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furyofvissarion) wrote2009-01-10 09:37 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2009-01-10 09:37 pm
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In 2008, I read 152 books, 18 of which were rereads. Last year I was excited to compile a list of the best books I read; I'm not sure I'll get around to it this year though.
Onward!
The Organic Garden: Green Gardening for a Healthy Planet - Allan Shepherd. Very useful tome on organic gardening, but what I loved most about this was the joy that Shepherd brings to the book—he is highly enamoured both of gardening & of doing so organically, & his enthusiasm was lovely to read. Also, the book provides tons of references, & I have a whole list of books & websites to check out. I have to manage to get a copy of this book for myself. I did think that a lot of the time what he was talking about in terms of garden tools & plans were likely out of the price range of a lot of people, but he does admit that at one point & makes a point to talk about smaller, cheaper alternatives--& he mentions Freecycle & buying tools secondhand a lot.
Go Organic! Successful organic gardening in 5 easy steps - Bob Flowerdew. Shorter & less detailed than Shepherd's book, but also much less joyful to read because it's so detached: just the facts, ma'am, here's what kind of companion plants to grow along w/your vegetables to keep pests at bay. Flowerdew only inserts himself in the first person once or twice to enthuse—mildly & briefly—about something. Also, he's much less concerned w/the ethics of organic gardening than Shepherd. A useful book, but I'd take Allan Shepherd any day.
No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong. Delicious re-read. I still love Jaime Vegas, & I can still identify at times w/feeling like all your friends got the cool superpowers & you're stuck w/the crap (who doesn't feel that way at times?). I appreciated more this time how Jaime realizes that she can & does kick butt in her own way. Oh yeah, & I definitely was appreciative of the Jaime-Jeremy sex scenes. Rowr. Still annoyed that the evil child-killing magic was from Africa, tho'.
Personal Demon - Kelley Armstrong. Yay Karl & Hope! I have such a weak spot for them & their relationship dynamic. Also Hope's little chaos demon stuff is hot! Yay titillating rereads during gloomy January.
Succubus Blues - Richelle Mead. Another mood-lifting reread; I love that Georgina is deeply not into being a succubus, & likes to wear Banana Republic & work at the bookstore & really wishes she could sleep w/someone she loved w/o sucking away his life. During this reread I was more interested in the friendship between Georgina's demon boss, Jerome, & the angel Carter. Usually I find angels in paranormals to be dull as, well, hell, but I'm intrigued & I like the hint that maybe the difference between the good guys & the bad guys can maybe be ignored sometimes. I'm wondering about the hints that there may be redemption for Georgina at some point.
The Devil Inside - Jenna Black. Interesting setup weakened by weak writing & ridiculousness. Morgan Kingsley lives in a world where humans volunteer to be possessed by demons, because doing so makes their bodies incredibly strong & thus they make really heroic firefighters & other emergency personnel. Morgan herself, who can't understand why anyone would surrender their bodies in this way, is an exorcist: She casts out demons whose humans are involuntary participants. Only Morgan herself shortly finds out that she's possessed by a demon—put there against his will & unable to take control of Morgan's body because she's got too strong of a personality.
Despite this promising start, I was pretty quickly frustrated w/the book. Within a handful of pages, Black refers to an 11-year-old possessed by a demon as either a “cute little girl” or an “adorable little girl” about 5 times. And, when Morgan's boyfriend Brian is first mentioned, I got the distinct impression that, while they had been together a year, she was still hedging on committing to him & wasn't quite sure she wanted to do so. Then suddenly we're all into how much she loves him & blah blah blah—not in a way that feels like denial, just like... the situation wasn't conveyed clearly to begin w/.
Also? The sex scenes aren't hot. They are certainly explicit, but somehow not hot at all & thus annoying. Morgan's prissiness about S&M—when she meets two gay demons who participate in it—is also annoying, not b/c everyone should be into S&M, but because early on in the book, Black takes pains to describe what a badass Morgan is: how she walks around in leather pants & has a tramp stamp (pictured on the cover! Paranormal cliché #1, check) & blah blah blah, so her supposed ignorance of S&M, & then disgust, just seems weird.
