Recent Reads: A Style Revamp

So, my project really isn't working. The entire blog is dominated by book reviews (which is really not what I wanted). They clog up everything, I never get to them untill weeks after I've read the book in question, and sometimes there isn't much to say. Also, it's summer... and I tend to read a lot of bad porny romance novles in the summer and I just can't make myself write more than a few words about them.

So... format change it is.

Once a week (after this week... obviously), I'll talk about my reading progress a bit and list the books I've read. If they're particularly note-worthy and I've things to say, then they'll get their own "splotlight" entries. Otherwise, they'll just get noted and counted. We'll see how it progresses.

So, to get caught up. Here's how progress since my last book review:

#28: Airhead by Meg Cabot
#30: Pants On Fire by Meg Cabot
#31: Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas
#32: Irresitable by Susan Mallery
#33: It Happened ONe Autum by Lisa Kleypas
#34: Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney






Airhead is Meg Cabot's latest YA novel. The basic premise is the a normal teenager suddenly switches identities with a teen super-model. I won't give away the surprise twist regarding how this happens though. Luckily, the book is quite fun and I look forward to future entries. Not princess-caliber awesome, but still plenty enjoyable.


Pants on Fire is a YA novel Meg Cabot released last year. It sounds like it's about horny teenagers but it's not. Well, the heroine really does spend a lot of the book making out with very cute boys... but she spends more of it lying through her damned teeth in a attempt to keep all of her balls in the air. But she's at heart a sweet girl, and the crash isn't nearly as terrible as she thinks it's going to be. Fun little stand-alone from Cabot, skews a little younger than I'd prefer. (Even with all of the making out and boy-lusting).


Tempting was really a quite bad romance novel. I randomly picked up Mallory's The Sassy One last summer and surprisingly enjoyed it. (Even though the heroine wasn't really what I'd call "sassy" in the slightest). But every book I've read since of hers has sucked. The writing's hollow, the characters are hollow, and the sex isn't remotely interesting. All of her books feel plastic-y and fake. I'm done. Sorry Susan Mallory, but you're just not for me.


I LOVED Blue Eyed Devil. Lisa Kleypas' latest contemporary romance novel featuring members of the rich Texan oil family. If it were a film, it would be a very glossy, non-preachy, high-class Lifetime movie about a wounded heiress moving on from an abusive marriage and finding love with a self-made millionaire oil-man who is afraid that no matter how good a man he is, it's against his nature and he'll end up hurting those around him. Yeah, I can't imagine recommending it to a single person I know, but I loved it nonetheless. When the paperback comes out and the hardback is super cheap, I'll totally add it to my collection.


Kleypas' historical romance novels are less awesome, though. In fact, I don't really like them at all. I can't say I'm much for the historical romance novel genre in general though. It Happened One Autumn was especially porny and anachronistic (I think that's the word). I breezed right through it and it left very little impression. Except it felt a lot like a poor, sexed-up imitation of a Georgette Heyer novel. And Heyer, in many ways, wrote imitation Jane Austen. So a sloppy, underdeveloped, over-sexed imitation imitation. Not truly terrible, but not really any good either.


Oh, Mad Dash. I've been reading this book since December. This is the second time I borrowed it from the library. I meant to finish it the first time... I really did. It's not the book's fault. I just wasn't in the mood. It's a quiet, funny, bittersweet yet surprisingly hopeful book about a twenty-year marriage and the two individuals in it. It was very good, just not something in my usual style or something that I'd need to read again any time soon. I liked "Flight Lessons" better, though.

Book Review: Recent Reads #26 & #28

I started this entry about two weeks ago and sadly wrote

Oh my god! I'm all caught up!

With a super-fantastic
all-Meg-Cabot-all-the-time entry.

Yeah, not even close anymore. Dammit.

