Reading is Sexy: Books Part II

[Irishteen]

I just read through this thread; and found it semi-funny that VP can rant at such an extent about Twilight and not even get the author's name right (and I also noticed someone posted on my account too...well she was right Breaking Dawn is easily the worst book of the series by far)

 

[VintagePunk]

I added an S to the end of her name? Oh no, the horror!

I just can't understand why people are turning against the the book now, when the problems evident in BD have been there throughout the entire series. So far, no one's explained it to me.

 

[corianderstem]

#58 Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

This is one of the best young adult novels I think I've ever read. Very smart and thoughtful, with great characters.

Ruby is the main character, a teenager living a rough life with a mostly-absent mom. When mom takes off for good, Ruby is dropped into life with her sister, who had taken off years ago herself. She's forced to take a good, hard look at herself and re-evaluate what family means, through her new family and the people she meets at her new school.

Very well done.

 

[Irishteen]

I added an S to the end of her name? Oh no, the horror!

I just can't understand why people are turning against the the book now, when the problems evident in BD have been there throughout the entire series. So far, no one's explained it to me.

And dropped an E

Because Breaking Dawn has the Jacob part which sucks and has an anti-climax ending of (what should of been) epic proportions

 

[beegee]

I just finished a book called Black Wave which is a true story written by a woman who is a wife and mother of four. It's the story of how the couple made the decision to live at sea for a couple of years, just bouncing around the Caribbean on a huge sailboat with two teenagers and two children under the age of ten, until they found themselves shipwrecked on a coral reef in the middle of the Pacific.

 

[Dalton]

I just tried reading The Brooklyn Follies by Auster. Awful.

 

[Kiki]

I'm not quite sure what all the hub-bub is over everyone hating Breaking Dawn.

I actually think it was a good ending. Stephanie Meyer wanted to end it so it would be the actual end. Not every ending has to be with a death or a horrible tragedy in order for a book to be good. I think it was actually pretty brave of her to just end it and let your imagination go on and you could decide for yourself where the characters go from there.

That's the problem now days....no one wants to use their own imagination anymore. You want it all put out there in front of you so you don't have to think about it.

Granted I could have done with out all the Jacob crap back and forth and she needed to get on with it, but I still think she did a great and decent job of getting her stories out there.

 

[bono_212]

Hey guess what, I'm reading a fantastic book right now called Television Production Handbook ~ Tenth Edition it is QUITE the read

 

[VintagePunk]

And dropped an E

Because Breaking Dawn has the Jacob part which sucks and has an anti-climax ending of (what should of been) epic proportions

You got me on the E. :hangsheadinshame: I guess I should pay more attention to the surnames of authors I can't stand.

The Jacob thing, if you're referring to what I think you're referring to, wasn't that whole scenario problematic to you in the previous book with Quil and Claire? I mean, it's the same icky thing, just with different characters. It didn't strike you as smacking of pedophilia, not to mention the whole lack of choice/free will thing? The female child really has no choice in the matter, and that's just plain wrong. MeYer[no S] seems to portray it as romantic, though. So, if you look at it from Meyer's warped, IMO, perspective, the whole Jacob thing in that book probably made sense, and I'm not sure why it came as a surprise to fans.

Totally agree about your next point, though. They talked. And they talked. And then they talked some more. And then it was over. And they all lived happily ever after in their perfect world, of course, with no consequences. At least the other books had what appeared to be a climax and a denouement, even if they were kind of weak.

Stephanie Meyer

You spelled her first name wrong - hurry and edit before Irishteen sees!

 

[meegannie]

I'm not quite sure what all the hub-bub is over everyone hating Breaking Dawn.

I actually think it was a good ending. Stephanie Meyer wanted to end it so it would be the actual end. Not every ending has to be with a death or a horrible tragedy in order for a book to be good. I think it was actually pretty brave of her to just end it and let your imagination go on and you could decide for yourself where the characters go from there.

That's the problem now days....no one wants to use their own imagination anymore. You want it all put out there in front of you so you don't have to think about it.

Granted I could have done with out all the Jacob crap back and forth and she needed to get on with it, but I still think she did a great and decent job of getting her stories out there.

Breaking Dawn was probably my favourite of the books. I thought the Jacob part was interesting, and it made me like his character a bit more after he was so terrible in Eclipse. I did get a bored of that part towards the end, though.

 

[FitzChivalry]

"The Ruins" by Scott Smith

Really good horror/thriller novel. Scott Smith also wrote the novel and the screenplay for "A Simple Plan", which is a great film.

"The Ruins" reads like all the best parts of a Stephen King novel: great fleshed-out characters, great plot, complete page-turner from start to finish. Smith's writing is less dense than King's and he doesn't get completely bogged down in details like King does at times, which makes "The Ruins" an easy, fast read.

