Fiction

Uncontrolled Flight – FLEE!

2006, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Fiction /

The Art of Uncontrolled Flight was disappointing. Women in the military, flying even, you’d think it would be good, right? It wasn’t. Bits and pieces of it were good but mostly, it was boring and not very original. More dsyfunctional family stuff. A dead mom. Dirtbag father. Typical military men. Boring. And then there was the troubling section where they jumped from war scene to war scene and mixed the years all up. What was that about? I didn’t get that at all. The dots never connected for me if they were suppose to somehow connect.

Blah.

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What Do You Do All Day?

2006, Books in Bed, Fiction /

This was one of the better “mommy” chicklit books I’ve read in awhile. Lots of mommies, working daddies, the token gay boy mommy and NYC all make it slightly predictable but still fun to read.

I have one complaint, it’s not a “chat board” it’s either a chat room or a message board. You’d think folks could get that right by now, wouldn’t you? Hmmm wonder when I’ll read a mommy chicklit book that includes mommy blogs instead?
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Low tide, boy is it ever

2006, Books in Bed, Fiction, Religion /

Okkkkk, I’m a little disappointed that my first book of 2006 was an evangelical novel set in the Carolina Lowcountry. I had no idea Grace at Low Tide was an evangelical novel. TW read it ages ago and I thought “Grace” was a reference to the dog-gone Grace Bridge!

When I started reading the book last night, after a couple of pages I turned to TW and said “ummm there’s a lot of God in here” and her reply was “not really”. Umm if that’s not a lot of God, I don’t want to know what is.

Totally not my cup of tea. Too sappy. To much God and Jesus and praying for me.

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Trolls and Gay Boys???

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, GLBT, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Troll: A love story – now that was a weird book! I can barely believe that I spent time on this little bit of fantasy but on the other hand it was oddly endearing. Weird but endearing? So that’s why I spent time on it!

A gay man and those who love him (which include a veterinarian, a Filipina mail order prostitute bride, a not-gay man who is really gay, some other really smart dude with a lot of books and a troll cub). WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD.

Really short chapters with bits of troll lore and news articles and stuff tossed in between the chapters. Weird, weird, weird.

I mostly didn’t understand the abused Filipina prostitute mail order bride bit. Was that really necessary to the story? I mean really.

I don’t think I can actually recommend this but if you’re looking for weird gay boy troll stories, this is a good one.

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Veronica aka Fag Hag?

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, GLBT /

Veronica is a fag hag of the worst, I mean best, kind. She apparently really loved the fag she was hagging with… so much so that she wound up with AIDS. Allie was not a fag hag, but a screwed up teen/young adult model with all the crud that apparently goes along with that.

What a weird book this was – told by Allie in jumps back and forth between “now”, as a 50 something year old woman with HepC, and “then”. We don’t get to hear much about “modeling” just a lot about the men who screwed her, the drugs and alchohol and the struggles of the “Go-See”.

Weird book. Not a bad book, just a weird one. I can’t decide if I actually enjoyed it or not. Some parts of it, I did. Other times I found I didn’t particularly care about Allison or Veronica or anyone else who crossed their paths.

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Prime is also not spooky!

3 Comments / 2005, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

So Poppy Z Brite doesn’t want to be called horror writer. That’s fine with me. It’s more than fine with me because I’ve liked her last two NON HORROR books better than I ever liked her horror writing.

First Liquor and then Prime, both quite enjoyable. Surprisingly enjoyable. I’m anxiously awaiting the next installment of the Rickey and G-man saga (there is going to be another, isn’t there???).

I suppose though the real test would be to hand these over to my son, the huge Poppy Z Brite – horror writer – fan. Maybe for some people “once a horror writer, always a horror writer”? I would encourage those folks to expand their horizons a bit. They will be pleasantly surprised.

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Lesbian Pulp Fiction

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, GLBT /

Doesn’t everyone love pulp fiction now and then? I definitely do. And nothing is better on a stressful day than a wee bit of lesbian pulp fiction.

The Girls in 3-B was just a LITTLE lesbian pulp. Generally this genre focuses on a couple of young women and their sapphic explorations. This one included three 18 year old girls and only one dabbled in lesbianism – the one who had been abused as a child, of course. And not the one I expected at first to be the lesbian. Not the rough girl, not the poet… the beautiful femme instead. Yea!

Other than that little switch, it was typical of lesbian pulp written in the 50’s.

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I finished a book! Son of a ….

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I’m not sure how long it’s been since I finished a book but today I am happy to report I FINISHED! Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire. Yea Me! Even bigger Yea Me ’cause TW didn’t finish it. She said it bored her to death. I don’t know why it bored her, except that she didn’t really like any of Maguire’s books very much. I liked all of them except Lost. This one was long, and rambling and not nearly as compelling as the other Maguire books we’ve read. I didn’t love it but…

Son of Ephaba, dragons, gay boy sex it just doesn’t get better than that, does it? I don’t think it does. I wonder if there will be a sequel to this sequel. Or maybe a prequel?

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No Vindication for Me, Magic Instead

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, short stories /

You might have noticed a new book, well two actually, appeared on my reading list and that means I’ve given up on Wollstonecroft and Vindication I just couldn’t do it. Maybe another day, another time, but right now I’m having trouble enough reading. So, I gave up. The first part of it wasn’t bad, it was just a little bit too slow for me to stay focused on.

Instead, I turned to Magic for Beginners. A book of “magical” short stories that were, indeed, about magical topics. But like a lot of short stories, I hated the endings of almost all of them. The stories were terrific and then the ending just went really WEIRD in what felt like an attempt to just finish and finish quickly. I’m ok with weirdness in a story about magic, zombies, witches, etc… but the weirdness has to make SOME sense based on what has happened in the first 10-20 pages of the story.

I loved the faery purse story. Loved the canon story. Enjoyed the catskin story. The endings worked for these. Was really enjoying the zombie/painting story when the ending poofed out on me. The stone rabbits story was really terrific but again, what was with that ending????

Now, I’ve picked up Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy, which TW said was good but not up to par with the Thursday Next series, which is too bad…

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Zipporah

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, Religion /

Zipporah

OK, it’s not The Red Tent. Let’s get that straight right up front. Zipporah is also not as good as whatever the other book I read at some point in the last two years about Moses & Zipporah. (It was really about Moses but the Zipporah character was better written than in this book). Now if I could only remember what the name of that book was… maybe it will come to me at some point in the next few days.

I did enjoy it. TW seems to have liked it more than I did because when I said “It’s ok.” She got sort of bent out of shape and said “I liked it more than just ok.” I also have to say that of all of the Marek Halter books we’ve read, this has been my least favorite. The story of Moses and Zipporah is an interesting one and I found myself skimming an awful lot. That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

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