this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SIWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SIXTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your 2020 reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 25: WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED, WHAT WE WILL FORGET, WHAT WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FORGET - EUGENE LIM
When the tendrils of human society retreat from you so that you are no longer within the warmth of the tribe’s embrace but also no longer ensnared within the mesh of its netting—you can get a little kooky.
familial disharmony, the disconnect between the haves and the have nots, and a lot of looking-inward and Taking Stock of the past few years. in short, a perfect christmas story by a man who is occasionally my boss! read his most recent book Search History, which i loved and will hopefully even review sometime soon. but not when i'm full of xmas spirit(s)—it deserves better than the drunken groping (for words) i can offer it right now. my fingers are shlurring. back to the nibblies and libations!
i have been ENMESHED in a workthing that has kept me from this unpaid reviewing thing for a while but i am taking the evening off froNOW AVAILABLE!!!!
i have been ENMESHED in a workthing that has kept me from this unpaid reviewing thing for a while but i am taking the evening off from it because if i don't, i am going to ponch everything i see and my still-healing sprained wrist isn't up to that kind of mayhem yet so here i am with some pisco and ginger beer and since this book comes out tomorrow, might as well see if anyone still cares what i think about books.
hello to the anyones/are you only in my mind?
oddly enough, the last dbr i wrote was for An Anonymous Girlso i guess these authors make me want to drink?
so this is the fourth book i have read by the voltron of gh/sp and while i really enjoyed The Wife Between Us, after that it was a bit of a diminishing returns sitch - they were closer to the FINE side of the three star mattress than the LIKED IT side. this one though, this planted itself on the like side enough for me to even round up because i don't even care and have you seen the world lately?
it's a really good time for an escape, and who doesn't love/need a one-day mystery read, all soapy with infidelity and seeeecrets and threats from all directions?
and okay yeah - laura dave's blurb said i would never see the twist coming and i did, but sometimes quantity is just as good as quality because here there are a million red herrings and twists and everybody's lowkey shady to throw the reader off the track and those of us who've been around the book block a time or two will figure almost all of it out (especially when you have the opportunity to read the whole thing in one day so the details are still sharp in the mind and haven't been dulled by life's rich pageant of food and sleep and stress) but for me, even though i don't go out of my way to actively try to figure out who did what in the where, should i happen to have a detail ignite something in my mind that causes me to suspect a thing that turns out to be true, this does not diminish my enjoyment or make me think the writers are bad or that i am clever because neither of those things is true.
it's still fun to read these goofy psych suspense books where all the characters are dialed up to 10 on the drama scale and married couples are so full of secrets.
i do have a baseline appreciation for the idea of a therapist who lost their license because of their UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS but still doing the same work as a 'consultant,' counseling folks with all the training but none of the pesky rules or oversight - nothing to rein her in AND THE TAGLINE IS: when 'do no harm' becomes 'do what thou wilt,' that's when the fun freaking starts.
needs work. needs more lime juice.
anyhoo, i would love for her to be a recurring character for this authorteam. it was a terrifically fun read and avery chambers - you are a much more effective as a loose cannon without a leash. and your little dog too! <--- big hearts to marshmallowy pitty rescue dog romeo.
a man and his elderly aunt enter a haunted house to see ghosts. they see ghosts. they are scared. they leave the house. the end.
that’s pretty much thea man and his elderly aunt enter a haunted house to see ghosts. they see ghosts. they are scared. they leave the house. the end.
that’s pretty much the meat of the story - there’s a lot of dry ice packed around that meat for atmosphere; doing whatever it's called that makes dry ice do that rock and roll thing
[image]
WHOOOOSH!
but atmosphere, schmatmosphere, right? we want the ghosties! other than that - the lack of scary ghosties - i suppose it’s a fine story of buyer’s remorse - to go from giddy excitement, from *thinking* one wants to see a ghost; professing the desire to see a ghost, taking steps towards seeing a ghost:
”I’ve got the keys,” she announced in a delighted, yet half awesome voice. “Got them till Monday!”
“The keys of the bathing-machine, or—?” he asked innocently, looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity.
“Neither,” she whispered. “I’ve got the keys of the haunted house in the square— and I’m going there tonight.”
and then, once inside the haunted house and confronted with ghosts re-enacting their paranormal crime scenes, to regret having wanted to see them in the first place because OH THE TERROR! which is silly, since these ghosts are truly just doing their own thing, not actively threatening our fella and his aunt, engaging less with them than the spirits in disney’s haunted mansion ride.
i love seth, i love the idea of these stories, and i friggin’ love the way they look altogether-like, but i haven’t had my dress blown up by any of them yet, and i have been DRINKING.
you'd think that would make me more easily influenced, but alas - i am only more resistant to this book's supposed charms. #notacheapdate #ittakesmorethanonedrinktogreasemywheels
mission statement copied from my review for One Who Saw
this holiday season, i am going to read through 'seth's christmas ghost stories' line on biblioasis, and i encourage you to do the same. the books are so cute and tiny, you can stuff someone's stocking or dreidel with 'em! the cover art and interior illustrations are by seth, and they are seasonally spoooooky, blending the spirit of halloween with christmas cheer the way nature, and jack skellington, intended.
fulfilling my 2020 goal to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback.fulfilling my 2020 goal to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback.
i have not written a drunk book review in a long time, because i barely ever drink anymore, but what else are you gonna do during quarantine, yeah? bring on ONE HUNDRED BEERS OF SOLITUDE!!!
mmkay, so this is the third book i have read from these two authors and i have two things to say about ‘em:
ONE
all of their books, despite differences in overall quality, plausibility, and predictability, have been consistently page-turnery and have sucked me in like vanilla pudding-quicksand.
TWO
BECAUSE they are such COMPULSIVELY READABLE books perfect for self-care world-ignoring single-sitting GORGING sessions, i do NOT need to be buying these puppies in hardcover. and i’ll lay off the shouting, sorry.
i had ARCs of The Wife Between Us and You Are Not Alone, but i bought this one with my own 25+ dollars of money and that is a SILLY amount of money for someone with so little money to pay for a few hours’ worth of diversion.
**related side note to book world: hire me for $$$! i have excellent readers’ advisory training/book concierge skills, i am almost always sober, i’m great with book matches, and i can curate book lists like these i did for free!**
i have also written thousands of reviews on here for free, and someday i should take a hard look at these choices, but for now i’ll get back to this free review.
this book is FINE. like all of their books, it’s not trashy, but it’s not lasting, either—it can easily be read in a day, quarantine or no quarantine, there are some twists that land and and some that don’t, and it doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but it’s a solidly enjoyable read.
as far as their oeuvre, they all have pros and cons, but they all three legitimately sucked me in. here’s what’s up—i have not had much in the way of concentration lately—i try to read and my mind wanders, i flit from task to task, i look at stuff online that makes me feel bad and scared, etc, but i read this one during full-on NY pause and i read You Are Not Alone when much of NYC was paused but i was still commuting into the city for my retail job and fretting about what that meant for me and my health, and both books hooked me and kept me invested and they were a comforting distraction-balm from everything. even though i had intellectual problems with both of them, they were exactly what i needed. and that hasn’t been true of OTHER similarly styled books i’ve read during all of this. so i know that whatever they write next, i can count on it to be a sink-into-it diversion, and that’s no small compliment—those are necessary and—i am finding—not as common as you’d think.
