Laziest Book Review Ever.

Reading Haruki Murakami is, for me, a lot like watching a David Lynch film: I'm never really sure what's going on, and I spend most of it asking what the hell is happening, but I sure enjoy it.

Kafka on the Shore is no exception. It's beautiful, mysterious, and probably a very good metaphor for something, but I don't know what that is. Nonetheless, it's a good read. Get after it.

Excuses.

The problem with making a resolution to review every book you read in 2011 is that there is always the distinct possibility your sister will announce that she's getting married in February and then ask you to hand-make the invitations, and then your computer will just up and die (albeit not without warning), thereby painfully limiting your access to the internet.

Or maybe that's just what happened to me...

Anyway, I WILL REVIEW THE BOOKS I'VE READ. I swear. It's just going to happen on a different timeline than I had originally planned.

Getting a Jump on New Year's Resolutions.

;,. is undergoing some structural/layout changes, in preparation for upcoming resolutions. Bear with me... if you're even still reading this.

"She had responded to his wicked kiss, and hated herself for it."

Fact #1: I spend most of the year complaining--often and loudly, to anyone who will listen--about the weather: "I don't hate snow, but I hate slush," "I like winter clothes, but I hate trying to walk when it's raining," "It's too icy to ride my bike," etc. I eagerly anticipate summer. To be fair, I mostly get excited about the possibility of smoking outside without having to pile on 55 layers of clothes, but still.

Fact #2: I like to read. More than that, I like to feel smart, and for me, this usually goes hand in hand with feeling well-read. Most of the time, I read things that I feel have some literary value, or that I could at least argue have the possibility of literary value. I don't (usually) actively seek out books that will make me work too hard, but I like to think I'm not entirely prone to fluff.

Fact #3: Despite the fact that I love summer, I don't do well with heat.

Sub-point: My IQ is inversely correlated to the temperature. I'm not sure what my IQ normally is, but I am sure it drops significantly with each degree the temperature rises. As soon as the weather turns summer-ish, and the temperature stays at or around 70º for more than a few days, my brain starts to turns to mush; by mid-July, the temperature and my IQ are both around 80.

Despite the fact that, for at least 2 months of the year, I'm legally retarded, I'm still compelled to read.

And this is why I feel I need to explain my summer reading habits.

If you compare my 2009 reading list to the weather records from the same time you'll notice that, about the time I went on a Y.A. Lit binge, the temperature was consistently above 85º. I didn't really feel the need to justify my reading choices then, because Y.A. Lit is relevant to my interests. However.

For the past two weeks, I have found myself taking my breaks in the walk-in cooler. I spend most of my time off sitting perfectly still, lest even the slightest movement should cause me to start sweating in places I forgot were capable of sweating. I've been sleeping with ice-packs, people. That's how fucking hot it is.

I have also found myself reading romance novels. Obsessively.

First, let me say that I never intended to read "romance" novels. Or, I never intended to invest any length of time in the overly-sentimental and predictably mawkish romance novels I've been reading. The kind of novels wherein the Hero is a Rake (capital "R") who, though historically devoted to bachelorhood, can't help but fall for the Heroine, a sort of plain-but-smart-and-witty woman that every woman secretly believes herself to be. That was not my plan. My plan was to spend the hot (aka: sweltering) period of this summer reading correspondingly hot (aka: torrid) novels of the Harlequin persuasion.

Yes, dear friends: I had planned to read porn. Sleazy, smutty, and--above all else--explicit Harlequin romances, preferably the kind with a least one sex scene per chapter. The sort of book with ripped bodices and long haired Fabios on the cover, with words like "Forbidden", "Temptation", and "Sinful" included in the title. I wanted pirates! Wenches! Abductions! At the very least, I wanted drug-fueled scandals! I wanted adultery! I wanted orgies!

I basically wanted The Princess Bride with lots and lots of dirty sex. Or "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" in paperback format.

The problem with this plan, I found out, was that I have a very real problem taking that kind of book to the cashiers at the bookstores I patronize. I've developed a rapport with most of them, and I like to think there's a mutual level of respect between us. And I didn't really want to buy this kind of novel from a used bookstore, for paranoid hygienic reasons. So, I compromised and ended buying a couple of books with relatively innocuous-looking covers that still suggested a tolerable amount of scandal. The rationale behind this was that, while the cashiers weren't going to laud my superior taste and intelligence for selecting said books, I probably wasn't going to lose more than a modicum of the respect I'd felt I'd worked so hard to get either.

The innocuous-looking books proved to be innocuous-looking for a good reason: they are innocuous. They have, at most, 2 sexy scenes per novel, and those scenes are punctuated with the Hero declaring how much he loves the Heroine, and how his life was "meaningless and hollow" without her, etc. And perhaps I'm just a bitter cat-lady who's never been showered with "I love you's" whilst getting fucked, but this really pissed me off.

At first.

