I read a book last night—it’s either marketed paranormal romance or urban fantasy; those seem to be the same categories these days—that was okay. I think it suffered a lot from sophomore-itis, and that’s a problem a lot of authors run across. Three years for first book, eight months for next one. So, I can live with that.
However, one of the scenes in the book featured one of the most disturbing sex scenes I’ve ever read. I myself don’t find vampires at all sexy— hello, they’re DEAD—but this scene was, I think, supposed to be uber-sexy and I was simply appalled. You know how drinking blood is supposed to be the equivalent of sex to a vampire? Take that to the nth degree. I’m wondering if I’m going to pick up book 3 because not only was the scene icky (it’s a technical term) but it made me dislike the characters.
I don’t think all sex scenes have to be sexy. All they have to do is move the plot along (which, come to think of it, this scene didn’t do either). But I wondered if there was a serious disconnect between me and most readers of paranormal romance/urban fantasy, because none of the reviews on Amazon mention this particular scene in the book, and it’s all I remember.
I am one of those readers who is very, very happy about the boom in erotica in books. I don’t always want explicitness in my sex scenes, but when I do I prefer graphic. The problem has been, however, that erotica seems to mean, “As many combinations as possible, with a minimum of one per chapter.” (E.g. anything by Black Lace, which doesn’t publish novels so much as Twister games set in print.) I don’t want to see every character banging everyone and anyone; I want there to be some plot-worthy purpose to all this sex going on. It’s like black comedy: it still has to be comedy. Erotic novels still have to be novels.
Colette Gale (a pseudonym for an author who is known for her historicals…or rather, her paranormal historicals) has begun a series of erotic retellings of famous stories. Her first one was Unmasqued, which was a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, a story that clearly lends itself to somewhat more sensual goings-on. I read Unmasqued and I have to admit it did nothing for me: I was annoyed as hell by Christine, who was weak and passive, and by the emphasis on bondage.
However, see above: still interested in finding erotica that satisfies (ooo) as a story as well as sex. So I was interested in reading Gale’s retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, Master.
Right off the bat, I could tell Gale had done something interesting (and smart, in my opinion): this isn’t Edmond Dantes’s book. The focal character is Mercedes, the woman Edmond loved and then lost when he was imprisoned. So we see all of the events of the book from her perspective — which means that while we lose lots of The Count, we’re also not tied to following that book faithfully. This works wonderfully in Master’s favor.
The other excellent thing about Master is Mercedes herself. She isn’t a shrinking violet, at everyone’s mercy: the book spans 20 years, so she has a knowingness and a personal strength about her that is so goddamn refreshing. When she realizes who the Count is, and what he’s put her through, she doesn’t weep and throw herself on his mercy — instead, she basically says, “Get over yourself; you’re not the only one who suffered around here.” She gives as good as she gets, which made me very happy indeed reading this book.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a slightly spicier read (with a heroine who has a spine, to boot!).
Before The Valet last night, Darin and I popped into the nearby Barnes and Noble, where we found Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day prominently displayed on the New Paperbacks table!
Of course, did I have my camera with me, like I promised Toni I would? I did not.
But I bought my copy! And I was deeply gratified to see that the quote from “Diane Patterson” remained intact in the text. Your job: go buy this book (it is freakin’ hilarious) and find that quote!
Bobbie Faye is about a woman named Bobbie Faye (natch) who gets caught up with organized crime, bank robbery, the FBI, voodoo priestesses, and alligators, and for a woman who’s known far and wide for being a walking disaster, even this day rates as pretty damn bad.
Yesterday, as Darin and I wandered around Borders, I was struck by how many Templar-related novels there are out right now. And other Da Vinci Code related nonsense, such as (I am not making this up) The Diet Code.
I walked over to Darin with one of the books in my hand and said, “I know this isn’t an original sentiment, but… Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.” He nodded.
So much for the line of dialogue I always wanted to put in a movie: “Those fucking Templars are at it again.”
Toni tagged me with this meme, which is to write 15 things about books. This is, as far as I know, the first time I’ve ever been tagged with one of these things.
