Anna and the French Kiss

2011, Books in Bed, Fiction, Young Adult /

This was something I picked up after seeing it on a book blog – I just wish I remembered which book blog.  I almost didn’t read Anna and the French Kiss because of the damn cover. It looks a little to YA pretty girl romance-y for me. I decided I’d give it a try after reading the first couple of chapters over TW’s shoulder one night – I got sucked into the idea of a story about a girl whose parents send her to Paris to attend the School of Americas in Paris for her senior year. She doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay home. In Atlanta. With her friends. Doing normal things. Watching her brother.

Once she arrives, she starts out a little too timid for me. She doesn’t leave the school for a week. She doesn’t order hot food at the cafeteria for ages because she doesn’t speak French. Wah. Poor thing. Your situation is what you make of it.

Good thing she found nice people who forced her to go out, I guess. I’d have liked it better if she’d have grown her own backbone and made her way like a strong young woman but whatevs.

It’s not that I didn’t like her friends – I did. It’s not that I didn’t like the guy she falls for – I did. All of those things could have happened with Anna being just a wee bit stronger and a wee bit more self-sufficient. I’d like to think young women who read this are going to read Anna’s character and roll their damn eyes at her wimpyness – while still enjoying the cute love story.

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Forge

2011, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Young Adult /

Yay! Our first audio book of 2011 – we started it in 2010 and finished it today. Forge is the second book in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Seeds of America series. We listened to Chains a few months ago and while we didn’t love, love, LOVE it – we liked it. I figure we’ll read along until we decide we don’t like them at all. After listening to Forge, we aren’t anywhere near that point. We liked Forge much better than we liked Chains. Curzon is a good character – and his storytelling and thinking process is stronger than Isabel’s was in the first book. Or, maybe the storytelling was tighter? Halse Anderson found her way and simply improved? I don’t know what it was but it was excellent and I’m dying for a book three.

When I went off looking for book three, I saw Fever 17 – I believe I read that but am not 100% sure and since the main character is mentioned in very brief passing, in an amusing way, towards the end of Forge, I decided to go ahead and reserve this one on audio while we wait for book three. I think we’ll be amused by it.

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Wildthorn

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

This is another one of those books, reserved at my library when I was on a search for lesbian fiction. I was very pleased that my library had Wildthorn – I don’t read much historical romance-y lesbian fiction, which is too bad. I should see if I can scare up some more!

Louisa is her father’s daughter – she’d like to be a boy, because boys have toy trains and get to play marbles and they go to school and learn real things as opposed to the things girls go to school to learn. Her father, a doctor, indulges her and keeps her home, hires a tutor and even takes her on rounds with him after she’s old enough to handle such things. Louisa wants nothing more than to be a doctor. She’s also in love with her cousin – Grace.

Which is all well and good until her father dies, leaving her brother head of the household. And her brother has issues. Issues with Louisa – a young woman who “apes men” – and personal issues that drive him to… well I won’t spoil it for you.

Before she knows it, Louisa is in an asylum and the staff is calling her Lucy. There are some nice twists at the end and an ending that I didn’t love because it was a little big predictable and too close to happily ever after for my tastes. Even though it wasn’t happily ever after in the same way it would have been if Louisa wasn’t a lesbian.

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The Diamond of Darkhold

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Good grief, I didn’t even know The Diamond of Darkhold existed! If it hadn’t been for chatting with Val about books her daughter might like or had read, I’d have never known. Thank goodness C liked the series and read them all and Val was smart enough to mention that last one. Sheesh.

I really liked it – thankfully. The Prophet of Yonwood bored me so I was concerned it would be more like that. It wasn’t. I love what was hidden for the People of Ember – brilliant and perfect choice. LOVE it.

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The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I never expected to read The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove in one sitting but it was a super fast read. No idea why since I think it was just as long (page-wise) as Packing for Mars. It just flowed nicely so even when I thought I’d put it down and go to bed – I didn’t, I just kept on reading and before I knew it… done!

I also didn’t expect to enjoy it quite as much as I did. It looked like a fluffy story about a girl growing up privileged in Nashville in the 60s-70s with all of the typical race issues you’d expect. But I did enjoy it, a lot. And the ending wasn’t one of those happily ever after endings. The ending made sense. I like that.

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She Reads Fast

2 Comments / Books in Bed /

Last night, TW came out of the bathroom and picked up her iPhone. She fiddled with it for awhile. I looked up and asked what she was doing with her phone – I thought maybe a kid had sent her a text or something.

TW: I’m entering a book into ibookshelf.

Me: Oh. You finished that one already? God, you read fast.

TW: What? I’ve only read five books so far this year?

Me: I’ve read one (I hold up the book in my hand) – and a half.

TW: Huh? I thought you’d read something else?

Me: No. I’ve read one (I hold up the book in my hand) – and a half.

TW: (sheepishly) Oh. Well I was half done with the first one before the new year began.

Me: I’ve read one (I hold up the book in my hand) – and a half.

TW: OK.

SHE READS TOO DAMN FAST.

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Packing for Mars

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Heh. I like Mary Roach and I’m glad Packing for Mars is the first book I read in 2011. Even if the space budget appears to have been cut so much that a lot of the programs she talks about have probably suffered an awful lot. I think we NEED to go to Mars. Seriously – and I’m not even a NASA/space program geek like TW is.

I think we NEED to go to Mars because it’s human nature to push the boundaries – to go where no people have gone before – to learn new things, think about things in different ways. Mars is a beautiful example of that kind of drive. Not to mention all of the amazing scientific discoveries made along the way that will improve our lives on earth.

Let’s go to Mars. Dammit.

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Eff You! I Want My OBs!

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Pet Peeves /

I can’t muster up this much angst about 2010. Hell I can’t muster up this much angst about any year, even the horrible year that brought us to Chicagoland or that other horrible year when the little kids went to England.

It’s the same every year. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. There are natural disasters. People die. People get sick. People lose money. There are horrible, horrible natural disasters. There’s hunger and poverty and war.

But.

I’m seriously ticked off about the loss of the OB tampon. I mean WTF? “Women in dismay”? THAT is an UNDERSTATEMENT.

I don’t particularly care about the OB Ultra but give me the regular OBs NOW, not “sometime in 2011”. It’s not like I can just say, “Oh. I won’t have a period until sometime in 2011.” and wait for them to return.

Then again, I might not need them since I’m at the point where my periods are weird, to say the least. But hell, just typing that and thinking about it makes me mad. I should be able to use the tampon that I PREFER during the last months of menstruation, shouldn’t I? Particularly since there seems to be no legitimate reason for the entire OB line to have disappeared.

WHAT THE HELL? I NEED MY OBs. NOW. (Or in a few days, actually.)

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Queer Books? Why the Hell Not?

2011, Books in Bed, Queer /

I know, I know. I just finished posting my 2011 challenges and the GLBT Challenge wasn’t on it. I thought about joining, decided I wouldn’t because it’s not really a challenge for me to read queer books, but when I saw the challenge again just now in my feedreader, I felt compelled to join. So… I joined.

Maybe the challenge for me will be to actually REVIEW the queer books I read? Yea, that’s it. I’ll try to do a real review rather than one line of I liked it and one line of I hated the ending.

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