of the three, this is probably my least-fave, but not a dislike. things that might annoy you in this book—the chapters skip between jessica’s and dr. shields’ POV, and dr. shields, for some reason, is fond both of second person AND passive voice, so all of her chapters will have interior parts that are addressed to “you,” meaning jessica, but also action parts recounted awkwardly, where everything is He is welcomed inside…A hand is placed on his arm. He is offered a warm drink. which would be fine if the whole thing were written like detached case notes, but then there’ll be swathes of faithfully rendered dialogue and it clangs a bit, her transcribing naturally flowing dialogue and offsetting it with stilted passive voice all wrapped up in a cocoon of you.<-“cocoon of you” should be the name of a jonathan carroll short story. unrelated — someone told me that your quarantine name is the last thing you ate plus your high school mascot and i am chocolate-covered marshmallow egg lion. which also sounds like a wuzzle.
the crux <— is that the right word? i don’t think it is but it’ll do, of this book is basically: wealthy asshole toys with woman struggling to make ends meet in a sort of ethical “dance for me, pauper!” role. which, being a struggler, is both shitty to read about but also food for thought and YES, if no one wants to hire me for my ample book-related skills, i’ll be the jessica in ur transactional relationship please and thank you.
i don’t know if any of this has been the least bit helpful or coherent, but what i have learned is that these authors fill a very specific need in my reading life, so—gratitude, but next time i will pray for an arc, and if that doesn’t manifest, i will either be a patient chocolate-covered marshmallow egg lion and wait for the paperback release, or be even smarter and thriftier and use my library card.
i’m sorry i wrote so many words and none of them were useful.
this is one of the titles on the long list of "karen's overdue reviews," but honestly - this book is so bananas, the only way i can do it any justice this is one of the titles on the long list of "karen's overdue reviews," but honestly - this book is so bananas, the only way i can do it any justice is to do it drunk, so i'm gonna have to dbr this. i will get to work on the d part tonight and see if the r surfaces....more
I sigh. Why not? What do I have to lose? It's not like the Nightmare Man is real or anything.
i did not anticipate th"So you'll do it?" Amanda asks me.
I sigh. Why not? What do I have to lose? It's not like the Nightmare Man is real or anything.
i did not anticipate that this would be a drunken book review, but shit happened, and now i am drunk, and now we're off!!! all the usual warnings about the fact that i intend to go over the entire plot, so if you do not want this story spoiled for you, do not read this review.
so here we go - the nightmare man!!! the nightmare man can be summoned following a really complicated set of rules. why would you want to summon him?? so you can boast about it on the internet, duh! amanda is a believer, kelly is a skeptic, but since amanda is too much of a fraidy-cat to summon him, it is up to kelly to show her how wrong she is.
here are the rules (asterisks mine):
THE MIDNIGHT GAME
At 11:11 you may begin prepping for the ritual - not before then, not after.
Gather all of your supplies into the room you'll be playing the game in. Make sure you choose an open room with no doors. Doors are the gateway, and your boundaries. Whatever you do, do not open any doors in your house*, or go up/down any stairs.
Cover any windows so that they block out all possible light (natural or not).
Cut three locks of hair** and place it in the ash tray.
Write your name three times on a small rectangular piece of paper. Crumble it and put it in the ash tray.
Wait.
At 12pm***, the game will begin.
Turn off all of the lights in your house.
Take your candle, and your ashtray**** to your front door and place both directly in front of your door*****. Pierce any finger on your right hand with the needle****** and allow one drop of blood to drip over the paper and your hair*******. Light the candle and use that to light the contents of the ashtray on fire.
Leave the candle burning bright next to the ashes on your door step. If the candle burns out before you enter, do NOT relight it - end the game, leave the house, and try another night. DO NOT ENTER THE HOUSE IF THIS HAPPENS.
Knock three times on your own door. Wait for a moment, then step inside, closing the door behind you.
You have now opened the portal to invite the Nightmare Man in.
Keep nothing on your person besides your cell phone and salt********. You may use your cell phone for light only*********. Do NOT, under any circumstance, contact anyone while the game is still going. Do not call or text ANYONE - you will be putting them in grave danger. The only contact you can have is with your witness, who you must instruct to call you at exactly 3:30 PM**********, - not after and definitely not before. Then have them blow out the candle, and enter the house. This is the only way to portal can officially close.
Do not, under any circumstances, leave the house until the portal is closed.
You may now wait in your designated space for the Nightmare Man to arrive - we highly suggest you keep a wall to your back.
okay, wow, so we have a lot to cover here.
* so, i'm pretty confused about this "open room with no doors" business. this doesn't mean no doorways, right? just no doors that can be slammed?? like so this is okay:
[image]
but this would be a no:
[image]
because otherwise, all i can think of is some weird concrete bunker that you enter through a window. which is a rare architectural design. and what about windows?? windows are kosher here? i mean, except for the covering up. but they can be open??
** what exactly does constitute "a lock" of hair?? because i always thought a lock of hair was an amount sufficient enough to be crammed into some victorian mourning locket, so three is a significant amount and pretty demanding from some specter. we will come back to this point TWO more times in this review.
*** so, um… noon?? an unorthodox time to summon a hell demon, but now i understand why the windows needed to be covered - you don't want the noise of all the neighborhood kids running after the ice cream truck ruining your fun demon time.
**** oh, so the third time you use it you realize that "ashtray" is a compound word?? and don't bother to correct it the first two times? lazy monsterporn writer.
***** this is when it would have been helpful to indicate that you are meant to be outside your door at this point. sloppy instructions are how people get raped and killed by demons.
****** this is the first mention of a needle. as any cookbook/crafting/home improvement author will tell you - having a list of "necessary ingredients/supplies at the BEGINNING of the instructions would be really helpful. especially in a case like this, where everything seems so delicately balances and the consequences of flubbing the steps are more serious than a burnt casserole.
******* okay, so this is when the whole "how big is a lock of hair" question resurfaces. because a single drop of blood is meant to drip over this paper AND three locks of hair?? that seems unlikely.
******** seven?? are we at seven asterisks now?? i am bad at math. okay - so this is also unclear to me. does this mean in your pockets? or on your body?? if you wear glasses, do those need to be removed? wedding rings, invisaligns, a jaunty cap??? where is the line drawn??
********* how do the keepers of the nightmare man even know about cell phones?? so this is like some modern day, tech-savvy demon and not some ancient evil?? it's somehow less scary this way.
********** again - in the afternoon. a 5 year old could have set you straight on this.
phew! that took a lot out of me!! and i have to make dinner before project runway, so let's call this part one of a monsterporn review, and i will finish it up next chance i get, but i do not guarantee i will still be drunk. much.
okay, here i am to finish this off, unfortunately for all of us, i am sober.
so!! we are all clear on the rules, and now it is time for amanda and kelly to have their last-minute conversation about "is it a good idea to summon demons or whatever." kelly doesn't believe in this shit, so she's very boastful:
"Hey, don't worry about me." I raise my fists and say, "I'm going to be fine, an if any spirits come at me I can take em."
FOOOOOOREshadowing!!!
amanda is not reassured, even though this was pretty much her idea. way to get cold feet, amanda!
"Didn't you read the accounts I showed you online? One girl woke up with scratches all over her back, and another - well he wasn't hurt but something got in him. Like, in his mind," Amanda said. She looked shaken to the core.
well, spoiler alert, it's not kelly's mind amanda should be so concerned about the monster getting into, if you know what i mean…
but there wouldn't be a story if they didn't go through with it, so let's see what happens!
I glance down at my cell phone - it's now two hours into the game and absolutely nothing has happen. Like I figured. We set up everything perfectly - the candle is burning bright outside my door with Amanda parked across the street, keeping an eye on the house. If anything had happened, like the candle blowing out, she would have told me.
okay, wait - according to the RULES - those confusing and convoluted RULES, how can amanda call her if the candle burns out if The only contact you can have is with your witness, who you must instruct to call you at exactly 3:30 PM, - not after and definitely not before??? does this only apply to outgoing calls?? again, this whole inclusion of cellphones in the instructions seems less mystical than it should.
even kelly is fed up with these rules:
I promised Amanda I'd follow the rules, but the rules are just so fucking boring.
and this is how she gets into trouble.
