Fiction: “The Cove” by Catherine Coulter

Oh … my god. Oh, my god. So I’m not even sure why I grabbed this for my vacation. I think I had been wanting to re-read some of Catherine Coulter’s stuff, but clearly, I had been able to block out the memory of reading this the last time. Because oh my god, you guys, I found a book that’s written worse than either Twilight or anything Patricia Cornwell’s spit out.

Because look: Twilight has bad messages and bad characters. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta is a snobby bitch, pure and simple. But in spite of the stuff that makes me rail against them long and hard, at the end of the day I am still able to find good things to say about them: Twilight, as bad as it is, at least is able to stay true to its own canon, and the violence is pretty decent in the Scarpetta novels. But this … I’m pretty sure that if there were a rating worse than “twilight stars,” this would get it. Maybe “die in a fire stars”? I mean, I could see myself burning this at some point.

Why do I want to eradicate this from my existence through the cleansing power of fire? Because it’s badly written. And not just a couple of typos here and there like in Twilight; it’s just … awful.

The plot. Susan “Sally” St. John Brainerd escaped from a sanitarium in Washington, D.C. to hide out with her Aunt Amabel in this tiny town called The Cove, Oregon. She is hiding because she is suspected of killing her father, Amory St. John. James Quinlan ends up in The Cove as well, ostensibly to bring Sally back to DC, but he ends up falling in love with her, like, immediately, so instead he decides to protect her. Because she seems to think that her father is still after her, even though he was buried two weeks ago.

But then! James gets conked over the head and Sally gets kidnapped back to the sanitarium! And then! James enlists his FBI pal Dillon Savitch to help break her out! And when they do, Sally learns that James isn’t the private detective he said he was, but an FBI agent! So she runs away, but gets caught by James and Dillon again when she tries to escape a biker gang! So she decides to hide with James, who she is also falling in love with, until the evil Dr. Beadermeyer (not making any of this up, by the way) tries to kidnap her again, but he is thwarted. And then there’s the Poirot-esque solving of the mystery — her father wasn’t really dead! Because Beadermeyer isn’t a psychiatrist, but a plastic surgeon, and put Sally’s father’s face on a random dude so he could escape and continue to sell arms to Iraq and other naughty places. So James and Sally return to the Cove because there’s still a mystery of where some random tourists disappeared to, and it turns out that the Cove is such a perfect town because the old people citizens keep killing the tourists and stealing their money in order to beautify the town, and there are tons of mass graves in the cemetery, and when the seniors are found out, they kidnap James and Sally (again), and Sally is kidnapped by her father, who is NOT DEAD, and it turns out that he’s been sleeping with Aunt Amabel for years and also, he is NOT HER ACTUAL FATHER, which is good because when he would visit Sally in the sanitarium, he’d beat her and abuse her sexually (but not rape her, because that would be awful), and eventually all the old people die and are put in jail, and Sally’s not-father is gunned down when he tries to escape from the FBI again, and honestly, I expected Sally to be kidnapped one more fucking time before the end of the book but luckily, even Catherine Coulter has her limits.

So how, aside from the plot, is it written poorly? The entire story is told via dialogue. And look, I am notorious for telling stories via dialogue — well, maybe you guys aren’t aware, but I have numerous half-written stories in My Documents wherein the action is primarily told through dialogue between parties. Rather than have an omniscient third-person narrator (which I do employ frequently), I love when characters already have a relationship and refer to shared moments in conversation, and that is how plot points are moved along.

What Catherine Coulter does is tell the story through dialogue, but shoddily and in a disjointed manner. And boy, do I have examples. Like, she doesn’t understand that there is a balance between “Show and Tell,” and instead, she uses Telling to Show.

For example: in this scene, Sally has just fallen off her motorcycle after trying to evade both Quinlan and Dillon and a motorcycle gang, who were actually decent people after all, as one of them is a doctor:

Quinlan dropped to his knees. “Can I take off her helmet?”

[The doctor biker dude replies:] “No, let me. I guess maybe we should wear helmets. If she hadn’t had one on, she might have scrambled her brains and not necessarily left them inside her head. You’re really FBI? She’s really a criminal?”

“Of course she is. What are you doing? Okay, you’re seeing if her arms are broken. She’d better be all right or I’ll have to flatten you. You scared the shit out of her. Yeah, she’s your typical criminal type. Why isn’t she conscious yet?” [200-201]

In addition to some shitty phrasing, we are also thrown in a shitty PSA that equates to “Wear Your Helmet, Kids.” But seriously, if I were Ms. Coulter’s editor, this is how that last paragraph would sound:

“Of course she is.” The doctor started patting Sally’s arms. Quinlan reached out and grabbed his wrist. “What are you doing?”

“I’m checking to see if her arms are broken,” said the doctor, in an offended tone.

“Oh. Okay.” Quinlan sat back on his haunches, duly chastised. Sally still wasn’t waking up. “Why isn’t she conscious yet?” he asked, worried.

HOW MUCH BETTER DOES THAT SOUND? You know why? Because some of the action is being described instead of narrated, and it doesn’t feel as clunky as a ten-pound bowling ball being carried by a ballerina. (Think about it.)

AND THAT’S JUST ONE EXAMPLE. I LITERALLY HAVE 21 MORE, and those are only the WORST OF THE WORST. (I will not show all 21. But know that, at any time, I could whip one out.)

Oh, speaking of Blazing Saddles, here’s another example: Quinlan wants to get the major players together for his Poirot-dump.

He handed [Sally] the phone.

“Mom, then Scott, then Beadermeyer.”

[After hanging up with her mother ...] She started to dial Scott’s number. Quinlan lightly touched his hand to hers and shook his head. “No, I think your mom just might get the other players there.”

“He’s right,” Dillon said. “If she doesn’t, then we’ll talk to her alone. We need to anyway. We need to know exactly where she stands in all of this mess.”

“James is right,” Sally said and swallowed hard. [240-241]

Okay, first of all, who else went in their heads, “Howard Johnson is right”? Second of all, YOU JUST ASKED HER TO CALL ALL THREE PEOPLE. Thirty seconds later, you decided to let her mom do the dirty work and NO ONE QUESTIONED THE CHANGE OF MIND?! I — I –

Then, when they finally do get to see Sally’s Mother, she is just as clueless to how dialogue should sound as the rest of them:

“Mrs. St. John, we saw the car parked on Cooperton. Sally was here. Is she still here? Are you hiding her?”

Noelle St. John stared at his ID, then at Dillon’s. Finally, after an eternity, she looked up and said, “I haven’t seen my daughter for nearly seven months, Agent Quinlan. What car are you talking about?”

“A car we know she was driving, Mrs. St. John,” Dillon said.

“Why are you calling my daughter by her first name? Indeed, Sally is her nickname. Her real name is Susan. Where did you get her nickname?” [176]

Wouldn’t … if you were curious as to a stranger using your daughter’s nickname, wouldn’t that, I don’t know, immediately follow the stranger’s use of said nickname? And not remember three questions later?

And then there are the moments when characters answer the same question multiple times in the same line of dialogue. Have a few:

“Please tell me you believe me. I wouldn’t kill your father.”

“Yes, Noelle, I believe you — although if you had shot him I would have applauded you. But no, I never really believed that you did.” [174]

“You found him?”

“Not yet, but I found his footprints beneath your bedroom window and the indentations of the ladder feet. Yeah, our man was there. What size shoe does your husband wear, Sally?” [113]

“She’s going to her mother’s house. Not her husband’s house. You know my intuition, my gut. But to be honest about it, I know her. She feels something for her mother. That’s the first place she’ll go. I’ll bet you both her father and her husband put her in that sanitarium in the first place. Why? I haven’t the foggiest idea. I do know, though, that her father was a very evil man.”

“I assume you’ll tell me what you mean by that later?”

“Drive faster, Dillon. The house is number 337 on Lark. Yeah, I’ll tell you, but not now. Let’s get going.” [172-173]

You know what else I’m noticing? Catherine Coulter has never embraced the awesome punctuation mark that is the semicolon.

Which also leads me to believe that, for her original draft, she was paid by the word. Because otherwise, there’s no reason for extraneous information that doesn’t move the plot along, or come back to be recalled later. For instance:

Quinlan told him about the old couple he was looking for. He didn’t say anything about the townspeople lying to him.

“Over three years ago,” the sheriff said, looking at one of Amabel’s paintings over Sally’s head, this one all pale yellows and creams and nearly blueless blues, no shape or reason to any of it, but it was nice. [57]

Why? Why describe the painting, as if it were going to have a clue in it later on down the road? What’s the point? Or how about the bajillion times the old lady told Quinlan and Sally about the gyrowhatevers her husband What’s-His-Face made before he died of pneumonia the year Eisenhower was elected? Dudes, I didn’t have to look that up to paraphrase it, it was mentioned that frequently.

