Cutest. Jedi. Ever. For Serious.

On my first day off from work in six days, I stumbled downstairs at the bright hour of 11am this morning and found the following sitting on the sofa...

Watch out!

Or Jedi Hippo will kick your ass.

Hippo is totally the new Yoda.

Recent Reads: #13 and #14

Teenaged girl boarding school spy books!

Title: I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have To Kill You
Title: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
Author: Aly Carter
Genre: Young Adult

Why I Almost Didn't Pick Them Up but then did Anyways: Well, I was in the Barnes & Noble, looking to burn plastic fake money (ah, birthday and christmas gift cards... I'm a stretching those suckers out) and the sequel was propped up prominently on an end-cap. And the blurb on the back turned me off. I think I've just been reading things wrong lately but it really made it sound like Cammie had a secret love affair with some boy and he turned out to be a double agent and she and her friends had to prove to the CIA that Cammie was innocent in the whole thing... but no. It's much much lighter than that. Both books are. They're about cute teenaged girls who watch Gilmore Girls and Buffy and Alias but who also happen to be kick-ass little super-spies in training. Oh, and they pretty much no nothing about boys. Which is kinda bad. Luckily, I looked a little more closely at them the next time I found myself wandering aimlessly through Barnes & Noble and finally bought the first one.


Choice Quotes:

"But then I looked at the woman who had raised me and who, rumor has it, once sweet-talked a Russian dignitary into dressing in drag and carrying a beach ball full of liquid nitrogen under his shirt like a pregnant lady, and I knew I was sufficiently outgunned..."

"We'd been studying boys for almost an entire academic year, and yet I didn't feel any closer to understanding a culture where people insult you, then tease you, ignore you for weeks, and then ask you to the movies!"


Final Thought: Very cute, very fun, light books. I swear, I kept laughing out loud while reading that second one. Every time Zach said something and Cammie was like "How did you know that?!" and he'd just point to himself and go"Spy" I laughed (and fully would have kicked his ass had I been Cammie). Oh, boy spies. Mayhem! Hee. Also, Cammie's Mom (the school headmistress) is a total Sydney Bristow clone and there's nothing but awesome in that. Nothing at all.

Book Review: Recent Reads #12

Title: The Hogfather
Author: Terry Pratchet
Why I Picked It Up: I told you I would! I did!

Review: Well, here we are again, Mr. Pratchet. And again, I can't really review the book. But I definitely liked it. I liked "Thief Of Time" better, but that one was more straight-forward and less profound. Also, I'm having a really hard time remembering waht this book was actually about and I only read it three weeks or so ago. The next time I read it, I'll make sure to read it faster, uninterrupted, and in a quiet place so that I can let everything click properly together. Sometimes Pratchett is tricky like that.

How about the characters? Mr. Teatime is truly creepy and evil, I kinda loved Susan, the children Susan governessed for were hysterical, the God of Hangovers made me smile, Death's depth and complexity and sense of compassion and feeling for the humans just about killed me with awesome, and I still don't really understand what the hell was going on really. Like I said, 'll have to read this one again.

Favorite Quote: Surprisingly enough, it's a wizard quote.

"I don't actually think," he said, gloomily, "that I want to tell the Archchancellor that this machine stops working if we take its fluffy teddy bear away. I just don't think I want to live in that kind of world."

Second Favorite Quote: (a conversation between Death and Susan)

"The children had to watch that!"
EDUCATIONAL. THE WORLD WILL TEACH THEM ABOUT MONSTERS SOON ENOUGH. LET THEM REMEMBER THERE'S ALWAYS THE POKER.
"But they saw he's human-"
I THINK THEY HAD A VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT HE WAS.

Book Review: Recent Reads #10 and #11

Ok, my current mission is to get all caught up on book reviews by tonight (unlikely) or tomorrow (less unlikely). Because I'm finishing up book #15 and I find the reviews are better if I've actually read the book recently, as the title suggests.

So, first off today are two mini-reviews of "beach read" type books that I picked up last summer, read bits of, was ambivalent about, and returned to the library without completing.


Title: Ex and the Single Girl
Author: Lani Diane Rich
Genre: Chick Lit/General Fiction

Why I picked it Up: The author is a friend of Jennifer Crusie, I liked Time Off For Good Behavior from her, and I enjoy listening to her podcasts while on long car rides.

Why I Put It Down: Meh, I just wasn't in to it. It felt a lot like a story I'd already read before. Wait, that was probably just bits of "Ya Ya Sisterhood" I saw on tv randomly. That's not good.

