We'll need it!

Last night I finished up yet another book. How is it that the busiest time of the year I'm reading more than ever? I think it has something to do with the fact that no one seems to be blogging or emailing me. Anyway, I read Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris. I read it out of order, but now I've read all five in the series. I read it quickly, so it gets points for that, but in retrospect the plot line was not that interesting. The final scene was good, but there were a lot of little unnecessary things thrown in that just seemed to be taking up pages. I am happy to be completely current on the series, and since the last one was published in 2001 I feel confident that I won't be behind this time next year.

Three more books completed!

Despite having what seems like very little time to myself, I have managed to finish up three books in the last two weeks. I'm not entirely sure how this happened. The three books have pretty much nothing in common, but I'm going to talk about them in the same post or else I'll never do them all.

First was Innocent in Death by JD Robb. This is the 28th(29th? 27th?) book in the series. They are predictable, easy reading. You know how the story is gonna go, you know all the characters, you even know a lot of the dialogue. (Hello, we know. Eve and Summerset do not like each other. Got it. It's getting a little old.) In this one, a woman from Roarke's past shows up and makes Eve jealous. Eve solves the murder of someone no one should have wanted to kill. For a change of pace, Eve does not get beaten up nor does anyone try to kill her. Regardless of all this, the book is good, in that predictable kind of way. By this point in the series you don't really expect something fresh, do you? (3/5)

Then I read Mine Til Midnight, which is Lisa Kleypas' most recent historical. Again, it was what you would expect from a familiar author. I had read online that this one was reminiscent of Dreaming of You, which is my (and everyone else's) favorite Kleypas. I didn't really see that. I was much more interested in the connection between the two Roma than the romance. I did love Cam (first seen in Devil in Winter) and the book wasn't at all bad. It leaves me wanting for the perfect romance though and I have too many other books to read a bunch to find it. Any suggestions? (3/5)

Last night I finished reading Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs. This is the second Mercedes Thompson book. Mercedes is a walker who was raised by werewolves. She does a favor for a vampire at the beginning, which sets of a chain of events that require the cooperation of the vampires, werewolves and fae. This one started slow for me because it has been a while since I read Moon Called, and the details of Brigg's paranormal communities were slow coming back to me. Once the action picked up it was very hard to put the book down, and I stayed up VERY LATE to finish. (OK, I stayed up til 10:30. But I usually go to bed well before 9! Yeah, I'm pathetic, but I am also pregnant and growing a baby is tiring work!) It looks like book three (Iron Kissed) is out in a couple weeks and I might just have to buy it new so I don't forget the details again. I love the Adam/Samuel/Stefan??? problem in this one. I even found myself liking Ben by the end of it! (5/5)

In other news, I'm all shopped out for Christmas. I have a few things left to sew for in town people and then the wrapping and the gifts will be DONE. I want to make one, maybe two, batches of cookies with the monkey this weekend. I can't WAIT to put out cookies for Santa and tuck him in for the night on Christmas Eve. As a child (ok, as a teenager) (ok, as a college student) (ok, ok, up til last year) I could never sleep on Christmas Eve night. I always laid awake waiting for dawn so I could see what Santa brought. I suspect I will not sleep well this year either.

I have a few book related posts in mind for the end of the year, and am having to restrain myself from posting them now, so hopefully it won't be all silence over here until 2008. I hope everyone has a great holiday and gets all the books they could ever read.

Recently Read

In the last three weeks or so I have actually completed two books, and read half of a third! This means the slump is over, right? Here's a couple of quick reviews of two wildly different books.

First, on October 8th my office was closed for Columbus Day. My daycare was open. At that time I was still pretty darn sick, so I opted to take the monkey to play with his friends while mommy "rested". After lunch I crawled into bed with a stack of books, and actually read one. COVER TO COVER!! Shocking. The book I chose to read was The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn. Now, if you have browsed my LibraryThing*, you know that I used to be a big romance reader. In the last few years I've moved away from it, but I do still love a good romance. Julia Quinn is my favorite of them all. Her Bridgerton series was great, even if I do occasionally get them confused.

