Gates of Paradise; Web of Dreams; Mad Men Unbuttoned; Ship Breaker; Sweet Valley Confidential

I felt slightly dirty and utterly wasteful spending all that time rereading the rest of those trashy V.C. Andrews Casteel series books, "Gates of Paradise" and "Web of Dreams". "Gates of Paradise" was especially bad. Annie and Luke being in love with each other when they thought they were half brother and sister the whole time was just gross beyond belief. I mean, even though they turned out not to be, still, who falls in love with someone when you're raised as cousins and half-siblings? Besides Christopher Foxworth, I mean, really, who does that? "Web of Dreams" tells how Jillian basically pimped her daughter out to Tony Tatterton so he'd leave her alone to get her beauty rest. That woman was sick. Anyway, it's all over and done with now and I can move on to some new stuff that is hopefully less damaging to the mind. But I really do love it, in a twisted way :)
"Mad Men Unbuttoned" by Natasha Vargas-Cooper was an interesting but all too brief look at what was going on culturally in the United States during the early 1960s, when Mad Men takes place. There were some interesting tidbits about inside jokes on the show and some lovely glossy pictures, but other than that it was a touch over analytical, I thought, and didn't delve deeply enough into the more interesting topics of the day, like fashion. It was quick and fun, though.
"Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi is a YA novel about a dystopian future in which the climate has changed dramatically and all the oil is gone. Nailer works as a ship breaker, climbing through wrecks of all ships to scavenge whatever is left of any value. He dreams of the day when he can escape the life of misery and poverty and go out on the ocean in one of the beautiful clippers he sees off in the distance. It looks like he gets his lucky break when he and his friend Pima discover a wrecked clipper after a hurricane, but when they find one of the passengers on board is still alive their big break becomes more dangerous than they thought. It was a wonderful book, well told and fascinating, full of tension and adventure and action and the characters were engaging.
And some more trash, although in my defense it is new trash, Francine Pascal revisits the world of Sweet Valley ten years later in "Sweet Valley Confidential". I was amazed at how bad it was, and it seemed like she went out of her way to piss off loyal readers by having characters do complete 180s from their former selves. Plus there was NO Lila whatsoever. What the hell?? I miss the scheming, manipulative bad girl Jessica, gossiping with Lila, tearing everyone apart behind their backs. I miss predictable goody two shoes Elizabeth, meddling in everyone else's business, with trusty loyal boring Todd by her side. I miss sneering Bruce Patman, lording his wealth over everyone and acting like he's too good to mix with these low lifes. I understand people change as they grow up and grow older, but listen: I still see some of the people I hung out with fifteen years ago when we were teenagers and they haven't changed *that* much. Yes, they've matured, but their basic personalities are still the same. You can always count on them to behave a certain way, given the situation. Pascal just tossed that out the window. Oh, well, at least I didn't waste too much time on it :)

