But I can’t help but want to ascribe the word “sexy” to this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1247694/Bondi-beach-IKEA-bookcase-offers-ultimate-holiday-reading.html
Not the beachgoers, you see, but the shelves and their location.
It’s not the RIGHT word, but I don’t care.
As someone whose family lives at the Jersey shore, I also cannot help but want to send this link to every library in Ocean, Atlantic, etc counties. What a FANTASTIC idea!
You really can’t resist the idea of a couple in love being utterly, absolutely, to the exclusion of everything else devoted to one another, can you? It makes sense, because of your family issues and all, but my God, woman, get a personality.
I actually like that this feels like an extension of her constant insecurity. She’s no longer a control freak because she feels she can hand that power over to someone else. Maybe that’s why I liked Julian so much, even though he was “evil.” He was willing to take control. And I liked that when I was a kid.
*cough*
I know the book desc makes it sound pretty harmless, but God, those titles, one after the other…
Uh, no. In the second trilogy, she lies to her boyfriend in the first chapter, and then in the next discusses with her father keeping something from her grandmother. You know, because she wouldn’t understand.
That doesn’t say “reformed” to me.
Also: EW, CONNECT-THE-DOT KISSES. I guess the new author thought, “It worked so well for Todd Wilkins…”
Also: Caitlin’s relationship with her dad is kinda creepy.
Had to join the YALSA listserv for my Young Adult Resources class and everyone on there is pretty cool and up on graphic novels, manga, and awesome books. I’m really impressed.
In less cool news, someone pointed out that Neil Gaiman is marrying Amanda Palmer. I’ve been squicked out by this relationship since the beginning–Amanda’s like a year younger than me, which means she grew up reading Gaiman’s stuff, and for some reason I feel like that makes the age difference seem bigger AND creates a sort of power gap that just…ugh. On top of that, Amanda is someone I’ve intereviewed, someone I’ve spoken to, someone I’ve interacted with over the years and I just…don’t like her. I think she’s pretentious. He has kids; I’ve seen her around kids and wasn’t impressed. I don’t know, the whole thing just bugs me. It probably hasn’t been as short a period of time as I think, but I feel like they started dating recently–far too recently. And yes, that makes me a hypocrite, except that neither my boyfriend nor I are in the public eye, and we don’t have the age and power gaps.
*sigh*
As always, recap by the lovely guest poster Sarah, with comments in brackets by your lovely editor. We’re all lovely here at Bookslide. Especially Liss.
Zoey and Aisha are in gym class learning about soccer. Well, sort of. They’re talking about The Ferry Incident and Aisha thinks that Joke and Zoey to kiss and make up already because the Island Division is making Aisha uncomfy. (Very sensitive, Aisha.) Coach Anders seems very big on FUN-DA-MENTALS and tells them that just because they are now high and mighty seniors that it’s no reason to be above playing with balls. (Yeah, I went there.) Don’t think too lowly of me because when the coach asks where her balls are; the class dissolves into giggles.
Coach Anders calls for her assistant, and who should it be but The Shupe? He decides to ask Zoey for help demonstrating how to do the whole soccer thing and Zoey is horrible embarrassed and tries to pawn off the demonstration on Aisha. Christopher declines claiming that Aisha’s feet are too big. Aisha is embarrassed and tries to defend her foot size and falls into Christopher’s trap by accidentally volunteering for the intramural soccer team.
Zoey and Nina are eating lunch. Nina is totally pulling a Kristy Thomas and talking shit about the lunch while others are trying to eat it. Classy. Nina and Zoey talk about what happened on the ferry and says that Zoey has to make a choice. Aisha is all full of sound and fury over Christopher’s total pwnage of her in gym class. Aisha rails that some girl named Toni started calling her Big Foot and Aisha nipped it in the bud by threatening to tell people that Toni slept with some guy named George. High school social politics for the win!
Aisha finally stops and asks if Zoey is bummed about betraying her ~one twoo wub~ for the bleeding bad boy and Aisha says very practically that Zoey will have to pick a side and stay there. Zoey claims that it’s not that easy. (Um, Zoey? Have you met your boyfriend. Trust me, girlfriend. It really is that easy.)