The Secret Diaries was not great. It might not have even been GOOD. I read it, all of it, and had a great time while doing it, but afterwards- eh. It wasn't that it was a romance and I'm out of the habit. It was just a ho-hum storyline. I'm not going to summarize the plot, in the land of romance novels there is a lot of overlap on plot, but this was not done well. It did't seem fresh. The writing wasn't great. There wasn't a great moment or plot twist to make this a great Julia Quinn novel. I later read that this was the first novel she actually wrote, but it was just recently published. I would believe this. It is not up to her standards at all. If you're gonna read JQ, skip this one. I give it a 3/5, because I DID read it in one sitting, but it's not terrific.

The other books I recently finished was A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison. This is the fourth book in the Rachel Morgan series. I've mentioned this book a few times in the course of this blog, and it's this book that made me realize something about my reading habits (namely, I don't like it when series characters travel out of their native areas.) It took me something like 8 or 9 months to read this one. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I would be loving what I was reading and put it down not to return for days. Or weeks. I finally finished it up last weekend, and while it is definitely (obviously) not my favorite, it does wind me up to read book five. I loved where it eventually went with Ivy and Rachel (and Kisten). I like the way the Brett storyline concluded. I missed Trent. I hated Nick, but I was supposed to. I also give this one a 3/5, because while it's not bad, it took me months to read it.

In other bookish news, a friend and I recently made a detailed spreadsheet of all the series we were both reading, or potentially both reading. It's got Jim Butcher, Laurell Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, and lots more. I think we're up to about 20 series. We tend to trade books back and forth through Paperbackswap and this makes it so much easier. We totally geeked out one afternoon and set it up on google documents and then used google chat to discuss it. In addition to the series names and authors, it tells which book each of us is at, and it would appear that she is AHEAD OF ME on EVERYTHING. Except J.D.Robb. Thank God. I think those 27 (28? 29?) books might bring me close to tied with her for sheer numbers.

*I use LibraryThing to list the books I have already read, not the books I own. The list dates from January 1993, when I was in high school. To see any given year of my life, you'd select the tag for that year (so anything tagged 2007 is something I read in 2007.)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility is my most recently completed book from Daily Lit. This is my second Jane Austen and I'm not really sure why I chose this one to be next. I admit that for the first half of the book (literally) I was not enjoying it. The dialog didn't snap like it does in Pride and Prejudice, it just seemed like so much set up for what wasn't gonna be much of a payout. I have some hairbrained idea that I want to read all of Austen though, so I persevered. At almost exactly halfway something happened that made me perk up, and from there the book got much better. The dialog never matches that of P&P, but the story redeems itself.

Sense and Sensibility is the story of two sisters, one calm and logical, one passionate. As with P&P, the sisters are trying to get married to the right men. Of course there are rules to be followed, society to contend with, social class and inheritances, all the trademarks of P&P. The ending is suitably romantic, if a bit rushed. I need to find the movie versions of both.

Next up for Daily Lit is Middlemarch. I've read the first couple of installments and it's completely different from Austen. I am kinda regretting not moving on to Persuasion to keep the momentum going, but have almost all of Middlemarch waiting for me, and have barely started getting Persuasion. I like to have most of the book on deck before starting it. Anyone here have an opinion on Middlemarch? How about Persuasion?

The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

As we have already established, I really enjoy Brotherhood 2.0. Several weeks ago for John's birthday, several YA author friends of his made him a birthday video. Yesterday I took the Monkey to the library, and while I was there picked up books by most of those writers- Maureen Johnson (though I already read 13 Little Blue Envelopes), E. Lockhart, Libby Bray, and I already own (but have not read) a Scott Westerfield. I read a David Levithan a few weeks ago. I also had An Abundance of Katherines by John Green waiting on hold for me.