Adrian Mole: the Lost Years; Heaven; Dark Angel; Fallen Hearts

I eagerly gobbled up Sue Townsend's "Adrian Mole: the Lost Years", which covers 1984 through 1991, roughly, and enjoyed the heck out of it. Funny, charming stuff. Then I moved on to garbage :)
Years and years and years ago, my little sister and I both devoured V.C. Andrews' Casteel family series. Over the weekend, with piles of brand new books waiting, I instead choose to reread the first three in the series. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Heaven" introduces us to the Casteel family, the lowest of the hillbilly scum in the mountains of West Virginia known as the Willies. Heaven lives with her father's parents, her father and stepmother, and her four half-siblings in a tiny two room shack. She learns at the age of ten that she's not fully related to her brothers and sisters, that she is instead a product of her father's first marriage to a young Bostonian runaway named Leigh (the fact that her younger brother is only 6 months younger than her might have tipped me off, but hey, she *was* only ten when she found out. Of course the really horrifying part is that Luke was fooling around on his wife who was six months pregnant. That gives you a good idea as to how awesome he is). The Casteel family have it pretty rough in their mountain shack, and when Luke, her dad, gets sick and starts spending less time with the family, his wife and Heaven's stepmom Sarah gets pretty irritated and eventually she takes off, leaving the kids to fend for themselves and look after Grandpa after Granny dies. Dad decides to sell his kids rather than, hmmm, I don't know, take care of them. I actually thought this was a good idea on his part, and the kids should have been grateful. I know I would have been, to escape that awful miserable poverty. And luckily the two little kids go to a great home and live happily ever after (although their relationship seemed like it might go incestuous, but hey, it's V.C. Andrews, and that's par for the course) but Tom, Fanny, and Heaven aren't so lucky. Heaven ends up in the home of one of Luke's ex-girlfriends, Kitty, whom he knocked up before Leigh (good grief, dude). Kitty gave herself an abortion and ended up barren, so she was excited to be able to buy one of Luke's kids. She basically treats Heaven like a live in slave, making her cook, clean, do the laundry, for hours on end before and after school. And her husband seduces her and takes advantage of her. Still, all in all, I think it was a better ending than staying in the shack in the Willies. At least she didn't starve to death.
"Dark Angel" has Heaven going off in search of her mother's Bostonian relatives and finding out they're fabulously rich (there is always a pattern like this in Andrews' books, god love her) but very twisted. Turns out her step-grandfather was the one who got her 13 year old mother pregnant, and that's why Leigh ran away from her wealthy Boston home and ended up with Luke Casteel. Awesome. Of course she found out after she had fallen in love and decided to marry Tony's younger brother Troy, who is her uncle. Whoops. When we were kids my sister and I *adored* Troy. We swooned every time he was mentioned, and rereading it I'm not sure why. He's kind of annoying, all doom and gloom and "oh my god I just know I'm going to die before I'm thirty" blah, blah, blah. Dude! You're fantastically wealthy, a talented artist who gets to spend his whole day doing whatever he wants, and gorgeous. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BE DEPRESSED ABOUT?? Seriously? Anyway, Heaven graduates from college and returns to Winnerrow, the little town in the valley of the Willies, to teach school there to the poor hill children like she always planned.
In "Fallen Hearts" Heaven marries her high school sweetheart, Logan, and they go to Farthinggale Manor, Tony Tatterton's home, for a reception. Tony offers Logan a substantial part in his company, which Logan eagerly accepts. Heaven has dark reservations about how Tony is trying to control their lives, but Logan is so excited about being a rich businessman that she goes along with the plan. Logan is building a toy factory in Winnerrow and makes frequent trips back there, so frequent he manages to knock up Heaven's sister Fanny. Whoops! Meanwhile, Heaven discovers that Troy faked his own death, and after a night of forbidden passion she too is pregnant. Jesus, doesn't anyone use condoms around here? It's not difficult, people. So Luke and his new wife are killed in an accident and Heaven takes over custody of their little boy, Drake. What really got to me in this book was how she was so eager to return to the Willies and kept waxing poetic about how wonderful it was. Um...no, I read about your childhood and it sucked pretty bad. Give me the big Boston mansion and the servants and the Rolls-Royce any day. But maybe I'm just shallow like that.
Anyway, when Fanny steals Drake with the intention of keeping him just because she's petty and jealous and wants whatever Heaven has, there's an ugly court battle where are their dirty laundry is aired in public and in the end Heaven ends up paying her a ton of money to turn Drake over to her. I don't know why she wanted him so bad, anyway, since she had her own kid on the way plus she wasn't even related to Drake since Tony Tatterton was her biological father, not Luke Casteel. Well, whatever. In the end Fanny and Heaven give birth on the same night, Fanny to Logan's little boy whom she names Luke, and Heaven to Troy's little girl (although Logan doesn't know it) whom she names Annie. At least Heaven wasn't all high and mighty over Logan after he knocked up Fanny, since she'd slept with Troy, after all. Out of all of V.C. Andrews books I think I like this series the best because there is no predictable evil grandmother and the characters are less annoying and more likable than some of the other series. I stopped reading halfway through "Ruby", so the only other series I have to compare it to is the "Flowers in the Attic" (EPICALLY bad, love it) and the Cutler series, which I honestly don't remember that well. There are no excuses ever made for Tony Tatterton, the real villain of the whole story. I think I will be rereading for a bit. Which is not good, because I have a ton of brand new library books. But I've found in the past that when I try to force myself NOT to reread, it just doesn't work out. I need to go with it until it's done.

Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions; Unprotected Texts; Clara and Mr. Tiffany; Silent Mercy; Dorothea Wilson Sheely; Delirium; Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole 13 3/4; and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

I'm so far behind. What can I say, I prefer reading to writing about it :)
"Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions" by G. W. Bernard was an interesting attempt to make Anne out as not quite as innocent as she is usually portrayed. Bernard argued (unsuccessfully, in my estimation, by the way) that she probably did have affairs with a few of the men she was accused of having relationships with. His arguments were a bit of a stretch to be believable, but I admired his research and attempts to humanize King Henry. It amused me.
"Unprotected Texts" by Jennifer Wright Knust was an interesting examination of what exactly the Bible says in regards to sex, marriage, and other hotly debated topics. She makes sound and reasonable arguments that we can't use the Bible out of context to justify our own personal beliefs and opinions, and noted how it had been used in years past to justify things abhorrent to the general public now, like slavery. Very provocative.
"Clara and Mr. Tiffany" by Susan Vreeland was just beautifully written and her characters were so realistic and lifelike. Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of Charles Tiffany, of Tiffany & Co. Jewelry stores, started his glass factory with hopes of eventually upstaging his father. One of his workers, Clara Driscoll, comes up with the idea of stained glass lamps and they run with it. (Side note: I had no idea Tiffany Glass and Tiffany Jewelry were in any way related, or that the jewelry store came first, so I learned a lot from this book). It was a very lovely book, telling of Clara's hard decisions based on Tiffany's practice of never employing married women. Which does she love more: her work, making beautiful art, or the wonderful man in her life?
Linda Fairstein's latest Alex Cooper novel "Silent Mercy" did not disappoint, although the ending was a bit unrealistic. She made it work, though. Women, outcasts in their own religions, are being found murdered, left at significant places of worship in New York. Alex, Mercer, and Mike figure it out, along the way running into circus performers, Hansen's disease, and female priests.
Curious about my library's past, I read an oral biography about Dorothea Wilson Sheely, who was city Librarian for thirty years. She was interviewed by Shirley Stevenson, who put the project together and edited the book of interviews. It was fascinating to me, of course, to read about how the system went from one tiny 2,200 square foot library on the Balboa Peninsula to the multi-branch system we have now, and that was all under Dorothea's leadership. It also amused me that NB used to be thought of as a not too desirable place to live :)
I loved Lauren Oliver's "Before I Fall", and I was a bit disappointed with "Delirium", her dystopian novel set in the near future in Maine. Lena lives in a world were "love" is a disease that must be cured with an operation at age 18, and then she would be paired with an ideal mate and married. Lena is actually looking forward to the cure because she thinks it will bring her peace and she can stop fretting about her mother who committed suicide when she was little because she was infected and multiple attempts at the cure failed to wash the memory of love from her mind. Then Lena meets Alex, who comes from the wilderness where there is no cure and falls in love. Predictability ensued, with no real resolution to any of the questions raised at the end. Meh...not my thing.
Sue Townsend's first two Adrian Mole books, "The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole, 13 3/4" and the "Growing Pains of Adrian Mole", were hilarious. Full of British slang and dry wit, Adrian lives with his parents, who he disapproves of highly, and his pretentious adolescent snottiness reminded me so much of my own teen years. Ugh, what a twit I was too! I can't wait to read more.

The Man Who Sold America; Lone Star Noir; True Grit; Tudors for Dummies; I, Monster; Bringing Adam Home