Anyways. Yeah, Meg Cabot books are my ultimate guilty pleasure books at the moment. Seeing as they're mostly aimed at young teenaged girls, and I am most certainly not one. But they're fluffy, and quick, and ridiculously entertaining. And Meg Cabot has the uncanny ability to create heroines with addictively sincere and authentic voices. They all sound like teenaged girls I know/knew/am/were/only was inside my head. And it's awesome.

Anyway, I somehow got addicted to Meg Cabot last summer when Laura ran across her blog and I thought it was pretty funny and decided to give one of her books a try. Unfortunately, I started with Queen of Babble, which I didn't hate per se, but the heroine was far too stupid to live and I really couldn't stand her. I'm pretty sure I then picked up the Heather Wells books. At which point I commenced laughing my ass off. And then, Amy and I were trapped in Vancouver with a bunch of misogynistic assholes and I picked up The Princess Diaries and there was just no turning back. The Princess Diaries are fucking awesome.

(TANGENT ALERT!! If you haven't read any of the books but did see
the movie, keep an open mind. Yeah, the movie was kinda cute, but it got a
lot of things wrong. Like Anne Hathaway being a twenty-yr-old beauty queen
where Mia is an awkward, gangly, 15-yr-old with seriously short blond
hair. And Julie Andrews being poised and regal where Grandmere is a
raging, manipulative, scheming, crazy-ass bitch (who is nonetheless
awesome). And instead of Mia's hilariously stoic Swedish boygaurd Lars
(whose also a big old teddy bear where Mia's concerned), we get Hector Elizando
as a chauffeur named Joe who annoyingly dispenses wisdom from the front
seat. The books are infinitely more interestign and engaging. OMG!
END OF TANGENT!)

Which leads me to... Princess Mia (Princess Diaries #9)!

This is the penultimate book in the series and it continues right along where #8 left off. Which means Mia is depressed, eating meat, and refusing to get out of bed while desperately shooting apologetic emails to Tokyo hoping she can take back the fact that she freaked out and broke up with her boyfriend just before he got on the plane. Yup, Mia's finally hit teenaged-girl rock bottom. Misery, depression, and apathy. Woo. Somehow, in the midst of teen depression, the book is still a riot. Comedy highlights include getting kidnapped by her father and boyguard and literally dragged kicking and screaming (while still wearing her grummy Hello Kitty pajamas) to a bizzare "cowboy therapist," going bra shopping with Lana Weinberger, the school blowing up, and incredulously having ranting about having gained almost an entire "Fat Louie" while at the doctor's office.

I loved it. It was sweet and endearing and Mia feels happy and hopefull going into book 10. But there's still lots of stuff to get cleaned/cleared up in the next one. The last one ever! Woo.

Pick up "The Princess Diaries" because they're awesome. And I mean it.

Book Review: Recent Reads #25, #27, & #29

Quick Note: I was so close to being caught up! I was three books behind! Almost there! Then I knocked my computer off my bed, fucked up my wireless card, had to get the techs at work to fix it, procrastinated as usual, unexpectedly read a giant pile of fast-going YA literature and ended up way behind. As usual. Dammit. Also, the ordering is all messed up at this point because I skipped #17 and #18 which were comics (and thus require me to download programs to read digital comics and rip images before I can post that review... as you have to see Tabby to believe her... not to mention Aaron's mighty robot head). Plus, the Meg Cabot needs to go together so chronology be damned! Anyways, enough with the ramblings... on with the reviews!



Title: Remember Me?
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Genre: Chick Lit

Quick Review: Easy breezy chick lit novel. The heroine is your standard, ordinary, chick lit heroine until she blacks out, wakes up in a hospital bed, and finds out that she's lost all memory of the past three years of her life. And now she's glamorous, has perfect hair, teeth, and botoxed lips, is married to an extremely handsome and wealthy man, and is the boss at her workplace. She may also be a big ole bitch. One who alienated all of her friends, is a tyrant at work, and was cheating on her "perfect" spouse with his hot architect. So, yeah, harmless fluffy beach read with a heroine who is a little annoying (as are all chick lit leads) but fortunately not in the "too stupid to live" category.