I started with The Boyfriend List because it looked fast and I was feeling the need to boost my stats. It does turn out to be a quick little book. The cover says "(15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, ruby oliver") and that's pretty much the premise. After an exceptionally tough week, Ruby starts seeing a shrink who has her make a list of every boyfriend, or near boyfriend, or rumored boyfriend, or boy she kinda liked, ever. The book is about what she learns about herself while talking about the list to the shrink. It's a cute book, but definately not the best YA I've read this year. There are footnotes from Ruby to the reader all through the book, and I found them really distracting. It looks like there is a sequel to it called The Boy Book, which is a book mentioned in The Boyfriend List. If it's on the shelf at the library I'll probably check it out, but I don't know that I'd pay for it.

The Storyteller's Daughter by Saira Shah

Two summers ago a friend and I both read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. After completing the book I was pretty fired up about not knowing anything about Afghanistan. I found a few possible books to read, but then the desire faded away in the wake of other shiny books, and I didn't follow up. When I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns (review here) a few weeks ago I had the same feelings, only stronger. Determined that for once I would do the right thing (like my reading books is a moral choice to be made) I actually followed through. Someone had recommended that I start with The Storyteller's Daughter: One Woman's Return to Her Lost Homeland by Saira Shah. I found it at the library and started right in.

Here is the Publisher's Weekly summary, via Amazon:

Born in England and raised on her father's fantastic stories of an Afghanistan she had never known, Shah spends her adult life searching for a mythic place of beauty. "Any Western adult might have told me that this was an exile's tale of a lost Eden: the place you dream about, to which you can never return. But even then, I wasn't going to accept that." What she finds is a place ravaged by decades of war, poverty and, later, religious puritanism. Shah first visits Afghanistan in 1986 as a war correspondent at the remarkable age of 21 and later returns as the documentary producer of Beneath the Veil, an expos‚ of life under the Taliban that predated the national interest in the embattled country. Her journey forces her to reconcile the vast disparities between fact and fiction, the world she has pieced together from her father's tales and the reality she glimpses from behind the grille of the Taliban-imposed burqa. Shah weaves legends and traditional sayings into her text, lending a greater context to her expectations and experiences. She also offers a piecemeal history of Afghanistan to accompany the accounts of her travels, but for readers unfamiliar with the many years of political tumult Afghanistan has suffered, the history may not be thorough enough. Most compelling are the characters she encounters and their indomitable spirit, including a woman with 10 children who asks her about a "magic" pill to prevent pregnancy, and her husband, whose intense machismo is not enough to save him from the war.

I found the book to be mostly overly romantic yearnings for a mythical place with a little smattering of horrific detail. Shah wants very very badly to belong to this place that her father has always told her about. She embarks on foolish missions into the hills to find it. At 21 she bluffs her way into the country as a journalist, but it is clear that her primary mission is to find a place that accepts her as it's own. All of this seems like a great book, and perhaps if you're looking for that type of memoir, it is. I really wanted more about how the people lived, not how Shah romanticizes them. Here's an example, from page170:

I had been ready to blame everyone- the West, the Arabs, the Islamic extremists- but I could not let go of my noble mujahidin. Because they belonged to my myth and, in a sense, they were a part of me.

At page 201 (out of 251) the book takes an abrupt turn into realism. At that point, it turns into more of what I was really looking for. The change in the narrative happened in 1992, about when the Soviets withdrew. I marked a point on that page as I was reading it where she says:

Every gun in the city was firing for joy. The spent bullets tumbled down and bounced off the pavement with little pinging noises. At night, great arcs of red tracer bullets flew above our heads like welding sparks. If I'd been looking more carefully, I might have seen the friction of worlds colliding. But I thought they were just sparks of happiness, pulsing into the sky.

From this point on Shah talks about what it's like to live in Afghanistan today. What it's really like to live in a war zone. It's still written as a memoir, not a history book, but it's there. Part of Afghanistan have no electricity or running water and probably never will. The ground is littered with landmines. The drought is so severe that nothing will ever grow again. She doesn't hold out much hope for there ever being peace, and honestly I don't either. This paragraph from near the end (page 233) sums it up really well. She is talking to a 12 year old soldier.