Anyway—besides that, Morgan seems like a jerk. She's rude & she screws people over. And she makes a lot of mistakes—enough to tip her, for me, out of the category of realistic non-perfect protagonist into the category of dolt. Despite all this, I remain intrigued by the world of the novel & will probably track down the next book. I hope Morgan somehow becomes more likable in it.
Undead & Unappreciated - Mary Janice Davidson. Pleasing, forgettable fluff. Betsy Taylor is a vampire queen with issues. Most of them seem to relate to her vampire king, Eric Sinclair, whom she hates (so she tells herself). She also has a bad relationship with her stepmother, who, as it turns out, was so evil that the devil took her over years ago while she was pregnant--& no one noticed! Thus Betsy's half-sister is the devil's daughter. Usually I find it hard to like reading about characters who, like Betsy, have lots of money. Well, she doesn't, but her best friend (in whose house Betsy lives) does, & so does Eric. Somehow I found this charming & fun anyway, & a super fast, mindless read. It's not the first book in the series, but it didn't really matter. Should I happen to see others at the library, I'll grab them. But if not, I'm not sure I'll bother hunting them down.
Borrowed Light - Anna Fienberg. Misfit teenager Callisto May—who is so desperate to be liked that she's turned herself into a pushover w/no personality—is pregnant. Eventually she realizes she has to take charge & has an abortion. In so doing, the tensions ripping her family apart all come out into the open, & maybe things will get better. The book ends with Callisto finding a new boyfriend, someone who appreciates her astronomy obsession, someone much better than the uncaring surfer dude who knocked her up. If my summary sounds slightly impatient with the book, that's because the whole way through I was waiting for Callisto to stop being such a wimp already. I liked that she was nerdy & brought lots of star- and planet-oriented metaphors into the book, but I just got so annoyed w/her (all-too-real, I guess) pathetic desires to fit in. And her family drama comes to a head in rather an OTT sort of way.
Onward!
The Organic Garden: Green Gardening for a Healthy Planet - Allan Shepherd. Very useful tome on organic gardening, but what I loved most about this was the joy that Shepherd brings to the book—he is highly enamoured both of gardening & of doing so organically, & his enthusiasm was lovely to read. Also, the book provides tons of references, & I have a whole list of books & websites to check out. I have to manage to get a copy of this book for myself. I did think that a lot of the time what he was talking about in terms of garden tools & plans were likely out of the price range of a lot of people, but he does admit that at one point & makes a point to talk about smaller, cheaper alternatives--& he mentions Freecycle & buying tools secondhand a lot.
Go Organic! Successful organic gardening in 5 easy steps - Bob Flowerdew. Shorter & less detailed than Shepherd's book, but also much less joyful to read because it's so detached: just the facts, ma'am, here's what kind of companion plants to grow along w/your vegetables to keep pests at bay. Flowerdew only inserts himself in the first person once or twice to enthuse—mildly & briefly—about something. Also, he's much less concerned w/the ethics of organic gardening than Shepherd. A useful book, but I'd take Allan Shepherd any day.
No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong. Delicious re-read. I still love Jaime Vegas, & I can still identify at times w/feeling like all your friends got the cool superpowers & you're stuck w/the crap (who doesn't feel that way at times?). I appreciated more this time how Jaime realizes that she can & does kick butt in her own way. Oh yeah, & I definitely was appreciative of the Jaime-Jeremy sex scenes. Rowr. Still annoyed that the evil child-killing magic was from Africa, tho'.
Personal Demon - Kelley Armstrong. Yay Karl & Hope! I have such a weak spot for them & their relationship dynamic. Also Hope's little chaos demon stuff is hot! Yay titillating rereads during gloomy January.
