Lonesome Dove; Don't You Forget About Me

I watched "Lonesome Dove" on TV a few weeks ago, which led to the inevitable reread, ignoring the 1,000,000 books I have bought but not yet read.
I have no regrets.
I love this book. It's one of my all time favorites. I love rereading it, it's like visiting old friends and hanging out on the porch. Drinking whisky, and maybe kicking a pig or two :)

Book #11 of the Gossip Girl series. Blair and Nate are back from their month long trip to sea. Blair's mom is planning a big going away party for her, and Blair is busy making plans for when she and Nate get to Yale. Nate, of course, hasn't told her that since he ran off with her on the boat, he won't be getting his high school diploma and so he's not going to Yale after all. Once he finally does tell her, it doesn't go over well. Shocking.
Dan's mom comes for a visit and is thrilled that Dan is gay (or at least he's pretty sure he is) and throws him a big coming out party, but when his boyfriend, Greg, shows up, Greg only has eyes for Chuck. Vanessa's sister is getting married, and she asks Dan to write a love poem for the ceremony.
Serena is still confused about her feelings for Nate, and when they get together and talk about it, they end up going to bed, which really doesn't clarify anything (except that she's a terrible best friend and he's an even worse boyfriend). Nate is so confused he doesn't know what to do, so rather than face the two and make a decision, he takes off on a sailboat around the world. Blair goes to Yale, Serena stays in New York to make another movie, Dan decides he isn't gay after all and he and Vanessa get back together before he drives to his college in Washington.

Hidden Valley Road; Prophetic City; The Golden Thread; Would I Lie to You

First up, "Hidden Valley Road" by Robert Kolker. The Galvin family had 12 children: 10 boys and 2 girls. Six of the ten boys ended up with schizophrenia (or bipolar disorder, in one boy's case). At the time the boys started being diagnosed, there was a raging debate over nurture vs. nature: no one was sure if it was genetics that caused these illnesses or their upbringing. Genetic and other types of tests of this family have been the backbone of most of what researchers know about schizophrenia today. It was fascinating and sad.

I'm not into sociology: it's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's never been my thing. I read this book because it's about Houston, and I read a lot of things about Texas. Klineberg has been studying Houston and its residents for forty years now, and he's found an interesting pattern: Houston is a little ahead of the curve of the United States as a whole. It seems wherever Houston goes, the rest of the country soon follows. 

"The Golden Thread" was about the history of fabric. Which, on the surface, sounds very dull, but it really wasn't. St. Clair looked at how fabric has been made over the years (not much has changed, honestly) and its different purposes. How fabric has always symbolized a person's wealth and status. How certain fabrics were only for the very rich or royalty. People have made clothing from spiders' webs and snails...whatever it is snails produce :) 

I had to take a break from the Gossip Girl books because I felt like my soul was dying a little. Book #10, "Would I Lie to You", takes place in the summer following high school graduation. Blair and Serena are staying in the Hamptons with Bailey Winter, a fashion designer. Nate is living next door and working for his coach so he can get his diploma, but when the coach's wife starts making advances, Nate picks up the girls and they bail back to the City. It's Serena's 18th birthday, so they go to Connecticut to her parent's country house where her brother Erik throws her a party. She overhears Nate tell Blair he loves her, and she realizes she loves him, too.
Whoops.
Meanwhile, Dan meets a guy at work who seems like he's pretty cool, and they decide to start a literary salon. They get drunk and Dan makes out with him. Whoops.
Vanessa leaves her nanny gig and comes back to the City after accidentally lusting after Chuck.
Whoops.
Chuck is probably still in Bailey's pool with his pet monkey.

Only In Your Dreams; Apropos of Nothing; Midnight Sun

Okay, book 9! Dan starts dating a fitness buff named Bree that he meets while working part time at a bookstore during the summer before college. Vanessa is hired to work on Ken Mogul's new movie, but is fired after the first day and becomes a nanny to two little boys. Serena is almost fired from the same movie, but Blair helps her find her voice (Blair, being altruistic?! Uh oh. I'm nervous now). Nate's still bumbling his stoned way through life.

I got utterly and thoroughly sick of the Gossip Girl books (and the show, but that's another story). Since I had library books with due dates and holds, I decided to get through one. I'm a big Woody Allen fan, always have been. I like his quirky sense of humor. It's unfortunate that he had to devote so much of the book to defending himself, but I thought he did it in a very respectful way. He was nicer than I would have been, at any rate. He's led an interesting life.

And finally, "Midnight Sun" by Stephenie Meyer. A book many of us have been waiting for for a long, long time. Whenever I bring up "Twilight" at work, one of my librarian colleagues is very smug about how "proud" she is that her twenty-something daughter never got into them. Well, good for her, I guess. I'm not a book snob. Is "Twilight" great literature? No, of course not. But it's fun and I like it so there :)
"Midnight Sun" is "Twilight" told from Edward's POV rather than Bella's. So, basically, fan fiction. It was fun though and I enjoyed it. The best part was when Edward and his family are racing to the ballet studio in Phoenix to save Bella from James, and they have to steal a couple of different fast cars and cause a gigantic pile up on the freeway. Given how much Meyer loves cars, I'm sure she enjoyed writing that sequence, you could tell.
And I don't care what you read, so long as you read! I might not read it, but if you do and you love it, that's okay by me.

