Bite Club by Rachel Caine

I'm reading Bite Club by Rachel Caine today. Once again it seems like Caine's suffering from Alzheimer's because she's once again forgotten what I think is pertinent information--the car Eve's supposed to be driving, her relationship with Miranda, namely. It doesn't really bug me, but it's obvious and therefore annoying. 

Dakota Born by Debbie Macomber

Sigh. I'm reading this because the books I really want to read won't be available at the library until at least Tuesday. Let's just say that the first 35 pages make me want to hurl the book across the room, but maybe there's something that will redeem it. It's not a bad book per se, just not my cup of tea.

Sarah Stern is the epitome of why I cringe when someone says they come from a "sheltered" life. Sheltered, in my opinion, is what makes you make stupid decisions early in life. 'Course, the opposite extreme leaves you in the same boat. I dunno--maybe I'm a freak of nature. My parent's lifestyle and my own shyness left me very sheltered physically, but I've always been allowed to read whatever I wanted. At 12 I graduated myself to the teen shelf and a half dozen books later I decided that teenagers are stupid and hit the adult shelves. 'Course then I learned that adults are gross and/or have this weird idea of what makes for a great adventure (Tolkien influence--the more made up words the better) and wasn't happy until I found the Holy Grail when we switched to the VA Beach library and their teen section is all the books I loved as a child plus soo much more (i.e. anything not a picture book, but without the sex). I have no idea why Norfolk has such a stupid system for separating their teen books.

Anyone who says you can't learn anything from "pulp fiction" is a pompous hipster. Everything those stupid teen books were "supposed" to teach me about life, but really just made me want to hurl, I could usually find either explicitly or implicitly within whatever book I actually enjoyed. Need a rant about why you shouldn't commit suicide because some jealous "frienemy" (is that really how that's spelled?) posts photoshopped raunchy photos of you on the school website? Go read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Infamous. V.C. Andrews' stuff really isn't worth the paper it's written on. And don't get me started on Twilight. Trust me, if you read any of Kenyon's Dark-Hunters books, you'll know what it really means to leave the person you love to save their life (or even offer yourself to Death) with lovely ladies who look at their men and say "Sweetie, I know you mean well, but let the real brains be in charge. 'kay?" and then she proceeds to kick ass, take names, and really show her commitment to him. Not lie on a couch for four months wondering where her life went. GAG!

So yeah...here I am reading something only 40+ year old women would actually enjoy. Maybe I'm just a feminist, but seriously?! Man says day one that he doesn't want to marry and you stick around for 2 years? Ever read Dear Abby?!? It's not a hard equation. I don't mean to make my mother's generation feel bad, but it's obvious that crap like this sells because women want to fantasize about a world where their bad decisions are...okay(?)--that there's some hero who's going to save her from the life she's made for herself.

Yeah, I'm the first to defend the fact that women marrying in the '80s got the damn short end of the stick--do you do as your mother? Or as your independent older sister? You have no clue as to whether to go with the status quo or to strike out on your own is the best choice. Thirty years later, most likely you're realizing that you made a poor decision when you married and threw your own dreams down the toilet, just like your mother did. But I don't know how much good we're doing for them when we give them books like this that say "it's okay to be unhappy in life so long as there's a man to stand by you". But maybe it's a different genre where you find the ladies who go back to school and pick up their lives as though they didn't spend 30 years in a crappy marriage and oh, find the man of their dreams (Hey! I like romances! If the Princess and the Goat-Herder don't get together at the end, I'm highly upset. And I'm still not sure that the Dark-Hunters aren't 'erotica for beginners'.)

There's something else I feel I need to address. When I first picked this book off my mother's shelf, I read thorugh the comments on Good Reads. Someone mentioned being insulted by the fact that N. Dakota isn't like it's protrayed here. They don't all have one room school houses. Well, that's an interesting way to look at it, but still completely wrong. I have a lot of home schooled pen pals, most of whom live in rural areas. I haven't asked them all, but there's only 2 reasons to home school an otherwise average kid (medical and psychological reasons notwithstanding)--the local schools suck or for religious reasons. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that you could find at least one location within each state in the US where a one room school house for high school could exist comfortably (less than 20 kids from more than one family). So yes, while it would be stupid to say that all of N. Dakota go to school in one room school houses, it is equally ignorant to say that a one room school house is a backwards way to learn. A couple years ago a school with, I guess, 10 kids in it was shown on the news--the kids had better scores because the older ones were teaching the younger ones and it was essentially constant review without the tediousness of review. It's one of the many benefits of homeschooling (actually, my only problem/worry with homeschooling is whether a kid can learn the advanced classes without a qualified teacher--though many families are turning towards "distance learning" rather than true homeschooling (based on my own understanding/use of definitions) to combat this.)