I pick up my smart phone and start browsing through my emails, which are mainly spam and ads…
that sentence made me so sad. kelly, why don't you have any friends???
well, you're about to make a really good friend right now because you have disobeyed!!!!
it is a malevolent shadow!! and it spooks her! and, not learning from her errors, she continues to flagrantly disregard that whole rule thing and runs upstairs:
I know the rules said not to do this, but fuck the rules.
fuck the rules, indeed!
but even though she has already fooled around on the internet and checked her sad impersonal inbox (heh - inbox) and run up the stairs, breaking rules left and right, she holds herself back from breaking another rule
my thumb hovers over the buttons and I stop myself - shit, I can't do anything or call anyone until 3:30, and it's barely even 3am.
oh, NOW it's "am." again - going back and editing your monsterporn is part of the job.
and NOW you follow the rules. this is kind of the one you want to disobey - when the monster is all up in your personal space and you might need a little outside help.
oh, and you want to know what this nightmare man looks like, do you?? here you go:
I watch as the shadow takes on the a familiar, human form - but it's anything but human. Right before my eyes, it materializes - I watch in horror as it forms long twisted legs with hoof like feet, muscular, vein covered arms with long dark claws. It's body is huge - it must be at least 7 feet tall with a broad chest. And that face - that hollow, sunken face, with nothingness for eyes. It's barely more than skull, with sharp teeth bared. That face will be seared into my consciousness until I die.
And then I quickly realize that I might die tonight.
there ya go!! the nightmare man!
so she has freaked out and runs into a room (upstairs!!) and barricaded the door, but - pfffft - the nightmare man is STRONG! and BOOM - breaks down the door and grabs her, holding her up in the air with her back pressed against the wall. (because HE follows the rules for her)
she begs for her life, and promises she will do anything if he will spare her.
and the nightmare man accepts her offer
"Remove," it hisses, giving my bra a snap.
he continues his hissed demands for her disrobing and explored her with his claws.
Dear God, please don't put that in there!
oh, but again - that wouldn't be much of a story, would it??
so he totally does. and then he grabs her by her ankles and holds her upside-down with her legs wide apart and begins to explore her with his forked tongue.
An inexplicable moan escapes my throat as I feel it continue to worm and roll inside me.This can't be right - why does it feel so fucking good?
well, kelly, allow me to teach you a little bit about the female anatomy: when pressure is applied to the clitoris (located above the vagina opening), it creates a pleasurable sensation because of a bundle of sensitive nerves. THAT is why it feels so fucking good.
[image]
also, it looks like a penguin
[image]
My body arches as it slivers out of me…
slivers??? ouch!
and then he throws her on the ground and puts his tongue in her mouth, then sits her up and put something else in her mouth. and it's not a thermometer!!!!
there is some squirting, which is a really gross word, but he's still ready for more!
he plops her on her hands and knees and continues to make love to her as only a nightmare man can. and poor kelly endures his attentions
You can do this. You can do this, I tell myself. There isn't long to go before this wretched night is over and I'm free of this creature.
and haven't we all been there, ladies??
and then it reads like a game of diabolical sex-twister, which i will hide beneath spoiler-tags for the sake of both the children and the grammarians:
while she is on fours,
(view spoiler)[
The demon angles itself so that it's hoof-like foot is pressed tightly against my head, pinning me to the ground as it rams me hard with it's cock. My nerves stand on end at the touch of it's tongue running over my back and down between my teeth, slithering between my cheeks and teasing the perimeter of my asshole. I grip the carpet, gasping in air at the sensation of it's fork tongue forcing it's way inside, filling both my holes. (hide spoiler)]
i will allow that to sink in.
are you picturing this?? this seems awkward, no? with where the feet are and how that affects the … motion of the ocean, and that tongue joining the party while that room is already occupied??? it is very complicated, demon sex….
but that "fork tongue"
[image]
hot.
aaaand that's the story.
oh, but it's not!! because there is a funny trick played by the demon straight out of the gremlins playbook
[image]
which causes kelly to answer her ringing phone three minutes before the approved time. (which is here stated as "am," even though the rules specifically say pm, so who knows if it would even have mattered, since it was well before 3:30 pm)
oh, and it might not have been a gremlins trick, actually - because kelly does think - Shit, why didn't we think to synchronize our phones?! so it might have been human error and not demon tomfoolery, but then i wouldn't have gotten a chance to use that gremlins GIF, so let's just roll with it.
and what do you think happened because of this early call??
kelly runs outside to amanda's car and - OH MY GOD SHE IS GONE!!!
with three long blonde hairs placed strategically across the street. and this is where the second instance of the "what is a lock of hair" question resurfaces. (you thought i forgot, didn't you? i never forget. that is my curse.) my conclusion is that she meant "strands" of hair and not "locks" of hair in the instructions. so if you are going to summon the demon yourself for sexxy funtimes, i think you should just use strands, because the demon isn't gonna want some chick with raggedy hair, and no one has drops of blood that huge.
a fun game i played, which i assure you, is less blucky than the midnight game, is "count the misused apostrophes!"
the tally:
100 instances of correctly-used apostrophes. good for you!! they were mostly in words like "can't" and "don't."
37 instances of incorrectly-used apostrophes. it's and its. they are different words.
because this kind of made my head explode:
(view spoiler)[
The demon wraps it's strong claw tight around my neck and brings me to a sitting position. It stands over me, it's slick cock jutting out from between it's legs like a sword. The creature brings it's member to my lips and I part them, allowing it entrance.(hide spoiler)]
ta-DAAAAAAA!! another fine monsterporn read and reviewed....more
okay, here's the thing. i MIGHT be a little kertrunken right now, so i don't know what's going to happen as far as this review goes.
this is a DBR, with drunken illustrations, which is appropriate, since i was more or less exhausted/distracted the whole time i was reading this book, and writing anything intelligent would just be a sham. it is unfortunate, since mykle hansen deserves better, but BEA hit me harder than i thought it would, and this book was the innocent victim of my exhaustion, and i probably didn't do it any favors reading it in fits and starts as i did.
but i drawed some drunken pictures for now, and i will probably make this review better when i get more energy and less liquor.
this is how sleepy i was last week, when i should have been devoting all my energy to reading this book
[image]
and here are pictures that touch on some of the key elements of this book:
if that's not enough to get you to read this, i don't know what's wrong with you, but i will try to entice you further when sober.
twss??
wow, i suck.
yeah, twss.
okay, so i have decided that drawing-reviews are FUN, so i am going to add more of them to this review whenever i feel like it, because there are plenty of scenes in this book just begging for illustrations. and they pretty much speak for themselves. so:
in this book, a lady has sex with a bunch of werewolves.
oh, dear. that's pretty lazy, right? and i know you people YOUUUU PEEEEOPLE expect more from min this book, a lady has sex with a bunch of werewolves.
oh, dear. that's pretty lazy, right? and i know you people YOUUUU PEEEEOPLE expect more from me with my monsterporn reviews, but FULL DISCLOSURE - there was an unexpected wine party at work, and i am all sorts of intoxicated, so no one knows what will come out of my mouth at this point. but i guarantee you it will not be anything that came out of a werewolf's body.
and i am not too drunk to know that taking a nighttime "shortcut" through central park in a tight little skirt and stiletto heels is a stupid-ass idea. and not only because of the sexxiness of such an outfit in a part of town that is pretty much dead after-hours, but wearing stiletto heels in a park is a dumb-ass idea no matter what. stiletto heels are for runways, bondage clubs, and parties. carry some walking shoes in your bag. city living 101.
and if "central park" is in any way shortcut to you - i.e. - you live ANYWHERE NEAR CENTRAL PARK, you can afford a fucking cab. cabs are god's gift to drunk chicks in uncomfortable shoes. even if you are a lightweight three-pinot drunk like lucy. i drank way more than that tonight, and i was wearing sensible shoes, and survived the subway 100% unmolested. yay, me!
oh, and this?