And then there’s the times when characters just get confused about what they were talking about in the middle of a scene. For your amusement, the first page I dogeared with a sigh of disgust:

Suddenly she stood up, her eyes fixed on something just off to the right. She shook her head, whispering, “No, no, it can’t be.”

He was on his feet in an instant, his hand on her shoulder. “What the hell is it?”

She pointed.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Stay here, Sally. Just stay here and I’ll go check it out.”

“Oh, go to hell, Quinlan. No, I don’t like Quinlan. I’ll call you James. I won’t stay put.” [49]

CLEARLY, Sally sees something that scares her. Instead of merely voicing her protest at being treated like a scared female (which is something else I may discuss, if I still have the energy later), she also in that moment decides what she’s going to call Quinlan. In the middle of being mad at him. That sentence does not make logical sense!

And before I get into the Sally-as-Damsel, I have to say that she’s not the only person afflicted by What Was I Talking About-Itis. Even the villain gets in on it!

“I should have known you two goons would fuck it up. Pick up the damned needle, you idiot. Jesus, it’s dark in here, but not dark enough. I knew I should have just knocked her out. Or shot the little bitch. Damn, let’s just get out of here. Forget the needle, forget her.” [233]

And just think — these aren’t even the best of the worst! I realize that, by this time and this many words, I have made my point and made it well. But when have you ever known me to stop? And besides, if this little post does anything, I’m hoping it will ensure that you, dear reader, never picks up The Cove. I was actually having a conversation about this very book last Sunday with some friends after midnight, and I was discussing what I hope this blog does. I hope it inspires people to pick up books they may not have picked up. Sometimes (and what I hope is the majority of the time), I hope it inspires the reader to pick up a book that sounds interesting. However, I admit, that there are times that it could inspire a reader to pick up a book by saying, “No way is it that bad.”

For a prime example of that, I’d like to take a moment and redirect y’all to the fun time I read Decadent, and that was all because my friend Sarah saw that I had read Bound and Determined and said “ALAINA you HAVE to read Decadent because one of the lines in it is, hand to God, ‘Fucking her ass, saving her life.’” And I said, “It can’t be that bad.”

And lo, it was. So guys, if you’ve gotten through all this and are still contemplating picking it up because it can’t be that bad, please: allow me to continue with a couple more.

Because now we get into the good stuff. The ludicrous stuff. The I Can’t Believe This Got Published Stuff.

The Melodramatic Stuff.

She waved away his words. “Someone was after me, James. Nobody was after you.”

“It didn’t matter.”

She began to laugh. “Actually there were two someones after me, and you were the second, only I was too stupid, too pathetically grateful to you, to realize it. I’m leaving, James. I don’t want to see you again. I can’t believe I thought you were a hero. God, when will I stop being such a credulous fool?” [162]

Oh, this is a good one. Here’s the quote, and it’s Sally telling James about a family incident.

“Once when I’d been visiting Noelle, after I left to go back to my apartment, I realized I’d forgotten my sweater. I went back into the house and there he was, kicking my mother. I went to the phone to dial 911. As far as I was concerned, it was the last straw. I just didn’t care anymore. He was going to pay. You won’t believe it, but my mother crawled to me, grabbed my leg, and begged me not to call the cops. My father stood there in the library doorway and dared me to do it. He dared me, all the while watching my mother sobbing and pleading, on her knees, her nails digging into my jeans. Jesus, it was horrible. I put down the phone and left. I never went back. I just couldn’t. Nothing I did mattered, not really. If I was there for a while, he just waited until I left. Then he probably beat her more viciously than if I’d never been there at all.” [238-239]

Now, if you had flipped back about fifty pages [pages 171-172, to be exact], you would have seen this exact same scene, but given with the dialogue as Sally remembers it to herself. So instead of saying something along the lines of Sally told Quinlan about the last time she had seen her father beat her mother, Ms. Coulter recounts it nearly exactly from when she had first introduced the scene fifty pages ago. I maintain: paid by the word.

So, remember that Sally was institutionalized by her father and her husband because they thought she was crazy? Here’s her husband’s rationalization for her insanity:

“Why did you believe I was sick, Scott?”

He didn’t say anything, just waved his pipe at her. “You weren’t a good wife. Your dad swore to me that your career was just something for you to do until you got married. He said you were just like your mother, a woman who really wanted a husband to take care of and children to look after. I wanted a wife to stay home and take care of me, but you wouldn’t do it. I needed you there, to help me, to understand me, but no, you never stayed there for me.” [259]

I’ve decided I’m too tired to get into the misogyny found in this novel — from Sally’s multiple kidnappings to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Dr. Beadermeyer, his assistant, and her not-father, there’s plenty enough to talk about. So I’m not even going to bring up the fact that apparently Scott only wanted Sally to be barefoot and menial in the house.

What I am going to bring up? The fact that Scott’s gay. And has a lover in London. What type of gay man would want a female beard to clean the kitchen? Because lemme tell you, that kitchen is spotless.

This … this one, I’m not going to say a word. Just read it.

She gave him a long look, and again that look was filled with quiet rage. “You are nothing more to me. None of this is any of your business. Go to hell, James.”

She turned away from him and walked down the wooden steps. It was chilly now. She wasn’t wearing anything but that too-small shirt and jeans.

“Come back, Sally. I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go. I won’t see you hurt again.”

She didn’t even slow down, just kept walking, in sneakers that were probably too small for her as well. He didn’t want her to get blisters. He’d planned to go shopping for her tomorrow, to buy her some clothes that fit her, to — damn, he was losing it.

He saw Dillon standing near the water line, unaware that she was walking away.

“Sally, you don’t know where you are. You don’t have any money.”

Then she did stop. She was smiling as she turned to face him. “You’re right, but it shouldn’t be a problem for long. I really don’t think that I’m afraid of any man anymore. Don’t worry. I’ll get enough money to get back to Washington.”

It sent him right over the edge. He slammed his hand down on the railing and vaulted over it to land lightly only three feet away from her. “No one will ever hurt you again. You will not take the chance of some asshole raping you. You will stay with me until this is over. Then I’ll let you go if you don’t want to stay.” [163]

And finally, the piece de resistance. The ultimate in Badness. You are going to be astonished, I promise you.

So Sally has been kidnapped for the umpteenth time, this time by her not-father. And her not-father is monologuing about his reasons for institutionalizing her and making her life a living hell. And here is where he brings up her gay husband:

“And, you see, I knew all about his lover. At least I made sure you didn’t get AIDS.” [316]

At least I made sure you didn’t get AIDS. THANKS, NOT MY DAD. Thanks for caring about my immune system’s health while you jacked off to the sight of my drug-addled body.

I can’t even, you guys. I can’t even. All I know is about halfway through the book, I would read a page, roll my eyes, and then proclaim loudly, “I am reading a book with substance next. I can’t take this shit anymore.”

Alaina Patterson: Reading Shit So You Don’t Have To (since 1986). You’re welcome.

Grade for The Cove: Twilight stars

Fiction: “Circus of the Damned” by Laurell K. Hamilton

Well, add this title to the growing list of Bad Books Alaina’s Read So You Don’t Have To. And before I figuratively rip this book to shreds, allow me to point out to everyone that, while it’s currently not a vacation, I have flown to Annapolis for training for my new job, and I think everyone knows what it is mandatory for me to read when I’m in an airport. Oh yes, that’s right. Coming up shortly: the next Patricia Cornwell.

Bring it on.

But first, let’s discuss these vampires of St. Louis once more. When we last left Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, she had just cleaned up the mess left behind by a rampaging, man-eating zombie. Now it’s shortly before Halloween, she’s up to her ears in zombie raisings, and a couple of dudes come to her workplace, asking for the daytime resting spot of the Vampire Master of the City so they can go kill him. Except that the Master of the City (yeah, that’s the actual title — and can I say, I would have loved to have seen Spike attempt to be the Vampire Master of Sunnydale. That would have been fun!) is Jean-Claude, the vampire that has given Anita two of the four marks necessary to turn someone into a human servant, and also, Anita kind of has friendly feelings towards Jean-Claude, even if he is a vampire, so she doesn’t want to give up the resting place.

And then there’s some more murders, this time by a gang of rogue vampires following a second Master. And what I’d really like to know is: How does one become a Master Vampire? I mean, what are the qualifications? Do you actually have to have control of a city to be considered a Master Vampire? Is it determined by the number of human servants you have? Or the quality of the animal you can control? For instance, I would bet that being able to control and ‘call’ wolves to do your bidding would put you up higher on the Master path than, say, Labradoodles. Is it simply a matter of how old you are? Is it, like, “Oh, congratulations, Vlad! Not only are you five hundred years dead, but you have also acheived the rank of Master Vampire!” Is it a matter of levelling up? The number of victims you’ve accumulated over the years? Do you need a Master’s degree in Vampirism? What night school offers that type of curriculum? Can humans attend, or must you be the living dead and a bloodsucker to enroll? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS AND I DEMAND ANSWERS.

