it's time to play...

[rosa_acicularis]

Hey, lady!

Yes, mysterious voice?

What you been readin'?

How convenient that you should ask, mysterious voice, because it just so happens to be time for...

June's Highlights

Until I Find You by John Irving.

This monster ate up a good portion of my reading month. Like all great Irving novels, it is the epic story of the life of a writer actor named John Jack, whose mother is very complex and difficult and sad and whose father is 1) absent and 2) the most important character in the book. Also, there's a lot of sex, and some of it is very strange. Unlike most great John Irving novels, there's also an awful lot of tattooing, and this made a nice change.

I've loved Irving's stuff since I first read A Prayer for Owen Meany in high school, and this book was no different, though the ending was oddly unsatisfying. I suppose it only seemed abrupt because, after having read the previous forty billion pages, it really never occurred to me that the book might end.

Sadly, it did.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

I was not going to read this book. Was not was not was not. But then my manager was like, "Hey, we have a release party for Breaking Dawn in August. You wanna work it?" and I was like, "Um, HELL YES," so I figured I should at least read the first book in the series.

My rage. It was a shining, burning thing.

Now, let me say this first: I am not one of those feminists who thinks every female character ever written should be a "strong woman". Women are people, and people come in all varieties, and one of those varieties is "useless". But Bella Swan drove me up the wall. Literally. There are skid marks.

And it wasn't so much that I found her unlikable (though, god, I certainly did), because after a while I sort of started to like that she was a pain in the ass. It isn't that. It's the way Meyer set up her world: her vampires are obscenely powerful, and (vague spoiler alert) though Bella is occasionally allowed to use her wits (okay, two times, each with miserable results) she has absolutely No Chance of defending herself against the Big Bad Vampire Stalker. In Twilight, nothing but another vampire can destroy a vampire -- no sunlight, no fire, no stakes through the heart. To draw a Buffy analogy: Cordelia Chase was no vampire slayer, but in a desperate situation she still had a chance of saving herself, rather than relying on some sparkly, sort of bossy boyfriend to save her bacon. (Heh. Bacon. Get it? Because she smells like fooood.)

Yeah. So it pissed me off. But I kind of adored Edward, despite his overbearing bossiness. Because he actually has a sense of humor, and is constantly pointing out what a ridiculous nutjob Bella is. (At one point he says something like, "Don't you have any sense of self preservation?" and I laughed and laughed.) But it was a bit icky that, while he obviously wants to snack on her cares about her a great deal, he doesn't seem to like her very much. Or, I should say, he frequently points out that he doesn't think she's very bright.

Which, of course, she isn't.

(Please notice that I'm not even going into that whole "Oh my god, Edward, you know what would be fun? Dying young so I can be with you FOREVER" thing. Because it is just. too. irksome.)

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

I needed some Gaiman to cleanse my palate after the Twilight fiasco. I'm not sure what to say about this book other than I loved it utterly and Gaiman is just about the best of the best of the best. As I read it a lot of people commented, "Yeah, well, I didn't like that one as much as American Gods," and I see their point, but American Gods is gorgeous and epic and a story of incredible size, if not actually all that long in reality. Anansi Boys is more like the folktales it draws on for its mythos -- smaller, lighter, funnier, and maybe a bit more frightening in small, surprising ways. I loved it muchly.

And Coming Soon in July...

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Just started it yesterday, and will probably finish this weekend. I was skeptical at first, but then it began to dawn on me just how wonderfully clever the dialogue is, and I started to fall in love. So far I'm of the opinion that it rocks pretty freakin' hard.

And that's all for this edition of Hey, Lady! What You Been Readin'? See you all next month, and in the meantime -- don't take any wooden nickels.