Books 15, 16

Har. Once again, all I have to write about is books.

Actually, there are other things, but I'm lazy (SHOCK!). I will try to make amends by following this post with something else, because I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that when (if?) I'm 72 years old and hire someone to read my blog to me, I'll just skim over the whole book bit and go, "Eh... let's hear the bit about the rogue pony instead". Provided, that is, the blog and me have both survived, and I have money to hire someone to read it. Or I can bribe them somehow. Maybe I'll have grandchildren, or –OR– literate cats! Oh, and also I'd have to say something about a rogue pony.

Anyway, I'll keep this brief.

Book 15: Illegal Alien, by Robert J. Sawyer.

My sister brought this book back from Canada when she came to visit sometime last year. She also brought back a trilogy by the same author, about Neanderthals living in a universe parallel to ours. I enjoyed the first book and abandoned, out of disinterest, the second, after about 3 pages. But that was last year, so it counteth not toward this book count. I'm just throwing that in there so you can see how awesome and literate I am (har).

This book was pretty fun, mostly because it deals a whole lot with things happening during a criminal trial, inside a courtroom. That may sound boring, except I do enjoy Law & Order: SVU whenever I catch it on TV (and since I usually get home around 11 p.m., that's at least once a week), so I know who the prosecutor and the jury are, and what "Objection! The defendant is arguing their case!" mean. Actually, I have a much better idea of how the justice system stuff works in the U.S. than in Mexico.

See, Mexican-made television includes a lot of telenovelas, which I'm not exactly a fan of. Recently there have been efforts to produce proper T.V. series, though, which is good.

This book earns an extra brownie point because it's science fiction and has aliens in it.

Book 16 was Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.

That's 3 of her books I've read this year, I think. Lots of chick lit. Hee hee.

I'm a big fan of the Shopaholic books, especially the three first books. The fourth, fifth and sixth (which is the one I just read) I progressively liked less, just a bit each time. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy this –I really did– just... not as much as the first half of the series.

That's it. Whooo!

Books 13, 14, Singleton

Good thing I've been taking notes of the books I've read, because otherwise I wouldn't touch the blog. Ha.

Book 13 was Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander.

I picked it up one day when I was late and just needed whatever to take to school and read. It turned out to be a childrens' book, and it was okay. I like the cover, it was quite spiffy (but nobody seems to have uploaded a picture of our version to the Internet for me to steal. Granted, I didn't look too hard).

Book 14 was Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding.

I was surprised I finished this– I'd started it about twice before and stopped after about 20 pages for reasons unclear. This time, though, I thought it was great. Marvelous. Lovely. Particularly because Bridget spends a good deal of her time feeling lonely, dejected and bingeing. I can identify.

Anyway, what is it with British chick lit always pairing off the protagonist with one of the country's richest bachelors? In Shopaholic, Becky gets with Luke, who lives in a pile of cash; in The Gatecrasher, Fleur gets with what's-his-name, who has oodles and nothing to spend them on (!); and Bridget Jones is suddenly swept up by Mark Darcy, who not only has millions of pounds stashed away, but is also called DARCY! I mean, come on. I'd be happy if the dog licked me, forget a rich Mr. Darcy.

Actually, no, because I've seen the dog eat revolting lumps of slime from the garden. But my days have passed in sorry Singleton existence while everyone else is running around being social. I just sit there getting old and spinster-y. I mean, I'm not even interested in anyone. And the only guy who's shown any interest whatsoever is this totally boring guy. Oh, and also my weird ex who contacts me every few months to remind me he still thinks of me bla bla bla. But I'm not sure he counts. And also that girl from Biochem who may or may not be hitting on me but who I find intimidating either way.

Anyway, I'm not saying I'm much of a catch (even I know there's not that much to me) but surely I can do better than that?

Sorry, I've gotten side-tracked. The point of it was, I'm with Bridget all the way up to the last three pages, when who should show up but Mr. Darcy, the rich hottie. Jealousyyyy.

- . - . -

Ugh, tonight I was feeling desperately thirsty but we were out of drinking water. I found a bottle of mineral water and, after not having a sip of fizzy drink for months, guzzled about a pint of it in all of fifteen seconds. Big mistake, as within seconds I thought my stomach might burst and I'd be found dead the next morning on the kitchen floor amidst a pile of jumbled intestines. "Oh, yes," my mother would say, "I thought I heard a popping noise last night".

Books 10, 11, 12

So I settled down for the weekend and knocked off another three books (much helped by the fact that I swung into a deep pit of self-pity and possibly hormone-ridden dispair, and spent most of the time either reading or staring at the wall and trying to keep my mind blank). Not great literature, but still.

Book 10 was The House on the Gulf, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I quite liked some of her books from the time when I was about twelve to fifteen years old. I'd read this one a few years ago and felt it deserved about 8/10 back then. When I re-read it on Friday it didn't seem so great; I'd give it a 6/10 this time around. It was just... meh.

- - - -

Book 11 was Donna Parker Takes A Giant Step, by Marcia Martin (which Wikipedia says is a pen name, thank god). I read this one out of curiosity, because it's old (published in 1964) and sounded dorky. It met my expectations perfectly.

Donna is this girl starting high school. She says "Golly!" a lot. The teenagers in her town throw parties every two minutes, but the students from the neighbouring town crash them and spoil all the awesome fun by starting water fights with garden hoses and the like. And get this: Donna's classmates don't like that the parties have been getting too wild. WHAT?? Nobody was even drinking or anything! Pardon me, but if there was none of that cheap tequila that everyone says makes you go blind, then it was no party*.

But I've gotten sidetracked here. The kids decide that what they need is a community center dedicated to the town's teenagers so that their parties can have proper adult supervision. Yes, really. So all their parents bust their hides and in, like, a week, the kids have a fixed-up house where they can throw their boring chastity club meetings and eat crackers with cheese while sipping apple juice (or whatever it is they do at their "parties").

Oh, yeah, the "giant step" that Donna takes is realizing that people are multifaceted or something.

It was like 300 pages long (although with relatively large print and the occasional picture that makes the kids look 35 years old) but it was worth it to plough though. Mostly because then I could compare it to the next book...

- - - -

Book 12 was Hangin' out With Cici, by Francine Pascal. This is from 1977 and I really liked it.

Victoria is 13, is about to be expelled from school, hates her mother, is extremely cruel towards her little sister (which made me stop liking her for about 30 pages, seeing as I was the victim of much bullying, flying objects with pointy edges, injustice, twisted arms, insults, etc. back in the day. It sucks), and gets caught smoking weed. Basically, she's the anti-Donna Parker, and two years younger.

Then she whacks her head and travels back in time to 1944, where she meets and befriends her mother when she was Victoria's age. Turns out her mother smoked, shoplifted, tried to steal a test, etc., but eventually –with Victoria's help– learns to take responsibility for her actions (only after she got caught, I might add). Victoria smacks her head again, travels back to the 70s where she belongs, follows her young mom's example, and gets along better with her real-time mom.

I liked it because it was pretty funny AND it proves that Donna Parker and her "parties" are absolute bull. Also I thought it was weird how Victoria thinks. Like, she smokes weed but wouldn't let anyone feel her up. Huh?

* Have I mentioned that I don't like parties? I don't drink, see. I'll make an exception for eggnog (if it ever crosses my path, which it hasn't for about a decade) and maybe the very occasional mojito. Oh, and flavored beer in Belgium. I mean, chocolate beer. Chocolate!