Oh god, what else. So everyone wants the resting location of Jean-Claude so everyone can kill him, but Anita holds tight to the information. Meanwhile, her boss, Bert, has hired a new animator: his name is Larry, and he’s twenty. Anita becomes extremely protective of little Larry, because apparently, he’s an innocent and she is not and if she can keep someone innocent from learning of the horrors associated with raising the dead, by gum, she’s gonna protect them. Except Larry doesn’t want to be protected, because he wants to be a Vampire Executioner too.

But then one night, Anita and Larry get ambushed by the Rogue Master Vampire (and now, all I can hear is Cordelia asking Wesley, “What’s a rogue demon?” when he described himself as a rogue demon hunter. What’s a rogue master, and why does he need a vampire?) named Alejandro, and no, I am not making that up. And every time I read the name, two things went through my head: the Lady Gaga song “Alejandro” which I didn’t even like that much, but also my pronunciation of Alejandro, which consists of dropping my voice down into my lower register and trilling the ‘r’ in ‘–andro,’ because I am a ditz. So ANYWAY, Alejandro wants the location of the Master of the City too, because it’s like crack for those people, but when she doesn’t give it up, he gives her the first mark to be his human servant.

And THEN, as if that WEREN’T ENOUGH, ANOTHER vampire that happens to be a million years old — and again, I swear I am not exaggerating for the sake of the story — the novel claims that Oliver (yes, that’s the name) is indeed a million years old. But anyway, Oliver ALSO wants the resting place of the yada yada, and for some reason Anita likes Oliver, so she says she’ll think about it.

But she gets lured into a cave (don’t ask) by Alejandro and Melanie, a lamia, which is not a llama but a half-woman, half-snake and it’s just as gross as it sounds (two things: unlike Fry’s romance with Ambrielle in that underwater episode of Futurama, the snake half is the bottom half and the woman half is on top. And secondly, how cool would it have been if they have a dangerous half-woman, half-llama running around? I MUST WRITE THIS NOW), and on the way out of the cave she gets bit by another lamia, and an hour later she starts bleeding all over the place — including through her eyeballs, if the dialogue is to be believed. And Richard, the guy Anita is thinking she might want to date, takes her to Jean-Claude to save her life, but the only way to save her life is to give her the third mark of a human servant, and apparently that’s what does it, and she gives up the resting place to Oliver, who it turns out was in cahoots with Alejandro all along, and he wants to become Master of the City so that he can have vampires hunt humans again instead of fight for equality legislation, and OH MY GOD REALLY THAT’S WHAT THIS BOOK WAS ABOUT

In the end, Jean-Claude takes the marks away from Anita, which doesn’t make any sense. Also, I know that the third mark is that the vampire has to drink the human’s blood. But nowhere does it say explicitly what the first two marks are or what they’re supposed to do or how one is supposed to get them. Again, are tests administered? What are the requirements? And my biggest question around these types of supernatural canon: does the author even know?

Because, look: I bitched a lot about the Twilight novels. A LOT. But while I may have bitched that the sparkly vampires weren’t real vampires, and that werewolves can’t shapeshift at will, and that their canon doesn’t resemble Earth canon, I can guarantee with almost 90% success that I never bitched that Stephenie Meyer’s canon didn’t hold up to itself. Meaning, yes, Edward sparkles where Angel and Damon do not, but there was never a moment where Edward was in the sun and he didn’t sparkle. Or, that she didn’t completely explain how things worked in her world. The world Ms. Meyer created, love it or hate it, at least had some good continuity. (I refuse to look at the last twenty pages of Breaking Dawn where it’s revealed that Jacob and his clan are actually shapeshifters and not official werewolves, because that just seems tacky and also, I don’t care that much. Look, Ms. Meyer, for once your shoddy craftsmanship is helping me prove a point!) I’m not entirely convinced, after reading three books in this series, that Ms. Hamilton is as sure of what causes what in her world. I’m a bit scared, actually, that she creates things to create drama in the moment, but then can’t go back and explain how those things happen or what the importance of having them happen is.

So there’s that. I’m not sure I have anything to add to that, aside from the fact that Ms. Hamilton still plays fairly fast and loose with grammar. But I could almost — almost — overlook the grammar if the rest of it was making sense. And I’m not sure I can say that it does.

But, y’all know me — you know you’re going to see me read the next one within a year. Because I’m — say it with me now — a masochist.

Grade for Circus of the Damned: 1 star

Fiction: “Madame’s Deception” by Renee Bernard

Okay. So look, I’ve been busy. Between one thing and another (and also, sleeping), I haven’t been able to find the time to write the review for this book. I find that to be ridiculous, because I finished this on the same day that I finished Murder Superior. Why has it taken me a whole two weeks to write the review for this dinky little romance novel?

Maybe it’s time for me to acknowledge that I’m attempting to do too much. Between Oscar!Watch!2012, movies Alaina’s never seen, arranging travel for myself for new job training (!!!!) and my friend who’s flying out to Portland at the same time I’m going to be in Annapolis (yeah, that didn’t work), and saying goodbye to good friends I’ve seen almost every day for nine years, and trying to maintain my reputation as a stellar baker … I mean, I have two and a half weeks’ worth of Conan episodes to catch up on.

So now I find myself multitasking. Because right now, if you were to look into my apartment (perv), you’d find me sitting on my bed, writing this review and watching my #9 movie of all time: Anchorman. And if references to this wonderful, super-duper film happen to show up randomly through this review? Well, you’re just gonna have to deal with it.

So what, exactly, is Madame’s Deception about? Well, it’s about a madame … who … deceives? No, not really. Madame’s Deception was the missing second book in the trilogy I mentioned back when I read A Rogue’s Game back in 2010, and again, you don’t have to read them in order to understand the plot. It’s not like needing to watch the Star Wars trilogies in their proper order, I can tell you that much.

The madame in question is Madame DeBourcier, who runs the Crimson Belle House of Ill Repute in London. But you know what? Madame DeBourcier is actually grade-A baloney. Baloney! Because it’s actually just a fake identity for Jocelyn Tolliver, who inherited the Crimson Belle from her mother, who was also called Madame DeBourcier. It’s like … oh god forgive me. *sigh* You know A Princess Bride? And how Wesley became the Dread Pirate Roberts, and how it’s a title that’s inherited and given from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts? Well, Madame DeBourcier is the Dread Pirate Roberts of London whorehouses.

So this duke or whatever, Alex Randall/Lord Colwick (I swear, that’s how those lords and shit should just write their names, because they go by both throughout these novels. Sometimes it’s Alex, sometimes it’s Lord Colwick, and what happens is that I get confused and wish that his name was just Alex Randall Colwick, and that would be a severely awesome name) falls in love with Madame DeBourcier from afar. No, seriously — he saw her from across the room and decided he had to have her, as men do. So he barges into the Crimson Belle and gives the Madame an ultimatum, which boils down to this: “Sleep with me whenever I want, and I’ll pay you tons of money.” And she shrugs and goes, “Okay.”

Meanwhile, other whores ladies of the evening have been murdered, and Jocelyn is worried. Alex Colwick wants to protect her, but Jocelyn doesn’t want to get attached to a lord because he could never friggin’ love her the way she friggin’ loves him.

And look, there’s not a lot of plot in this. Even less than in some of the other historical romances I’ve picked up. (Oh, sidenote: At some point this year [in addition to rereads of Lamb, Gilligan's Wake, and The Great Gatsby], after I’ve read all those books I just got from the library, I will be reading a romance I picked up from Walmart the other night because apparently, the heroine was a spy. There has to be plot in that!) It pretty much goes like this:

“I’ll pay you money to have sex with you.”
“Okay. Please ignore all the murders that are going on, because I can take care of myself. Unbeknownst to you, I am an educated lady saddled with running a whorehouse. Oh, PS, I’m a virgin.”
“Wow. I had no idea you were a virgin. How are you so skilled in the ways of love?”
“Books! I read books! Look at my library conveniently hidden behind this curtain where my gentleman lover can’t see it! After all, this is nineteenth-century London; we don’t have the internet now.”
“Fascinating. Can we do that one on page 47 again?”
“Not right now. Another girl was murdered. And also, I heard that you are betrothed to some crazy widow’s dumpy daughter.”
“What? Baby, don’t be crazy. Hey look, a beautiful rainbow — do me on it!”
“I can’t, because now one of my girls was murdered, and I suspect it may be the shady pimp down the street.”
“No, it can’t be him, because he’s actually your father.”
“You’re kidding! Oh my god, I’m in a glass case of emotion, and I won’t let you in, because I am a disgrace to society, and you need to marry some dumpy geek who can’t string two words together.”
“No! I need you! I’m a mess without you! I miss you so damn much! I miss being with you. I miss being near you. I miss your laugh! I miss your scent. I miss your musk. When this all gets sorted out, I think you and I should get an apartment together!”
“Goodness! Well, as it turns out the murderer was some cousin of some girl we mentioned a hundred pages ago and not my father, and that I am a cultured lady with an education in things other than sexual ways and means, then okay, let’s get an apartment together!”
“Huzzah!”