I asked what he would do when the war ended and he said, in the singsong voice of a child reciting a lesson, that when peace came each person would go back to kar i khud- his own work. What was his work? He didn't know. Had he been to school? No. Could he read? No. Did he remember how to farm? No, and his family's farm was destroyed anyway.

Usman led us out of his commander's earshot and said: "This country is full of men who know nothing except how to fight. They have no other way to earn a living. They have plenty of weapons and they will try to keep on fighting in any way they can."

Pretty bleak.

One last quote from the book to sum up why I am reading these:

When I proposed that we should cover the civil war in Afghanistan, the honest, good eyes of one of my editors said silently what he put into words a few seconds later: "Is any of this our fault? Can you convince me that we should care?"

The next book on the Afghanistan list is Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson. This one is about both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(sorry about the multicolored quotes, I can't seem to fix it. Grrr)

Paths Not Taken by Simon R Green

Paths Not Taken by Simon R. Green is the 5th Nightside novel. Like the previous ones, the situation is getting more and more unrealistic and unbelievable. In this one, John Taylor is on a quest to find the origins of the Nightside. His powers are growing, as is his ego. This was not my favorite entry in the series plotwise, as it barely advances the story at all. The characters go on such amazing adventures on their way to one tiny clue to the overall story of the series. It's still fun reading, but much like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, the story doesn't much go anywhere. In fact, I'd compare them in a lot of ways- quick easy reads, insanely unbelievable details, a very slowly advancing plot, and lots of fun.

I started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns last night and so far am loving it.

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry and other bookish catchup

Despite taking a huge stack of books, and buying even more, I only managed to read one book on my vacation- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry- and that one I read on the plane home. Number the Stars is set in 1943 Denmark. It's the story of the Jewish detainment and one 10 year old girl's role in it. This is a very quick book, written for middle school aged kids. It won the Newbery Award in 1990.

The story is very clear, and simple to read, but I didn't think it was nearly as good as The Giver (also by Lowry) or The Book Thief (also about WWII and the Holocaust). The writing isn't as good, and I didn't find it as emotionally hard as either of the others. This was on my Newbery Challenge list, and I am glad that I read it, but it's not going down as a favorite book.

I also finished Hex in the City by Simon R Green. This is the fourth in the series and it just keeps getting more outlandish and better with each installment. This one sets up the story for the next few titles and ends with a bit of a cliff hanger. I have the next two at home (borrowed from the library) and hope to get to them soonish. I'd like to have at least one series that I'm all caught up on.

Reading goals for the next month or so- Harry Potters 5 and 6, finish up the Newbery Challenge, wrap up a couple odds and ends (The Faith Club, I Am the Messenger, Carved in Bone.) This is a lot of reading for me, those HPs are huge! I'm determined to reread them all before July 21 though.

Two weeks worth of math- 7 more from Paperbackswap (the last being How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater) plus the 7 I bought on vacation brings me to 86 books in since January. I finished two whole books in that time. This brings me to 52 books behind. This experiment is starting to get depressing. Good thing it's summer and tv is all reruns!

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch, Real Murders, Math and notes

Two reviews in one post today! Last night I finished up The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch by Marsha Moyer. Marketed as chick-lit, trade paperback sized, red shoes on the cover- but reads like any other romance novel out there. This might be a bad thing for some people, but as I happen to enjoy the occasional romance this was fine by me. It was a nice change from everything serious.

Lucy Hatch is 33 years old, and was recently widowed after a 14 year marriage. She moves back home to Mooney, population 1200. Her actions quickly scandalize her family. She attracts the notice and attention of local bad-boy Ash Farrell and all bets are off.

I really enjoyed this book. This was the author's first novel, but it really sucked me in and held my attention. I read it in two sittings, which is rare for me lately. The romance is sweet, there is no Big Misunderstanding, the main characters all seem believable. The plot turns on an issue from her first marriage that is completely believable (spoiler here, if you want one) and not too overdone. I enjoyed it so much that I looked up the author's other two books on Amazon, and discovered that they are continuations of this story. Unfortunately, just the first complete sentences of each summary gives spoilers to this first book, so don't go there if you don't want to know.