Final Note: I love how she used to go to "cute architect guy's" house to eat toast (sadly, that's totally not a euphemism... although "planting sunflowers" creepily is).



Title: Looking For Alaska
Author: John Green
Genre: Young Adult

Quick Review: I picked this one up because Meg Cabot's always saying how awesome John Green is and how he's not a pornographer (seriously, since when does one quick blow-job scene make a book pornographic). So, yeah, it's totally a "young man searches for his identity at an elite boarding school" book. Which makes me think of A Separate Peace or Dead Poet's Society or Prep (though that last one revolved around a self-centered unlikable girl rather than a self-centered unlikeable boy) which is unfortunate because those all have mighty portions of angst. (Oh god, A Separate Peace. I swear, that's one of the worst books I had to read in High School. Oh man, now I'm thinking about The Awakening and Woman Warrior and The English Patient and My Antonia... will this evil mental spiral ever end!? )

Except Looking For Alaska is a very modern, sad and melancholy yet hauntingly beautiful, and really incredibly well written little book. And the angst is at a minimum. And I totally cried in the middle. And I really can't say more without giving away plot.

Final Note(s): My favorite scenes totally involved Cap at the basketball games, harassing the opposing team till he got kicked out ("I am concussed."). Also, I want to read An Abundance of Katherines just because of how awesome that cover is. And that title is cool too.



Title: Book Of A Thousand Days
Author: Shannon Hale
Genre: Young Adult/Children's Lit

Quick Review: I keep reading Shannon Hale books because I liked her Newberry-winning first novel, The Princess Academy. Unfortunately, she keeps writing the same book over and over again and I keep getting bored. I'm officially done. These books have teenage heroines who are seriously great role models for 12-yr-old girls. But I'm not twelve anymore and the writing's just not good enough to hook me in as an adult. Again, another good book for kids, but not a good book for Tabatha.

Movie Review: Iron Man

Oh my god. Iron Man was frickin awesome.

I really shouldn't have liked it. I mean, it's a comic book movie and I pretty much always find them lame, Iron Man was never my favorite superhero, Tony Stark's a total asshole in every comic I've seen him in, and it features a guy in a suit with a mask that covers his face (HATE! SO MUCH!).

Luckily, I love Robert Downey Jr, Stark's an asshole in a good way, the whole film is pretty funny (without being slapstick), the love interest/assistant is awesome (despite the fact that Abi hates Gwenyth Paltrow), and the CGI action sequences are kept to a bare minimum (and the ones they have are awesome).


Favorite Bits:

- Robert Downey Jr frequently running around in a muscle-baring tank top.
- The robots in Stark's house. "You douse me again when I'm not actually on fire and I'm gonna donate you to the local college."
- Tony Stark's sheer awesome brilliance. "Tony Stark made one in a cave... from junk!" "Well, I'm not Tony Stark!"
- Pepper running from the big-bad-guy robot monstrosity and not looking back for a second.
- "Just call us S.H.I.E.L.D"


Also, I totally call my puppy "Pepper, Pepper, Pepper Pot" but I also call her "Pepper, Pepper, Pepper Pants." It's an alliteration thing.

Book Review: Recent Reads #24

Title: Lost In A Good Book (Thursday Next #2)
Author: Jasper Fforde

So much fun. I'm totally addicted to Thursday Next now. And who ever thought Miss Havisham would be a kick-ass book-police mentor? But she totally is.

There's really no way to explain the plots of these books without ruining surprises and workings. So, I'm just going to leave you with a few quotes.

"I took a deep breath and waded into the swirling maelstrom of popular-prose-induced violence. Almost instantly, I was punched in the jaw and thumped in the kidneys."

"She smiled triumphantly as she head-butted a woman who had tried to poke her in the eye with a silver-plated bookmark. I took a step forward to join the fray, the stopped, considered my condition for a moment and decided that perhaps pregnant women shouldn't get involved in bookshop brawls."