And they all lived happily ever after. Thanks for stopping by, and hey — you stay classy, San Diego.

Oh shit.  And I just remembered that, as part of saying goodbye to those good friends, I just gave this website out to a lot of people as a way to keep up with me.  And a lot of those friends are men who have no idea I read this trash … shit.

QUICK ALAINA READ SOMETHING ELSE SOMETHING WITH VIOLENCE

Grade for Madame’s Deception: 2 stars

Fiction: “Murder Superior” by Jane Haddam

So yesterday was a magnificent day: in the first time in forever, I was able to finish two books on the same day. Crazy, right? This is the first one I finished — which, in a way, the finishing sucked: I had ten pages left in the entire damn book, and my lunch break ended. And all I wanted to do was finish it! But I had to go back to the floor! Why is my job so mean! oh wait …

ANYWAY. This was my “lunch break book,” to hide the fact that I was reading a tawdry romance novel (see the next entry). I hadn’t realized it had been over a year since I’d read the last in the Gregor Demarkian series, and I wanted to get back into it.

Unlike the last few in the series I’d read, this murder takes place conveniently in Philadelphia. That means that, in addition to the characters introduced especially for the murder plot, there are also some great interactions between Demarkian and his Cavanaugh Street cohorts. The holiday in question this time is Mother’s Day, and there’s a nun convention in town. It’s the same company of nuns that appeared in A Great Day for the Deadly, and they’ve invited Gregor to speak at their convention on the Brigit Ann Reilly case. The other important information is that there is a huge feud between two nuns: Mother Mary Bellarmine, and Sister Joan Esther. Joan Esther used to work for Mother Mary Bellarmine, and Mary Bellarmine is what you and I would call a heinous bitch (the other nuns would most likely call her ‘tempestuous,’ but even that is being too generous with Mary Bellarmine’s nature).

Bennis accompanies Gregor to the convention thingee. Prior to Gregor’s speech, there is a luncheon, including ice sculptures of all the mothers superior in the order. There is a procession of nuns, carrying the different ice sculptures and presenting them to the mothers superior, and Sister Jane Esther randomly gets the sculpture assigned to Mother Mary Bellarmine. Inside the sculpture, there is a small ball of chicken liver pate, which each mother superior takes and eats on a cracker, beginning the luncheon.

Except that the cracker that Sister Jane Esther is laced with fugu, which — as illustrated by this clip from The Simpsons — is either a delicacy, or extremely dangerous:

“Poison … poison … tasty fish!”

The difficulty around this particular mystery for Gregor is that by the time the police arrive, he’s already figured out the solution. Except that the lead detective is a prick of the highest order, and refuses to have Gregor’s assistance, and the detective pretty much accuses one of the sweetest nuns of murder, and the way the evidence points is that it looks like someone had been trying to murder Mother Mary Bellarmine because the chicken liver pate that did Sister Joan Esther in was from Mother Mary Bellarmine’s ice sculpture. Everyone believes that someone would want to murder Mother Mary Bellarmine, but everyone also agrees that no one would have the balls to do it.

Here’s what Gregor thinks about Detective Androcetti, and more importantly, how Gregor views the local constabulary:

If Jack Androcetti had been a halfway decent policeman, Gregor wouldn’t have spent the next two hours wandering around the back garden and along the strip of grass that allowed passage from the back garden to the sidewalk at the front. Androcetti knew Gregor had caught the body as it fell. Any policeman worth his service revolver would have taken that and run with it. Gregor had never liked the kind of detective story where the police were made to look like absolute idiots. To his mind, they exhibited a particularly obnoxious form of class snobbery and a total disregard for reality. Even the Nero Wolfe books — which he liked because Wolfe was fat and proud of it — annoyed him because of their portrayal of the police. What he was supposed to do with a case where the police really were idiots, he didn’t know. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Sergeant Collins at least seemed to have a brain in his head. How much good that was going to do anyone, Gregor didn’t know. [170]

For the first time in ever (and even Gregor remarks on this), the mystery is actually solved within 24 hours of the crime happening. There is also the one body, whereas I know I’ve said in past Demarkian mysteries that the bodies usually pile up one on top of another throughout the book. In a way, I liked the fact that there was only one body and the mystery was solved so quickly; in another way, however, I was disappointed. As I’ve explained, the Demarkian mysteries begin with a Prologue, in which Jane Haddam introduces all the characters that will be central to the mystery. In this entry in the series, I felt that she really didn’t need to spend all that time on some of the characters, because those particular characters (for example, Father Stephen Monaghan and Sarabess Coltrane) didn’t really interact that much with the plot, and are removed as possible suspects simply from the nature of their being. And due to the lack of development and the loss of possibilities, I am giving this entry 2 stars.

The other point of interest I had in this book is that there are actual hints that Gregor may have different feelings for Bennis besides friendship. Of course, Gregor being Gregor, he refuses to acknowledge them (and probably writes them off as heartburn), but I still think it’s interesting:

[...] but Bennis was already gone, her bare feet slapping carelessly against the wooden floor of her foyer, on the way to the privacy of her shower. Gregor wondered suddenly if Bennis felt that she needed privacy from him — and then he shoved that away, because it made him feel a little crazy. In fact, everything about his relationship with Bennis made him feel a little crazy lately. It was as if, after years of running along on a track on which they were both comfortable, an invisible hand had thrown a switch that got them both off course. he had even started to dream about her. [67]

Of course, he represses that emotion and moves on to try and solve a murder. I felt that this quote adequately captures the true relationship between Gregor and Bennis:

“It’s easy,” Gregor said pleasantly. “All you have to know is not only who is dead but who was supposed to be dead.”

“You mean you think it was supposed to be Mother Mary Bellarmine who was killed after all?”

“I mean I hear police sirens.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean that one of my suspects seems to have called Lieutenant Androcetti. I’ll talk to you later, Bennis.”

“But –”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“If I had a penny for every time you promised to tell me later and didn’t, I’d be richer than my father was.” [249]

I will of course continue to read these, even though I felt that this one was a little less than what it could have been. At one point, I had read up through Skeleton Key, and there are about ten titles after that one now. Oh, that reminds me, I need to get on getting through the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet — by the time I really get into that again, she’ll have finished whatever Z will be for.

Grade for Murder Superior: 2 stars

Fiction: “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

Okay, I’ve had this entry window up and blank for about half an hour now. As I was reading this, I didn’t have the wherewithal to actually mark quotes like I usually do, and also, I don’t want to give away any major plot points. Hm. So really, I don’t know how to talk about this.

How about this: Is the movie out yet? How about now? What about now? Is it now yet?

All seriousness: this series is marketed in the Young Adult section, but (as my roommate and I were saying last night), it ain’t our Young Adult series. The YA stuff we had to choose from when we were kids? Goosebumps by R.L. Stine and Nancy Drew. The ‘chapter book’ that would push us up to adult books, because adult books had more interesting things, like sex and violence. (Look, I have distinct memories of me, taking the eighth grade Maine Educational Assessment tests, finishing the section before the end of the period, and taking out my dad’s old Agatha Christie compendium and finishing reading “And Then There Were None,” and in the next period, when I again finished that section of testing early, taking out The Pelican Brief and beginning to read that. I was fourteen. I also aced the reading comprehension section.)

This YA series takes place in an indeterminate time after society as we know it has collapsed. What was (slightly) interesting to me was that my NaNoWriMo project this year [16,000 words and counting!] also involved society as we know it collapsing, but not to the degree experienced by the narrator, Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is seventeen and the one responsible for her family: her widowed mother, and her younger sister, Prim. Katniss lives in District 12 of Panem, which is the new North America. Panem is divided into 12 Districts, and all are ruled by the Capitol, who strictly regulates what everyone is allowed to do. Not quite Big Brother, but scary nonetheless.

Because what the Capitol does to keep all the districts in line is The Hunger Games, where each District sends two tributes — a boy and a girl, aged between 12 and 18, determined by a hellish lottery — to fight to Last Man Standing in an arena. The Games are also broadcast to all the districts in the highest-rated reality show ever, so the Districts get to see in all the gory, glorious detail how their children die. In this year (the 74th Hunger Games), Prim’s name is drawn to represent District 12. Katniss immediately volunteers to take her place, keeping her sister at home with her mother. So Katniss travels to the Capitol with her other tribute, Peeta Mellark, and together they enter the Games.

The good news for Katniss is that she is an exceptional archer, so with a bow and arrow in her hands, she is able to survive. Of course, getting the bow and arrow is something else.

The Hunger Games is also a love story, of sorts. I say “of sorts” because Peeta appears to be in love with Katniss, but as she’s our narrator and she’s extremely cynical, she believes it to be a ruse in order to help Peeta garner sympathy from the audience and potential sponsors. It’s weird that, two days before beginning to read Hunger Games, I rewatched Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and while Holly Golightly wouldn’t last past the training portion of the Games, she’d give Katniss a run for her money in the Women Oblivious to the Men Who Loves Them category.