Because I'm Worth It; I Like It Like That; You're the One That I Want; Nobody Does It Better; Nothing Can Keep Us Together

All righty then!
Book 4. Nate meets crazy Georgie Sparks in rehab. Serena is asked to model during Fashion Week. Dan starts cheating on Vanessa with this weird girl named Mystery Craze. Blair almost has an affair with a married man. 

Book 5. Spring Break, and Blair goes to Utah with Serena's family and almost hooks up with her gorgeous older brother, Erik. Nate is there with Georgie, who seems to be there with the entire Dutch Olympic snowboarding team. Vanessa starts dating this dorky guy named Jordy, mostly to piss off her hippie freak parents. Dan's agent gets him an internship at a literary magazine and Dan makes a mess of it.

Book 6. Nate and Serena get into Yale (and everywhere else they applied) but Blair is wait listed and NOT HAPPY. Serena spends a wild weekend visiting all the colleges that accepted her so she can make a decision about which one to go to, but she spends all her time hooking up with random hotties. The lacrosse coaches from the different schools Nate got into come visit him and they're all female and try to come onto him. Jeez, ladies. Jail bait much? Blair reluctantly visits Georgetown, the only college that accepted her and ends us with a weird group of girls who seem a bit cult-ish. Jenny goes on a modeling job with Serena after a bad experience with a job that pretended to be for something other than what it was for. Dan moves in with Vanessa when her older sister Ruby goes to Europe and accidentally ends up the lead singer of an indie band called the Raves.

Book 7. Blair moves into the Plaza, now that her baby half-sister is born her penthouse feels a little crowded. Nate moves in with her briefly, but the intensity of the relationship get to him and he takes his parents' yacht on an ill timed joyride. Jenny is asked not to return to Constance in the fall after compromising pictures of her hanging out all night with the Raves appear in print. That's fine by Jenny: she wanted to go to boarding school and reinvent herself, anyway (and apparently got a spin off series of her own called "The It Girl"). Nate and Serena end up hooking up at a Senior Spa Weekend in the Hamptons. Blair moves in with Vanessa after Nate abandons her. Vanessa starts dating her stepbrother Aaron.



And finally (for now) book 8. Graduation! Blair moves into the Yale Club and meets a real British Lord. Nate gets in trouble for stealing his coach's Viagra (seriously?! He's seventeen. His parents should be worried about him). Vanessa starts cheating on Aaron with Dan, who has decided not to go to college after all in the fall. Blair gets into Yale. Serena is cast in a movie.

All I Want is Everything

Book 3. It's Christmas time, and apparently everyone leaves town for the holiday (it's funny, those of us that *don't* live in New York dream of going there for Christmas, and those who do live there can't wait to get out). Blair, her stepbrother Aaron, Serena, and Aaron's friend Miles are all going with Blair's mother and stepfather to St. Bart's for the holiday. Both Miles and Aaron are hot for Blair. Meanwhile a pop star named Flow has followed Serena to the island. Nate leaves for Maine with his folks, but not before he and Jenny exchange sexy underwear as Christmas gifts. Serena and Blair get tired of the various guys mooning over them (it's a rough life, girls) and return to New York in time to plan a kick ass New Year's Eve party. Flow shows up to serenade Serena with a song he wrote for her, and she doesn't even listen to it: she goes out on the balcony to make out with Aaron, who has gotten over his Blair crush. Well alright then! Oh, and Dan and Vanessa are officially a thing, and Vanessa tries to seduce Dan, who turns her down. This is the most unrealistic thing in these books. No teenage boy is going to turn down a girl in his bedroom standing there in her underwear. NONE. I don't care how lame and poetic they are. No one really cares about Dan, though.

You Know You Love Me

Okay, book two of Gossip Girl, "You Know You Love Me". The books are a little different than the show: in the show, Serena has a fling with Aaron Rose, who is Blair's new stepbrother, but in this book, Serena is trying to find a nice way to tell Dan she is so not interested and Blair is running off on road trips with Aaron. Blair is looking forward to losing her virginity to her long time boyfriend Nate, but he's more interested in freshman Jenny to notice Blair throwing herself at him. Chuck is busy sliming around as usual (does he ever go to school?). Dan realizes Serena isn't ever going to like him back and starts hooking up with Vanessa, who had a perfectly nice boyfriend named Clark (she made a poor decision in my mind).

Gossip Girl

I'm not proud of this. Sincerely. It's my colleague at work's fault. She recommended I watch the Netflix show "You". She said I would like it, and mentioned that it stars Penn Badgley, the "hot guy from Gossip Girl" (her words, not mine, but she's not wrong). I gave her a look and said "seriously, you think I watched Gossip Girl?". No, of course I would never watch such mindless trash.

So of course I started watching it. 

And now I have to read the books, because I hate myself.

I know. I know. But it's that time of year, it's almost my annual vacation, and since I can't go anywhere thanks to COVID (not that I was going to anyway, but it's nice to think I *might* have) I'll spend my time off reading mindless fluff. I usually do. It actually wasn't terrible. It reminded me a lot of the "Pretty Little Liars" series: spoiled rich upper East side kids spend their days partying and being awful to each other. 

The show is super fun, though. Simultaneously hating and loving Chuck Bass is my new favorite past time.