Vacation
June has been a rough month for me. Emergency trip back home. Family funeral. A day in the emergency room. Trying to cram a month of work into two weeks. I’ve barely looked at books let alone read them.
But I haven’t wished the month away (even though June hates me) because I knew this was coming. Vacation. Sweet, sweet vacation in a place that the direction tells you take a left and then it’s the last cottage by the ocean.
I’m going to let the ocean take my worries away. I’m going to break out in freckles. I’m going to wear my hair in braids. I’m going to splash in the ocean (it’ll be cold but I’ll manage).
And maybe, just maybe I’ll get some reading in. After all, I will be spend the equivalent of several working days in the car. I might as well read, right?
Posted by sassymonkey @
5:53 pm |
Gimme A Call
When I was at the library last week I took a cruise by the express shelf. I’ve been trying to avoid because it’s often had tempting goodies on it and and lately I just don’t have time to read them. This week though I took a chance on Sarah Mlynowski’s Gimme A Call.
Devi is in her senior year and everything is going horribly. Her boyfriend, whom she’s been with since freshman year, is leaving her. Ok, so he’s not completely breaking up with her but he’s going to school in Canada after they had already decided to go to school together. She doesn’t have any other friends. All she has is Bryan. What is she going to do without him? If only she could talk to her freshman year self and warn her.
Which is, of course, what happened. After Devi drops her phone in the mall fountain the only person that she can call is herself but she’s calling herself four years in the past. Needless to say this initially freaks out both Senior and Frosh Devis. But then Senior Devi decides it’s the best thing ever. Frosh Devi can fix everything! They can have friends! See other boys! Get into a better college! Senior Devi is a little hardcore but Frosh Devi does her best to keep up with her demands.
I felt bad for Frosh Devi. Senior Devi was a tyrant who didn’t want her to have any fun at all. She just wanted her to fix all her mistakes. Honestly I’m surprised that Frosh Devi didn’t tell Senior Devi where to shove her cell phone. (Or maybe that was just me wanting to tell Senior Devi where she could shove her cell phone. It’s hard to tell. lol) It really was interesting to see how different choices impacted the future — from where she ends up going to college to what happens with her parents and friends. There’s some food for thought there.
Cute idea for a novel. I’m not sure it quite worked for me but it was nice to see a twist on the “I gave up everything for my high school boyfriend and now I’m screwed” story.
Posted by sassymonkey @
5:17 pm |
Every Day in Tuscany
Frances Mayes makes me hungry. She makes me long for good, simply prepared food. She makes me want to dig in the dirt. She makes me want to sit under a tree in Italy (trees in Italy are different…they just are) with a book and a piece of fresh fruit. She makes me want to be a better writer.
I get lost in her words and through her words I get pulled into Bramasole. It started with Under the Tuscan Sun. I’ll admit it, I saw the movie first and I got sucked in. It was a very useful movie to me at the time. I wasn’t in a particularly happy place and it was a dreamland. When I read the book later I suppose I could have been disappointed that the movie was so very different from the book but I wasn’t. I discovered that I loved how Mayes wrote and now I look for every opportunity to jump into her writing, but especially of her writing about Italy.
Under the Tuscan Sun felt to me like a honeymoon. Bramasole was still fairly new to them, it was a place and a home that they were on pretty good terms with but still were in the process of getting to know each other. In Every Day in Tuscany it was an established love. They knew Bramasole and Tuscany. Their friends were now long time friends. The honeymoon was over but still they were in love.
I’ll admit that I can be a bit of a skimmer when I’m reading. Sometimes it’s more about the story or a character than the language. With Mayes I read slowly and purposefully. There’s something about the way that she writes that makes me want to not just read it but absorb it. I find I often feel this way with writers who are also poets or who have a deep love of poetry. Even when she veers off the path of her days at Bramasole into her search for her beloved painter I follow her, be it rather impatiently.
When I read Mayes I am in Italy. I’m in Bramasole. I’m in Tuscany. I make pasta and drink great wine. What more can you ask for from a book?
Posted by sassymonkey @
4:20 pm |
Insatiable
I had planned to write about Meg Cabot’s latest release, Insatiable, earlier but life got a little crazy. (I had to fly home for a family emergency and I haven’t been online much.) But today is release day so I’m going to take some time out of my morning to write. I’ve missed writing and talking to y’all!
I’ve been accused of being a Meg Cabot fan girl. I do find her and her books generally entertaining. That isn’t to say that I enjoy (or have read) all her books. Truth is, I wasn’t sure that I was going to read Insatiable. I didn’t know much about it aside from it had something to do with vampires and that the book trailers were cute. You see, I was feeling a bit vampired out. Then I found out that Meena, the main character was also a bit vampired out and well…it was Meg Cabot after all. So I read it and you know what, it was fun.
Meena is a dialogue writer for a soap opera and when her boss tells her that they are starting a vampire plot line she is not pleased. Vampires are being done by another soap and she feels they are better than that. Plus she got passed over for the head writer position. Plus her next door neighbour wants her to go to a party to meet some relative of hers that is supposedly a prince. Then Meena meets a mysterious man and everything changes….
A fun read. It really is.
Part of the reason I read Insatiable is so that I could interview Meg Cabot last week. I was supposed to be asking her the questions myself but due to my family emergency I was unable to be on the call with her. However the very nice people at Sullivan and Partners took my questions via email and asked them to her for me. Wasn’t that nice of them?
The video interview is up on BlogHer — BlogHer Interviews Author Meg Cabot about Insatiable. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Insatiable from Sullivan and Partners in order to prepare for the interview. I was not compensated by them for the interview or this review.
Posted by sassymonkey @
7:47 am |
Heist Society
I love Ally Carter. I want the contemporary worlds she creates to exist. Well, ok I really want to be a Gallagher Girl but I don’t really want to be a thief like Kat in her newest book Heist Society. I would, however, really like for Kat to exist. Oh and Hale. I liked Hale. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In Heist Society we are introduced to Kat, a thief from a long line of thieves. Yes, her name is Kat and she is a burglar. She’s a cat burglar and rather than being cheesy it’s kinda awesome.
Kat is not really quite loving her life though and seeks a way out. She finds it by pulling off a fraud of her own in order to get into a very prestigious prep school. It’s going great. Kinda. Ok, it’s a little dull after a life of crime but she’s doing fine. Really.
But then there’s a situation with a car…in particular the headmasters car and she gets the boot. Only problem is that she didn’t do it. She finds out that was her former partner in crime, Hale (really, he was her partner in crime) when he picks up from school in a limo. Why did he do it? Someone stole a private art collection and the person they stole it from is a very mean man who would like his paintings back. Now. What does this have to do with Kat? Everyone thinks it was her father and now she has to save him. Kat is back in action and she’s got a whole crew behind her.
Heist Society is a bit like Ocean’s Eleven meets Gallagher Girls…but with way less girls. There’s only Cat and her cousin Gabriella. Then it’s boys, boys and more boys. It’s an interesting change from Carter’s GG series which is really all about the girl power. Not that this isn’t girl powery, it’s just super concentrated in Kat and Gabriella. I loved all the boys in Heist Society. They all felt very individually fleshed out to me, except maybe the brothers but they were supposed to be a unit. The uncle, the dad all fantastic.
Basically I loved it and I really can’t wait for the next Heist Society book. I don’t want to enter Kat’s world but I sure do enjoy visiting it.
I am left wondering though, if Kat really wanted to steal something and Cammie really wanted to stop her – who would win? I think my money is on Cammie.
Posted by sassymonkey @
8:46 am |
