Working Stiff by Grant Stoddard

Smirk.

In some ways, I should just leave it at that. But I won’t. I can’t.

Just when you think you’re a mature individual and gotten over any possible embarrassment over buying a book about a guy’s sexual exploits, you get comments from an over friendly sales associate. The ever so kind cashier gave me a little smirk while he was placing it in a bag and then had to comment on my choice of purchase. I make some offhand comment about it looking too funny to pass up but on the inside, I’m feeling like I’ve just bought porn and my mother is the one taking my money. And after reading this fun little book, that seems rather fitting.

Basically, Working Stiff is the autobiography of one man’s experience as a columnist for the webzine, Nerve. His assignment was to go out and perform sexual experiments and report back in the form of a high school lab report. He did this for two and some years. And he did everything. Nothing was too weird, deviant, or gross. And you get some of that is this retelling of his life but not really. He didn’t grow up wanting to be a sex reporter, he just wanted to live in America and jumped at a chance that would pay his rent and keep him in the country. He is the everyman thrown into situations that he stumbles his way through. (My favourite would have to be his time at Leather Camp.) What you didn’t get through his old column is his parent’s reaction to his line of work. Or how assignments affected his dating life.

There were a few very explicit scenes and this is definitely not a book I’d recommend for just anyone. The writing style reminded me more of the stuff I’ve read off of the internet than anything I’d read in book form. If you are not used to that, you might find it a little graphic. And the fact that it was non-fiction added a certain sense of surrealism to the text that you wouldn’t accept from a fictionalized story. But it was undeniably funny and I can’t think of a single thing more amusing than sex.

Smirk.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

First book completed on my vacation read-a-thon. Well, perhaps it won’t be a read-a-thon considering I want to get out of the house a few times but I need to get some of these done. This is as good a time as any.

This is the second Picoult book I’ve read and all I can say is that the woman loves to make you cry. She must get some perverse pleasure out of it. Or perhaps, she is like Stephen King and feels that if you write about the things you fear the most, it will cause them not to happen, like losing a child.

In both Picoult books I’ve read, there is a death, and grief, and pain, and loss. All the feelings and emotions people go through and hope to never have to. Here, we watch a family struggle with the effects of leukemia. The oldest daughter, Kate, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two and from that day on, it has become one mother’s personal battle to keep her child alive. One way to do that is to conceive a child that is a close genetic match for your sick child so that they can donate the cord blood cells. That works for a while but down the road, remission turns into relapse. Then blood is needed or bone marrow. Sometimes, that single-minded focus to keep one child alive makes other things fall to the side. Your oldest son turns into a juvenile delinquent. Your other daughter goes to a lawyer to petition the court for medical emancipation from her parents. She doesn’t want to donate her kidney to her sister or at least, she wants to be asked.

This book is filled with all the moral dilemmas and the what ifs and the what would you do questions. You can understand how a parent would want to do anything in their power to help their child, keep that child with them for one more day. But what of those that get hurt in the process? No easy answers. Picoult loves taking a subject like this and exploring the family dynamics that are affected by this predicament.

Ultimately, Picoult books are an interesting read. I’ve found some similarities in the two that I’ve read: courtroom scenes that come with shocking testimony confessions and lawyers with a slightly skewed sense of the world. Mothers that you sometimes don’t really like but you find yourself making allowances for. It makes you wonder what her relationship was like with her own mother.

The best thing about her books: they are great for book clubs. You will not have any problems coming up with things to talk about after reading them.

Hot Stuff by By Janet Evanovich and Leanne Banks

Quick review. This story was complete fluff and not that much to talk about. It had a plot that tried to be complicated but it felt much more suited in a novel for teenagers.

Basically, girl is working her butt off going to school and working nights in a bar. Boy comes in and is a cutie but is acting awfully mysterious. Girl’s drag queen roommate takes off and leaves her to look after his rather large and new bullmastiff dog named Beast. Girl knows nothing about dogs and in walks handsome stranger to lend her a hand. But why is tall, dark, and yummy hanging around so much? Can girl trust him? You will have to read the book to find out.

There were some laugh out loud moments and some of the friend scenes reminded me a lot of my friends. So it was a fun read. Sort of like ice cream: I really know that I shouldn’t but darn it, it was tasty eating even if I feel a little guilty afterwards.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

It has been way, way, way too long since I’ve sat down and wrote a review. But then, it has been too long since I’ve finished a book or at least, it feels that way. This is a book club book and an awesome one at that. It deserves to have some remembrance given to it.

The Glass Castle is one of those books that make you realize how good you’ve had it all these years. How everyone you know has had it good and how horrible bad can be for others. And sometimes, the choices people make may not be the best for them but they have to live their own life. You can’t save some people from themselves.

Sorry, this has totally told you nothing about the book... it is an actual account of the author’s childhood, growing up with nomadic/bohemian parents and three other siblings who were one step away from living off the grid. They had grand dreams, the mother wanted to be a world famous artist and the father had get rich quick schemes finding gold in the desert. If only he could get his contraption working, if only he could stop drinking. If only. They were extremely smart individuals; they just had trouble holding a job even if it meant that the family didn’t eat that month. The kids would scrounge in garbage bins for their classmate’s scraps to keep from starving. Living in homes, infested with rodents and insects, which should have been condemned. It was like an Americanized version of Angela’s Ashes.