Prone

When used to describe the way a person is lying, it means that they're face down. I'm kinda annoyed that I've read 3 or 4 books lately where this word was used, but the rest of the actions don't necessarily make anatomical sense.

For instance, I'm reading Seize the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark-Hunter Series). Ash is lying prone on the bed and while I'll allow for Katra to look at him the way she does while his back is supposedly towards her, maybe able to see half of his face, how on Earth could she hold the 3 leaves she needs to revive him above his mouth while she wrings them to allow the precious liquid to drop into his mouth? Greek Goddess or not, that must have been some feat with his body positioned the way it is.

Another book I was reading turned the couple into contortionists because he was lying prone underneith her as they wrestled.

I really don't know what's going on. I'm not sure if the author did intend for the guys to be face down, and then forgot to roll them over before the next action happened or if for some reason the definition of this word has been lost--or maybe it's the subtlty that was lost with it becoming a generic word for lying down, instead of a specific position.

For future reference, supine means to lie face up. And on Merriam-Webster.com (which requires a subscription for some of the less common words for some reason!) it has a "40%" popularity while prone is at about "70%" (I'm giving the popularity meter numbers), makes me wonder just how much people know about the words.

Lark Rise to Candleford--Wife Abuse and the Temperence Movement

Well, here's an interesting look at the 1890s. I'm watching the seventh episode of the 2008-2011 BBC adaption of the book (I haven't read the book, though it's on my list--it's aparently a biographical account written 40 years after the fact).

This episode centers around a woman who is hit by her husband while he's drunk and she has him arrested. It's a small country town in England, so you know how word travels and opinions spread. Well it seemed pretty cut and dry until a pamphlet gets spread around about the Temperence Movement with the woman telling the wife to forgive her husband if he pledges to not drink because if he wasn't drinking he wouldn't hit her. It's supposed to be the anti-feminist response to spousal abuse....but we all know the value of such a position. Only one man in 50 is worth it....and I hope to God I never have to make the decision about it. Today, I'd leave him in a heartbeat, but as Ms. Beast on Glee illustrates--it's a completely different thing to be in the position.

Ooh...let's see how the Temperence woman reacts to the fact that the husband stole her money and drank it. Guess there's nothing a person can say about that. Whoops...never mind. Ms. Temperence is confronting the husband. She isn't as bad as I thought she would be--she's actually defending the wife's choice since the husband isn't promising 100% abstinence. I was really afraid that she was the "save the marriage no matter what" type.

I really like this show--it shows real women in real situations. I was reading some of the favorite books of some Christian young adult female pen pals and there was a little too much devotion to a Regency and Victorian era idealism. I honestly wouldn't want to live back then because it's doubtful that I'd be rich and the alternative wouldn't be very enjoyable--the odds of finding a kind husband (like Ms. Temperance's...haha, he's a liberal) were slim, though increasing as we move toward the present. Life was more like this than Anne of Green Gables and a Jane Austen novel. But before I can really make a comment, I should read the book, and see how much liberty the BBC took.

By the way...poor Mr. Patterson, the constable. He sure is stuck between a rock and a hard place of being a "regular joe" one minute, then a representative of the crown the next (I guess that's what an English constable is supposed to be).

Catch-22

So, as you may have figured, I'm a big fan of the Dark-Hunter series right now (and when I become a fan, I tend to obsess for the time being). Though this thought came to me while reading these books, the idea transends all books really.

There's a catch-22 in the writing world. One of my complaints about the Dark-Hunters is the anti-climatic endings since Kenyon really is just writing romance novels. (Thank God she's learned to write fight scenes!!!!) While reading the site on TV tropes (you REALLY need to go there if you love to read or write or watch movies/television) it's pointed out how the Gods will solve all the unsolvable problems in the end--the ultimate get-out-of-a-complicated-plot-free card. And this is where the catch-22 lies:

If the author uses the Gods to kill the big-baddie, I call it a cop out since the main characters didn't have to do any real work (besides the whole getting beat up 2 or 3 times in previous chapters). But then, if they didn't use the Gods, the complaint would be wondering why the Gods even exist. I guess the argument is that a good author can come up with an solution that satisfies everyone...please excuse me while I go laugh my butt off while rolling around on the floor. There's a reason why half the world loves Twilight while the rest of us cringe. And why some of the most amazing authors have their non-fans. You can't please everyone, so I guess authors have to decide which side of the catch they want to be on and go with it.