1) I don’t know when I started reading — somewhere between 2 and 3. I don’t remember my parents reading me stories before bed. I think I must have read myself my bedtime story every night.
2) A favorite family story about me is how one day during our vacation in Bermuda I disappeared in the main town. My mother, frantic, asked a policeman for help in finding me. He asked her about the sorts of places I liked. She mentioned bookstores, he took her to the nearest one, and there I was, reading the D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. I still have that copy of the book with its original (though much battered) dust jacket; it’s currently on the bookshelf in Sophia’s and Simon’s room.
3) Darin’s favorite genre is science-fiction/fantasy; mine is mystery. Strangely, if I pick up an SF book, Darin is rarely interested in it, and likewise I am not particularly moved to read Darin’s set of mysteries.
4) I knew Darin was the boy for me when I discovered his idea of the perfect vacation was the same as mine: go somewhere peaceful and beautiful and bring a suitcase full of books along with. We actually brought a bag full of books with us on our multi-week trip to Israel. And we read them all.
5) My favorite book when I was a kid was Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key. I must have read that book ten million times. I saw the movie three times, but I was secretly disappointed because it veered so much from the book. Of course, I had yet to learn that was SOP for book adaptation. (My mother, when cleaning out her house and getting it ready for sale, found my old Scholastic book club edition of this book. We never throw anything away.)
6) I read The Lord of the Rings instead of studying for finals sophomore year of high school. I’m not sure what it means about me that a)I don’t remember a thing about the books except for the bit with the spider and b)I did pretty damn well on my finals anyhow.
7) I have never read Huckleberry Finn. In fact, there are quite a few classics I have never read but expect to before I, you know, die. There are quite a few classics, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin that I have read and remember absolutely nothing about. I do not feel more educated as a result of reading these books.
9) I loved The Scarlet Letter when I read it in high school. I am undoubtedly the only former or current American high school student to make this claim.
10) How many books do we own? I have no idea. Easily a few thousand, in just about every subject and genre you can name. And we’d have a lot more than that, but we got rid of 26 boxes full of books back in 2001, in order to clean up our house a little.
11) The scariest book I own is Practical Homicide Investigation (the manual of choice for serial killers everywhere). When I finally get around to arranging the books in my office, the sex-related books go on the lowest shelves, and the crime-related books go on the uppermost.
12) Every so often Sophia says, “We need to go to the bookstore. I hear a book calling to me.” Darin and I look at one another knowingly.
13) I get books out of libraries now. If I really like them, I go buy a copy. I buy at least one library book per month (usually cookbooks, but not always).
14) I have read plays and short stories in French and German, but I have never managed an entire novel in a foreign language.
15) I read Klaus Mann’s Mephisto, in English, in one sitting at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Let’s put it this way: after one reading through Hot Chocolate by Michael Turbeck, I wanted to have sex with this book. Not with the author. With the book.
The Amazon page says there are “more than 60″ recipes in this book, which probably means there are 61 or something. It’s a thin book, with a wide range of chocolates for every taste: the thick chocolate from Cafe Angelina in Paris, spicy Aztec-inspired chocolates, a hot white chocolate from Sweden, Frrrozen Hot Chocolate from Serendipity, alcoholic chocolates for adults, side dishes of tuiles and little cookies, coconut marshmallows…
Seriously, depending on how this winter goes my entire running program could be for naught, because I seriously want to try half of the recipes in this book tonight. I’ll leave the lavender-and-pistachio hot chocolate (yup) for tomorrow.
Oh man. Kepler’s is out of business. I can’t believe it. That was a wonderful bookstore, one of the few independents in this area. (For such a literate area, we have a complete Hobson’s choice of bookstores: B&N or Borders. Whee. Ha.)
If Kepler’s couldn’t make it—whenever I went there it was packed—the independent bookstore is truly doomed.
Sat down. Read it straight through. Wished the next book were out already.
Dexter is the Energizer Bunny of serial killers: he’s still finding bad guys who deserve to be dispatched and, well, takes care of them. His sister is now a homicide detective who gets called to the scene of a particularly gruesome crime (despite the humor of these books, Lindsay doesn’t stint on describing the sort of awful things serial monsters like to do) and she asks Dexter for his particular insights into this crime. Only to discover that whoever’s doing this is wanted by more than the Miami Police—the guys in Washington need to find this guy, and fast.