But it wasn’t all bad. There was an attractive sense of adventure, especially in the early chapters before they ended up stuck in Welch, an out of work mining town in the hills of West Virginia. Like the Christmas each of the kids were given their very own star as a gift. Jumping into the car and not knowing what the road had in store. The hours spent drawing up the plans for their dream home, the Glass Castle, which they never got around to building. The sense that imagination and ingenuity were the best gifts a person could possess. The feeling that family was the most important thing in the world and if you had your family, things really weren’t all that bad.

Anyway, I’ve tried to be vague so that I don’t ruin for you all the weird and wacky stuff that happens to this family over the years. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

The Pleasure Slave by Gena Showalter

I can’t believe that the first book I review for 2007 is this one. In some ways, I think I should feel a little embarrassed about it but alas, I don’t… you wanna know why? Cause this was the most awesome book in the world. I have never read something that gave me such joy… Let me explain why.

The story starts out with our hero, Tristan, and his mistress, Zirra. They have just had a rather long session of sex and they are in the lounging about phase. Tristan is a warrior and he has just gotten a call that his kingdom needs him to go fight. This upsets Zirra because she is one insatiable little minx and wants to have a go at round twenty or thirty or whatever. Tristan laughs at her and tells her that he loves his kingdom more than her and that they had just been using each other. You see, he is a mortal and will die, whereas she is Druinn, immortal, with magical powers. Zirra, not taking rejection well, casts a spell on him. He will remain a pleasure slave, trapped in a jewelled box, forced to obey his master for all time or for as long as that master owns the box. He can only be released from the bonds of slavery by his one true love. It is soon discovered what Zirra has done and she is punished for her crime against the mortal (can’t destroy the peace treaty. Yay politics!) The box is thrown into the universe and she is stripped of her powers.

Welcome to present day and we meet Julia, someone's one true love. An antique dealer, she finds an old jewelled box at a flea market and decides to take it home. Much to her surprise, she discovers that she also gets a love slave out of the deal. You know, I've been to a dozen flea markets and never have I come home with anything like that. Not much happens in the way of plot, a lot of talking, shopping montage, porn, porn, porn, and then the end.

Now you must be asking yourself, why? How is all of that all that great? Well, it is all about Tristan. Not only is he a hunk of burning love, expert in the ways of carnal delights, elite warrior, gorgeous specimen of all things male, barely wearing a stitch of clothes but the absolute ultimate note on his resume: he is an alien. Alien! From another planet alien! I mean, OMG! WTF! (Fill in your own freaked out netspeak here)! It is that little detail that makes it perfect.

Also, when you pick up a book with the title The Pleasure Slave it has some expectations it has to live up to. And oh boy, this book lives up to those expectations; it was a couple steps away from porn. But not super graphic so I wouldn’t feel that weird giving it to my aunt to read. The main character Julia wasn’t bad as characters go and she develops as expected. My favourite character had to be Gary, the gay personal shopper, who practically turned into a puddle at Tristan’s feet. Now that was fun.

Anyway, it wasn’t exactly the best genie in a bottle scenario I’ve ever read but it was a lot of fun. Perfect for an afternoon of pure fluff.

My rating: :-D :-D :-D

A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli

Guest review by Red Bonney

It's a dark, wet, rancid book. It's about the dangers of certain people reproducing when they clearly should have been yanked out of the gene pool by the life guard. It's a good book. Reading it was like being sucked down into a gator infested swamp: you get that sinking feeling, but you know you'll be eaten before you drown, and all around you is the earthy smell of the bog. There was a story line, I'm sure of it. I think it was hidden between the random bouts of underage, extra-marital sex, that may or may not have been the hallucinatory dreams of our reluctant hero, Thomas. There was lots of writing on walls and on skin and some of it made sense. Most of it did not.

Thomas has three brothers in one. Sebastian, Jonah and Cole are conjoined triplets, joined at the cranium. They also have a sister, but she was nearly completely absorbed by Thomas when they were still in the womb. This goes back to the theory that some people shouldn't reproduce, namely, the entire list of characters in the book. It was difficult to find a normal character, and I would have to say it was Thomas, though he turned out to be a sex fiend with a penchant for younger partners. The Reverend Bibbler would be next, but his name alone strikes him off the
normal list.

So, Thomas was the reluctant hero, as I said, and very reluctant. He was the town's magnate, so to speak, the wealthiest man in town, who owns the mill that makes the town live. He lives in the most haunted house with his brothers and their care giver, Dodi, who is also their lover and was installed by the local conjure woman, Velma Coots, to keep an eye on them. Velma, I believe, should have gotten more page time. That's another moral hidden in these pages, always listen to the local conjure woman, she knows what she's talking about.