Ahead, the trail led through a dark arch beneath one of Central Park's stone bridges. The tunnel beneath was only twenty feet long, but it looked like the doorway to hell despite the weak overhead bulbs illuminating the old, gray stonework.
oh my god, have you never watched SVU?? those are all rape bridges. and really easy to just WALK AROUND, even in stilettos. GO THE FUCK AROUND!
[image]
but whatever - lucy decides to waltz under rape bridge through rape tunnel and a homeless fellow accosts her and says, "Woo, heya good lookin'…Hey, can you spare a dollar? I need somethin' to drink… and some pussy."
which is apparently how much pussy costs to men living under a bridge.
but lucy doesn't add it all up, and with a tear rolling down her cheek, says "I don't have any money, just leave me alone."
and the homeless wino speaks very slowly to the three-pinot girl and tries to make her understand that the pussy he is referring to is her own when WHAMMO!!! something barrels into the wino and bowls him off the path into THE DARKNESS.
and there are noises. wet tearing noises.
and then lucy sees a pair of yellow eyes…at the far end of the tunnel, gleaming in the darkness beyond the light bulb's reach. A wolf's eyes.
because lucy is a fucking expert in veterinary opthalmology all of a sudden.
and just a drunken interjection. you know what stilettos are good for, besides making the line of a woman's leg unbelievably sexy? stabbing motherfuckers in the eyes. just a free tip for you ladies who insist on walking through poorly lit giant urban parks after hours in party clothes. jeez louise.
BUT SO ANYWAYS
so she sees three wolves, and suddenly they turn into men. naked men. and this is not alarming to her, because WHY ON EARTH WOULD IT BE?
she is perplexed, sure, and thinks that someone must have slipped some shrooms in my pinot noir which is idiotic, because nasty-tasting sediment and all, but she's not freaking out enough, IMHO, probably because this nude stranger has a really big penis. and is a freaking werewolf. and lucy has not really shown herself to be particularly bright.
soooooooo as a "hey, thanks" for rescuing her from being lewdly propositioned by a smelly old wino, she has the intercourse with three werewolves. which doesn't seem like a good deal to me, but i am someone who makes smart decisions, so maybe this is just dummy math or something.
intercourse ensues.
there is biting.
many entrances are explored.
she feels an overwhelming urge to pee.
the werewolves utter pillow talk like "Room for one more?"
(spoiler alert: there is room for one more)
and this:
the three werewolves breathing grew labored and heavy until Lucy realized they were growling, deep, hungry rumbles that made her think of a snarling pack tearing apart an elk.
Was she the elk?
you are worse than an elk. you are a dope.
but it's cool, because she is totally enjoying having the intercourse with three half-beast strangers who have just murdered someone in front of her. enough to desperately ask, "Will I see you again?"
AND THEY TOTALLY BLOW HER OFF BECAUSE WEREWOLVES DON'T LIKE NEEDY CHICKS.
wow.
not sure what the takeaway message from this is meant to be, but that's all i have in terms of a response.
if you are interested in any of the other fine reviews of this author's work i have written (HUMOR A DRUNK CHICK!), here you go:
seriously??? will mine be the first review of this on goodreads?? that is a lot of pressure.
here's a funny confession: for some reason, i didn't clocseriously??? will mine be the first review of this on goodreads?? that is a lot of pressure.
here's a funny confession: for some reason, i didn't clock that this was a book of short stories, even though antonya nelson pretty much writes short stories exclusively, and when i got to the second piece in the collection, i was trying to wrap my head around "and who are these characters and how do they relate to the characters in the first chapter?"
silly goose.
also silly of me is that i thought i had read many of her books before, but it turns out i had only read one: Nothing Right, and begrudgingly at that. correction: begrudgingly at first, but then blown away. (also, how cute is it that i used to win books through the firstreads program??) but in my head, i had convinced myself that i had read, and loved, many of her books. all of this is to preface the confession that i liked this book a bunch, but i didn't love it-love it as much as the other one i read.
i am a latecomer to the appreciation of the short story as medium. i am also moderately intoxicated. so go easy on me.
i have never read alice munro. as a self-professed lover of canadian lit, this is a huge confession, and a huge oversight in my reading background. but in my head, i equate the style/subject matter of alice munro with that of antonya nelson. which is meant to be deeply complimentary. nelson is nowhere near as well-known, but i feel that she should be. and even though this particular set of stories didn't resonate with me the way my first experience with her did, that is not to say this isn't still a great collection.
antonya nelson writes stories for grown-ups. which, again, is meant to be complimentary. she doesn't waste time with stylistic fireworks or flashy quirks. she writes realistic, even sedate, stories with recognizable characters. they generally feature female protagonists, but the situations are universal and not specifically gendered: love, death, family, missed opportunities, settling… in this collection, there are a lot of may-december relationships and the familial baggage that accompanies such relationships in the form of children from previous marriages, resentful and exhausted parents, and the emotional responsibilities to those not of blood ties, but of this new iteration of the nuclear family. which is maybe why i didn't feel as connected to his collection as i did to the last one i read - just a lack of relatability from my particular vantage point.
but there's still a lot to celebrate here. my very favorite was the last story - more of a novella - in which a fractured family of three (surviving) siblings are faced with the situation of putting their father in a home while also having to contend with their own aimlessness and various personal failures. lots of meat in that story, and some deeply touching scenes.
so! we are going to call this a 3.5 and we are going to say that one or more of you should pick up an antonya nelson book and tell me what you think and we can try to make her as well-known as alice munro, who i will read. someday.
i reviewed this book almost exactly one year ago. and today, i referenced it after someone was MEAN to GREG on a similarly-themed book review. so i ami reviewed this book almost exactly one year ago. and today, i referenced it after someone was MEAN to GREG on a similarly-themed book review. so i am floating the review to include a link to greg's review. i am not drunk right now. but feel free to go tell greg how wrong he is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
this is what i look like when i am drunk:
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and this is how i review when i am drunk:
dear goodreaders:
it has come to my attention that there are over one million books being offered on nook for free. FOR FREE! ONE MILLION!
and keeping in mind the success of self-published/fanfic masterpieces like Fifty Shades of Grey, Angelfall, and Wool, i have taken it upon myself to find the Next Big Thing amongst these titles.
therefore, i will be reading as many of these as i can, to uncover the hidden gems, and passing along my findings to you. yes, you!!
will they all be awesome? unlikely. am i going to pick most of them just because their covers or titles make me laugh? very likely, indeed.
this is the sixteenth book in the project.
okay, so i am breaking my "january is lady month" streak* to review this book because 1) i am wicked drunk and read this on the train home because i knew i wouldn't be able to focus on the book i was actually reading and 1a) i didn't want to review the megan abbott book in this condition because she deserves better and 1b) while it would be perfectly acceptable to review The Horny Games Trilogy drunk, it was a present, and i feel like presents deserve a sober review. these are my etiquettes.
so this book is about a dude who sits next to a girl on the train and although he tries to be a good passenger, she is wicked hot and he can't help but notice how she keeps jutting her chest out and bending over so she's showing her red thong and before he knows it, he is totally having sex with her in his seat while the couple across from them becomes inspired by them and starts having sex in their seats and the lady who takes the tickets is having sex with like two dudes and it is a fucking SEX TRAIN!!! power of suggestion and all. and there are fluids flying everywhere and it is probably really distracting for the people who are just on the train to go from one place to another and are just TRYING TO READ THEIR BOOKS AND NOT GET HIT WITH ALL THE FLYING JIZZ AND HPV. but whatever. sometimes you are traveling and your train turns into a sex train #firstworldproblem yadda yadda.
and so i read this on the train and no one had sex near me or on me or with me, and i cannot tell you how grateful i was for that, because despite what hollywood would have you believe, the 7 train is not known for its hotness, unless you are turned on by those medical masks that elderly asian women wear. i have never seen anyone having sex on it, not ever.
also, i am probably too kertrunken to be on the computer right now, so scott rex, if you feel i am being a bully by not giving your book a review with all of my critical faculties intact, feel free to report me to that site that is so fucking desperate for content that they equate "i don't like this book" with "this author should die a thousand deaths."
that's all i got. i'm sorry this wasn't a fun drunk book report - just nonsense rambling. but i am such a bully i don't even have to apologize. SEX TRAIN!
whatever.
greg took pictures of me drunk tonight. i assume they are adorable and he will add them to the thread. me, i'm going to go lie down until the spinning stops. FREE WINE FTW!
