Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I'll start by saying that I LoVe Susan Elizabeth Phillips!  I think her books are a great blend of humor and romance that really is very entertaining.  It Had to Be You, Nobody's Baby but Mine, Dream a Little Dream, This Heart of Mine, Ain't She Sweet?, Match Me If You Can, Natural Born Charmer...I loved all of those.  I haven't gotten to all of her books yet, but those are my favorites so far.  All I can say is that apparently this is an early effort on her part that has been reissued.  Sandra Brown does it and so do alot of other writers in the romance genre.  When you hit it big, start reissuing early work in shiny new packaging.  I don't fault her for that.  

So, Glitter Baby.  Belinda is essentially a movie star groupie who moves to sunny Cali in search of her personal obsession, James Dean.  Instead, she finds Errol Flynn.  A torid affair ensues but eventually Flynn tires of her, leaving her to the machinations of his arch enemy Alexi Savagar.  Belinda finds herself pregnant with Flynn's child and decides that Savagar is the perfect patsy.  She is unable to pass the pregnancy off as a product of she and Savagar's marriage and the relationship crumbles, though Alexi won't hear of divorce.  What he makes Belinda do is worse and the little girl, Fleur, is brought up in a convent school.  From there, we sort of move on to Part 2 where the tall, gangly Fleur has grown up into a beautiful teenager whereupon Belinda decides that a career in modeling is just what they need to get away from Alexi...of course, it's the only thing she can think of that would allow Fleur to make enough money to support them both.  Movie prospects follow Fleur's runway success, bringing her into orbit of Belinda's latest obsession, movie star Jake Koranda.  Belinda is convinced that Jake is James Dean reincarnate.  Belinda wants him.  Fleur has a crush.  Chaos ensues.  Dreams scatter before reality.  Hearts are broken.  Alexi does something vile.  Belinda whines.  She whines again.  She whines some more.  Fluer mopes.  Jake broods.  Fleur makes a friend or two, pulls herself up by her bootstraps.  Then you have about 10 more chapters to go before the plot is resolved but I'll stop here.

I hated Belinda and Alexi of course, as the reader is supposed to I guess but this story drug on and on and on long past the point where the main characters lives started to ebb in importance.  This book needs to be shortened.  There was simply too much angst, denial of the faults and shortcomings of others, and not enough real emotional pay off for me.  The real problem I had, the very thing that made me not like this book as much as I have her others, is how much I disliked Belinda as a character.  It drug the whole story down for me.  I was SO glad that Fleur was able to overcome that and am just sorry it took so damn long.  If you like your romance with a healthy dose of melodrama, you will love Glitter Baby, but it was too much for me.  I'm eagerly awaiting Phillips' next book, What I Did for Love.

horrorific

Am I the only one excited to see the new Friday the 13th remake?  Am I the only one in the known universe that like Rob Zombie's Halloween?  Do I care if I am?  :)  I still haven't seen My Bloody Valentine 3D and I can feel the clock ticking...maybe I'll go see it tomorrow after work...

Moving along, here is a GrEaT article on all the stats you ever wanted to know about the Friday the 13th franchise via those fine folks at Cinematical!

In other news, last night I watched what I consider to be officially the silliest movie ever created, Death Racers. I apologize in advance for the trailer, sorry kiddos. So four teams in modified cars are going into this compound to kill a hack-actor menacing villain. I won't go into extravagant detail but one of the teams is called Vaginamite and the Insane Clown Posse decided to join the fun. Good times, good times. I haven't seen this much fake blood...evah! The whole 90 something odd minutes floats along on a cloud of obscenities and bad camera angles. Sick Nurses was better and it was by no means good...death by purse decapitation must be a horrible way to go :)

day trip 2.0

So Tuesday was library field trip day!  KT's bookgroup read Nancy Horan's biographical fiction novel, Loving Frank, about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney Borthwick's affair in the early 1900's (when such things just DiDn'T go on in broad daylight).  Just our luck, there is one Frank Lloyd Wright designed home in Alabama and it is within daytrip distance.  We got some of KT's bookgroup members and a passel of other people, loaded up a 57 passenger bus, and headed to Florence, Alabama to see the Rosenbaum House!  It was incredible to see the architectural elements and designs that hithertofore I had only seen in books or documentary films.  