"The Man Who Sold America" by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz was a great look at Albert Lasker, the father behind modern day advertising, and how advertising has changed in general over the last 100 years. Things that seem very common and ordinary to us today were first put into practice by Lasker, like free samples and coupons. It was well written and entertaining.
I read a book of short stories based in Texas called "Lone Star Noir", edited by Bobby and Johnny Byrd. I don't know why I persist in reading short story compilations, I almost never enjoy them. This one wasn't actually all that bad, there were a few good ones, like "Phelan's First Case" by Lisa Sandlin and "Montgomery Clift" by Sarah Cortez, but most of them were either boring and unforgettable or just plain bad.
Ever since I saw the Coen brother's fabulous remake of "True Grit" a few months ago I've been eager to read the book it was based on by Charles Portis. It was fantastic! I love Portis's writing style, it's very straightforward and no nonsense but very authentic. I really can't wait to read more of his work, although it looks like I'll have to buy them because my library only has one other. Oh well. We all know how much I *hate* buying books ;-)
"Tudors for Dummies" by David Loades and Mei Trow was a travesty of a book. It was riddled with outright exaggerations posing as facts, typos and continuity errors, and just plain terrible. I was outraged when they accused Queen Catherine of Aragon of contracting syphilis from a monk and called Katherine Howard "shrewd" and "clever". Just...wow. To say nothing of the fact that at one point they identified Elizabeth as Catherine's daughter instead of Anne's, and other such ridiculous mistakes. That's not hard to fact check, for heaven's sake. I was just disgusted that such errors made it into print, and in fact I was so angry I emailed Wiley, the publisher, to tell them exactly what I thought of their "editing". They told me the mistakes would be corrected in later editions. Um, sure. In the meantime now I'm loath to recommend other books in the Dummies series to library customers. Who knows how full of misinformation they are?
Tom Philbin's "I, Monster: Serial Killers in their own Chilling Words" was kind of a waste of time. He pulled interviews and letters from serial killers like Ted Bundy and Sam Berkowitz from other sources, like online (at one point he cited Wikipedia, although he spelled it wrong) or books. So there was no new information here and some of it I'd read before, of course, from stand alone books about each killer. It was just poorly put together and meant to generate a buck. Sad, really.
And finally, the haunting "Bringing Adam Home" by Lee Standiford with help from Joe Matthews. When Adam Walsh was kidnapped in 1981, Matthews was called in from Miami P.D. to help the Hollywood (FL) P.D. with the investigation, but was thwarted from doing any good by shoddy police work and egotistical cops. It's a damn shame what John and Reve Walsh went through, trying to find the maniac who murdered their little boy. This case has always stayed with me because I was six when the TV movie based on his kidnapping aired, and my mother made me watch it so I wouldn't be tempted to ever wander off from her while we were out shopping. The movie absolutely terrified me. I remember watching the America's Most Wanted episode that they did on Adam's kidnapping back in 1996, when the show was briefly canceled, and couldn't believe they still didn't know who killed little Adam, although it sounded like they had a pretty likely suspect, Ottis Toole. And indeed, that's who Matthews has finally determined was responsible, and after carefully combing through the case file and finally having the pictures of Toole's Cadillac developed that no one bothered with for nearly 30 years, he came up with enough evidence to name Toole. Too bad the worthless s.o.b. died back in 1996. At least we can take comfort in the fact that he's no doubt burning in the deepest pits of Hell, saved for child killers. Scum. But the poor Walshes. It's also a damn pity that cops can't get their stupid egos out of the way and try to do what's best for the victims. That's the really sad part of this book, I think.

Cleopatra; Antony and Cleopatra; Mockingjay; Mindfulness; Death and the Virgin Queen; Amaryllis in Blueberry

Stacy Schiff's biography about Cleopatra has been getting really great reviews and impressing everyone right and left. Everyone except for me, of course. Was there any doubt? :) I don't know why I didn't like it, other than to say I don't care for her writing style, it was just very dull and dry. I admire the research and work that went into the book: she was out to disprove rumors and present facts, and she did an admirable job. It was just boring. How do you make Cleopatra boring?
Adrian Goldsworthy's "Antony and Cleopatra" was better. I enjoyed hearing about Mark Antony's early life, which I don't think I've really read much about until now. I'd recommend this one over the Schiff book.
Finished the "Hunger Games" trilogy with Suzanne Collin's "Mockingjay". I'm still not sure how I feel about it, a week after finishing it. I just felt like Katniss must have felt--used. Used by everyone, whether for good or for evil, is still being used. I enjoyed the journey to get to the end, I just didn't like the end. If that makes sense. I fear it doesn't. Oh well, moving on.
"Mindfulness" by Ellen Langer was about how we walk through life on autopilot and don't really notice much, which is very true. How interesting it is when we actually open our eyes and notice things! It was very intriguing.
"Death and the Virgin Queen" was an excellent account of Amy Dudley's death by historian Chris Skidmore. He found the original coroner's report (which had been misfiled) and discovered that in addition to the broken neck she had two large gashes in her head, which would certainly be consistent with a nasty fall down a set of stone steps. But he also found a contemporary journal that confirms the conspiracy written in the anonymous "Dudley's Commonwealth", accusing the Queen's favorite of having his wife murdered so he would be free to marry Elizabeth. So did Robert Dudley arrange his wife's accident or was it really just an accident? I'm still divided, and like a good historian Skidmore merely repeats the facts without interjecting his own opinions. I really enjoyed this one. Four hundred years later and we still wonder about the truth. Fascinating stuff.
And finally, "Amaryllis in Blueberry" by Christina Meldrum. It's been compared to "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, which I read many years ago and loved. This book, not so much. I found it pretentious and overly dramatic and just silly. It wasn't even an interesting story badly told, it was a rip off of an interesting story poorly told.