*with the one exception of mile mullin, explained in its review, and totally justified.
this is a collection of 5 short erotic pieces that have exactly zero monsters in them*. so, why did i read it, you ask?? because lance is a good guy, this is a collection of 5 short erotic pieces that have exactly zero monsters in them*. so, why did i read it, you ask?? because lance is a good guy, and even though he knows i only read erotica to laugh at it and then write snarky reviews, he had the balls to ask me to review it anyway. and i totally paid for my copy, so there isn't going to be any of that guilt over throwing someone's gift in the toilet and flushing wicked hard.
but honestly, if you are a fan of the erotic genre, this is actually something you should read. there is intercourse, there is variety in set pieces and kinds of intercourse, and while i didn't want to draw the blinds and cultivate my own garden while reading it, neither did i feel embarrassed by all the usual descriptions of those weird sticky contortions that we fortunately tune out the fact that they are so weird and sticky when we are actually engaged in them, but when we (i) read about, they are a kind of alienating reminder.
these are also published individually, and i briefly considered reviewing them separately, considering that i am falling behind in my reading challenge due to long exhausting workweeks, but having been grouchy about the lack of honor and nobility polluting the site lately, i figured i would not stoop to cheap and easy fixes for the problems i am facing. there are ways to address one's problems and still respect oneself in the morning. but quick - back to the book. this is a book review.
the first story is a clever bit of erotic gymnastics. not the kind that two disturbingly fit people can get up to when the mood strikes, but, dare i say?, literary gymnastics. its summary:
A unique short story which is very sensual and erotic yet has absolutely no explicit descriptions of sexual acts. An extremely rare and exotic flower brings great pleasure to those who are lucky enough to find it in bloom.
hey, baby. R U happy to see me?
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now, i am no stranger to flower sex, but this one was different, and it delivers exactly what it promises, and i was impressed with both the premise and its execution.
the second piece is An African Massage. it is about a man who is in africa and goes to a masseuse. yup. but what the title doesn't tell you is that there is such a thing as an eyebrow fetish. i did not know this! but i also had not heard of "threading" until a few years ago, and i am honestly still unclear on what it is and why one would have it done, so i am really a terrible eyebrow-scholar. don't ask me any questions about eyebrows - there is nothing i think about less than eyebrows.
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Mary Had a Naval Virgin
* this one kinda sorta has a monster in it if you count an imaginary lady/ghostie from a nursery rhyme who has intercourse with young virgin boys and who is invisible to people who have lost their virginity and so makes for a weird tableau when she is being intercoursed upon by two young men at the same time while some non-virgin watches from a window. i'm not really sure i accept the nursery-rhyme connection here, but when it comes to erotica, there are so many other things i just don't accept that this objection just kinda slides off of me. yup.
there are no lambs in this, which is a shame, because the original is full of innuendo.
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Highland Roots
oh, like there is an erotic anthology anywhere that doesn't have a scottish tale in it, complete with a rugged man in a kilt who loooooves red pubic hair on girls. this one has lots of spanking, leather, motorcycles, genealogy, downsizing, and a picnic! and also this line, which is one of the few in this book that i couldn't help myself; i had to laugh at. sorry, lance!!
"I can't believe it! You have the pussy of my dreams! I've always fantasized about a woman's heavenly hole covered in lush red hair. You have an absolute forest! Wow, wow, WOW! Oh, Fiona! You are the woman of my dreams!"
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it's the multiple "wows" that kill me. not that i haven't received complimentary ejaculations from my scrapbook of lovers (GOLLY, KAREN!), but still. printed out, it's just so giggly.
On the Altar
hooded orgy!! dreams coming true!! giant black… altar! and also cock. giant black cock. arcane erotica!! this one was probably my least favorite. very messy, no precautions taken, reveling in the ingestion of stranger-fluid-splatter… kids, do NOT try this at home. no matter what your dreams tell you. get better dreams.
this is one of those books that people are going to have opinions about.and i look forward to people getting all angry and hysterical at me fohoo boy.
this is one of those books that people are going to have opinions about.and i look forward to people getting all angry and hysterical at me for liking it. for liking it a lot. because the subject matter is pretty ick, right? who is going to be all out and proud saying they liked a book about pedophilia if it doesn't come from the pen of nabokov? (hebephilia, sure, but still...) but it's a pretty accomplished book.
i mean, what does it set out to do? it sets out to get you in the head of a sexual predator. well, guess what? success!! you are in there but good.and it is decidedly uncomfortable.this is about "know thy enemy." and she does. i thought a.m. homes nailed the subject matter with The End of Alice, but this one just takes it one sticky foot further.
and i mean, shit, how many monsterotica books have i read now? it's not like icky sex is something i shy away from. and i read my monsterporn clinically, because i think they are funny, and the sex just sorta slides off my eyes. and that's what this is, only it's more horrifying than funny. i know it's completely different but it feels like the same level of transgression - people putting their genitals where they have no business being. i mean, really, why would you ever want to have sex with a teenage boy?? they are not sexy,and don't you have a better use for your three minutes??
so that's out of the way.
next point: is this just a lay-dee writing a backwards-Lolita? well, yes and no. that is definitely part of the novelty of this ...erm, novel, but it is more than that.
someone asked me what this book was about, and i said "pedophilia. it's about a female teacher who seduces her fourteen-year-old suitor."
and they said, "oh, that doesn't count."
i was intrigued, so i pressed it.
"what do you mean??"
"when you say 'a pedophile walks into a room,' and it turns out to be a woman, it's like 'what is this, the wnba??"
which cracked me up, but in a way, it kind of illuminates the way we deal with teenage sexuality.we still couch things in those antiquated terms of the slut and the player.little girls are cautioned that they are losing something or giving something up but with boys it is still dealt with in terms of conquest, of rite of passage, of coming of age. and what teenage boy wouldn't want to sleep with his ultra-hot teacher, given the opportunity? it's still criminal, but somehow less victim-y.
and, no, i do not have children nor do i deal with them in my day-to-day, but i watch svu, so i know what's what.
our popular literature is growing darker:The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,The Dinner,Gone Girl, and even Fifty Shades of Grey.this is the shit the world is made of, and our literature reflects it. the reality is that there are beautiful people with sick minds who might not get caught.literature, like life, never promised you justice.