Hmm...now if only Congress could do that. 

On historical fiction/non-fiction

I HATE it when I read something that is historically related and it leaves me wondering where truth ends and fiction begins. There is a distinct variety of historical writing:

*Non-fiction and has well documented resources. I like these and I respect them.

*Historical Fiction that mearly glances at the historical era. I enjoy these books for the most part since the history isn't a focus and it's more like "oh, this is set in 1840--there shouldn't be any automobiles". There is a general rule, but it doesn't need to be historically accurate.

*Historical Fiction that attempts to bridge history and fiction. This is where some gray area exists. If an author is creating a fictional world which just happens to exist within a historical era, then I don't mind a lack of references. Many of my favorite books "live" here--Catch 22, Briar Rose, Hospital Sketches, etc--they tackle well known events and don't try to change the status quo. Most importantly, they do not tackle real people. They serve to give a human element that non-fiction often can't. For example, memoires, biographies and autobiographies, while they do attempt this always run into the question of "is this true or are you trying to make yourself/the subject look as good/bad as possible?" Fiction avoids this because we know it's fake, but at the same time a great author can create a character that portrays a life that those who lived through the event can all look at and say "that was me".

*Historical novel that tries to humanize real people/events. This is essentially putting words into the mouths of, well, gods. I think that these authors should be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered. I know that there are historical scholars out there who will disagree with me on some books, saying that the author did a great job portraying whomever/whatever they're writing about. But I'm not a historical scholar. I have a great grasp for finding the B.S., but not much in terms of factual knowledge. I don't like this type of writing because the people that read it might have even less factual knowledge than I do, but without even the B.S. filter--a poor author could create a portrait that is complete fiction and the naive reader wouldn't know any differently. I only have one example of a book of this type that wanted me to pull out my hair: Unwise Passions by Alan Pell Crawford. If you are going to make a commentary on history, do not hide it in fiction. Admit your references with pride--and refer to them often. Write a historical novel, but you'd better have something factual to stand on that doesn't involve a written demand of the author to provide evidence for his case.

And on this note, I begin my efforts for full disclosure on the historical accuracy of my novels. You'll notice that Historically Dead (sorry if it's name has been changed since I wrote this) makes a strong attempt to bridge history and fiction. I've already admitted to being an expert on nothing more than an ability to call the B.S. card, so I welcome you to peruse my "references". Now, before you say anything, Wikipedia is my general go-to source and I'm okay with that. This isn't a scholarly paper/book and I'm not checking my references for accuracy, just some kind of platform to build off of without looking entirely ignorant.

One of my classes in college involved the professor reading us a passage from Wikipedia on one of the subjects we were studying. The point was that while yes, every item in the article was technically true, it didn't fully emcompass everything that we were talking about. If you've ever read anything on a subject then I know that you can find the exact opposite argument also in existence using equally relavent examples (it's one reason why I suck at writing argumentative essays--I can't convince myself that I'm right). This strategy for finding real "facts" doesn't work for a publically edited encyclopedia, so Wikipedia is stuck stating the facts and nothing but the facts (except when a troll decides to say that Socrates worked as a bouncer in a strip club in New Jersey).

So, don't knock my sources, but please do tell me if something I've written is blatently wrong (be nice). I mean, if it's something that I don't care to debate in my writing, you'll have to settle with my technically wrong, technically right facts as they stand, but I would like more information on the subject for my own mental encyclopedia, so do share what you know on the subject and, if it's not already obvious, I would appreciate a few bits of evidence to support whatever you have to say :-).

Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and Religion

I love Jim Butcher's religious arguments. They're well thought out and pretty seemless in where they fit in the rest of the story without feeling oppressive and pushy for one way or another. It's like the religious debates that happen online--it's the Atheists and Agnostics who know, and reference, the most Bible verses and history.

Book Covers

I've been reading a mad number of romances by a Kristan Higgins. I'm not usually one for romances (for purely romance's sake) but these are actually pretty good. Whenever I've picked up one of my mom's before I'd always hit one spot where I'd have to role my eyes and tell the main girl to get a life. So far, that's only happened twice (one was for half the book, so mainly I just skipped over the parts where a 30 year old woman was acting like a 14 year old girl--once that part was ignored, the rest of the book wasn't half bad). Anyway, that's not really the point of this post.