We actually watched the first part of the PBS Ken Burns documentary on FLW on the way up and the 2nd half on the way home.  I had the same feeling of awe as when I visited antebellum homes, the Lincoln Memorial, Walden Pond, Blarney Castle and Mount Vernon.  As I mentioned in my post on visiting the museums in Atlanta, history is so different when you confront it face to face than when you read it in a book!  

The Rosenbaum House is apparently the only FLW designed home in the Southeast that is open to the public so you should visit if you can!  I took pictures of the interior but the images on their website are better so click through that if you want a peek inside the house!  KT and I were v.v. impressed with the house and many of the space-saving aspects of it, though I wouldn't be comfortable living in all that compactness.  Low ceilings, tiny rooms, and itty bitty doorways don't make for spacious living.  

day trip!

Last Saturday, M, T, her niece A, and I went to Atlanta for a whirlwind tour of some of the ancient world.  We began our journey at the High Museum for the exhibit of some of the terracotta soldiers from the funerary army of the First Emperor of China.  Excellent exhibit!  You should see this if at all possible!  The exhibit will be at the High Museum through April 19th so I highly recommend that you plan a trip or research to see if this exhibit will be traveling to a museum near you...SO good!

I took this little video outside the High Museum and it is my only photo-type item of the day.  M (wearing the denim overshirt) took most of the photos and has promised (!!!) to email them to me.  I was enchanted with this sculpture, even more so when I got close and could actually see how it was constructed.  It changed shape as you walked across the courtyard but is was only if you cut across the grass and got close that you could see what made it work, v.v. cool I thought.

After the High Museum, we partook of a car trunk picnic (in my super special Sound of Music worthy picnic basket).  T made some AwEsOmE chicken salad and I brought some deli sliced colby jack cheese, Parmesan and garlic pita chips, crackers, Mediterranean herb and garlic goat cheese, rosemary and olive oil Triscuts, and peanut butter cookies.  I briefly considered the whole salmonella thing but we're all still alive and unill.  It was a super better lunch than we could have afforded plus we ate in the parking lot of our next stop, in the shade of a pine tree and feeling the nice breezy, warm, sunshine filled day.  You can't buy that with money (IMHO).

We then went to our next exhibit, King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, at the Atlantic Civic Center.  It will be there through May 2009 and should DeFiNiTeLy be on your to-do list if you are anywhere near enough to make the trip!  There were so many beautiful things I can't even describe them all but I will say that there were a few things that I recognized from the photographs in books of Carter's cataloging of the things found in Tut's tomb when he opened it.  VERY VERY VERY powerful and impressive and everything else in the superlative.  I get goose bumps even now when I think about some of the things I saw in that exhibit.  Wooden chests that looked like any other antique I've seen in someone's house, except these were thousands of years old....

Anytime I hear of King Tut now I think of one of my favorite patrons, Mrs. G.  She is a call-in patron because she is blind and it's difficult for her to get out of the house on a whim.  She was 9 years old when Carter opened Tut's tomb and she and her friends read about it every day it was in the newspapers.  They giggled and pretended to be Carter and associates digging in the Valley of the Kings, scaring themselves with thoughts of the musty, creaking, dusty mummies rising from their sarcophagi to stalk the living tomb invaders.  Can you imagine?  She did have to live through nearly every war this nation has been involved with but she has also told me such wonderful stories over the years of our acquaintance.  Her grandmother and mother were from France and spoke little English around her as she was growing up.  She was in Europe for some time when her husband was stationed there and she has a story about having to keep and prepare chickens that I giggle about even now.  The image of her chasing chickens in the muddy French soil with a knife in her hand is priceless.  She's such a delicate, petite, perfectly Southern Lady that it's hard to imagine her ever getting dirty like that.  She also still refers to the American Civil War as the war of northern aggression and we've had our arguments about that is well.  I believe everyone should have a Mrs. G in their life.  Find an elderly person you can talk to about their life.  It's fascinating and so much more helpful than a textbook.  You just have to keep in mind, like Mrs. G's war of northern aggression, that you are getting a piece of history from a very specific perspective and bias.  