Zoey notices Lucas and completely starts to lose her shit when Nina jokingly suggests she invite Lucas to their lunch table and then freaks out at thee prospect of talking to Jake and Aisha and Nina suggest she go for smoochies.
Chapter The Fourteenth
Zoey is walking home with Benjamin. Zoey brings up the fact that Burke offered to pay for Benjamin’s college tuition. Benjamin confirms this and says that Burke thinks he’ll be easier to control than another son-in-law. When Zoey asks if this bothers him; Benjamin says he can’t take Burke seriously and asks if Zoey thinks he would be easy to control.
Zoey goes up to her room and thinks about Jake and Lucas and makes a list. She compares Jake to Lucas and most of it’s superficial stuff, but she stops when she thinks about how they make her feel. Jake makes her feel safe and she can’t describe the way Lucas makes her feel. (She feels safe with a guy who was so out of control he attacked a guy in public. Huh.) Zoey decides she’ll apologize to Jake for defending the guy he wanted to beat to a pulp. She’s confident that she made the right choice and things will go back to normal. Anyone care to take bets on how long that will last?
Claire is in therapy, telling her dreams to Dr. Kendall. Dr. Kendall loves dreams and believes everything has a deep-seated, psychological meaning. Therapists like this are so irritating. Claire tells the good doctor that she’s sorry she doesn’t have any kinky dreams to share. Claire is not in therapy because of the accident, but because her mother died. Claire’s dream is that she was in the car, only in the dream it wasn’t a car, but a lobster. Lucas and Wade were with her and Lucas tried to grab the wheel away from her-
Dr. Kendall gloms on to this. Claire corrects herself and continues, saying that she saw Benjamin actually looking at her with disappointment in his eyes.
Claire asks what this means and is disappointed when Dr. Kendall says that it could be the result of eating a lobster. Claire suggests that because she had a wacky dream she might be crazy. Dr. Kendall says that Claire is remarkably well-adjusted. Dr. Kendall has no clue that Claire is passively suicidal. Therapy only helps if you tell the therapist everything, Claire Bear.
Claire takes a cue from Zoey and waffles on whether to continue the therapy sessions. Dr. Kendall says that she can keep coming if she feels lonely, but that she may never remember the details of the accident. Claire insists that she isn’t lonely, but a loner. Dr. Kendall says that there’s nothing wrong with that. Claire decides that she’ll do weekly appointments, claiming that it’ll be easier to remember to keep them.
Zoey heads to Joke’s to make amends for showing some kindness to his mortal enemy. Joke is his usual jerky self and is all snotty to her. Zoey explains that she hates violence and it was her first instinct to help someone who was hurt. Jake claims that Lucas wasn’t hurt. Zoey points out that Lucas’s nose was bloody. Joke rants that if he had wanted to hurt Lucas, he would have smacked him around with his penis, because he is big strong man! GROG! (Okay, he doesn’t actually say that, but there’s definitely a vibe.) [Uh-huh.] Jake admits he felt jealous of Lucas and for some reason Zoey thinks this is awesome. Zoey tells him that Nina said they were the couple everybody looks up to.
Jake tells Zoey he has to make sure that she’s on his side, and Zoey agrees. Jake promises not to fight, but does not promise to leave Lucas alone.
Dear Acheron Hades,
As an ardent admirer of your work, I would greatly appreciate it if you would kill Jake McRoyan, as he is a ginormous douchebag.
Love and snuggles,
Sarah
Hand-written thingy: Zoey -
This is a sample of Zoey’s delightfully cheesy unfinished romance novel:
Chapter 24
…and with a roar, the white knight swung his gleaming broadsword, shattering the shield in Sir Luke’s hand and knocking him to the ground.
Yes, Dear Reader, Zoey has written a ham-fisted metaphor about her boyfriend waggling his dick at Lucas. “Gleaming broadsword?” Could that be any more phallic?
