Sunday, July 25, 2010

In which I apologize and catch up

Okay, we're going to gloss over the fact that I've been remiss and just catch up. In the last month I've read:
"Swan Thieves" by Elizabeth Kostova, of "The Historian" fame. I liked "The Historian" a lot, but this one I didn't care for. I didn't *not* like it, I just feel indifferent about it.
"Frankenstein: Lost Souls" by Dean Koontz I enjoyed a lot. It seems to be the beginning of a new series, and I'm excited about that.
"Fables, Vols. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12" by Bill Willingham. I missed Vol. 10 somehow, but the story has gotten really great. The Fables have gone to war and in Vol. 11 defeated the evil Emperor. There have been some casualties, like Prince Charming and Boy Blue, but I'm eager to find out what happens next. My only complaint is some of the artists have truly sucked.
"Sizzling Sixteen" by Janet Evanovich. Lately the Stephanie Plum series have been kind of mediocre, but this one I really liked, despite the lack of Morelli and Ranger hotness. This one had a lot of Vinnie (he's been kidnapped by the mob and Stephanie and Lulu and Connie have to devise a plan to rescue him) and I like Vinnie.
So then I reread "Seven Up" and "Two for the Dough", which were both fun. I hadn't read the second one in quite a while. I'd like to reread them all, but I have a huge stack of books I need to get to. Someday I'm going to take all that vacation time I have hoarded up and just overindulge on books :)
"Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" by Alison Arngrim, who played the evil Nellie Olsen on TV's "Little House on the Prairie", which was probably one of my all time favorite shows when I was growing up. I loved this memoir. Alison was hilarious and her look at the show and the actors she worked with was great. I'd love if she wrote fiction, I think it would be as quirky and fun as Christopher Moore.
I reread Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind", my all time favorite comfort read. That was the first grown up book I ever read, when I was nine years old. Every time I reread it (and it's been, sadly, many years) it's like visiting an old friend and spending a lazy Sunday afternoon on the veranda, sipping sweet tea and reminiscing. I needed that.
"Aqua Net Diaries" by Jennifer Niven was her look back at her very ordinary teenage years in a small Indiana high school. There wasn't anything crazy or wild about her and her friends, and that's what I liked about it: it's normalcy. Since I didn't go to high school I have none of these fond memories and I enjoyed hers.
"Dead in the Family" by Charlaine Harris is her latest Sookie Stackhouse book. I missed the one right before this, unfortunately, so I was a bit confused in the beginning, but I caught up quickly enough and enjoyed all the Eric hotness :)
And lastly, "Beastly" by Alex Finn, a YA updated version of "Beauty and the Beast". Since I've never seen the Disney film or really any other version of the story I can't attest to its faithfulness, but I enjoyed this version a lot. Even though the ending was predictable, the characters were so likable I was rooting for them and it made me glad when it all worked out.
Whew. Okay, I won't let that happen again, I promise.