This book was on my TBR challenge list.

This weekend I finished up Real Murders by Charlaine Harris. This one is a little mystery first published in 1990. I requested this through Paperbackswap because I enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books so much. It was ok. I'm not going to summarize, it wasn't anything special. I will probably hold off on requesting any more of this series until I have exhausted all the other Charlaine Harris books. I assume they get better, the most recent one was published in 2004.

I'm dropping behind again in books. I'm at 72 in (the last one in being An Unquiet Mind) and 32 read, so 40 behind for the year. I am reading more than ever so this is really challenging me to keep track. Speaking of challenges, I'm about to finalize my Southern Challenge list, so stay tuned. I am returning The Road to the library unread, and even unopened. I could not make myself take the plunge, and it's on a wait list. I will add my name again after vacation. We leave in 10 days!

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

I buckled down this weekend and finished up The Stone Diaries. This one was for a reading group and discussion starts today, so whew, just in time! Carol Shields won the Pulitzer for this in 1995. It's a fairly short book, just over 300 pages. I read it quickly, the writing flows well. It's written in a mix of perspectives, which at times jarred me out of the story, but overall works well. Each chapter of the book is about a time in her life- Birth, Childhood, Marriage, etc. There are large chunks of time you only hear about later.

Here's the summary:

This fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, captured in Daisy's vivacious yet reflective voice, has been winning over readers since its publication in 1995, when it won the Pulitzer Prize. After a youth marked by sudden death and loss, Daisy escapes into conventionality as a middle-class wife and mother. Years later she becomes a successful garden columnist and experiences the kind of awakening that thousands of her contemporaries in mid-century yearned for but missed in alcoholism, marital infidelity and bridge clubs. The events of Daisy's life, however, are less compelling than her rich, vividly described inner life--from her memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death. Shields' sensuous prose and her deft characterizations make this, her sixth novel, her most successful yet.

Sounds great, huh? Once again, I was not in love with it. It's oddly compelling. I wanted to keep reading, but I can't say that I loved Daisy, or even really liked her. I was indifferent. I liked the way little facts about the rest of the characters would pop up with no real explanation (why did Alice move to England, anyway?) I'm not sorry I read the book, it was quick, and hey, it won a Pulitzer, but it won't ever be a favorite. Discussion starts today on it, perhaps I'll have a big revelation and suddenly love it.

Monday monday

How was your weekend? I had a very nice weekend, very productive in many ways. First, I finished two books, one of them huge. The first book was Nightingale's Lament by Simon R. Green. This is the third book in the Nightside series. This series is a lot of fun, the books are non-stop action of incredible imagination. I was hesitant after book one, but am hooked now. This is from Amazon.com:

John Taylor has just solved the mystery of two friends' deaths when he is called
to another case. Charles Chabron wants Taylor to contact his daughter, Rossignol
(French for nightingale), a young singer who has fallen under the sway of the
ruthless Cavendishes, a husband-and-wife management team. Rossignol used to sing
upbeat, happy songs, but now her set is so melancholy that people leave her show
and commit suicide. After visiting Rossignol at the Goth club Caliban's Cavern,
where she performs nightly, Taylor knows something is wrong. When he goes to the
Cavendishes' management company, a pair of somnambulists beat him mercilessly,
leaving him near death and with no one to turn to but Pew, an old enemy. With
the help of Dead Boy, a deceased mugging victim who now fights criminals, Taylor
tries to locate the Cavendishes' former protege, Sylvia Sin, and find a way to
rescue Rossignol from the couple's clutches.

I'd say more, but really the plots are indescribable. The books are a lot of fun, and I'm glad I have the next one on hand.

The other book that I finished is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I stayed up way past my usual bedtime last night to finish, and it was so worth it. This book is as excellent as everyone says. In fact, it is so excellent that I'm going to write up a separate review for it later today.