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and all
is she a sympathetic character? no way. is she redeemed, is she symbolic, is she punished? nope.but it is a quaint and infantile stance for readers to need to like their protagonists. it's a little adorable, but it ignores the loooong tradition of the antihero in fiction, and i get really frustrated when i hear people whining that they didn't like a book because the protagonist was a jerk or a sociopath, or a pedophile. not every book is going to be written by nicholas sparks.
but back to lolita.this is completely different from lolita, in its treatment. lolita was a one-sided love story. this one is about need and obsession. it is eroticism without attachment. she is pure predator consuming what she needs. i'm not sure if that makes this more or less problematic. probably more. i think we are more forgiving with star-crossed, impossible lovers than we are with someone who has an itch to scratch and doesn't care who gets hurt in the scratching. and it is more realistic this way; more troubling.
she has her compulsions, and she is dangerously able to justify her needs, while allowing that they are "wrong" to the world at large:
Sex struck me as a seafood with the shortest imaginable half-life, needing to be peeled and eaten the moment the urge ripened. Even by sixteen, seventeen, it seemed that people became too comfortable with their desires to have any objectivity over their vulgar movements. They closed their eyes to avoid awkward orgasm faces, slipped lingerie made for models and mannequins onto wholly imperfect bodies. Who was that queen who tried to keep her youth by bathing in the blood of virgins? She should've had sex with them instead, or at least had sex with them before killing them. Many might label this a contradiction, but I felt it to be a simple irony: in my view, having sex with teenagers was the only way to keep the act wholesome. They're observant; they catalogue every detail to obsess upon. They're obsessive by nature. Should there be any other way to experience sex?I remember taking my shirt off for a friend's younger brother in college. The way his eyes lit up like he was seeing snow for the first time.
(and i am totally posting text from the ARC, which is a reviewer no-no, but for a book that deals with taboo in such a fearless way, i feel it is apt)
that passage definitely reminds me of that staggeringly good 2-3 pages in Beautiful Losers, where i came dangerously close to understanding the attraction to very young girls. which is just cohen's power as a writer, and nothing to do with any latent criminality in me.
this a selfish situation because it is not about the act, but about the transgression itself; the taboo. it's about taking and teaching and uneven power systems.
"I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible.
right there, she inadvertently acknowledges jack's future difficulties, in his vie sexuelle, but she just does not care.
i understand, intellectually, the desire of taking someone before they have learned anything and imprinting them with what you like, but whooo, those are deep and dark waters.
her lucidity is what is most disturbing, for me. she is so preoccupied with aging, which is par for the course when it comes to beautiful women, but her particular bent will become more difficult as she ages, and she revolts against the betrayal of the body in the aging process:
There was no way for women, for anyone, to gracefully age.After a certain point, any detail like the woman's cheerleader hairstyle that implied youth simply looked ridiculous. Despite her athletic prowess, the jogger's cratered thighs seemed more like something that would die one day than something that would not. I didn't know how long I had before this window slammed down on my fingers as well - with diligence, and avoiding children, perhaps a decade. The older i became, the harder it would be to get what I wanted, but that was probably true of everyone with everything.
and:
I knew I'd find it hard to cut the girls in my classes any slack at all, knowing the great generosity life had already gifted them. They were at the very beginning of their sexual lives with no need to hurry - whenever they were ready, a great range of attractions would be waiting for them, easy and disposable. Their urges would grow up right alongside them like a shadow. They'd never feel their libido a deformed thing to be kept chained up in the attic of their mind and to only be fed in secret after dark.
but there is, occasionally, small moments where there is a glimmer of something potentially salvageable in her:
At times, I wished that my genitals were prosthetic, something I could slip out of.
i do think this is a controversial novel, but it is brilliantly written. and you can get all emotional and "think of teh children," on it, but that's not really useful.this is something that happens, and i would rather not live in a cave, wearing blinders, reading nicholas sparks. i wanna be informed.
i honestly don't know what to do with this review.
because i feel bad for only giving the book 2 stars, but it just didn't work for me. and that doesn'i honestly don't know what to do with this review.
because i feel bad for only giving the book 2 stars, but it just didn't work for me. and that doesn't mean it's not a good book or that it's not an important book, it just means that i, karen tiffany brissette, did not enjoy reading it. which is a drag, because i have liked every other book that i have read by her. this one seemed weak, but then in the endnotes, she says that this is the first YA book she ever sold, which i guess means it is a re-issue, although i can't find any real information on that on her site or anywhere. but it was almost a relief to learn that factoid, because now that i know this is not a "new" book, i can understand why this one came across as less mature and less potent than her "later" books.
phew.
the subject matter is very important, which is another reason i feel horrible for not liking it. it is about a boy who is brutally murdered, most likely because small town wisconsin doesn't like it when their churchgoing teenagers are rumored to be gay. or are artistic. or when they take portraits of other boys sweaty and shirtlessly napping after hard farm work.
because as bubbled as i am here in new york, there are still pockets of this fine country where gay kids get beat up. where they don't have their own schools. where they have to hide one of their most salient, defining characteristics out of fear. and that's such a hard path, and if books like this can help someone struggling with this situation, or help one closed-minded person realize that no one has any business judging who likes what kind of genital, then i have to applaud the book for doing a public service towards a goal i would like to see realized.
if only i didn't hate the narrator so much. his weakness, his waffling, his telling us time and time again that he is not himself gay, he just doesn't have time for a relationship, is why he doesn't have a girlfriend. and i think if it were written differently, it would have been more successful in fine-tuning the unreliable-narrator into something more nuanced, but it just reads flat, to me.
oh, but i did like that the murdered character saw rhode island as a place to escape to; wanting to go to RISD, where he assumed people would be nicer to him. it's true, rhode island may be tiny, but we were founded by a buncha outcasts, so we're kinda laissez-faire.
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you have pleased the ghost of roger williams, ilsa j. bick
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but you shouldn't listen to me - i'm just some old lady who is drinking wine alone on a friday night. i clearly have no business having opinions about anything. read this book, but know that as far as her writing goes, it gets better.
i never thought i would be writing this drunken book review. but, you see, i was summoned to an after-work gathering with my form dear penthouse forum,
i never thought i would be writing this drunken book review. but, you see, i was summoned to an after-work gathering with my former boss and some colleagues, and... well, there was tequila. and salted rims. and i had my borrowed nook, and things just got a little out of control.
i didn't want to read my precious megan abbott book in this condition.
i didn't mean to read another bigfoot porn.
but you know how it is... when the first one ended on such a cliffhanger (view spoiler)[ and it turned out there were multiple bigfeet and all the girls were taken by different ones and scattered like dandelion-froth (hide spoiler)], well... a girl's gotta know. right? you remember eve? with the curiosity? and pandora? lot's wife? me reading my ex's journal as a teen?
sometimes we just gotta know.
and now i do. but guess what?? another cliffhanger! so you know i am going to be reading numbers 3,4, and 5. when will this crazy merry-go-round stop spinning?? oh, that's just my head.
so, anyway, bigfoot porn.
it's what you would expect, if you expect bigfoot porn to be about the desire of a young girl for a bit of strange, all giving in to her animalistic urges but putting up a struggle so she can patty-hearst her way out of it afterward.
there is a lot more snuggling than there should be in a true kidnapping scenario. IMHO.
and i get it - it is hard to resist an articulate man, even when the definition must be stretched (view spoiler)[like her rear-hole (hide spoiler)]...
some of bigfoot's (leonard's) bon mots:
good, sex girls...nice...
good, blonde, good!
grrrooooaaarrr...
good pussy. good.
grrroooooaaaarrrrr! good ass! good!
and for variety:
nice ass. nice.
how can a girl hold out against such poetry?
there is a lot of no-no-yes going on here:
he's forcing me...i have no choice. i'm only sleeping with him to survive. i don't like him...i...hate everything he does to me. he's an animal...he's a monster...ooohhh...don't ...stop...
it is a very complicated scenario. and with the cliffhanger - who knows what will happen next? do i dare pull back the curtain and discover the answers? will i require much much more tequila to find this sexy?