Next up: Zoey and Aisha get caught passing notes in class and Zoey starts her plan of ignoring Lucas by taking him to Mickey D’s and making out with him.
I am starting to get totally psyched for the next Jenny Crusie/Bob Mayer book, Wild Ride.
SO LONG UNTIL IT COMES OUT.
I am saving up my Borders Bucks to get it!
Still dealing with the non-fiction. It takes FOREVER when you don’t have anyone to help AND you’re not allowed to tag the spines of the books (he’s so pickyyyyy). Only a few more piles left, then it’ll be ready for all! new! pics!
Seriously. I have a big old headache, so I decided to recap–I love recapping when I’m feeling cranky–but I just breezed through the chapter and I have not one issue with it this first read-through.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but let’s delve a little deeper:
When last we left Our Heroine, she was…dead. Undead, really, and biting her ex. Then she decided to take a trip down memory lane, and was accidentally viewed by her aunt. As chapter four begins, her boyfriend’s brother/possible new boyfriend Damon is pissed off at her for going back to her childhood home.
Hilariously, the first thing that happens is that Damon pulls her out of the tree she’d been using to check out the old homestead, and she “landed on her feet like a cat. Her knees hit the ground a second later and got bruised.” So she’s not a perfectly gymnastic new vampire. I really didn’t expect that. Because I’ve been tainted by stories of Nightfall, I just expect this book to suck hard. But we’re also talking about the woman who wrote Secret Vampire, so hey, let’s cut her some slack while we can, right?
I swear, sometimes it’s like the author’s schizo and only one of her personalities can write.
~*Elena*~ doesn’t want to leave, but Damon quite rightly points out that she literally is barred from the house because of the whole vampire thing. She wants her diary, though. He hands her the old one, the one he stole from Caroline, and she’d rather have the new one but she accepts this one and lets him take her away from all the Aunt Judith freaking out. Damon, oddly enough, takes her to Alaric Saltzman’s house. Alaric, the replacement teacher. Alaric, the touchy-feely weirdo.
Alaric is mojoed. He lets them in and Damon takes her up to the attic, where he’s slept before. He puts ~*Elena*~ to “bed”–a mattress on the floor, and we find that she wants to cross her arms over her chest like a good little movie vampire. She uses this position to hold the diary to her like a teddy bear. Damon covers her feet (aww?), tells her to sleep, maybe even thinks about kissing her, and she sleeps for…four days.
THANK GOD, when she wakes up she’s somewhat back to her old self, although feeling quite muddled. This is more of a natural muddled, though, none of this “Ohhh, DAMON, you’re so VAMPY” bullshit. I may have loved it when I was a teen, but now it’s all kinds of disjointed and even if Damon DID give her the latest transfusion, would THAT really enthrall her when she changed? I don’t know; it didn’t make a lot of sense. I’m looking forward to seeing if they address it at all. I know they don’t in this chapter though.
~*Elena*~ does not realize at first how long she’s been asleep. She doesn’t even know where she is until she sneaks downstairs, instinct telling her to keep it quiet. She realizes she’s in “the Ramsey house” that Alaric is renting, and that Alaric is having a meeting of Important White Guys about ~*Elena*~’s death. The two men he’s speaking two are the high school principal, Mr. Newcastle, and generic doctor Dr. Feinberg (holy God, it’s the most “ethnic” name in this damn series; do you think he’s…gasp…JEWISH?). Alaric has dropped his school persona and is acting like Wesley on Buffy when he wasn’t being drippy. I see Alaric in my head as a mid-Wesley (competent but not all DARK yet) type. He may now be played by Alexis Denisof in my head.
Alaric thinks that the vampires–he doesn’t say that word though–might be in the woods, gone to ground, literally. He also suggests that Bonnie and Meredith be staked out–er, no pun intended. He’s a Rogue Demon Hunter! Oh God, I typed “Rogue Damon Hunter” at first. (Wesley: I’m a Rogue Demon Hunter now. Cordelia: Wow. (pause) What’s a rogue demon?) We find out that he’s been hired by the principal to “make it quick and clean.” Well, uh. Wow.