"Undeterred, they thumbed through a yellowed statute book and eventually charged me with a little-known 1621 law about permissioning a horse and carte to be driven by personn of low moral turpithtude, but with the "horse and carte" bit crossed out and "car" written in instead- so you can see how desperate they were."

My absolute favorite part of the whole novel involve one character telling another that "For what you've done to me, I hope you rot in Hell." That shit's serious. Seriously awesome.

Book Review: Recent Reads #23

Title: Small Favor (Dresden Files #10)
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Urban Fantasy


It's the latest Harry Dresden book! Woo! Ten books strong and the series is still kicking. It's been on a serious kick in the last couple of entries with 7, 8, and 9, being my favorites of the series so far. Book 10 doesn't live up to the sheer awesome that was "White Knight" but little could and it feels a lot like a transition/set-up book so I think that was source of any disappointment. Also, it heavily involves the Knights of The Cross and the fallen-angel lackeys they pursue and the holy knights have never been my favorite of Dresden's allies. Also, no Ramirez! I like Ramirez! Luckily, Kincaid and the Archive show up to make things interesting, though, and Thomas is still around to take constant jabs at Harry's ego. And Bob the Skull talks like a pirate.

"I stopped for a moment and gave the skull an exasperated look. 'I can't believe I just heard that word."
"What?" Bob Asked brightly. "Weregoats?"

"I didn't see anything. My highly tuned investigative instincts didn't see anything either. I hate feeling like Han Solo in a world of Jedi. 'I'm supposed to be the Jedi,' I muttered aloud."

Final Note: A particularly hilarious scene involves a confrontation I like to call "Harry vs. An Elevator" and if you're all caught up with Harry's adventures, you're picturing it already.

Book Review: Recent Reads #22

Title: Agnes and the Hitman
Authors: Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

Totally awesome book. And yes, I read it last year pretty much the day it came out. Myself and two friends actually managed to read the book within three days with all of us sharing one library copy between us. It was that good.

A cranky food critic, with a penchant for going into blind rages and hitting her cheating fiances in the head with frying pans, runs into some trouble involving a wedding, a deceitful bitch trying to steal her house, thugs trying to kidnap her dog, and yet more thugs trying to simply kill her. Logically, her former-mobster pal Joey, calls in his estranged nephew (and government hitman) at the first sign of trouble to "protect his little Agnes." Eventually, Agnes learns to channel her anger and embrace her crazy in a good way and Shane finds comfort and stability and family, things he never knew and never really knew he needed.

After a second read, it's still a great book. Agnes is still totally fucking awesome (and easilly my favorite Crusie heroine so far) and Lisa Livia is even better than I remembered her being. The collaboration between the authors is also incredibly tight. It's one damn cohesive novel. The only bits that stuck out involved Shane going off and doing "guy stuff" like shooting people in the woods or engaging in boat chases. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Shane left the house and I couldn't help but sit there and heckle "But Agnes is back at the house! Get back to the good stuff!"

My favorite scene is still the one where Agnes and L.L. are in the kitchen and L.L. lifts a bucket of cake icing and is all "Dude, what's this sticky red stuff, oh god it's blood." And Agnes, without skipping a beat, promptly leans over, wipes it with a dishrag, and nonchalantly explains that "Shane picked it up for me" because no further explanation is needed. And L.L. responds in a tone laden with "Which one of us is mob princess? Well, whatever makes you happy." Hee.


Note: I meant to post my favorite quotes, but I forgot and returned the book to the library before I could snag them so I'll just post them in a separate post later. (In an effort to truck on through these damn reviews and get caught up).

