Books in Bed

Werewolf Smackdown

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I love books set in Charleston, when the authors get things mostly right. Acevedo got Charleston mostly right. I didn’t growl a single time. Which is funny since there was a lot of growling in Werewolf Smackdown – by werewolves, of course.  

Poor Felix, his track record with women – of all sorts – is the pits. Ah well, at least he made it out of Charleston alive – in that undead sort of way. That’s a win, particularly for readers, since it means we’ll get to watch him struggle with the Areneum and more women again.

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Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

I’m a Carpenters fan. How can I not be? Even if Richard wasn’t a genius and Karen wasn’t an amazing singer and drummer, I’d still have to be a fan. I grew up with the Carpenters. I liked nothing better than to sit at the kitchen table with my mom playing Kings on the Corners or Canasta while listening to her Carpenters albums. She sometimes made us listen to Barry Manilow which is why I am also a Barry Manilow fan. But mostly, it was the Carpenters. The best part of taking piano lessons was playing Carpenters songs – I think I can still play Close to You (badly.)

I saw Little Girl Blue reviewed somewhere on the internets and decided I’d give it a try. I knew it would be bad, in the not really a good biography way, because I’d seen articles about how close-mouthed people were about Karen. I knew it would be bad, in the really horrible and depressing way, because how could it not?

It was bad. In both ways.

It’s hard to write a really good biography when those involved won’t – or can’t – talk about the person being written about. Still, I think Schmidt did a reasonably well job. As a Carpenters fan it was nice to see the timeline and a little look at what was happening in the background as the years passed. I’d have liked it to have been better – to have answered more questions, but I also know it’s likely that there aren’t any good answers.

They never should have made her step out from behind the drums. And of course there’s some patriarchy-blaming to do, too. None of that changes the fact that it was horrible and still is horrible if you let yourself think about it.

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The Mockingbirds

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Young Adult /

When TW read The Mockingbirds, she griped a lot about it. Said it was a horrible, depressing book. So, I thought I was in for trouble when I started reading it this morning. Once again, I find myself wondering if TW and I read the same damn book.

Sure, a book about date rape is never going to be light and breezy but it wasn’t nearly as horrible and depressing as it could have been. I liked it.  I’m not a big fan of vigilante justice, so I did struggle with that particular storyline. I’d have liked it better if Alex had been able to go to adults a lot sooner than she did but that’s not the story that was being told here. I’d recommend it to teens and I can see why others who’ve read it were giving it good reviews.

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Radiant Daughter

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Early in the month, TW read a bunch of depressing books all in a row. I told myself that I was not going to do that. I was going to be smarter. I was going to read a depressing, difficult book – then a light fluffy book – then a depressing difficult book. Hahaha.

I read Radiant Daughter yesterday and talk about a difficult, depressing book. A beautifully written, difficult, depressing book but still – oy.

Mother/Daughter relationships are difficult enough as it is without bipolar with rapid cycling tossed in. It’s hard to call a story like this a “favorite” but I think I have to.

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How to Bake a Perfect Life

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Women /

I don’t normally read two books at once (not counting listening to an audio book in the car while reading other books in print) but when I picked up Girl Wide Web, I just knew I couldn’t read it straight through all by itself. It was too dry and I’ve read an awful lot of non-fiction lately – so, I read a couple of chapters of Girl Wide Web and picked up the fluffy How to Bake a Perfect Life and read a few chapters of that. I alternated between them both and that was a good plan. Nice mix of the real and the not so real.  

I liked it more than I thought I would. I liked Ramona – as pregnant teen and as single mom, small business owner. I liked Sophia. I liked Poppy and Nancy and Lily. I liked Katie a lot. I even liked Jonas, the only guy in the book (besides the dog and the cat) who gets any serious lines or character development.

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Girl Wide Web

2011, Books in Bed, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women, Young Adult /

The new version of Girl Wide Web is on Michelle’s syllabus so I thought I’d try and reserve it from my library- no luck, they only had the original version. I thought what the hell and reserved it. It was interesting but in a dated sort of way.

Remember when BlueJeanOnline started, and how cool it was to have a magazine written for and BY girls. Yea. The essay focusing on BlueJeanOnline was interesting, in a historical kind of way. BlueJean has been gone for quite some time now. I remember when Gurl was new and interesting – look at it today, not so much new or interesting. And when AboutFace.org started, thankfully it’s still going strong.

The internet moves quickly and these essays are good reflections of how girls were using the internet and are good jumping off points for anyone who wants to dig into how girls use the internet today.

I’ll be interested in hearing what Michelle thinks about Girl Wide Web 2.0. I wonder if she’ll let me borrow it once she finishes with her class.

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A Skating Life

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Women /

It’s been one heck of a non-fictiony year so far, what’s up with that? I’m feeling all non-fictioned out, which is bad since most of what is on my library cart is non-fiction! Oops, time to reserve some Cybils!

TW snagged A Skating Life from the shelf at the library, I think from one of those themed displays – this one touting “winter” or something like that. A display I would never have voluntarily looked at. So I’m glad she did. She might have had the Hamill hair cut but she’s not the only one who loved Dorothy Hamill way back when. Her book is frustrating. Full of angst and depression and dirtbags. That made it a little hard to focus on her talent as a skater sometimes. Which is too bad because… look at her skate.

It’s extra interesting to watch this after just having read the book. To know what she was thinking as the crowd booed the judges as she came out. To see her squint at the scores after she was done.  Now I just want to wander around and watch Dorothy Hamill skate videos all day.

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Smart About Reserves

5 Comments / Books in Bed, Library /

Late in 2010 and during the early days of 2011, I started seeing posts and comments about being smarter about reserving books at the library. Cool. It’s nice to know that it isn’t just me and Sassymonkey who’ve been thinking about this and struggling with having too many books checked out at once.

When I started struggling with this in October, I thought it was just because the library had been closed for so long – I hadn’t been able to read books I wanted to read and I over-reserved. But, I think that was only part of it. There are just too many good books and not nearly enough time to read them. And living with TW who reads twice as many books as I do just makes it harder. If I pick up 10 holds and she plucks 20 or 30 off the shelves, every week, there’s just no way I can manage that kind of load. So. I’m reserving fewer books at once, trying to stagger them as much as possible, reserving what I really want or need to read rather than just any thing I’ve heard about that might be interesting. I can always supplement the reserved books with TW’s stash or with books from my own darn shelves. Right?

This is what my library cart looked like on Thursday. (All of the library books that TW and I check out for our own use, not for the kids or her mother, are placed on the top shelf of the library cart. Books we’re finished with go into the tote bags hanging from both sides.)

Normally that top shelf is overflowing with books – double and triple stacked.

On Friday morning, we went to the library and picked up some holds and of course other books that we just pulled from the shelves, and this is what it looked like when we came home.

That’s about half of what we’d normally have put on the cart after a library trip.

It makes me a little nervous to see the almost empty shelf. But, I’m not finding myself having to return unread books and I haven’t had to dip into my own stacks – yet. (And neither has TW.)

Let’s see how long before we’re overflowing with library books again…any bets?

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Wired

2011, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Damn Rebecca James. Just damn her. She introduced me to the Skinned Trilogy. We discussed the first book quite a bit. I told her that I liked the idea but that I pretty much hated the book until the last 50 pages. She nodded her head like she understood (but who knows whether she did or not…) Many months went by and I started doing catch up with series I had started. So I reserved the next book and I read it and I pretty much hated it until the last 50 pages. I told RJ. She nodded and acted like she understood. I reserved the next book, Wired, and over the weekend I mentioned it was on the library cart and said “but I assume you’ve already read it since you’ve read everything.” Her response, “No, I’ve only read the first one.”

What? I read this series because I thought SHE WAS READING IT and we could maybe ya know, discuss it and stuff? SHE ALWAYS READS THE FULL SERIES.

So I suffered through both of those books (except for the last 50 pages of each) only to find out… whatever.

I read Wired anyway and guess what – I liked it better than the first two books. I liked Lia Kahn much better all the way through this one. I also liked Judd better. And… I liked the ending. Too bad RJ hasn’t read them all.

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Monstrumologist

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

TW was alllllll excited about The Monstrumologist and not just because Yancey mentions Devil’s Millhopper in the beginning. (We love Devil’s Millhopper and if we ever leave this godforsaken place I would be happy to live very close to the Devil’s Millhopper again – but that’s another post entirely.)  I almost took it back to the library unread because I had a whole bunch of books due back and I needed to be really selective about which books I chose in order to get through as many as possible and The Monstrumologist isn’t exactly a short book. Also, sometimes when TW is really really enthusiastic about a book, I don’t love it. Heh.

But, it was the last book due back on Monday (which is today) and I had nothing else I was dying to read instead – so I picked it up. It was late and it started slowly, well after the Devil’s Millhopper part. I had a hard time sticking with it for the first 50 pages. I really think it was just because I was tired because shortly after that, I was hooked. I was cursing out loud at “the monstrumologist” and cursing even more loudly out loud at “Corey”.

And now I’m dying to read the second book (which TW already read but I had to take back UNREAD.) I think I’ll reserve book two sooner, rather than later. I wonder what these would be like on audio… scary or not so much? Hmmm maybe we’ll find out when we get to book three.

Also, Mr. Yancey, if you stumble across this… TW wants to know if you live in Gainesville. Or at least in Alachua County. I think she might want to meet you in person. Maybe at  Devil’s Millhopper if we ever leave this godforsaken city we live in now.

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