~*Elena*~’s now extra-confused, because they haven’t said the words “vampire” or “kill” so much yet. She goes back up to the attic to find something with the date on it or SOMETHING to tell her what’s up, and she sees the diary. She catches up on her life events until the diary disappeared, and that triggers some more memories, including her death.
What’s interesting here is that there’s no sense that ~*Elena*~ is doing any hardcore connecting to the person she was, just accessing the memories. Or rather, she’s not reconnecting to the old fears and guilt, or the earlier manipulations and really, REALLY stupid plots. It all seems like it’s something that happened long ago, a person she was a long time ago, and okay, I’ll accept that because…death.
She’s mostly just scared of her death, because…she knows she didn’t get out of that car alive. She goes to look at her reflection, which is there (important to note, I think, in a vampire book), and THERE’S NOTHING HERE ABOUT HOW MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL SHE IS. WHAT THE HELL, THE SCHIZOPHRENIA CONTINUES. There’s even stuff about “hollowness about the eyes.” That doesn’t sound like omg etherrrrreal like we were hearing about last chapter. Maybe it’s because this is ~*Elena*~’s perception of herself? But I don’t think so. I think the author’s cray-cray.
But she’s thankful to see that she hasn’t become evil–at least, not the kind of evil she saw in the mirrors in her dream. She has a bit of a freakout when she realizes that she has to drink blood. Um, hey girl? You already have. Remember? Nom nom Matt?
…Wait, no, here we go. “Her face was still pale but eerily beautiful, like fine porcelain lit from within.” I guess it’s the light that’s casting the shadows under the eyes, what the heck. But anyway, she decides she needs to find Stefan. She goes downstairs and sees a calendar. Four days. She was sleeping for four days.
Man, I wish I could sleep for four days sometimes. Darn reality, getting in the way of my sleeptime.
Anyway, it’s overcast, but she’s in pain from the sun. Not explodey pain, but still. She gets to the church–the principal had said something about it–and she hesitates to touch it. But it’s okay! No explodey here either!
She then has this revelation about her past self and her present lack of evil. It’s really quite stirring, or would be if I didn’t have a headache. She thinks about the way she was all self-centered and not good enough to her friends and SHE EVEN THINKS ABOUT HER LITTLE SISTER, THANK GOD, AND HOW SHE SHOULD’VE PLAYED WITH HER MORE AND YES, SHE EVEN HAS A THOUGHT ABOUT HER AUNT JUDITH AND HOW CRAPPY SHE WAS TO HER. Fantastic!
She sneaks into the church and she sees everyone there, including Aunt Judith in her funeral dress. She realizes then where she’s ended up: her own funeral.
She gets there in time for the part where everyone talks about how great she was. Sue Carson and her dad are up first, because they knew her when she was super-little. ~*Elena*~ is entranced by how she’s suddenly beloved again, even after all the stuff with Stefan. Both guys and girls are crying. Sue’s overcome. People that ~*Elena*~ used terribly during her Bitch phase are gushing about her. Then Meredith takes the pulpit. ~*Elena*~ thinks SHE’ll be the one to lose it, but Meredith starts talking about things, things that aren’t quite right. Like getting the days and locations wrong.
It’s a message.
But Meredith hasn’t told a distraught Bonnie, so ~*Elena*~ figures that Meredith is only HOPING she has the story right. Bonnie’s a big mess, and it’s her turn to speak. She has another one of her psychic moments, of course, and states, “No one is what they appear.”
With that, the White Dudes converge on Bonnie, someone’s behind ~*Elena*~, and the chapter ends.
I know, a short one. But Stuff Happens, and no one bugs me. Good deal.
Next up: …I dunno. I should really start reading ahead a little.
I think Regina Ryan is a LOT more sympathetic when you’re an adult.
Caitlin can go on my to-recap list, if only because that girl needs some pseudo-analysis. AND because she’s not the devil.
ETA: Maybe a really big spotlight more than a full-out, chapter-by-chapter recap, though. Maybe.