In a nutshell, this book was a lot like real life in that there were a lot of unexplained and unexplainable events, a lot of questions and not enough answers. Conversely, it was nothing at all like real life, with the ghosts and all-consuming evil threatening on the horizon. I can't tell you what the book was really about, it's a mystery and a horror and a romance (a sick, twisted, fucked up romance, but a romance nonetheless) and nothing was explicit.

I hope you are as confused as I am about this book now. You should read it and tell me what it was about.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

It has been awhile since I’ve written one of these up for general consumption. Not that I haven’t been reading, just some of my reading materials are a little subjective. But no time like the present to get back onto that horse, so to speak. Hopefully this won’t suck too badly. And let’s forget about the movie, shall we? I haven’t seen it yet and I figure I might go next week. Not that I have high expectations but figure this might go easier if we just focus on the book.

Did you ever have one of those never pleased type of bosses? The type who wasn’t happy unless they were causing some type of misery onto someone else? Who was so miserable and vile that they would engineer ways to belittle and humiliate just to make their self feel better? Personally, I haven’t. I had really annoying bosses who wanted to be your friend but you knew you couldn’t trust them as far as you could throw them. Or the type that would freak out about little things but would have no clue about the things that really matter. So I figure I’ve been pretty lucky after this book.

Lauren, straight out of college, is looking for a job. She is a writer and wants to work for a magazine, any magazine that will help her on her way to The New Yorker. Not that she is super ambitious, she just wants to be able to move out of her parent’s house and start her own life. In walks the job opportunity of a lifetime, work for one year as the personal assistant to the editor for the fashion magazine and you can walk your way into any magazine you want to go. The problem, your boss is a real bitch. In every way, shape, and form.

The most interesting part of the book was reading about how evil this woman could be. She would request things but not give enough information to allow you to be able to know what she wanted and when you couldn’t give her what she wanted, she would call you stupid for not being able to read her mind. You were on call 24 hours a day and if anything was needed, you were called, no matter what it was. There was hell to pay if things were not perfect. You may be allowed to see the glamorous side of life but that is from the perspective of following behind after it to clean up. And it makes you wonder how far you can be pushed, what you would be willing to give up for a year, if the price was right.

All that being said, it was an entertaining read for something light and fluffy. Fun reading about how evil someone can be and lucky enough to do so from such a safe distance.

Bah, it was an okay book. Not a great American classic to make it through the ages but fun.

Undead and Unappreciated by Mary Janice Davidson

Back again with a quick read and hopefully a quick review. This one was read in a day so I don’t think this one should take all that long in writing.

Betsy is back and this time, nothing all that much happens. Yeah, I know. I really shouldn’t be all that surprised considering the location you would find this book. This is not all that difficult of a read but it is funny on occasions. In this book, Betsy is not having the most fun in the world, her nightclub is in the red and her employees don’t like the change in management. Not to mention, it gets slipped that she has a long lost sister that she never knew about and it turns out little sis is the spawn of Satan and destined to rule the world.

The only uncomfortable part in this book is the fact that this is another book with a main character’s name as Elizabeth. I’m finding it a little weird, especially when whispered by her dark and handsome consort, Eric Sinclair. The other weird part is that I realized that her name is Elizabeth and her best friend since Junior High’s name is Jessica. This made me think of the Sweet Valley High twins and how this couldn’t be a coincidence. Perhaps it really is but it seemed very weird. I think I’ll have to send a friendly little email to the author and see if I get an answer back. I’ll keep you informed if something comes of it.

I really shouldn’t judge this book on the fact that it isn’t all that deep and difficult or complex. It does have its funny moments and that is all I bought it for. Sometimes you just need a brain break.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

My podcast has decided to do a little book club and now I’m into reading another book every four weeks. The good part of this one is that I get a bigger say into what is read and I might actually like the books chosen. Although, I had my doubts when we first chose this one.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows this story. Young lawyer goes to Castle Dracula on business and it turns out his client is a member of the evil undead. This walking fiend has plans on relocation to London and wreck havoc on its citizens. Wackiness ensues.

I had started this book before, ages ago and didn’t finish it. The first time I tried reading this book, I gave up after about the third chapter. Really boring. This time I stuck with it and realized it got really good once we get some good supernatural action. During the first go, I likely wasn’t responding too well to the diary like way the story was told. This time, I’ve been so desensitized by the world of blogs that it didn’t bother me that much.

The most interesting thing I got out of this reading was the fact that they have changed Mina’s character in every movie I’ve seen her in. In a lot of the movies, she is portrayed as someone who is in love with Dracula. In the book, she is an example of the modern woman, smart, articulate, and not afraid to work to carry out what needs to be done. That part was quite refreshing to read. She was definitely the brains and the strength behind the group of merry men banding together to kill the little nuisance.

Anyway, it was good to read and if you are low in money, a copy of it can be downloaded from Project Guttenberg.

The Boy Next Door by Meggin Cabot

This just may be the fastest, sparsest, review ever written.

It sucked.

Stupid book club. The end.

Okay, perhaps I should write more... nope, can’t do it. I fear that it might encourage you to read this book, even if I pan it. We can’t have that.

My rating: :-(