I HATE it when the cover of a book isn't proper to the story. I mean, come on--don't the artists read the books? Or maybe even meet with the author to know what to do for the cover?!? For instance, the book I'm reading now has a girl sitting on the guys lap while in a rocking chair with a dog at their feet. Fine. The chair has a big part of this book. The problem? A: the chair isn't described as painted white in the book. In fact, it's described as "honey-colored tiger maple"--very distinctive. And B: the dog is supposed to be a husky mutt--a gray and white husky mutt, not the red irish setter or whatever they stuck on the cover. Really?!?

Now, I don't always complain about inaccurate book covers. For example, the Dresden Files. I mean, the guy very rarely wears a hat, and when he does, it's a baseball cap. But, oftentimes on the cover of a book (actually, I want to say that the first time we see Dresden himself on the cover is like 7 books into the series) he's wearing what I guess is called a fedora. I think it works perfectly. I guess it's because when you read the first few books Dresden doesn't come across as that...I don't know...dark, or ruggedly handsome, or whatever. I always picture him as a nerdy looking guy--tall, skinny, funny looking face. The hat helps enforce the idea that he's not supposed to be that bad to look at. I think the hat works to give a visualization of the man who Dresden really is--without it he might look a lot more average...does that even make sense? Either way, the hat does a lot for the character, even if it's entirely fiction to the book-verse. I mean, I saw a fan picture of Dresden and Sue and he's not wearing the hat--he'd look a lot more bad-ass with the hat, and given the nature of the picture, that's saying something.

Edit: whoops...my bad. However, my dog skills are pretty good. That is an irish setter on the cover and she belongs to the guy. But then, where's her dog?!? And the rocking chair is still the wrong color.

Books, Books, and More Books

I read a LOT during the latter part of 2011. I'm not sure what caused it, but after I found goodreads.com, I read double my figured challenge (I said that I could read 20 books between September 1and December 31 and I read 40). I guess what really helped my numbers was finding a couple of vampire series that I love. The first isn't so much vampires, but everything supernatural (and by the way, awesome), and is The Dresden Files. It actually makes me sad that I didn't learn about this series until now, and I might not have read the first book so voraciously except that it was the weekend of Hurricane Irene (we had no power for 2.5 days) and I'd already read the two books I had--my dad was the first to order Dresden and  I stole it off his pile.

The truth is, I didn't read much during my four years of university--whenever I had free time I had a tall stack of mail to answer, so books took a step back in importance. 'Course, my mail pile is huge now anyway because I've been going on some serious reading binges. I guess I need to learn some amount of time-management, but maybe that's not a good thing. I don't think I'd write a good letter if I wasn't really in the mood to do so. But I digress.

The Dresden Files are amazing and if you love supernatural books, you've probably already read them and are waiting for the next one--I'm just late to the party. However, I'm sitting here enjoying Dead Beat with like 5 more books ahead of me to enjoy next while you are stuck counting down the days, so maybe I don't care that I'm behind ;-P.

The second vampire series is The Morganville Vampires which are very teeny, but I like the main character. She really grows up each book, which is very good. I wasn't a fan of the vampires that attacked the teen shelf for the past five years or so, but I guess I was just annoyed by Twilight (which I still think is a terrible role model for our girls--I liked a meme I read which compared Bella to Ginny Weasley--When Edward broke up with Bella to save her life, she went into a coma for 4 months then tried to kill herself to hear his voice; When Harry broke up with Ginny to save her life, she helped organize an army and kicked ass. Claire definitely is more of a Ginny than a Bella, though I read some very poor reviews of the first book that I want to discuss here:

First, on ratings/reviews in general: you should never trust the ratings on books in a series to tell you about the series as a whole. This is because many people will read the first book, hate it for one reason or another, rate it badly, and will never read the second. All subsequant books will probably be skewed high because only people who liked the first book will read the second. I also will take the time to comment on the rating system of Goodreads--I don't like it. You have the choice of five stars, but they're all skewed upwards. If you look at what they say a star is worth, one is I hated it, two is It's okay, three is I liked it, four is I loved it, five is It was amazing! (or something like that). I like systems where three is neutral--so then it would be the "okay" option. My ratings are all fives with the occasional four or three--it's not because I think they were all amazing on the lines of Catch 22, but because when I made three just okay, a five is I really liked it.

Secondly, the frist book in Morganville Vampires does take a lot of removal from reality to believe and enjoy. I will admit that when I read a lot of the reviews after reading the book, I realized that I'd allowed a lot of plot "twinges" which I normally wouldn't. But I'm glad that I did because the later books explain better why it wasn't possible for Claire to call the police or her parents. Maybe Rachel Caine didn't even think twice about these problems when she wrote Glass Houses, but she fixed them after complaints were made, I don't really care. All I'm saying is that you should probably read the first 3 books as though they were the same book. Will I say that Rachel Caine is writing a soap opera so that people have to buy the next book immediatly after it's written? Hell's Yes. Does it make it a terrible series? No.