In other news, Grandpa bought this for my monkey's birthday this weekend (the birthday was last month) and we worked on it for hours yesterday. My shoulders are crispy from the 90 degree heat. We have completed just enough that he can climb up and slide, but the swings, chalkboard, cafe table, window... all of that remains.

For Mother's Day I DID get to sleep in- until 7:30! Then we had biscuits and gravy, my request, for breakfast. I got a totally sweet card from my husband, and a Backyardigans card from his monkeyness. I also got a comfy reclining chair for the deck. Then later someone brought me a Vanilla Iced Nirvana from Dunn Brothers. It was a great day all around.

For Monday's math- 62 in, 26 read, 36 net books since January. Holding steady since last week, but expecting an influx from paperbackswap this week so don't expect that to stay constant this week.

EDITED TO ADD: Not sure what happened to the formatting here, but I can't seem to fix it. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs!

Charlaine Harris, Carrie Vaughn, and a little weekend reading

I actually finished two books this weekend!

The first book I read was Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn. This is another entry in the vampire/werewolf alternate reality genre. I seem to be obsessed with these books lately. This one is about Kitty (duh), the werewolf host of a popular radio station. There's a few murders, a little bit of pack dominance to work out, the usual. I didn't find anything about this one particularly unusual or noteworthy. It was good, but it didn't stand out of it's crowd. I'll probably go ahead and get the second one on paperbackswap, but it won't be at the top of the TBR.

On Saturday we took a road trip to Pierre, which is about 3 hours away. I did a little crocheting in the car, and read a little here and there. I finished up Shakespeare's Christmas by Charlaine Harris on Saturday night. If you've read any other of the Lily Bard mysteries you know how this one was. It was good, taken together this is a good series. If I didn't love the Sookie Stackhouse books I probably wouldn't continue on with these, but they are very quick and I only have two left in the series, so I'll read them.

Then I started reading Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner. This one is part of my TBR challenge books. The first line of the Publishers Weekly review is " What would happen if Buffy the Vampire Slayer got married, moved to the suburbs and became a stay-at-home mom?" I'm about 80 pages in and so far I am not impressed.

For this week's math: 57 in, 21 read, 36 behind. I'm still behind, but the rate is a little slower!

It's Friday, it's Friday!

It's finally Friday. It's been a very very long week at work, and today had promise of being super-sucky. So it was with mixed feelings that I had to call in sick (ok, call in late) to work with a sick child. Really! His fever was at 103 and there were disgusting things happening. So I'm home this morning and my husband will be home with the monkey this afternoon. And the monkey? Thrilled to be home with mom.

Here's a few little bits of stuff, none of which is quite enough for a full post.

First, do you watch American Idol? Have you been to Television without Pity to read the recaps? I about died laughing at the recaplet of this weeks results show. I can't wait for the full one.

A few weeks ago Michelle at 3M pointed out that I have all the ingredients to complete the Reading Through the Decades Challenge without adding any more books! So I'm headed over now to officially sign up.

And speaking of 3M, a month ago (or more, who can keep track of time any more?) she nominated me for the Thinking Blogger Award. This is an "award" that you give to 5 people whose blogs make you think. Then you link back to the originator of the award with a nice looking icon. I LOVE the idea of this, that you're singling out some blogs that you love, and in turn those people acknowledge 5 more. Here's the catch though- every time someone goes back to the originator he gets clicks, and his site has advertising. I am a bit cynical, and well, to me it seems a little bit like a very well thought out way to get thousands and thousands of visitors to click on your site. I am torn though, as I am honestly thrilled that I made someone's list. I want to continue it, I want to list five people that make me think, that I enjoy, but I don't want to link back. So I'm not. Here's my five blogs:

1. Mary Elizabeth William's neighborhood
2. Journeywoman
3. Maggie Reads
4. Random Musings
5. one plus two

And speaking of Maggie Reads, I still need to pick my choices for the Southern Reading Challenge- I had intended to do that now when I started this post, but got drawn into all the choices. The challenge doesn't start until June 1st, so I'll come back to it later.