When I read the first of the books I bought, I was appalled that there was a "author" who had actually made a career writing about an archetypical romantic Hero whose personality is suddenly reformed by the love of the Right woman. I was repulsed by the trite representations of love at first sight, and the reinforcement of the ideas that no marriage is complete without children and/or that no person can really be whole unless s/he's part of a couple. I was aghast that confident, successful, intelligent men were being reduced to sappy, vulnerable, obsequious... things... with nothing more than a stock, spinster-ish character as the catalyst. Or that strong, respectable women were being reduced to simpering worshippers of beautiful but cruel men.

And then I read the second of the books I bought. Mostly because it was there, and I have issues buying a book and not reading it.
And was surprised to find that I quite liked the Heroine in this one. She was smart, and independent, and a little bit violent. Which I like. I was surprised that the dialogue was not only funny, but quite believable. And I was surprised that the (admittedly too rare) sex scenes were actually kind of hot, despite phrases like

...he slid one long finger inside her, teasing her warmth, tickling her sheath

and

Simon felt her thighs slide apart as he settled his body against hers, his manhood hot against her belly.*

Inadvertently and against my better judgement, I ended up liking this ridiculously saccharine novel. Which brings us to:

Fact #4: I have a highly addictive personality. When I find something I like, I tend to get a bit locked on.

Fact #5: This book I liked is, unfortunately, part of a series. A long series.

And that is why the next 8 books I read this summer will probably be about "true innocent[s] blushing uncontrollably" upon finding themselves "pressed firmly against his arousal". I just thought you should know.





*My major problem with any novel--Harlequin or no--that tries to address sex delicately is that they always, always, always end up making sex sound stupid and/or completely unappealing. His "manhood" or "arousal"? Her "sheath" or "cradle of her womanhood"?
No.

Very Short Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry

Audrey Niffenegger has broken my heart.

The Time Traveler's Wife could be one of my favorite novels of all time; Her Fearful Symmetry could be one of the worst novels I've ever read. The beauty of Wife was in the way Niffenegger took an hackneyed concept (time travel) and made it new and heartrending. Symmetry revolves around two equally trite ideas (ghosts and twins) and... Well, it's just bad. It's choppy and filled with deus ex machinas and one-dimensional, archetypical characters. It's an ode to a cemetery that Niffenegger loves, with a poor plot devised to showcase it. It reads like a story written by a 20 y.o. creative writing student. Niffenegger's prose is pretentious, ambitious, juvenile, etc., it's filled with unbelievable 'quirky' characters, and one gets the impression that she ends on a melancholy note to try and impress the reader with a sense of literary significance or whatever.

Why, Audrey? Why?

In other news, Love in the Time of Cholera makes me want to write letters. Anyone want to be pen-pals?

More 'mores', less 'lesses'.

Resolutions:

1. Eat more vegetables.
2. Drink more tea*
3. Be more social**.

That's it.

* (and, inherently, less Diet Coke.)
**(Though, at the beginning of the week, this was "Stop being social altogether", so...)

2009 Reading List (Final)

Here it is: the end of the year tally. I'm starting my 2010 Reading List now, though it's technically still '09.

53. The Forever Kiss by Angela Knight (12. 5)

52. The Stone Key by Isobelle Carmody (12.3)

51. Wavesong by Isobelle Carmody (12.1)

50. The Keeping Place by Isobelle Carmody (11.30)

49. Ashling by Isobelle Carmody (11.29)

48. The Farseekers by Isobelle Carmody (11.28)

47. Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (11.24)

46. Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (11.23)

45. Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (11.23)

44. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (11.22)

43. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody (11.20)

42. Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones (11.13)

41. The Princess Bride by William Goldman (11.3)

40. The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (10.25)

39. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (10.22)

38. Beauty's Release by A.N. Roquelaure (10.12)

37. Beauty's Punishment by A.N. Roquelaure (10.11)

36. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) (10.6)

35. Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland (10.1)

34. The Destruction of Atlantis: Ragnarok, or The Age of Fire & Gravel by Ignatius Donnelly (9.13)

33. The Alchemists: Fathers of Practical Chemistry by Richard Cummings (8.27)

32. We Thought You Would Be Prettier by Laurie Notaro (8.10)

31. The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (7.31)

30. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (7.25)

29. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (7.23)

28. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (7.20)

27. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (7.18)

26. Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (7.17)

25. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (7.17)

24. Septimus Heap, Book Two: Flyte by Angie Sage (7.16)*

23. Septimus Heap, Book One: Magyk by Angie Sage (7.13)*

22. The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book One: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (7.8)

21. City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau (7.4)

20. In a Sunburned County by Bill Bryson (7.4)

19. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (6.30)

18. A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (6.25)

17. Dubliners by James Joyce (5.11)

16. The Book of Other People edited by Zadie Smith (5.6)

15. How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton (5.5)

14. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (5.2)

13. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (4.30)

12. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters... by J.D. Salinger (4.9)

11. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (4.4)

10. The Will To Whatevs by Eugene Mirman (3.27)

9. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (3.25)

8. Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman (3.24)

7. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July (3.21)

6. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (3.19)

5. The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball (3.13)

4. The Fall by Albert Camus (3.11)

3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (1.26)

2. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (1.20)
1. Hairstyles of The Damned by Joe Meno (1.12)

(*= denotes books I read for research purposes only and promptly burned after reading.)