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.

The Reluctant King

"The Reluctant King" by Sarah Bradford was very touching and sad. Bertie was the second son of King George V and never expected to be king, since he had an older brother. But when their father died and David took the throne, becoming King Edward VIII, it didn't take long for things to fall apart. David was more interested in partying and was determined to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice divorced American. He had to abdicate and turn the throne over to the Duke of York. Bertie reluctantly became King George VI (I really don't know why they change their names, it makes everything so confusing. Why not be King Albert? Oh well). By all account, Bertie was well loved by his people and an excellent king who led the country through the horrors of World War II. The stress of the role took its toll on him, and poor Bertie died very young, leaving twenty-five year old Princess Elizabeth to ascend the throne. It was very lovely and it made me cry. But anything about dads dying makes me cry these days, so there's that.

Hot Lead, Cold Justice

"Hot Lead, Cold Justice" is the fifth (how is this the fifth book already?!) Caleb York Western by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (really, it's all Collins at this point, but that's okay, I like him, too). A terrible blizzard descends upon the unsuspecting residents of Trinidad, New Mexico. York's deputy, Tulley, is shot and nearly killed while wearing the Sheriff's duster and hat in the snowstorm, leading York to believe he was actually the target. A group of bad men have come to town, taking advantage of the inclement weather. It was pretty fun, I enjoyed it.

Blues in the Dark

I was a little disappointed by "Blues in the Dark". It seemed like it would be right up my alley: a crime noir, partially set in 1940s Hollywood. Karissa and her film production company partner Marcello stumble across a real Hollywood mystery: in the 1940s, up and coming actress Blair Kendrick died under suspicious circumstances. Her movies have never been re-released, and she has lapsed into obscurity. Karissa and Marcello decide to research her story for a potential film, but they are thwarted and threatened at every turn, making them even more determined to get to the bottom of what really happened. Every other chapter went back to Blair's point of view, telling her story. She fell in love with an African American jazz pianist named Hank Marley. I quickly guess the big twist, it was pretty cliche. I guess Benson's writing style just didn't appeal to me, he was very, very repetitive (I've noticed that about many books lately...) and he used quotation marks where he really didn't need to. It was just odd and threw me off. 

The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction; Cults

"The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction" is one of those books of short stories I keep on my nightstand and read from for years, a few stories here and there every so often. I normally don't finish these books, they just languish until I get tired of looking at them and move them onto the shelf, but I finished this one (not quite sure what got into me). I'm always so excited to read these books when I buy them, but then I never finish them.
At any rate, it was a pretty decent selection of short stories. Some were duds, but there were a lot of good ones too, and some of my favorite authors, like Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins.

I was disappointed in this book. Cawthorne's definition of "cult" seemed pretty fast and loose, and each cult only got 3-5 pages, so he didn't really get to explain why he was including them. After awhile they all got pretty repetitive anyway: charismatic leader, usually religious, hoodwinks a group of people and brainwashes them into turning over all their worldly possessions, usually through some combination of sex and drugs, and gets them to do stupid things, like commit mass suicide or murder people.