Next, a friend emailed me a link to StandingWomen.org today. You can follow that link to read more of the background, but here the action part:

Please stand with us for five minutes of silence at 1 p.m. your local time on May 13, 2007, in your local park, school yard, gathering place, or any place you deem appropriate, to signify your agreement with the statement below. We ask you to invite the men who you care about to join you. We ask that you bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence. During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain this world. If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so. Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world.

If you are in Rapid City, South Dakota (as I am) the stand-in (stand-off? moment of silence? big event? bell ringing?) will take place at the Memorial Park Rose Garden by the Civic Center. This is on a Sunday, Mother's Day.

The only book I've completed lately was Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich. It was very short, and very typical Stephanie Plum. I did enjoy the book, but Morelli and Ranger were both absent, so it was not a favorite. I am glad that I did not pay for it (I got it from paperbackswap and have already mailed it on!)

This weekend will either be crazy busy with family stuff, including at least 8 hours in the car, or crazy sucky with a sick baby. Either way, I'm hoping for lots of reading time. I'm 30 pages from the end of my current book, and have big plans for others.

Weekend Reading

I got some reading done this weekend, yay! I spent a lot less time online than usual and had time to read. We also did a lot of little family things, which was fun. So what did I read?

Last week I read Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes. This is a little collection of essays about just about everything. Some of them are pretty light (shoes!) and some are pretty heavy (there is a really good one on being an alcoholic.) It was a really quick little book, with lots of humor. She reminds me a little of Meg Cabot, but I can't put my finger on why. A lot of the essays were previously published, mostly in 1998 or 1999, so it is a little dated. It got me geared up to start Rachel's Holiday, also by Keyes, for my TBR challenge. So far, Rachel's Holiday is very good. I will use this one for my M author. 3/5

Yesterday after sorting my books for the Themed Lists post, I moved a couple of the shorter books to the top. I figured I have to get some reading going or I'll just have more and more staring at me. I started Statements: True Tales of Life, Love, and Credit Card Bills by Amy Borkowsky during naptime and managed to read almost all of it before the Monkey woke up. The premise is great, the author uses her American Express bills to recreate her life and we get to read all about it. In practice, it's not so great. The chapters are anywhere from 2 to 6 pages long, and sometimes it's quite a stretch to make the purchase into a story. About 15 pages in (so soon!) I almost gave up, but decided that since it was so easy to read I'd keep going. About 80 pages in I wasn't any more impressed, but I'd already read nearly half so I kept going. By the end I knew I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It just wasn't interesting. I give this one a 2/5.

Today I picked up Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris. This is the fifth book in a series by a tried and true author. While I think the previous book was better, this one had some great moments. Lots of the secondary characters are fleshed out and Sookie is (of course) tested more. I'm a bit nervous about the amount of sexual tension (no actual sex, sorry) between Sookie and the various guys. Until this book I thought Harris did a great job of making me love all the potential suitors, in this one a couple of the guys dropped out for me. I LOVE Sam, and Eric. Oh, and Quinn. 4/5

Hopefully I can keep up the pace this week and finish up a few more!

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron, creator of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle is the author of I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. This is a short little book of essays on various topics including purses (she doesn't love them), manicures (ditto), New York (loves it), and aging (hates it.) For the most part the essays are funny, and they are light and easy (yes, even the one on death.) I suspect this book is aimed at women a generation older than me, and perhaps would be a bit more meaningful to them. I had similar thoughts about Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, which I read last summer. It was good, but it wasn't all it was made out to be. Get it from the library, not the bookstore.

This was my 7th book for the New Author Challenge.

Every Boy's Got One

Every Boy's Got One is the story of Jane and Cal who are in Italy to witness the elopement of their best friends. Jane is a cartoonist and Cal is a foreign journalist, and they have nothing in common. Dislike is instant, before they even know each other's names. Jane thinks the elopement is incredibly romantic, and Cal thinks love doesn't exist. Due to an unfortunate turn of events (of course) they are thrown together to save the wedding. The plot is predictable, you KNOW how it ends from page one. There aren't really any surprises along the way.