As much I talked about trying to remain unspoiled as much as possible back when I reviewed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I will admit that while I didn’t read ahead, I did seek out the resolution of the first book on Wikipedia. Look, I honestly wasn’t sure if The Hunger Games contained the whole Games, or if the deadly arena fight-to-the-death continued through the other two books. And more importantly, I liked Peeta! I wanted to make sure he lived, too!

[SPOILER ALERT: The Hunger Games covers the Games to the end, and also, Peeta lives! Yay!]

To get back to the “Young Adult” series thing: Yes, I tagged this as “genre: young adult,” but that’s only because I couldn’t think of any other genre to put it in — it’s too rich, almost, for what I consider to be YA. But then I think, just because my YA series growing up wasn’t like this, doesn’t mean it should be denegrated to the genre and then dismissed.

Okay, actually, I could go in a dozen different tangents here, but rather than talk about the whole YA publishing category and the crap I’ve seen going on behind the scenes with that (if you’re curious, here’s a great article from New York Magazine, published in the wake of a big frouferah about the YA genre being evil, as seen in the Wall Street Journal). So instead, I’m going to say this, as a reader, and as a promoter of reading: don’t limit yourself to genres. Not picking up a book because it’s in the “Young Adult” section is just stupid. Twilight aside, there are some awesome books being put out under that genre, and while I haven’t read a lot of them, some of the titles continue to grab my attention as a scroll past in the monthly Goodreads newsletter.

And so, I’ll leave you with the words of my father, spoken to me sometime in my high school years:
“Alaina, you’ve got to broaden your horizons. You can’t keep reading the same books over and over. Here, read this.”

“The Hobbit? Dad, I’m not sure this is in English.”

See? Precocious.

Grade for The Hunger Games: 3.5 stars

2011 Recap

In 2010, I read 34 books.  I read the same amount in 2011.  The heck?  Why can’t I read more?  Stupid being an adult with stupid responsibilities.

Anyway.  For those interested (and looking for a handy-dandy reference [or possibly I'm just completely too anal-retentive for words]), here’s the complete listing of What She Read in 2011.  An asterisk (*) marks the ones I’d never read before.

January
1.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton

February
3. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton

March
4. Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens*
5. Heat Wave by “Richard Castle”*
6. Conspiracy in Death by J.D. Robb
7. Hot Money by Dick Francis
8. F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton
9. Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell
10. The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson*

April
11. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris*

May
12. Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming*
13. The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis*
14. Solar by Ian McEwan*

June
15. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
16. Seduced by his Touch by Tracy Anne Warren*
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
19. The Green Lantern Chronicles, Vol. 1 by John Broome & Gil Kane*

July
20. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
21. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

August
22. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
24. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
25. A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King

September
26. A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King*

October
27. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy*
28. Naked Heat by “Richard Castle”*
29. The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen*
30.  Club Dead by Charlaine Harris*

November
31. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson*

December
32. Retail Hell by Freeman Hall*
33. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet*
34. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer*

 

Fiction: “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer

Oh, my god, you guys. You GUYS. I’m FINALLY DONE with these stupid vampires.

I don’t even know where to begin with this. I have five-and-a-half pages of quotes from this book in a Word document. If I had thought about it ahead of time, I would have taken a picture of the book with all its little Post-It Flags throughout. Way more than New Moon did.

I guess I’ll start with the plot. It begins with Bella and Edward engaged, about a week before the wedding. Now, I’ve read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies, and let me say that I was totally expecting the wedding to result in a horrible, awful bloodbath, sent down by the Volturi, or maybe that kid from Bella’s high school who loves her, or maybe Edward would end up in a panic and just frickin’ shave his head like Marshall did on How I Met Your Mother, but as I think that I realize that would be ridiculous, because according to this “canon,” everything about a vampire is strong, which means he would break the razor on his head, and then that makes me think about Pauley D from Jersey Shore, I mean have you seen that hair? That hair is immune to nuclear bombs.

That is how my mind works, ladies and gentlemen. (You’re scared now, aren’t ya?)

Okay, so anyway, I was expecting the Battle of the Bride or something at the wedding. But it went off without a hitch. Seriously? No cold feet? No explosions of fire that aren’t fireworks? Nothing? I would be disappointed, but then I remember that I’m reading a Twilight book, and I stop being disappointed and start being awesome instead.

[Note to self: stop watching so much How I Met Your Mother.]

So Bella and Edward go on their honeymoon, which is on their own private island (well, Carlisle’s own private island) off the coast of Brazil. And there they have sex once (FINALLY, but oh it is the vaguest of vagues. It’s all “we went to bed and FADE TO BLACK and then I woke up and it was AWESOME” but NO ONE GOT TO SEE ANYTHING. And folks, there are TWO REASONS I read romance novels occasionally, and those reasons are “They’re Cheesy” and “And so is the sex descriptions.” BUT AT LEAST WE GET TO READ ABOUT QUIVERING MEMBERS), and because apparently there are bruises all over Bella’s body from teh sexing, Edward actually takes a stand with Oprah and says LOVE SHOULDN’T HURT and refuses to have sex with Bella anymore. Until she seduces him, because apparently, our little Bella, she likes it rough. (Who knew? She’s so whiny all the time, I didn’t expect that.) So they have sex like, one more time, and all of a sudden SHE’S PREGNANT.

And — how — I doo—

IF VAMPIRES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD, AND THE “VENOM” IN THIS CANON “FREEZES EVERYTHING INTO PERFECTION” or whatever, then HOW THE FUCK IS EDWARD’S SPERM MOTILE?

*sigh*

So ANYWAY, Edward wants to bring Bella home to Carlisle immediately to perform an awkward vampire abortion, but no she wants it she needs it her preciousssss and she uses Rosalie, previously known as The Bitch of the Cullen family, to her advantage: Rosalie only wanted BABBIEEEES, and now she has a chance to have a BABBIEEEEE in the family, and Bella wants to keep her precious little fetus that, oh right, is also killing her slowly.

At this point, the narrative switches from Bella’s whiny emo tones to Jacob’s funny, sarcastic side. Which doesn’t really serve a purpose other than: we don’t have to hear Bella’s thoughts while the baby kills her from the inside, we only see what Bella goes through. In such awful, horrific detail, but then I saw the movie and was saddened that there wasn’t more blood.

So the baby gets born, and it wasn’t the son that Bella was hoping for, but instead a girl, and she picks the STUPIDEST NAME ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH: Renesmee, a mash-up of Renee and Esme, her and Edward’s ‘mother’, respectively. Also, the middle name is a mash-up of Carlisle and Charlie, or, Carlie. Dear god, when did Bella hit her head on something hard?

So THEN, Edward turns Bella into a vampire, and I’m like, FINALLY, but it turns out that Bella is not only a vampire, but only the bestest vampire in the history of vampiring. Apparently the vampires are supposed to go through a one year “newborn” phase, where everything is BLOOOOOOOOD and there is no logic, only thirst, but Bella wakes up and she’s like, “Where’s my baby I want my baby and also why am I in this beautiful dress ALICE oh hey honey, let’s have sex now, you couldn’t possibly break me in two.”

Oh, and did I mention that Jacob imprints on the baby? Meaning that, at some point when Renesmee is no longer a baby but a full grown person (because she’s half-human, half-immortal, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS), Jacob and Renesmee are going to be a couple.

HA HA HA HA HA oh Jesus make it stop.

Then there’s this other coven, the Denali clan or whatever, and one of them sees Renesmee prancing about and immediately assumes that the Cullens have created a vampire baby, so she runs to the Volturi to tattle. But while Renesmee is a baby of vampires, she is not a human baby that was turned into a vampire, so the Cullens should be safe from the Evol Volturi. But they have to gather other vampires to act as witnesses, and since Renesmee is growing at, like, creepy speed (her first words after a week, reading poetry after a month, like, WTF), the other vampires can see proof that she is a different thing than a vampire baby, so they should hopefully be safe. And Renesmee also has a power: she can touch someone and show them her thoughts, which is how she shows everyone her grisly birth.

Charming.

And that’s totally where I lost interest. Seriously, it’s five hundred pages of Bella and Edward having sex then not having sex then being pregnant then Jacob turning into his own One Man Wolf Pack, then Bella giving birth and becoming the bestest vampire ever and then more sex between Bella and Edward and then … a month of visiting vampires, new talents, and talking, oh dear god so much talking.

And when the Volturi arrive, there isn’t even a fight. Lame.

Anyway. Everyone lives, nobody (that anyone would care about) dies*, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end. Thank fucking God.

*Except Irina. Poor Irina, the scapegoat. And what really makes that funny for me is that, in the movies, Irina is played by Maggie Grace, the girl who played Shannon Rutherford on Lost, which is also the sister of BOOOOOONE!, played by my favorite Ian Somerhalder, who now plays the ultimate character Damon Salvatore in that superior television program The Vampire Diaries. But really, I’m almost looking forward to Breaking Dawn II so I can see Shannon die again.