Book Review: Recent Reads #17, #20 & #21

Title: Mean Season
Author: Heather Cochran


Easily one of the best books I've read all year. It's sort of a combined women's fiction/chick lit novel. The protagonist is a mid-twenties law clerk named Leanne who lives at home with her some-what crotchety mother and her mentally disabled brother and feels a bit penned-in and stuck in her life. She's also the president of movie-star Joshua Reed's fan club, even though she's not a fanatic in any way shape or form. It just kind of fell into her lap. And then Joshua comes to town, acts like a total asshole (becuase he is one), gets drunk, hits a cow, and ends up serving a house-arrest DUI sentence in her house during the summer. And the whole thing's a catalyst for change in a bunch of people's lives. For the better.

"I told her you were an asshole but she still wanted to sleep with you."
"Ain't fame great?"

Title: The Lightning Thief
Author: Rick Riordan

Summer camp for demi-gods! My thirteen year-old cousin suggested/loaned this to me at Thanksgiving and I figured by Easter it was about time I read it and gave it back. It follows the adventures of a 7th grader named Percy who finds out the Greek gods are alive and kicking, one of them's his father (probably one of the big three: Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon), and if he leaves the special summer-camp/demi-god training camp he's at, about a billion different things will try to kill him. So of course, he ends up going on a quest.

It's fun and I'm sure kids in the 10-12 yr old age range would enjoy it. The mythology stuff is pretty cheesy, though. And that's coming from a person who has watched a truly embarrassing amount of "Hercules: The Legendary Journey" and "Zena: Warrior Princess" and who read every book in the school library on Greek mythology when I was thirteen. So, to sum up, it's a good kid book. Just not a good kid-book-for-Tabatha.



Title: The Eyre Affair
Author: Jasper Fforde

Amy and Dee Dee both like these books. Although Amy's head-over-heels-in-love with Thurday's pet dodo and I could care less. The books are classified as "mysteries" but I'd say they're more "adventure" than "mystery." Which is good for me, as I love adventure. Also, a main villain is named "Jack Schitt" and it's a stupid joke that never stops making me laugh (al0ng the same lines as Pratchett's "Rob Anybody"). Anyway, the books seem to mostly involve Thursday Next cleverly running around, having adventures, dealing with bureaucrats, time-travelers, nefarious villains, and embodied literary characters/beasts. This is the first in the series and I found it a little clunky in the execution but having an interesting premise. Then I read the sequel and promptly got thoroughly addicted.

Quick Bits!

Some quick bits:

- I'm currently entirely addicted to 30 Rock. Everywhere I went on the internet last week seemed to be talking about how hilarious the "MILF Island" episode was. And it was pretty funny. Especially "eat my poo." I then went back and watched most of the second season from nbc.com and am currently working through the first season via netflix "instant play."

"I love Foxy Boxing! It combines two of my favorite things! Boxing and referees."


-Dude. Monster's Inc is so adorable. That little girl cracks me up. The boys just acquired that movie for 80 cents at a thrift store. Totally worth it.

- I excitedly bought Willow on my way out of work today and spent the afternoon trying to explain to 20-yr-olds who've never heard of it why a fantasy movie about midgets and sorceresses and fairies was awesome. I totally failed. But I'll watch it with the kids tomorrow.

- I bought a new-release chick-book because it had a Crusie quote on the front of it and I just can't hunker down and get into it. I think I'll wait till my day off on Sunday so that I can just buckle down in my chair and read most of it in one go.

-I totally lost my keys yesterday. At the house. After successfully driving myself home from work. And let me tell you, it wasn't nearly as funny as the time I threw them in my trunk and had to call AAA. It was damn frustrating. I mean, I checked the driveway, the ground near my car, the sandbox, the shoe shelf, every surface in the kitchen/dining room, the food cabinet, the fridge, every pair of pants I own, every sweater pocket, every friggin purse, and the entire front lawn. I even checked all of the holes Pepper had dug in the front lawn in case she had found and buried them.

They were on the fucking grill! The stupid, gray, overturned goddamn grill that's laying in the grass in front of the garage. My best guess is that I bent over to pet the puppy (who sits by it because it's as close as she can get to the kids' sandbox while on her yard leash) and I set them down. Fucking puppy. I knew she had to be involved.