Let's see, what else have I read? I don't want to just run down my list of books from Goodreads--that's cheating and not very entertaining. Oh, I started Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series (he's the guy who wrote Dresden  for those not in the know). I think it's okay--but it gets such a "low" rating from me not because it's not a great series, but because I"m not a fan of the way it's written. The characters are great, the plot is great, everything is great--I just hate books which have 3 or 4 different stories running around because the main characters are all in different places. Most of the Star Wars books do this, which is why I've only read the teen books (where the twins learn to use their powers) and The Courtship of Princess Leia. I want one or two main characters and when they're apart, only one gets to live the story in "live time"--the other people must fill in the rest of us about their activities.

Oh, I read a pair of hilarious teen books based on the premise of the only 'fair' godmother. In fact that's the name of the first book My Fair Godmother. A high school aged girl whose life apparently sucks (according to her) gets help from her Godmother, who is trying to get into Fairy Godmother University by doing some extra credit work--which she kinda sucks at. But if ever there was a story that accurately fits the trope Hilarity Ensues, this is it. They're the literal re-working of fairy tales (the girl gets sent back into the past to be Cinderella and realizes what a crummy gig it is) and I think they are just the books to hand to any teenage girl who thinks her life is crummy--she'll quickly learn that it can, in fact, get worse. I'm excited because the second book in the "series" hinted that there will be a third attempt for Chrissy to do her extra credit in a way that gets her into the University--yay!

I also started reading The Princess Diaries series. I'm not generally a fan of the "diary" way of writing a book, but it works. I'm currently trying to read the sequel to Wolf Tower and it's annoying me. I guess it's because it's too close to how I'd write a diary--I'd start out alluding to terrible things that are actually important before bothering to talk about the mundane things that led up to the ordeal. The Princess Diariesi doesn't do it that way, and now that I think about it, Beka Cooper doesn't either. So maybe I don't have a problem with the diary, just when it tries to build suspense by leaving too many questions open too soon?

I guess that's enough of a general overview to give. Maybe I'll do a better job of updating now, but who knows.

From "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb

"Tell this to King Shrewd. Our population grows, but there is a limit to our arable soil. Wild game will only feed so many. Comes a time when a country must open itself to trade, especially so rocky and mountainous a country as mine. You have heard, perhaps, that the Jhaampe way is that the ruler is the servant of his people? Well, I serve them in this wise. I marry my beloved younger sister away, in the hopes of winning grain and trade routes and lowland goods for my people, and grazing rights in the cold part of the year when our pastures are under snow. For this, too, I am willing to give you timbers, the great straight timbers that Verity will need to build his warships. Our mountains grow white oak such as you have never seen. This is a thing my father would refuse. He has the old feelings about the cutting of live trees, And like Regal, he sees your coast as a liability, your ocean as a great barrier. But I see it as your father did--a wide road that leads in all directions, and your coast as our access to it. And I see no offense in using trees uprooted by the annual floods and windstorms."

excellent quote, I think.

Grammar Police

Everyone knows when the grammar police show up on a site. I'm sure icanhascheeseburger.com gets such a visitor frequently enough.

Well, I'm writing a paper for my English history to 1688 course (we've been given an original document that we must bring into the context of the other books we've been assigned to read for the course) and it hasn't been "translated" into modern English at all. It's from c. 1625 England about the colony of Jamestown.

So, I guess my real point for this post is my frustration that it's taking me 5+ minutes to read a single page because I must understand just what is being talked about while suffering through the different spellings, lack of punctuation, and just the general other-worldliness of the language. Where are my grammar police?!?!? [wahhahaha--why am I history major?!??!]

Here's the link to the document (pg. 259; but we didn't get the book, so we don't get that handy introduction that books.google does--cheeky professor I have) and here's the link to the book we're relating it to.

Here's a copy I just found of the original which has at least been transcribed into a modern font--but I actually think that it makes it harder to read (click the link to read it).

Bones of Contention: The Repatriation of Native American Human Remains

I wonder why I keep getting surprised by the ignorance of humanity--past, present, and future.

Here's an essay that I had to read for a class this semester. It's about the practice of Indian bone collection and how it's history relates to getting the bones back to the Indian tribes.

Read chapter 22: