Home Impairment Day

When I woke up this morning, I’d pinched something in my neck badly enough that I couldn’t turn my head. It might have been heavy lifting at work yesterday, or sleeping funny last night or – more likely- a combination of the two. At any rate, it didn’t seem wise to drive 45 miles over a mountain pass without the ability to turn my head and as a result I’m at home. Since we did a MAJOR housecleaning project last week, I find myself with nothing to do.

Said cleaning project even included the Disaster Room, also known as the room boxes go to die or never be opened or, once opened, never get sorted out and put in proper places. All of the aforementioned boxes were opened, sorted and (with the exception of the things we are donating)  have been sorted to their appropriate locations. I am very impressed with myself, which can only lead to bad things.

Since I’m at loose ends, I’ve put in the first disc of Justified and thought I’d catch up my reading list from vacation which required me to go back and see when the last book update was. It turns out it was Dreadnought and Little, Big and at some point I stopped using my ’2011 book list’ tag which was just dumb.

I’ll start with the most recent first, then.

The Raising by Laura Kasischke. I’d been eyeing this book for a while but it was still priced above my $9.99 threshold for the kindle (I just can’t see paying more than $10 for a book when the paperback is still going to cost $6-7). We happened to be in a Borders last week and I’d forgotten they were closing but I managed to find a couple of things (including this book) that I wanted to read that – shockingly- the 60% off price made reasonable. If you’re looking for why Borders went out of business, the APA style guide at 40% off was the same as Amazon’s REGULAR price.

The Raising is a ghost story, of sorts. Very atmospheric and and interesting plotline. I found that even though I predicted all of the turns and sometimes skimmed through the (what seemed to me unnecessarily) wordy parts, I REALLY liked the book. It’s the first time that’s happened that I can recall. It reminded me of the movie The Life Before Her Eyes and then, when perusing the information in the back of the book, lo and behold she wrote the book. So there you go. It’s a moody and langurous read, perfect for a hot and humid day. Sufficiently creepy and ominous and just in general a really good read.

The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer is a YA book that I got for about $1 at Borders and it had an interesting premise- a meteor hits the moons and causes apocalyptic climate change on Earth (not to mention obliterating a fair chunk of each coast).

[interjection  from Justified "You want me to kill 'em or wing 'em?" "Let's start with wingin'." I already love this show.]

I liked The Dead and The Gone, I REALLY liked the premise, and while the descriptions and situations were pretty great it just fell kind of flat for me. Like describing the day in the life over and over but ultimately not really GETTING anywhere. So it was good and sufficiently apocalyptic but (for me) lacked forward momentum.

Magic Slays, Ilona Andrews. Another solid book in a series that I love. The main character gets to grow up a bit (about time) and the story and action are slam-bang. I am, as usual, looking forward to the next book in the series.

Poison, Sara Poole. I thought maybe I’d talked about this but it was a free Kindle read and I dug it. A young woman takes her father’s place as Borgia’s poisoner while she tries to find out who killed him (and does various deeds for Borgia as well). The opening is one of the best scenes I’ve read in a while.

The Monstrumologist, Rick Yancy. I kind of loved this. It’s a straight up monster book and if you like those, you’ll love this. It’s one of the first books I got on my Kindle and I can’t figure why I got around to it so late but it’s got a varied cast of creepy and inscrutable characters, a fantastic narrator, plenty of action, suspense and general creepiness. I had no idea it was part of a series when I got it but I’ll definitely be picking up the rest. Love.

Territory, Emma Bull. This was slow going for me to start, possibly because Westerns don’t generally grab me right off. This takes place not far from my stomping grounds (Leadville gets a shout out) and I’ve been to Tombstone. I like the alternate take and the depiction of Wyatt Earp (safe to say you won’t have seen this before) and I especially loved Doc Holliday. That said, the ending felt… short. Unresolved. And while I liked everything that came before, it just seemed like either it’s meant to be a series and leaving you wanting or just unfinished.

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood. I love Atwood. Really, I do. There are a handful of authors whose work I’ll pick up just because they wrote it and she’s one (Alice Hoffman, Robin McKinley, Carol O’Connell) . I love the concept of this book and the execution was just as great as you’d hope. While Ulysses got to adventure, Penelope was trapped with a hundred men who didn’t really want her but pretended to and she was holding out hope for the missing husband she loved. Hearing her side of the story is kind of brilliant.

Zoo City, Lauren Beukes. In a South Africa where magic has erupted in a peculiar way, giving those who commit crimes an animal to which they are bonded for life (Animalled, she calls it). The dialogue is snappy, the imagery is great, steamrolling action and the story is unique. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

I think that gets me caught up and I’m still on track for 55 this year.

In the meantime, I’m madly in love with Justified based on a single episode. This is amazing.