Succubus Blues - Richelle Mead. Another mood-lifting reread; I love that Georgina is deeply not into being a succubus, & likes to wear Banana Republic & work at the bookstore & really wishes she could sleep w/someone she loved w/o sucking away his life. During this reread I was more interested in the friendship between Georgina's demon boss, Jerome, & the angel Carter. Usually I find angels in paranormals to be dull as, well, hell, but I'm intrigued & I like the hint that maybe the difference between the good guys & the bad guys can maybe be ignored sometimes. I'm wondering about the hints that there may be redemption for Georgina at some point.
The Devil Inside - Jenna Black. Interesting setup weakened by weak writing & ridiculousness. Morgan Kingsley lives in a world where humans volunteer to be possessed by demons, because doing so makes their bodies incredibly strong & thus they make really heroic firefighters & other emergency personnel. Morgan herself, who can't understand why anyone would surrender their bodies in this way, is an exorcist: She casts out demons whose humans are involuntary participants. Only Morgan herself shortly finds out that she's possessed by a demon—put there against his will & unable to take control of Morgan's body because she's got too strong of a personality.
Despite this promising start, I was pretty quickly frustrated w/the book. Within a handful of pages, Black refers to an 11-year-old possessed by a demon as either a “cute little girl” or an “adorable little girl” about 5 times. And, when Morgan's boyfriend Brian is first mentioned, I got the distinct impression that, while they had been together a year, she was still hedging on committing to him & wasn't quite sure she wanted to do so. Then suddenly we're all into how much she loves him & blah blah blah—not in a way that feels like denial, just like... the situation wasn't conveyed clearly to begin w/.
Also? The sex scenes aren't hot. They are certainly explicit, but somehow not hot at all & thus annoying. Morgan's prissiness about S&M—when she meets two gay demons who participate in it—is also annoying, not b/c everyone should be into S&M, but because early on in the book, Black takes pains to describe what a badass Morgan is: how she walks around in leather pants & has a tramp stamp (pictured on the cover! Paranormal cliché #1, check) & blah blah blah, so her supposed ignorance of S&M, & then disgust, just seems weird.
Anyway—besides that, Morgan seems like a jerk. She's rude & she screws people over. And she makes a lot of mistakes—enough to tip her, for me, out of the category of realistic non-perfect protagonist into the category of dolt. Despite all this, I remain intrigued by the world of the novel & will probably track down the next book. I hope Morgan somehow becomes more likable in it.
Undead & Unappreciated - Mary Janice Davidson. Pleasing, forgettable fluff. Betsy Taylor is a vampire queen with issues. Most of them seem to relate to her vampire king, Eric Sinclair, whom she hates (so she tells herself). She also has a bad relationship with her stepmother, who, as it turns out, was so evil that the devil took her over years ago while she was pregnant--& no one noticed! Thus Betsy's half-sister is the devil's daughter. Usually I find it hard to like reading about characters who, like Betsy, have lots of money. Well, she doesn't, but her best friend (in whose house Betsy lives) does, & so does Eric. Somehow I found this charming & fun anyway, & a super fast, mindless read. It's not the first book in the series, but it didn't really matter. Should I happen to see others at the library, I'll grab them. But if not, I'm not sure I'll bother hunting them down.
Borrowed Light - Anna Fienberg. Misfit teenager Callisto May—who is so desperate to be liked that she's turned herself into a pushover w/no personality—is pregnant. Eventually she realizes she has to take charge & has an abortion. In so doing, the tensions ripping her family apart all come out into the open, & maybe things will get better. The book ends with Callisto finding a new boyfriend, someone who appreciates her astronomy obsession, someone much better than the uncaring surfer dude who knocked her up. If my summary sounds slightly impatient with the book, that's because the whole way through I was waiting for Callisto to stop being such a wimp already. I liked that she was nerdy & brought lots of star- and planet-oriented metaphors into the book, but I just got so annoyed w/her (all-too-real, I guess) pathetic desires to fit in. And her family drama comes to a head in rather an OTT sort of way.