Meanwhile, Dexter is being followed by Detective Doakes, who knows there’s something Not Right about Dexter and wants to provoke him into acting stupid. So Dexter does: he becomes a couch potato at his girlfriend Rita’s apartment and just the substitute Dad Rita’s two kids need. And then the most awful, unthinkable thing happens: Dexter gets mistakenly engaged.
Several times I read a particularly funny line aloud to Darin, who eyed me warily (I don’t think he quite “gets” Dexter). There are some seriously hilarious parts to this book. There are also some gruesome ones (but hey: you’re reading a serial killer novel), so be warned. Dexter’s voice and worldview are so engaging though—what grosses us out is merely fodder for artistic appreciation to him—that you can get through it.
I still don’t know how Lindsay is going to keep this going, but what he has so far is hilarious and wonderful. Dexter definitely stands out. Though he’s trying his damnedest to blend in with these human weirdoes.
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Sarah Weinman notes that Jeff Lindsay has sold two more Dexter novels: DEAR DADDY DEXTER and Untitled. Untitled??? Well, some of her commenters have good suggestions. My favorite is DEMONICALLY DIAPERING DEXTER. Because, you know: he could.
Okay, I guess that was a little terse. It’s kind of meant to be a joke, given that The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is 656 pages long. It’s also had one of the greatest publicity blitzes in recent memory—I’d been hearing about this book for weeks before it was published, with articles using such phrases as “one of the rare books that’s worthy of the hype.” I was so excited when it was available at the library. Darin needed something to read; I let him read it first.
He was underwhelmed. If you read EW, he completely agreed with its review, except he said, “I’d give it a B- instead of a B.”
The Historian is the story of several generations of scholars who have been obsessed by who Vlad the Impaler was and what really happened to him. The first problem I had with this book is this: in the first couple hundred pages, there are three narrators:
A woman in 2008, looking back to when she was 16, in 1972.
Her father, discussing events that happened in the early 1950s.
The father’s academic mentor, an Englishman, discussing what happened in the 1930s.
Guess what? They all sound exactly the same. Same stentorian phrases, same high-flown descriptions. I had to pay particular attention to the opening phrase of any given chapter so I could be sure as to who in the hell was speaking, or, in many cases, writing—there are lots and lots of letters that apparently everyone leaves around describing what had happened at some period in the past.
And I get the point, Kostova wants to describe a different, more removed world, but the only detail I remember her including that links what happens in her book to the real world is a passing reflection that after the events that happened here, the Soviets invaded Hungary. Oh, and a discussion of what would happen if someone like Stalin were immortal, the damage he could do. (Were the extent and severity of Stalin’s crimes as well known in the 1950s? I ask because I actually don’t know the answer to that.)
Another problem is the writing about past events. Everyone describes everything exactly chronologically. The problem with this is, in several cases, the writer knows how it’s going to turn out but somehow forgets to put that in the beginning of the letter they’ve left for posterity. Imagine if someone who lived in NYC wrote down the events of their day on September 11, not just as history but as a warning to future readers. Think they might put some of the salient points up front?
Not in this book. No, in this book people will just leave off in the middle of their stories, needing to pause for whatever reason.
Janet Maslin, in her review, mentions the endless travelogues. Yup, gotta agree with her there. Worse than that, however, is that these descriptions go on for so damn long I forget what the characters are doing there. There’s one section that’s an ancient letter describing the pilgrimage of some monks from Wallachia to Constantinople and from there to Bulgaria, and as I started reading it I suddenly realized I had no idea what the point was.
The Historian isn’t terrible; it’s just ponderous. And if there’s one thing a frickin’ vampire novel shouldn’t be, it’s ponderous. So I’m with Darin: I give it a B-. And I want the name of Kostova’s publicist for my own future reference.
There are quite a few classics, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin that I have read and remember absolutely nothing about. I do not feel more educated as a result of reading these books.