So here’s the part where I show you some quotes. I have to say that the majority of Post It’s were for the category I created called, “Edward is perfect and I am awful.” Because even as a vampire, Bella has problems with self-esteem.

This quote is, like, on page three. I distinctly remember uttering, “Good Lord,” and then restraining the urge to throw the 754-page book across the room.

… I just couldn’t reconcile a staid, respectable, dull concept like husband with my concept of Edward. It was like casting an archangel as an accountant… [6]

Let’s see, what else made me roll my eyes?

The rush was due to the fact that I was getting closed to nineteen every stinking day, while Edward stayed frozen in all his seventeen-year-old perfection, as he had for over ninety years. [16]

Sometimes it was so easy to forget that I was kissing a vampire. Not because he seemed ordinary or human – I could never for a second forget that I was holding someone more angel than man in my arms … [23]

Here, Bella forgets the Number One Rule of Weddings: No One Looks At the Groom Except the Bride:

I stared at the long counter, covered in all the paraphernalia of a beauty salon, and began to feel my sleepless night.
“Is this really necessary? I’m going to look plain next to him no matter what.” [44]

Even after she becomes a vampire, Edward is still Perfect and She is Still Awful:

The greater part of my senses and my mind were still focused on Edward’s face.

I had never seen it before this second.

How many times had I stared at Edward and marveled over his beauty? How many hours – days, weeks – of my life had I spent dreaming about what I then deemed to be perfection? I thought I’d known his face better than my own. I’d thought this was the one sure physical thing in my whole world: the flawlessness of Edward’s face.

I may as well have been blind. [390]

I could not answer immediately, lost as I was in the velvet folds of his voice. It was the most perfect symphony, a symphony in one instrument, an instrument more profound than any created by man … [391]

NO. NO NO NO. That cannot happen. There is NOTHING more beautiful than the Pastoral Symphony. Except maybe the Sleeping Beauty ballet. But COME ON. Robert Pattinson’s voice is AWFUL.

Some other categories of choice: Bella is Dumb, and also, Jacob Speaks the Truth:

“So why hasn’t Carlisle done anything?” I growled. “He’s a doctor, right? Get it out of her.”

He looked up then and answered me in a tired voice. Like he was explaining this to a kindergartener for the tenth time. “She won’t let us.”

It took a minute for the words to sink in. Jeez, she was running true to form. Of course, die for the monster spawn. It was so Bella. [177]

Even more examples of Jacob Speaking Truth (which is why Jacob’s my favorite, if I can have a favorite in this hell):

“I thought the whole point was that you wanted your vampire more than anything. And now you’re just giving him up? That doesn’t make any sense. Since when are you desperate to be a mom? If you wanted that so much, why did you marry a vampire?” [193]

“Why do you always have to love the wrong things, Bella?” [197]

And one rare instance where Bella Speaks the Truth:

I’d never done anything good enough to deserve a friend like Jacob. [60]

Now, let’s just take a moment and recognize that some things can be learned over time:

Behind the light, I could distinguish the individual grains in the dark wood ceiling above. In front of it, I could see the dust motes in the air … [387]

I DID NOT CHANGE THAT, that is an ACTUAL quote! YAY!

Renesmee, meanwhile, is a creepy little fucker:

“Renesmee is healthy and well,” he promised, a gleam I’d never seen before in his eyes. He said her name with an understated fervor. A reverence. The way devout people talked about their gods. [396]

See, and Bella’s not being ironic or creeped out about this. Devout people talking about their gods is not a creepy thing for her.

There’s also a category for “Seriously?! You guys are just messing with me now, right?”

“But he’s a smart, practical man. She thinks he’ll come up with his own explanation. She assumes he’ll get it wrong.” Edward snorted. “After all, we hardly adhere to vampire canon.” [301]

Vampire canon?! You guys acknowledge that there is a vampire canon?! Amazing!

And speaking of amazing,

“What an amazing creature she is,” Edward murmured, almost in agreement, as if Jacob’s comment was meant as a compliment. He was both dazzling and dazzled. [523]

Oy.

And speaking of vampire “canon,” here’s a tidbit that made me go all Barbara Walters on Herman Cain What?!:

Edward’s jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, “They aren’t even werewolves. Aro can tell you all about it if you don’t believe me.”

Not werewolves? I shot a mystified look at Jacob. He lifted his huge shoulders and let them drop — a shrug. He didn’t know what Edward was talking about, either. [704]

No, really: you guys are messing with me, right?

I read the emotions as they scrolled across [Charlie's] face.

Shock. Disbelief. Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. Suspicion. More pain.

I bit my lip. It felt funny. [506]

COME ON. ALL KRISTEN STEWART CAN DO IS BITE HER LIP. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

And now, my favorite parts: The Crazy Random Happenstance References, which only make sense to me.

Here’s this one, from Jacob’s perspective (note: the italics are the voices of the members of his wolf-pack he can hear in his head. No, don’t ask):

They all saw the horror – Bella’s mottled stomach; her raspy voice: he’s strong, that’s all; the burning man in Edward’s face: watching her sicken and waste away … seeing it hurting her; Rosalie crouched over Bella’s limp body: Bella’s life means nothing to her–and for once, no one had anything to say.

Their shock was just a silent shout in my head. Wordless.

!!!! [198]

See, in one of my favorite short-lived series, The Middleman, the Middleman and his apprentice Wendy Watson face an evil killer that is making something called !!!!, which is an energy drink that, when drunk, turns people into zombie trout. Again, don’t ask, but this made me laugh, at least.

This did notmake me laugh; instead, it made me cry for the withdrawal I am currently undergoing:

The dark one grinned when I came into view. “Well, well, Carlisle. You have been naughty, haven’t you?”

“She’s not what you think, Stefan.” [627]

STEFAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE CULLENS? AND WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR BROTHER AND WHY ISN’T HE SHIRTLESS (Vampire Diaries comes back in one week holy shit I can’t fucking wait)

Here’s the quote:

Caius stood alone beside the blazing remains of Irina, the metal object in his hand still throwing a thick jet of flame into the pyre.

With a small clicking sound, the fire shooting from Caius’s hand disappeared. [708]

And here’s the reference:

And then “The Final Countdown” runs through my head and I have to run away laughing.

The final reference (da duh daa daaaa! da duh da da daaaaaa!) is actually a conversation my friends and I almost had one fateful New Year’s Eve night:

“So there are real werewolves?” I asked. “With the full moon and silver bullets and all that?”

Jacob snorted. “Real. Does that make me imaginary?” [745]

And I can’t remember where I’ve mentioned this instance before, but we were all talking about zombies versus vampires, and Jen at one point said “Oh, you’re talking about Resident Evil zombies, not real zombies.” And Emily whirls on her and says, “REAL zombies!? Did you just say REAL zombies?!”

Finally-finally, as if Stephenie Meyer knewI’d need something happy to take away from all of this, she leaves me with this quote: [Context: Bella has found that she can draw her shield or whatever into herself so Edward is finally able to hear her thoughts, or, whatever]:

“I can’t keep it up if I’m even the slightest bit distracted,” I warned him. [754]

Ahem.

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID.

Grade for Breaking Dawn: Twilight Stars

Fiction: “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett

Hey, look! Two books in less than 48 hours! It’s a Saturnalia miracle!

(Incidentally, a real Saturnalia miracle would involve me finishing two books between now and 11:59 on New Year’s Eve, I’ll have actually increased the amount of books I’ve read year over year for the first time since I’ve started this blog. Everybody cross your fingers!)

I picked up The Maltese Falcon for two reasons: 1) I needed a ‘lunch break book,’ because (as I said in the entry for Retail Hell) there was no way in hell I was going to be caught reading Breaking Dawn by Brad and John and everyone else I work with. And 2), I was/am trying to write a novel with a distinct pulp fiction tone, and hey, why not one of the classics?

Now, at the risk of gaining more hell from friends and coworkers, I’m going to begin by saying that I’ve never seen the Bogart film of the same name. Although, knowing Brad and John, they could care less about me not seeing a classic film starring one of the best on-screen detectives of all time. But mention that I’ve never watched Pulp Fiction and let the skies fall down upon me in shame. So anyway, I cannot compare the book to the movie. I can, however, compare Sam Spade to that other embodiment of 1940s-era detectivery, Philip Marlowe from The Big Sleep.

The trouble begins when a Miss Wonderly walks into the office of Spade & Archer in San Francisco, and asks them to tail a man that she’s hanging around. Before the night is over, Archer’s dead, as is the man he was supposed to tail. Another 12 hours passes, and he learns that Miss Wonderly is actually a Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and she’s wrapped up in something more sinister than just being scared for her life.