Elizabeth's Women; Last Sacrifice; Fables Vol. 14; Catching Fire; Katherine the Queen; Among Others; Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer

Okay, I need to seriously get caught up here!
First off, an interesting book about the women who influenced Elizabeth Tudor, "Elizabeth's Women" by Tracey Bowman. She had a lot of complex relationships with women, no doubt caused by her mother's death when she was just a toddler as well as having to be a woman trying to justify her ability to rule in a man's world. It was a good read and I enjoyed it.
"Last Sacrifice" by Richelle Mead is the final Vampire Academy book. That's sad, I've really grown to love and enjoy this series. I liked the way it ended, and there was a lot of suspense and action along the way.
"Fables Vol. 14" by Bill Willingham focused on the fables new enemy, the Dark One, who destroyed their Manhattan hideout. Frau Totenkinder goes in search of a way to defeat him while Ozma tried to take her place in her absence among the witches. Bufkin the winged monkey successfully defeats Baba Yaga (good for him!) and King Ambrose deals with a murder in his new peaceful kingdom.
"Catching Fire" is book two of Suzanne Collin's "Hunger Games" series, and it was great. Katniss is struggling to be convincingly in love with Peeta in the hopes of saving them from the wrath of the Capital in light of the recent uprisings. As a way of punishing them for their defiance, they get sent back to the Hunger Games. There was a shocking surprise at the ending, and I can't wait to find out what happens.
"Katherine the Queen" by Linda Porter was a well done biography about Queen Katherine Parr and highlighted her influence on Queen Elizabeth. Obviously no real new info here for me, but it was nicely laid out and very well written.
"Among Others" by Jo Walton is a new sci fi book that's been getting good buzz on a lot of the blogs I read. Maybe if I was more into sci fi and fantasy books I would have enjoyed it more, but I'm not, so while I could tell it was good I wasn't as enthralled with it as everyone else is. It's good, but not my cup of tea. I can relate to the lead character's deep love of books and her quick reading abilities, but not her choice of reading material.
And finally, a bit of fictional whimsy "The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer" by Lucy Weston. On the eve of her coronation Elizabeth learns she is a descendant of Morgaine on her mother's side. Morgaine was the original vampire slayer and died trying to defeat King Arthur's son, Mordred. Mordred is now battling Elizabeth for her kingdom. It was quite clever and original and fairly accurate, historically, for being fiction.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain Vol. 1; Hunger Games; Annotated Brothers Grimm; Room

I have read some real gems over the last two weeks. First up, "The Autobiography of Mark Twain Vol. 1", edited by Harriet Elinor Smith. I know I've said before that I don't like Twain's work, but really, I don't know what I was thinking. "The Prince and the Pauper" was one of my all time favorite books when I was growing up, my sister's too, so much so that when I moved she told me I could take all of our shared classic books except for that one because she wanted to keep it. I of course let her because honestly do I really need any more books to try to find room for? No, of course not. But anyway, back to Twain. The autobiography was a loose collection of letters, notes, and musings at first and then segued into his failed attempts to write a chronological account of his extraordinary life. It was witty and wry and very funny and I think now I'm ready (if I were to have the time to go back and reread "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn") to finally truly appreciate them.
"Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins is the first in a trilogy. This was quite brilliant, it had a "Battle Royale" feel to it. Katniss Everdeen goes to represent her district in the 74th annual Hunger Games put on by the Capitol in the ruins of what used to be the U.S. The game pits 24 players against each other, and the last one standing gets to return home a wealthy hero. It was clever and well written and I hear they're making a movie about it to be released next year. With any luck I'll have read the second and third by then :)
"The Annotated Brothers Grimm", edited by Maria Tatar, collected some of the brothers more popular fairy tales together but she did leave out some, like the little mermaid and the little match girl. After discussing "Fables" I was eager to read some of the not Disney sanitized versions of the stories that Willingham used for his inspiration.
And finally, a book I literally stayed up all night to read because I could not bear to put it down, was "Room" by Emma Donoghue. Narrated by five year old Jack, it tells the story of a young woman and all she's done to make living in their tiny 11X11 foot room bearable for her young son. It's their prison, and she knows what's on the outside, if they could just escape their captor. To Jack, however, it's all he's ever known and it's home. It was a gripping and powerful story of motherly love and human survival instinct and I would highly recommend it.