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i admire the skill here, in being able to write genuinely hanging cliffhangers in what should really be just throwaway erotica. but what else would you expect from the acclaimed author of pride and penetration,maya's tight pussy, and stacy's gangbang wedding????...more
this was not intended to be a DBR, but know that it is hot, and i am drinking these incredibly girly "green apple bite" smirnoff ices. many of them. ithis was not intended to be a DBR, but know that it is hot, and i am drinking these incredibly girly "green apple bite" smirnoff ices. many of them. ice cold and delicious.so my plan is to lucidly elucidate why me and this book didn't get along, but it might take me a while to collect my thoughts as i sit here and pound these things, so who knows what will happen by the end of it all. we may indeed get a little D.
i honestly don't know who this series is for.
austen fans seem to love them. not austen fans like elizabeth, who refused to read this with me, but the reviews on here are sky-high. and i have snooped around a little and the people seem to be pleased with the authenticity of "austen's" voice, and the thrill of feeling like you are getting to read an all new book by jane austen.
me, i am not a fan of jane austen, so i neither love the voice of the story, nor am i in a position to gauge its authenticity. i don't hate jane austen, i am even worse - i am someone who is indifferent. that's worse, right?? because she should be able to inspire passion, one way or another.but frankly, i just don't give a damn. the style seems austenlike, in that it was kind of boring, and there is a lot about ratafia and nuncheons and she spells sofa with a "ph".
here is the first sentence:
Mr. Wordsworth or Sir Walter Scott should never struggle, as i do, to describe Spring in Chawton: the delight of slipping on one's bonnet, in the fresh, new hour before breakfast, and securing about one's shoulders the faded pelisse of jaconet that has served one so nobly for countless Aprils past; of walking alone into the morning, as birsdsongs and tugging breezes swell about one's head; of the catch in one's throat at the glimpse of the fox, hurrying home to her kits waiting curled and warm in the den beneath the park's great oaks.
OH MY GOD WHEN WILL SOMEONE GET MURDERED ALREADY?
i read this because i am a fan of byron, and i was in preparation to read the all "new" reissue of what they say is the best biography of him ever. thank you, melville house, thank you charles. in the past, i have read about byron as a (literal) vampire, byron as villain, byron as victim, byron as ghost-maker. it was time to read about byron as murder suspect.
but stephanie barron doesn't really care about byron. byron is a prop to her. in the author's Q&A at the back, she says "some of the books are so faithful to jane's letters that i've used the actual calendar of her week as the structure of the novel - and included everyone she mentions as a character."
well, that's great, right?? did she show the same care with the real-life person of byron?? not so much. he never met jane austen. he never hogtied and kidnapped a fifteen year old girl with the goal of a forced marriage. he was never a murder suspect. does that matter?? i guess not, as long as the dresses are described in all their details.
sigh.
i am pleased about one thing here - she did not take the route that gives caroline lamb the role of "girl driven mad by byron." dear caro was a trainwreck well before she and byron met - therein lay the attraction. but implying that byron was"not mentally healthy" is reductive. he was by no means a paragon of gentlemanly behavior, but who would be, in his position? having flipped through the last living slut while shelving last week and i learned that many men who are in "rock star" positions behave in a less than admirable way, particularly towards the women waiting outside their houses for them. byron really was the first rock star - his kind of fame and its range was unprecedented. women unknown to him dressed themselves like him, mailed him letters and jewelry and... hair clippings.
this is no place for jane austen. to the fainting chair!!
(holy shit - one of these bottles in the six-pack was "raspberry burst" and not apple. i thought my mouth was going crazy until i read the label. phew.)
i did appreciate the attempt though. i kind of wish that instead of murder suspect, byron and jane teamed up and solved crimes together. that would be even more absurd, but in a jolly good time way.
incidentally, it is perfectly fine to read this one, the tenth on the series, without having read any earlier works. there are plenty of footnotes which address earlier cases that jane austen has solved, as well as points of interest to the real jane austen and history in general.
there, that is my cranky DBR golden ager PSA - you have words, use 'em. got it??
good.
jenn farrell is pretty great. look, alan - they are stori[image]
there, that is my cranky DBR golden ager PSA - you have words, use 'em. got it??
good.
jenn farrell is pretty great. look, alan - they are stories, and i loved them!!
i also love this concoction i made with mint and lemon and ginger and white wine:
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but we will focus our pleasantly sloshed minds on the matter at hand.
these stories kind of kick ass. i was concerned about them, pre-read, because i thought, for some god-only-knows reason, she was one of those authors that tried the shock value thing without having anything behind it to brace the story up. shock bores me, if that makes sense. not that i'm unshockable, but i'm just unimpressed by people who think they are shocking; who deliberately go about with their shock flamethrowers. spectacle is boring.
but these stories had a depth which surprised me.
grimsby girls is the best one - a collage of women's voices confessing their "first time" stories, good or bad. it should be required reading for young girlbuds before they make that decision (for those for whom it is in fact their decision): it isn't always going to be great, it's not that important, don't do it just to get it over with or to keep up with the jonses...but, yeah, it certainly can be great.spectacular, even. this is probably why i shouldn't have the children - my impulses are awful, but i think this take on sexuality would be a real eye-opener, considering the age-appropriate alternatives.in fact, a lot of these stories would be good reading for tough girlteens. they are certainly not the intended audience, but it can't hurt to expose them to something real and confident and brutal. can it?? again, that is my impulse. my daughters would be warriors.
i think the first story was one of the weakest, which was a nice surprise. from a story about grief and aimlessness to maternal failure to a pregnancy scare, each story builds upon the previous emotion and inflates the situation just one breath more until the final story overflows into apocalyptically questionable decision-making with a bang of consequence.
good good stuff.
my only gripe is with the endings of the devil you know and soft limits. (view spoiler)[i just don't buy that BOTH these protagonists would be unaffected and unscathed from what were pretty emotionally damaging relationships. they both seemed to just slough off their former selves without repercussions, with a shrug and a blasé "well, that's over with, time to go back to being strong and normal and alone..." (hide spoiler)]
joo know?
i don't know what else to say, D or not...again, canada has come through for me. another round, karen?? don't mind if i do...
"i was born seventeen years ago," i tell him. "do you think people have noticed that i'm around?"
"i notice when you're not. does that count?"
seriously"i was born seventeen years ago," i tell him. "do you think people have noticed that i'm around?"
"i notice when you're not. does that count?"
seriously - that is barf-in-your-mouth sweet (in a good way) and part of why i love this marchetta gal. she writes boys you wish you had dated when you were sixteen. not now - now i would see through a line like that in a heartbeat, but at sixteen? hook line and sinker, man. put the apple schnapps away,boy, you will not be needing it tonight.
(full disclosure - this is a post-goodreads-party DBR.)
(just a little D, but enough to make my syntax awkward, is the excuse)
yeah, i can understand the melina marchetta hype now. i can see why all the ladies are loving all over her. and while i think jellicoe road is a much more profound and moving book, just because the scope of it is about four times bigger than this one, this book has got some moves all its own. and i am officially hooked and will read every last word of hers. soon.
marchetta's strength is in her characters. they are never one-dimensional, even if they are only background players. she writes with a depth that eludes a lot of contemporary authors, even those whose audience is intended to be older and more discriminating. she shines a light on all the nooks and crannies that make up a personality, but nothing ever seems forced, everything is "just so". she is a dream-writer, what i have been looking for.
can i just be human here?? not a book "reviewer??" eeerrrrggghgghhhh. that is how she makes me feel. and that's in response to all of it: why can't i write like her? why can't i have friends like this?? why is my life full of shit i can't handle but her characters overcome sensibly and with an excellent support system? why? why? why? because it is all wholly realistic and attainable, i just don't have it. and i am full of envy, even though these characters kind of go through some shitty times.i want to be capable like abby lockhart. instead i am short of temper and i just shut down into silent distant mode. there is a lot i could learn from these books.
she doesn't write the ideal - these aren't brady bunch characters, but they are just that much better than me. they have reserves of strength that i maybe used to have but lost along with my youthful metabolism.
wow - when i am D, my reviews become more about me than usual. i should probably conclude this before i start sobbing on your shoulder about the one that got away and the stuffed animals they burned when i had smallpox or whatever.
this is a huge "should have" book for me and now it would be wiser if i went to lie down and stop typing before i get too 'motional.