Turns out, she’s a player in a gang of people playing one against the other, looking for something called the Maltese Falcon. It’s this extremely rare statuette that was originally used as payment to some king or something (look, it’s taken me about 24 lunch breaks and twenty minutes, a nap, and then another four minutes to read this damn thing, I’m not going back and looking shit up, okay?), and it’s gold-plated and practically bedazzled in jewels. So O’Shaughnessy, a “Leviathan” named Joe Cairo, and a man with overtones of Jabba the Hut(*) are all looking for this thing. And they rope Sam Spade into looking for it too.

(* — I’d like to remind the readers that I’ve never seen Star Wars in one sitting, or in chronological order. But I know who Jabba the Hut is. In short [hee!], shut up, Brad.)

Here’s the difference between Spade and Marlowe: Marlowe wears his moral code on his sleeve, and doesn’t compromise his morals for a job. Spade plays everyone against each other and just tries to stay ahead of the game and end up on top. Even after finishing the book today, I’m not sure if he would sacrifice his morals for his “relationship” with O’Shaughnessy, or if he would run away with her and the falcon. But I know that, if Marlowe were in the same situation, he’d remain aloof of Brigid and maintain his code of honor throughout the case.

In the end, I enjoyed this title, and I will look for The Maltese Falcon on TCM (I have too many movies on my Netflix queue — including the entire Star Wars series, coming as soon as True Blood is over, I promise!), and I may pick up more Hammett titles. But I know for a fact I will read a Philip Marlowe novel first.

Grade for The Maltese Falcon: 2.5 stars

Memoir: “Retail Hell” by Freeman Hall

Okay, so, I know I said the next book I was going to finish would be Breaking Dawn, but guys — I tried, okay? I mean, I saw the movie, and then got through the Part I Movie portion of the book, but dudes, Part II? Is fucking boring.

And I couldn’t exactly bring Breaking Dawn to work to read on my lunch break, because look, if Brad and John are teasing me for never seeing Pulp Fiction and Fargo and Caddyshack, can you imagine the ration I’d get if they caught me reading about sparkling vampires? So that caused me to pick up The Maltese Falcon, but that got boring too, and more importantly, work became … let’s use the term “crazy” to stand for so much more than I can get into in this space, and I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling these feelings.

Enter a book I had purchased on a whim over two years ago, which (of course) was currently holding up one of the piles of books on top of another pile of books in a bookcase. Thankfully, no piles collapsed during the reading of this title: Retail Hell, by Freeman Hall.

Dear Freeman: You and I are kindred spirits. If you ever visit Maine, I would love to buy you a margarita.

Freeman’s memoir (of sorts) is about his time at The Big Fancy, a high-class department store in Burbank known for its superior customer service. (Hm, where have I heard that phrase before?) He is the first male salesman in the Handbag department, and he still believes that the only reason he was hired for Handbags is because he’s gay (and there are no openings in the Menswear section). He bonds quickly with three women — Cammie, Marci and Jules — and also has to deal with the three Sales Demons, one of whom he tenderly refers to as ‘Douche,’ mainly because she steals sales out from under his nose.

The book is a series of scenes from his life as a handbag salesman, and in those scenes we meet a variety of characters, including the Shoposaurus Carnotaurus (a heavy spender who devours everything in sight, but ends up being extremely loyal to her salesperson), the Picky Bitch, and the Nasty-Ass Thief.

The Nasty-Ass Thief is actually a character I’m quite familiar with. Being someone who is currently mid-level management in a local-yet-internationally-known retailer with a history of superior customer service and a stellar return policy, we see Nasty-Ass Thieves all the time. [Note: they are certainly not Nasty Ass-Thieves.] We may not get people trying to return extremely expensive handbags, but I’ve authorized many a return without a receipt that puts over $500 on a gift card. And of course, they always try to get cash back first:

A woman wearing a dirty Mickey Mouse sweatshirt appears at the counter with a $3,000 Marc Jacobs handbag stuffed into a plastic grocery bag. She wants to return it and get her cash back. [vii-viii]

Then there’s this quote about the type of people Freeman experienced as being shoplifters:

Like handbags, Nasty-Ass Thieves come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. There are men, women, teenagers, children, white, Black, Asian, Latino, Russian, Middle Eastern, European, and yes, even Alien. They are fat, skinny, young, old, gay, straight, ritzy, trashy, pretty, ugly, poor, and yes, even Warren Buffet rich. [123]

This line made me think of our old shoplifting video we used to show in orientation, which would make me giggle every damn time. I can’t find the transcript I made of it (and thankfully, it wasn’t unique to our business), but essentially, the narrator said something like everybody steals but then only singled out teenagers, drug addicts, and rich people. But the best was the final line: “Old people steal lots of things!” That last one is a direct quote — there is nothing that could make me forget that line.

There are also the — *shudder* — evil Sale Monsters. We will be dealing with that at my place of business in a little over a week, and I am already sick to my stomach thinking about it. There’s the idiots who can’t read:

I then spent ten minutes explaining to a woman that 25% off an original price does not mean an additional 25% off. The women kept arguing saying “But that would mean it’s an additional 25% off!” Finally I went all Sale Hell Bitch on her: “Does it say ‘additional’ on the sign? NO! They are NOT an additional percentage off. THEY ARE 25 PERCENT OFF ORIGINAL! THAT’S IT!”

Then, for the millionth time, a woman came up to me and asked, “Why isn’t everything on sale?”

I bitched back at her, “Because life isn’t fair.” [197]

And then there are the vindictive bitches who must have it i wants it i needs itwhen they could live without it five minutes ago, but that’s since changed since someone else wants it now:

From experience, I knew what was going to happen next. You see, whenever there is only one left of something on sale, and two women suddenly start eyeing it for whatever reason, the one that picks it up first wins. And even though the winner may not really want it, if she’s a bitch, she’ll buy it out of spite, just to keep the other one from having it. It’s a common occurrence in the Handbag Jungle. [201]

I could get into all the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad customers that I’ve had to deal with on a daily basis, and how they sometimes intersect with the incredibly stupid, sometimes to the point of illiteracy customers, but I’m … don’t want to. It’s not important. What is important is that, while reading it, I realized I am not alone in my complete irritation at the general populace.

But really, the one place I truly felt that Freeman and I are the same person, only he lives in Burbank and I in Maine, and also, he is a boy and I am a girl and both of us like boys, is when he talks about the stupid-ass things (stupid ass-things? [I could get fired for that]) upper management does to try and make our lives as Retail Slaves better (so they think), but ends up making our lives complete Hell.

For instance, the schedule. Speaking as a leader, I am not allowed to limit my availability. Which is fine — I completely understand that. As a leader, I need to be able to be there at any time of day to see the entire team. But what that can also mean is that, this is the schedule I worked for pretty much all of November until I finally went to my boss and asked him sweetly, “Do you hate me? Or, at least, the idea of a sleep cycle?”:

Every week my schedule felt like a vomit-inducing thrill ride at Magic Mountain amusement park, except that I was anything but amused. I’d open, then close, then open, then work a mid-shift (11-8), then open, then close. [87]

And, like Freeman, I’ve had to work the more-than-six-days-in-a-row-to-get-a-day-off routine as well:

You see, in order for me to end up with three days off in a row, I had to work eight days in a row. During those eight days of opening, then closing, opening, then closing, and opening, then closing, without a day off, all the normal living shit that needed to be done didn’t get done. I’m talking about laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, haircut and color, tanning, and exercising. [182]

And BELIEVE ME, when this happened? I kept my fucking mouth shut and ran like hell:

In the world of retail, having two days off in a row is unheard of. Three days is like a vacation. So when the General accidentally gave me a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off because the schedule overlapped into the next week and she wasn’t paying attention, I took it and ran like I’d been awarded a Get Out of Jail Free card. [181]

Every retail store, regardless of square footage or importance, has an employee entrance. I’ve always compared my place of business to Disney World: there’s a separate employee entrance and a Habi-trail hidden from the customers’ view, so we can go all over the store without people seeing us; when we’re on the sales floor, we are on stage in a (sometimes) completely different persona, and also, our lines are very long and our rides suck sometimes. And occasionally, there are mascots walking around. Now, my employee entrance is up a small stairway, and it’s not that inconvenient. Freeman’s is an eight-flight walk-up with no chance of elevator. He calls it Mount Fancy. And one day, his corporate bosses decided to brighten up the employees’ hike up Mount Fancy by turning it into the lamer version of Studio 54, except with only three disco songs and a single disco ball, twirling unsightly and sadly on level 3. Climbing eight flights of stairs with Donna Summers’ “Hot Stuff” blasting was enough to drive Freeman crazy:

I endured the Mount Fancy three-song disco for almost a month before I snapped. I just couldn’t take any more celebrating YMCA hot stuff. Disco Death Star had to be destroyed. I tried to reach the player, but the bastards had thought of everything. The shelf was just high enough so the volume slider and off-button couldn’t be reached.

