Books in Bed

The Supreme Macaroni Company

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Since I’ve read all of the other Valentine books, I figured I should go ahead and read The Supreme Macaroni Company, too. I hate leaving series unfinished (and since one of my goals is to catch up/keep up with series, it seemed extra important to go ahead and read it.)

It was fine. Not my favorite Valentine book but not my least favorite, either. I used to love Valentine and her weird family but now I just love her weird family and she gets on my nerves. Also, the ending was predictable. At least I predicted it a lot earlier than it came about. Both what happened to Giancarlo and what happened to the house.

I didn’t predict either would happen exactly as they happened but it was obvious. Giancarlo did THAT with the house (duh) without telling Valentine (duh) and then… yea. Predictable.

Also very typical of Trigiani, so if you like her books — you’ll like this one.

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Hiding Out At the Pancake Palace

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction /

I was really enjoying Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace until I got to the end. It’s like there were pages missing. We go all the way through this and THAT is how it ends? I keep thinking this morning that maybe I was too tired to finish last night at 11pm and maybe I did skip some pages or something? Maybe if I go back, I’ll like the ending (or feel like it even made sense). If I try and it turns out I missed something, I’ll let you know.

Otherwise, unless you like an fulfilling and dare I say DUMB ending, skip this one. (It’s middle grade fiction, too, by the way.)

And, now I want pancakes.

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The Bintel Brief

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I wonder how The Bintel Brief made its way into my library bag. I don’t think it’s been on the shelf long enough to be an impulse choice, since the damn non-fictions are still upstairs… except, hmm. Now that I think about it, maybe that is where I got it. I wonder how that happened… in the past, graphic novels have always been in a section of the non-fiction (whether they were non-fiction or not… and this is assuredly non-fiction. I bet it was miss-shelved.) Whatevs.

I really enjoyed it.

The art was good. The stories selected were good. I liked everything about this. I am also tempted to track down some more about The Bintel Brief advice column. It’s super-interesting to me.

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The Here and Now

2014, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read The Here and Now… after what Ann Brashares did to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants… I hold book grudges for a really long time. But, I bit the bullet and reserved it. If nothing else, I’d have something to complain about, right?

Well… it wasn’t a bad book. It wasn’t SotTP good but it wasn’t bad. I am not sure I liked how it all went down there at the end. A little too neat and tidy but with a lot of weird twisty things, too. Possibly for a sequel? Which leads me to something I can complain about… does everything have to be a sequel nowadays? Really? Could we just have some stand alone books, please?

Also, mosquitos are bad. Time travel ain’t all that hot, either.

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In the Tall Grass

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

I was looking for audio books to reserve and noticed Stephen King and his son Joe Hill (who I like better than King) had witten a novella (I’m calling it a novella because it’s short!) and I had not read it. So, I reserved it on audio.

In the Tall Grass is holy hell creepy and just as gruesome as you’d expect from something written by these two. Possibly TOO gruesome, particularly for audio. I cringed my way through it.

Warning: It includes the beating of a pregnant woman, her miscarriage and … more. Gruesome!

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3 Non-Fiction

2014, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Sassymonkey talked about One Skillet, Two Plates so I checked it out. It’s a nice cookbook. A lot of good recipes, nothing super hard or weird. I wish there were more photos. I like photos.

Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable, Nesting Skills was mentioned on a blog I read so I thought I’d grab it. Totally loved it. Very zine-like. I can see a few of my kids really liking this book, (She recommends looking for help/info at Punk Houses, hahaha.) There wasn’t anything new or unusual about the ideas (tinctures, teas, infusions, cleaning, beauty products, first aid) I just liked the voice of the writer.

I reserved Hoosier Mama Book of Pie months ago (like September of last year). And I do mean MONTHS ago. It finally arrived at which point I decided I must have all the pie. Immediately. I don’t even really like pie all that much (except pumpkin) because I don’t really like pie crust. I also finally realized that when RJ talks about the pie shop her father has been going to, she’s been talking about the Hoosier Mama pie shop. (For some reason she says “Who’s Your Mama” not “Hoosier Mama”. lol) Must have all the pie. Seriously. Also… mmmm, Chess Pie. I don’t, however, want to make pie — no matter how interesting or good the recipes sounded.

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The Signature of All Things

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

We finished an audio book right before Easter and none from my reserve list were available at the library so I grabbed the first thing that looked somewhat interesting, via my library’s online system and that just happened to be Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things.

Amusing because I’d just sat through the video she made of her house in Jersey, the one that she’s trying to sell, and complained mightily about her and her video. (It made me queasy and she was kind of weird in it, IMO.)

I’ve also never read Eat, Pray, Love… so there you go.

It took forever to listen to this book, even though we made two trips to Wisconsin while listening to it. It took so long, the darn license expired on me and I had to re-check it out. Frustrating but that should tell you that we found it interesting enough to go through the pain of doing that, while sitting in the parking lot of our library (even though by then I had another audio book in the car just waiting for us to listen to it.)

It was interesting. Alma was interesting. (So was her father.) So were all of the characters, really. The sex scenes were… a little strong in places, (moss will forever remind me of binding closets and oral sex… just saying…) – I think particularly so because we were listening to it rather than reading it. You can’t skim really descriptive passages very easily in audio, even if they make you cringe… So. Consider that before you read this book.

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Beautiful Redemption

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I’m so glad I stuck through this series. After a couple of lackluster books that had me saying “I hope this series ends soon because I’m getting tired of this…” the last book in the series, Beautiful Redemption paid off. This is my favorite book in the series. By far.

I’m still angsty over the “outside of Summerville” and “Summerville water tower” setting but all was forgiven once everything was sorted out and all of the creatures functioning as they should. The Far Keep scene at the end was fabulous and Sarafina did exactly what she should have done. Perfect.

I’m glad it’s over and I’m glad it ended this way.

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Three Just For Fun Non-fiction

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I wasn’t feeling in the mood to start anything on my shelves, last night — not even the new Christopher Moore book — so I decided to flip through all of the non-fiction books I’ve picked up over the last few weeks. That was a good choice. I had some nice light reading and thoroughly enjoyed my reading time (even though I didn’t love all of the books I read.)

First, Jay Shafer’s DIY Book of Backyard Sheds and Tiny Houses. Ho hum. It was mostly a sales pitch for his line of tiny houses. The back section of the book was filled with things like “how to fell a tree” and “how to raise a wall”, which was nice enough. Ho hum.

Creative Ideas to Organize Your Home was not so much about organizing your home as it was about making things with the “junk” you have lying around and pretending like those things will help you organize more junk. I wasn’t interested in anything in the book and I like that sort of thing. Blah.

Remodelista reminded me why I like the Remodelista website. I read every word. I loved all of the houses. No, not much of it would ever apply to my life but I did find myself with a new appreciation for subway tile, (TW does not agree. She does want pretty cloth-covered extension cords, though. And, I really want a 70s gaming table.)

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