I though it was great for it's genre, with an ending that is true to all that came before it.

 

[lazarus]

Currently reading Three Days to Never by Tim Powers. Any fans of his around here? If there's anyone who's better at historical fantasy or "secret history", I'm not aware of it.

 

[Kiki]

You spelled her first name wrong - hurry and edit before Irishteen sees!

 

[Saracene]

I've read "The Ants" by Bernard Werber, Russian translation from French. It's a sci-fi novel with two parallel stories: a "don't go into the scary cellar" mystery concerning a man and his family who move into the man's deceased uncle's house, and a story that takes place in the kingdom of the ants and starts off with a mysterious death of a foraging expedition and the adventures of the only survivor. It's quite imaginative and the premise is intriguing, but when the two stories finally come together the outcome is rather disappointing and way too silly.

 

[corianderstem]

"The Ruins" by Scott Smith

I couldn't put that sucker down. Fun read!

 

[redkat]

I just tried reading The Brooklyn Follies by Auster. Awful.

I was just going to say Bite Me; and there is a banner ad that says exactly that I liked Brooklyn Follies there were chapters that were far better than others, but I enjoyed the characters quite a bit.

Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh
I sat down with this one yesterday evening and didn't stand back up until I'd finished it. I'm not someone who can sit still very long without feeling like a sloth so this was quite an achievement.

A compelling story about a sociopath told from the point of view of his 3 wives and his children. I love the way that each character is introduced long before you realize their significance.

 

[beegee]

#57 Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp by Stephanie Klein

I know beegee didn't get very far into the book before rolling her eyes in annoyance and throwing it across the room ( ), but I really liked it.

I enjoyed Klein's first book, about her divorce and re-entry into the dating world, and I liked this one too. She's funny, but not one of those writers who feels like they're trying so hard to be witty every third sentence. She's very open about her teenaged self, to the point of my discomfort regarding a few things.

Cori, I could cry.

She's horrible.

She wasn't even fat!

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, but what are you gonna do?



I liked the book.

 

[u2popmofo]

Howl and Other Poems, by Allen Ginsberg

I (embarrassingly?) read this purely because it was the influence for the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album, and song, of the same title. Ginsberg's poetry style is different, yet interesting, and admittedly took me a bit to get used to. Once I did, I found the book enjoyable. Howl itself is quite good, its almost mind blowing that it was written in the '50's considering some of the topics. Some of the other poems are hit and miss, but overall it was an enjoyable read. I don't entirely understand how the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album/song of the same name relate, but I'm glad I finally read this.

 

[corianderstem]

#58 Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce Springsteen by Jimmy Guterman

It was kind of a fun read, despite that the book seemed just more to be about the author's opinions of all Bruce's albums and tours rather than ... I don't know. I guess I can't really sum up what I expected in a book subtitled Listening to Bruce Springsteen.

I will say that I greatly agreed with Guterman's strong dislike of "Mary's Place," so there's that.

 

[lazarus]

I will say that I greatly agreed with Guterman's strong dislike of "Mary's Place," so there's that.

 

[corianderstem]

I might feel differently about the song if I saw him play it live, I admit it. But from here I'm sitting, the world does not need 20 minutes of this song in a concert.

And on the album, it feels very forced. "Damn it, come on! We're going to have a party and you're going to enjoy it despite the heavy themes on this record, no matter what! Ignore the fact that it's a pale comparison to the big happy party anthems of years past. WE'RE GONNA HAVE A PARTY, DAMMIT!"

 

[lazarus]

Baby, let's be friends.

 

[corianderstem]

We'll go tearin' up the highway like a big ol' dinosaur!

 

[lazarus]

I don't know if "dinosaur" is the best word to use, considering your recent birthday.

Crarkosaurus.

 

[corianderstem]

Oh, but I'm young at heart. And I'm not doing too poorly for my age, considering how quickly I bounced back from excessive vodka last night at my party.

 

[lazarus]

 

[corianderstem]

We didn't conjure up the Ghost Of Keith Richards Present at my party, if that's what you're implying.

 

[Saracene]

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

I can see why this book caused such a scandal back when it first came out, though of course by today's standards it seems quite tame. It was handy to read an introduction by Doris Lessing that gave more insight into the social climate of that time and also the mindset of Lawrence himself. I really loved the book and thought it was very vivid and passionate, though getting through Mellors' dialect was a struggle and at times I felt that the way author was using his characters as a mouthpiece for his ideas was so overt it took me out of the story.

 

[corianderstem]

#60 Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott

I love Anne Lamott's writing. A lot of her characters start to seem awfully similar from book to book, but I don't care. Her books make me want to move to the Bay area and meet all of the people she writes about.