Was that done on purpose? Did they know we would get irritated by this? I became even more irritated by the thought of their preparing for our irritation. [211]

And then there’s the morning rallies, wherein we pump up the selling force to hit our goals, create an experience for our customers, sell the credit card, and have a good day! I notoriously made a seasoned rep nearly piss his pants from laughing when, one stellar, sleep-deprived morning, my rally speech consisted of, and I quote: “… make budget, sellthe credit card, blah blah blah, be awesome!” But I have to admit, my rallies are nothing like the ones Freeman attends:

“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, PEOPLE!” she gloated into the mike, with an oversized, eerie cartoon grin, “DOESN’T IT FEEL GREAT! DON’T YOU JUST LOVE SMILING?” [78]

Of course, all I want to say after that is I just like to smile, smiling’s my favorite!“

One thing Freeman deals with which, luckily, I don’t, is that if someone returns a handbag he sold, he loses out on some of his commission. And when his boss warns him that he’s not making his sales goal and he replies it’s because of the high return rate, his boss just tells him to sell more. He almost hits the roof:

What next sale? Hello. We are closing! It is the last day of the pay period and Greasy’s $2,000 return is about to make my sales a negative number for the day.

I feel like a hooker who gave a ten-hour blow job and was beat up and robbed by the john, just to have the police officer who witnessed it all say, “Oh well, better luck on the next blow job.” [8]

Here’s how I described my job at one point:

“I feel that They meet me at the employee entrance with a shovel. When I open the door, They beat me repeatedly about the head, shoulders, and my upper body with the shovel. And when I’m bloodied, bruised and battered, They hand me the shovel and tell me to dig a hole with said shovel. Then They ask me to climb inside that hole, take the shovel away from me, and instruct me to pull myself out of that hole.”

It doesn’t matter who the ‘They’ in that situation is/are. It could be customers, it could be employees, co-workers, bosses, or a combination of all of the above. Regardless, when I crawl out to my car, I am a battered woman.

And it always amazes me when I get stopped on the sales floor, clearly outfitted in the dress code, wearing the sales walkie and carrying forty pairs of pants from the fitting room, and I get stopped by a customer and asked — well — :

And like the cherry on top of a shit sundae, a new customer forces her way up to the counter and shouts in my face:

“Excuse me, do you work here?”

I look like an octopus at the Aquarium of Insanity. How can she even ask me that? [viii]

I usually respond, “No, they just gave me the nametag and the outfit to raise my self-esteem. But when that failed, they gave me a job instead.”

Another thing that ties me to Freeman is that he maintains a job in retail to support his career: writing. I lie to myself and say that that’s what I’m doing — sacrificing sleep to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, banging out a thousand words a night (on a good night), working towards finishing a novel that, deep down, I’m afraid that only I will read. But I keep at it, because, as the joker said to the [Nasty Ass-] thief, there must be some kind of way outta here.

Grade for Retail Hell: 4 stars

Fiction: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

Oh man, maybe this was a bad idea. I was searching for a quote about dragons for this review, and accidentally refound the quote from Arrested Development‘s second season episode “Sword of Destiny,” where Gob is riding around on his Segway with his sword of destiny, and Michael says that it looks like he’s fighting dragons in the future, and then I made a huge mistake and decided to watch “Sword of Destiny” (no, thank you, Netflix), and now I’m afraid this entry will be rife with references to a show that only four of us have watched.

I apologize in advance. I’m sorry! (You’ll be sorry! Wait, that doesn’t work after his line … )

Anyway. This is really unfortunate, because this book is the exact opposite of Arrested Development. There’s a lot of development, and it’s dark, and gruesome, and above all, there is a lot of violence against women. A lot. A lot a lot. Like, I cannot say it enough: if you happen to have triggers for rape and violence, this is not the book for you. You should probably go find “Sword of Destiny” on Netflix and watch that instead.

No, go ahead. I’ll wait. (I need to finish the episode first anyway.)

For those of you who want to solider on and see what the fuss was about, or if you’ve already read it and are interested in what I have to say about it, let’s get to it. Although I’m going to try, for once, to not spoil everything, because if I did that, it would ruin it for you.

As y’all are probably aware, this is one of the most highly touted new series of the past decade. And yes, I am a sucker for hype. I’m also a sucker for upcoming movies starring Daniel Craig, so, y’know, there was also that. The saddest thing about this novel and the other two titles (aside from the violence against women) is that Stieg Larsson died from a heart attack with only three out of a proposed ten titles completed. So once I’ve read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, it’s all over. That’s very sad.

Anyway, I should probably talk about the book, huh? Considering I’ve just spend over two hundred words on a cancelled TV show and other miscellaney.

The book has two main characters: Lisbeth Salander is the titular character. She is a woman in her mid-twenties who is an accomplished hacker. She is extremely intelligent and also antisocial, but she has quite the career working with a detective agency. She is also prone to violence, but she only resorts to violence when defending herself or others. Due to her violent and asocial tendencies, she is a ward of the Swedish government, which poses problems for her in the first half of the book.

The other main character is Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist with the finanical magazine Millenium (hence, this series is referred to in many sources as the Millenium trilogy). Actually, he is a disgraced journalist, as at the beginning of the story, he has just been found guilty of libel. He had accused in his magazine a financier named Wennerstrom, and thanks to me being a huge depository of pop culture, every time I read that name, all I heard was Professor Farnsworth from Futurama grate out “WERNSTROM!” Y’know, this guy:

[It's moments like this that make me think I'm not a serious blogger.]

So while Blomkvist is dealing with forced unemployment, he gets a call from a Henrik Vanger, who wants him to solve a mystery. Forty-ish years ago, his niece, Harriet, disappeared from a family gathering. To this day, he’s unsure if she’s simply disappeared, or if she’s dead. Vanger asks Blomkvist to investigate her disappearance, which would require him to live on the Vanger Family compound for a year. Blomkvist initially wants to decline, declaring it an impossible task. Vanger sweetens the deal: should Blomkvist succeed, Vanger will give evidence that Blomkvist was correct in claiming that WERNSTROM (sorry!) is indeed a crook.

Meanwhile, Salander is incredibly violated. That’s all I’m going to say about that. That, and don’t worry, she gets her revenge in a fantastically awesome way.

In going through the investigation, Blomkvist realizes he needs a research assistant. When he learns that Salander was hired originally to do a background check on him for the Vanger corporation, he asks to hire her. She agrees, and they become a great team.

I’m not going to talk about the plot much more than that. Let me end with this: the plots are resolved (both Harriet and WERNSTROM), and they are twisty and dark and gruesome and it is more than worth it to remain as unspoiled going in as possible. I am a huge spoiler-er: with the exception of this book and maybe my no-spoiler stance on both Vampire Diaries and Veronica Mars, I like going in to things knowing how they’re going to end.

And here’s the part where we play a short round of Movies Alaina’s Never Seen, coupled with Things Alaina Knows About Those Movies Even Though She’s Never Seen Them:
- Animal House: Bluto’s a zit, FOOD FIGHT!, Marion Ravenwood’s ass, TOGA, TOGA, TOGA.
- Pulp Fiction: We never see what was in the suitcase, Uma gets shot with adrenaline on the dance floor, and they’ve never heard of McDonald’s in that universe.
- The Godfather: Leave the gun, take the cannoli; “you come to me, asking me to kill someone for money, on this, the day of my daughter’s wedding?”; and the horse head.
- The Shawshank Redemption: He escapes!
- Caddyshack: There’s a groundhog that drives Bill Murray nuts, but he’s going to Heaven, so at least he’s got that goin’ for him, which is nice.
- Star Wars: Emperor Palpatine’s a dick, Darth Vader is Luke & Leia’s dad, the Death Star gets blow’d up, and HAN SHOT FIRST.
- Schindler’s List: Schindler rescues Jews. (Enjoy your Chanukah cookie, man!) (I’m going to hell SO BAD for that joke.)

So when I finally sit down and watch these movies (and I will, because I seriously need to shut Brad and John up about that shit, and like yesterday, but I’ve been kind of busy, okay?), I want to know what’s going to happen beforehand. But I cannot tell you how happy I was that I refrained from looking up spoilers for the book, because it would have totally ruined how the plot unfolded.

I am greatly looking forward to the movie, and not just because Daniel Craig is playing Blomkvist (although, not gonna lie, that’s a big part of it). David Fincher is also directing, and I know he won’t compromise out the violence for a more marketable movie. And while there are some people in my circle who are still pissed that Noomi Rapace is not reprising her role from the Swedish movie version, I have no preconceived notions on Rooney Mara, and am awaiting the performance with open eyes and an open mind.

Two final thoughts: Firstly, I cannot stress enough that while the main plot of the novel revolves around a missing girl, the undercurrent of the entire story is a plea to fight against violence on women. There are scenes that were difficult for me to read, so I cannot warn people enough of the trigger possibilities.

Secondly, the book is very slow to start. It takes about two hundred pages for the action to truly pick up. But I beg you, stick with it, because it is totally worth it.

And now, after that highest of highs, will come the lowest of lows.

That’s right, my friends: next on my list? Breaking Dawn.

Stock up on the vodka now, kids. That one’ll be a doozy.

Grade for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: 5 stars