THIS DBR IS DEDICATED TO EH!!! WHO IS THE BEST AT SO MANY THINGS, BUT MOSTLY AT STUFFING BOXES. AND BEING AWESOME IN GENERAL. THIS DBR IS BROUGHT TO YTHIS DBR IS DEDICATED TO EH!!! WHO IS THE BEST AT SO MANY THINGS, BUT MOSTLY AT STUFFING BOXES. AND BEING AWESOME IN GENERAL. THIS DBR IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY WINE AND GIRL SCOUT COOKIES: DO-SI-DOS ARE PAIRED WITH A DELIGHTFUL BORDEAUX BECAUSE I AM SUPER-CLASSY.
i have a very small brain. well, maybe it is regular-sized, but it doesn't hold a lot of information. which is i think why my book reviews of late have been so dull - i am reading more quickly than i can review, and by the time i am getting around to writing a review, weeks have passed and many books have jostled in between myself and my memory of the book i am reviewing and there is just too much clutter. stupid brain.
but that is why a book like this is just great for me. snippets!! brief biographical sketches!! information i can digest without getting all bogged down in facts and dates. (dates are worse than directions to me - the brain doesn't even bother trying to absorb them)
i have read plenty of books like this before - where there is a lotta information about people i never cared about enough to read an entire biography about, but a paragraph or two is fine. this book just does it better than most of them. i think part of it is the way the people are grouped. one chapter covers "famous people who kept monkeys as pets." this is not how oliver cromwell is usually remembered, so i was more interested than if the chapter had been called "lord protectors of england" or zzzzz...(however, and spoiler alert - it wasn't actually his pet monkey, but the pet monkey of his grandfather that almost murrrrderrred him when he was an infant. "people nearly murdered by other people's pet monkeys" would probably not have enough (famous) people to fill a chapter. alas.)
the best thing about books like these are that they lead you to other books. i now own a copy of Cassandra by florence nightingale, which virginia woolf called (as i have already shared with elizabeth) "a shriek of nervous agony." phoar - can't wait to get into that one!! and also, i am going to learn all i can about mary kingsley, who was this badass explorer and adventurer, one of the few victorian explorers to live in africa and not be a total racist. and definitely the only woman to do so.
plus, i love any book that has a section on byron (he is included in the "dead, absent, or impossible fathers" chapter along with isaac newton, hans christian andersen, and - ironically - ada lovelace.)
i read this book very slowly over the course of several months, and i think that's the best way to read a book like this - to just dip into it occasionally and try to let the (verysmall) brain absorb the details and find new avenues of interest. for example, i may just read a richard feynman book because even though he writes about zzzzzzzzz, i might have fallen in love with him a little because of this book, and maybe i would make the effort to keep the brain receptive while i was reading. and that's not just the girl scout cookies talking!
so - yeah - thumbs up to this book - i will probably browse through it again on nights when i am too drowsy to actually read, but just want something to do with my eyes.
okay - gotta go watch top chef and yell at the teevee now. because i am a classy broad.
this book is the perfect antidote to the "graphic novels aren't real books" crowd's poison. it takes full advantage of the medium (lgm with the local this book is the perfect antidote to the "graphic novels aren't real books" crowd's poison. it takes full advantage of the medium (lgm with the local boy scout troops), and just runs with it. this story could not have been told as well or as broadly using a more traditional narrative structure. and at the end, there is a perfect collapse - the three storylines streamline so perfectly into one message about cultural acclimatization and race-shame and why it is bad. but not in a preachy way. it is not rah-rah asia, it is just quietly, "don't be an asshole; this is who you are." so it doesn't exclude roundeye from appreciating the message, like me at chinese new year at my ex's. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING ABOUT ME, GRANDMA TSUI!
so the stories include the traditional tale of the monkey king:
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a very tasteful depiction of a chinese gentleman come to america:
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and this cute young chinese-american boy with a perm:
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that's what the art looks like. and if i didn't have to read this for class, i would have missed out on it, because it is not the kind of art i am immediately drawn to. me and art, we don't understand each other. museums leave me cold, and with graphic novels, i am always drawn to certain ones and repulsed by others with not one whit of rhyme nor reason nor consistency. i am the worst at art-appreciation. but i am the queen of making thanksgiving dinner. and writing drunken book reviews. and white trash fixing of silverware drawers:
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recognize!!!
but yeah, a totally charming book. i have no personal immigrant experience from which to draw as a way of relating to this story, but it works on any level of "appreciate thyself and don't wear shoes just because the humans are doing it" kind of thing.
there could be spoilers, i don't know... i have been drinking....
so, this is my first foray into the bodice rippers group's reading list. i don't knowthere could be spoilers, i don't know... i have been drinking....
so, this is my first foray into the bodice rippers group's reading list. i don't know, it wasn't as bad as either of the two romance novels i had to read for my readers' advisory class, but then again it also wasn't as unintentionally funny as either of them. it was actually quite sad. a sad book about reaching out with a vagina in order to find love.
it chronicles the great american dream for women of the recent past - find a nice enough well-off husband, get married, have kids,tend house, play tennis,make pot roast, find yourself terribly bored,attempt suicide, have an affair or two, stay with husband for the sake of the children or whatever, close book. poor wifey. she has a nightmare husband and i do not buy any sympathetic last minute bullshit.
and i am glad that i waited to write this review until after the season premier of mad men, because they have their similarities - poor bored betty draper has one little affair and ends up marrying the guy and she gets called "a whore" by the man whose day is incomplete without an infidelity or two. at least here, the affairs are frequently a little more giggly and overt.
suburbia is a whirlwind of sexuality. there are masturbating motorcyclists on front lawns, pornographic anonymous phone calls, husbands and wives swapping and topless parties and just that general fug of desperate sex that makes me feel so sorrowful inside. the faux-permissiveness where it is all right to fuck someone else's husband, but still have weird hang-ups about the body - ugh.
now, i have no interest in playing tennis or raising kids, but i still am a bit of a chauvinist.i don't know, even though she is frigid and a terrible mother and has a shittily distant (now ex) husband, i sort of envy betty draper. if i had her life, i would just be curled up all day, reading. i would probably ignore the kids as much as she does, but i would have a maid for them to play with, so whatever. all i would have to do is like toss some shit in aspic and call it a meal, smoke some cigarettes, and look pretty. the rest of the time would be all me-time. and that's all i want. i like my job just fine, but if i didn't have to work, if all i had to do was read all day and occasionally frost a cake? i would be in fun city.
but wifey is a sad story. she does not read all day.and that's what gets her gonorrhea. now, i am no whore, but my genitals, they have had some fun. but what she is having here, with her multiple infidelities, is not fun. it is more like revenge and science, all rolled into one.
and this is judy blume! the woman who taught us about menses and nocturnal emissions and fat chicks and divorce and who made me cry every time i read tiger eyes! and i never read forever, but i know very well, what that book taught young girls.
make infidelity sound more fun, judy blume!!
regardless, these are the things i have learned from this particular judy blume book:
if a lady touches a man's nipples, it makes him a fag.
women are jealous of the size of other women's nipples.
if she has sex with him on top, she is just some women's libber trying to overpower her man
you can hook up with your gynecologist and continue to go to him with your vagina for medical reasons and it just isn't awkward at all!
i am doing sex all wrong!
overall, the book is very all right. it is not comical enough to poke fun at, and it is not good enough to really like. but it is a fast read, with no headaches; it is a fine one-day diversion.
now there are some strawberries that have been marinating on the champagne at the bottom of this glass that need my attention...
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