The Gist: Portia's life is stalled and she's unmotivated. She got left by her live-in long-term boyfriend about a year ago and can't seem to finish her Ph.D. thesis about Jane Austen because she's only inspired enough to sit on her couch and watch the "Pride and Prejudice" miniseries over and over again. Then, "The Mizzes" as she refers to her perpetually single Grandma, Aunt, and Mother, trick her into spending the summer at home. And eventually, she learns that she has intimacy issues and maybe she should straighten herself out.

Overall Thoughts: Not a bad book but I really think I didn't like it. You read "the gist," you've read that book or seen that movie before too? Right? Well, this book doesn't add anything new. Except the really stupid term "Penis Teflon" (It's why men leave all of the women in the family... not cause they're shrews or they push them away... no it's because they have innate Penis Teflon) which made me want to hit Portia with a frying pan every time she said it. Also, I really didn't feel like the elder women in her life got their fair share of plot lines and back story. If you're gonna write a good novel about multi-generations of women in one family, you've gotta thoroughly explain each woman's motivation (See "Flight Lessons" by Patricia Gaffney for an example of doing it right) and I didn't feel like there was enough oomph behind them. I keep trying to pick up Lani Diane Rich's books because I think that I should love them, but I just don't.



Title: Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom
Author: Julie Kenner
Genre: Supernatural Fiction

Why I Picked It Up: I had finished reading Shanna Swendson's "Enchanted Inc" books and was looking for something else light and fluffy with a dash of the supernatural.

The Gist: The heroine used to be a Buffy-esque demon fighter but is now a suburban soccer mom with a tragically deceased first husband, a teenage daughter, a two-year old son, a politician husband, and a secret past. And the demons are back.

Why I put it down: The constant suburban-mom brand-name dropping annoyed me. But mostly, I just wasn't in the mood.

Overall Thoughts: Fun, very light, beach read. I'm glad I picked it back up. The sequels will keep me busy during the summer. I like how she's a little rusty, but can still kung-fu like the best of them, stab demons in the eye, and keep her teenage daughter from dressing like a ho all at the same time.

Book Review: Recent Reads #9

Title: Frederica
Author: Georgette Heyer
Genre: Historical (Regency) Romance

Why I Picked It Up: I read "Devil's Cub," fell in love with Georgette Heyer, and scoured the internet for reviews of her works so that I could figure out which ones to read next. And it seemed that a serious fan favorite was the one involving a quiet and sensible young woman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with her scandalous new neighbor in the countryside.

So, I put it on hold from the library, picked it up, sat down in the papazon chair in my bedroom, and dug in. Then I read the intro, and got a little confused. I didn't recall any young brothers or big rambunctious dogs from the synopsis I had read. And then I read some more, and the book was set in London, and the male lead wasn't notorious in the slightest... and then I realized that while "Frederica" and "Venetia" are both female names, they are not the same damn Georgette Heyer novel. One day, I will read "Venetia" but that day has not happened yet.

Review: Yeah, I pretty much loved it. I especially loved the male lead in this one.

The Marquis D'Alverstroke: is not a particularly rougish fella. He's mostly just an overly-wealthy, self-centered aristocrat with nothing to do who easily becomes bored with everything and everyone around him.

Frederica: is a self proclaimed "old maid" despite being attractive, intelligent, and only 24 years old. She's also the unofficial guardian of her three younger siblings and she pretty much runs the affairs of the whole family because she's responsible and sensible and her similarly-aged brother (who is officially responsible for them all) would rather horse around and get drunk and get his ass temporarily suspended from college.

Eventually, Frederica gets around to asking the Marquis, who she only knows because her late father once mentioned that he knew and liked him, to help introduce her extremely lovely (and rather docile and a bit naive) sister into society and Alverstroke agrees mostly because he's bored and it'll piss off his bitchiest sister. And of course, the Marquis ends up finding a family he was never looking for in the first place and Frederica ends up finding a husband she wasn't looking for either. Happy ending! Woo.


Final Note: I'm really starting to love the awesome middle-aged women (usually sisters) who walk around pointing and laughing at the male leads. They're all "Hah! I've got it! You're acting strangely because you've finally fallen in love with a woman! Hah! Serves you right. And you're absolutely fuckin terrified that she doesn't love you back! Hah! Excellent! Turn-around's a bitch!"

Also, I'm pretty sure Frederica and the Marquis are the best matched couple I've read in a romance novel in quite a while. They're just immensely compatible and it's not a leap at all to assume they lived happily ever after.