This was a very fast book to read. It's written entirely as email and journal/diary entries between the main characters. It took me about 3 hours to read. I think if it had been any longer that element of the book would have gotten tiresome, but it did make the pages speed by. I liked the story, and loved the setting, but if it weren't for the unusual way it was written I think it would be pretty forgettable. This was my second Meg Cabot and I'll certainly read more of them, but I won't be buying up her backlist just yet.

What I'm Reading Now, and What I'm Not Reading.

I have a ton of books that I feel like I have to read. There are several reasons for this- the book was a gift (Hi, Shawna!) or written by someone I know, or part of a series. As I've mentioned several times, I'm a member at Paperbackswap, and the way it works is that you add your name to the list of people wishing for a particular book. As the books are posted into the system, the first person on the list is offered it and everyone else moves down. You "buy" the books with credits that you earn from posting your own books into the system and mailing them off. It's a fair system, but what it means is- I often read books that aren't the ones I most want to read. For example, if I hear of a Great! Awesome! Wonderful! series, I go add the first few books to my list. The first one comes in, and I feel the need to read it quick, before I get offered the next one. If it sucks, I don't want to waste a credit on the next, see? If the books rocks, then it's safe to leave the rest of the series on the list.

All of this to say, I seem to never get to everything. I still have one of Kim Harrison's books here, a series I know I love, and haven't read it. I have Suffient Grace, sent to me by Sharon last fall and haven't read it. I have The History of Love, given to me by Shawna for Christmas, and only just started it. I have Twilight, which has been mentioned pretty much EVERYWHERE this month, and haven't started it. I have so many books! Which typically isn't a problem, until I want to read them all now!

Today I finished up Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green. This is the second Nightside novel. If you've been reading along you know I was hesitant about reading more of them. This one had a nicely finished plot, but a few other teeny flaws. I am still on the fence about the series. Mike is actually reading the first one (a fiction book not about baseball!) and I'll probably take his lead on the rest of them. I am ambivilant, and with so many books around here there's always something else. They are very quick, easy to read books, so that's a plus. I give this one a 3/5.

I've gotten one more book in the house since my last count (from PBS), bringing me to 13 books in, 7 books read. Holding steady at a 6 book surplus.

Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green

John Taylor has an extraordinary gift. He can find things, anything. John is from the Nightside, a place where it's always 3 am, and everything is real. Myths are alive in the Nightside, ghosts are real, legends exist. He has been hired to find a runaway and since he's down on his luck, he takes the case.

I love the idea of the book. I like the Nightside. This seems a lot like a man's version of the worlds that Laurell Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and Kim Harrison have created. It's harsher, blunter, less forgiving. I can see myself reading more of them. It was quick and very easy. However, this was the first book in the series, and without spoiling it for the next guy I have to say- he could really do with a better plot idea. It was kinda like he got to the end and then was stumped on how to end it, and threw this crazy idea into the book. It all worked so very well, until that point. I will read the next one (I already have it) but will hold off on ordering more until I see if he has more (or should it be less?) imagination next time. I'd give it a 4, but the ending brings it down. I'll let you know if you should seek them out.

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly has an unusual talent- she can locate dead people. Like a psychic in a murder investigation, she is distrusted and unwelcome, but her services are often valuable. Harper and her brother, Tolliver, are in Sarne, Arkansas to help find the body of a teenager gone missing. Sarne has secrets though, and it seems that someone doesn't want them uncovered.

I really enjoyed this book. Harper's "talent" is interesting and her character seems well developed. Her brother is a bit of a cliche, but I expect Harris will make him unique as the series progresses. I'm interested in seeing how she makes this into a series, as there are very few characters from this book that can reappear in the next. The mystery itself was a big thin, I definately knew the plot twist, and was 99% sure on who-dun-it. Regular mystery readers would know the minute the villian appears. I don't think this one was as good as the first Sookie Stackhouse mystery, but am more than that willing to keep reading.