-The other day, I told Pepper she was a bitch "both biologically and attitude wise." I was in the process of throwing her outside because she was barking at the vacuum (so annoying). It still cracks me up. It's probably not good that I find myself so amusing.

Book Review: Recent Reads #15 & #16

Two mini reviews for a two mini-books! You'll note there are no actual reviews for either, though. Basically they were both short and cute and fun. And had awesome dogs in them.

Really, you and I both know I just mostly write these reviews to aid my failing memory, add cover art, and write about the often mundane details of when and why I acquired/started/stopped/resumed said book.


Title: Anyone But You

Why I Picked It Up: It was sitting on Kelcie's coffee table, it was 7am or so and I was wide awake, and Kelsie and Amy were still asleep.

Plot: Short but sweet 80's romance novel involving a strong, independent, and recently divorced forty-year-old woman, her cute thirty-year-old ER doctor neighbor who has family pressure from every direction, a depressed Bassett Hound named Fred, and watching old movies.

Wrap-Up: Simple and fun little book that made me smile while I was reading it and left a smile on my face when I was done.

Title: Getting Rid of Bradley
Why I Picked It Up: Acquired it in a used book store, read a couple of chapters once I got home and then promptly put it aside for a year and a half or so until I was wide awake with stomach cramps the other night and read the rest of it in one go between 1 and 3 am.

Basic Premise: Lucy is a sweet physics teacher who just divorced her so-so husband for cheating on her, accidently turned her hair green from futzing with the color too much and lives in her dream house with three crazy mutts all named after physicists. Oh, and someone's try to kill her. Possibly someone named Bradley. Zach is the detective who literally gets caught in the crossfire (and bashed in the head with a physics textbook for his trouble) and then promptly sets himself up in her house to protect her/figure out what's going on. And then all five of them (dogs included! Woo!) bond. Duh.

Best Part: The dogs. What? I'm easy to please. Schroedinger's "dead dog" trick cracks me up and how "Heisenberg" got his name is just great.

Gaius Baltar Gets An Unfair Ammount of Tail... I'm Just Saying

It never ceases to boggle my mind that with how hot most of the Battlestar cast are, Gaius Baltar gets the most action. By far!

Dude. First, there are three different incarnations of "Cylon Model Six" including the one who slept with him so that she could bring about the mass genocide of humanity, one who appears to only exist in his head (and thus is routinely naked), and one who was a seriously traumatized rape and torture victim who had sex with him and then promptly committed suicide with a nuke, taking half the human fleet with her.

And there's Starbuck that one time. Ewww. Yeah, not a high point for Starbuck.

And those random skanks strewn about him just as the concentration camp rolled into New Caprica.

And then there was that whole bizarro threesome thing with "Caprica Six" (aforementioned genocide instigator) and "Three" (a cylon model so crazy obsessed that the other robots shut her down and wiped out her entire model as defective).

And now. Now it looks like he has an entire harem of creepy religious cult girls at his disposal.

Oh, Baltar.

I do not like Green Eggs and Ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

I had never read the book as a child. Then, I discovered a copy while cleaning out the kid's entertainment center downstairs and picked it up and started reading it to Blue-Eyes (who quickly started yelling at me that he already read that one in school). And it was totally awesome. I mean, this asshole Sam is being totally annoying and the narrator just keeps yelling at him that he doesn't like this bizarre disgusting food and I was totally waiting for the punchline where the narrator just can't take it anymore, goes ape-shit, and takes Sam out. And then the book got stupid. Because it turned out that the narrator never even tried the nasty pile of green grossness. And when he does, he doesn't even have enough righteous indignation at that asshole Sam to even pretend that it tastes like ass. He just has to teach children about the importance of not making rash judgment based on appearance. Like anyone's gonna learn that lesson before age 16 anyways.

All I'm saying is, if I had been the narrator, I would have shoved that plate right up Sam-I-Am's ass. And no one would blame me. Or be surprised in the slightest.

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.