I want to have memories like that when I'm 96 too.  I want something other than the Challenger space shuttle, my brother's death, 9/11, and our current economic crisis.  I'm only 31 (soon to be 32), so I do have 65 years to make those memories if I plan on keeping up with Mrs. G :-)

evenin' ya'll!

Watermind by M.M. Buckner

I was very intrigued by the premise of Watermind...a blob of trash comprised of all the debris from our society's disposable electronices (cell phones, appliances, genetically modified foods, stem cells, old computers, defunt televisions, etc) composes itself into a water-borne neural net and starts to explore the swampy environment of the Louisiana bayou.  I know, cool huh?  Unfortunately, this book could have done with some serious additional editing.  The choppy date and time chapter divisions made the pacing tedious, all the characters pissed me off except Max, and there were a couple of purely superfluous characters taking up space that could have been shaved off.  What the hell did Rayette contribute to the story?  That whole plot line could have been wiped out to the shortening and betterment off the story. 

The Publisher's Weekly review on Amazon has summed this up for me:  "Despite the suspense and nonstop action, unlikable characters make it hard to root for anyone, and the scientifically sound ending is narratively unsatisfying. The story succeeds best when it traverses Louisiana's geography, and only indifferently when it traverses the human heart."

Exactly. It was a great idea, but it was sloppily handled. Lots of repetitions of points, too many characters who didn't do anything but carry a Creole surname, too little action spread out over way too many pages. If the story were tightened up...maybe half the length, a novella or trade/mass market, then I believe it would have been much better. It feels, to me, like a short story that someone pushed to novel length without enough material. Well, now I'm repeating myself so I'll stop there. I was disappointed.

a new meme - Ten Things!

I came across this on The Book Lady's Blog and asked to join in the fun!  I left a comment for Rebecca and her Randomizer picked the letter "V"!  

If you want to join in, leave me a comment and I'll randomly assign you a letter of your very own!  Once you have your letter, you must list 10 things you love that start with the assigned letter!

1. vacations

2. vidalia onions

3. vodka martinis, filthy

4. my vision

5. vampire fiction

6. Vermeer paintings

7. vanilla extract

8. vinegar & salt potato chips

9. violin music

10. ventriloquist Jeff Dunham

Who wants to be next???

The Widow's War by Sally Gunning

The bookgroup I'm a member of chose The Widow’s War for our February title and I had never heard of it or the author, Sally Gunning, beforehand.  I’m always excited to pickup something new and unheard of…reading wise (and from my perspective obviously, sorry all you Sally Gunning fans out there!).  

What a great, strong female character we have in Lyddie Berry!  She loses her husband to the whaling industry on page 1 so I don’t really feel like I’m giving anything away by telling you that. It’s the aftermath of this that warrants the title.  Lyddie is now at the mercy of man, and I don’t mean that in a mankind sort of way.  I specifically mean that gender.  She cannot own the home she shared with her husband; that has now been deeded to her closest male relative, her son-in-law Nathan Clarke.  He wants to sell, but that would leave her entirely dependent on him and Lyddie’s daughter is clearly not happy with Lyddie in the house.  There are consequences if she stays, consequences if she goes, and consequences if she marries and Lyddie is becoming tired of the consequences of men’s decisions for her and about her.  Can one woman gain independence in such an environment ?  Why would she even want to?  

Nearly 100 years before the Seneca Falls Convention in New York kicked off the women’s suffrage movement, Lyddie Berry’s existence after her husband died is direct testimony for how far the plight of women has advanced.  I am glad to live a life when I don’t remember a time when women were not allowed to vote or get any just about any job they want to have.  There is the pay issue going on now, evidenced by President Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act just a few days ago, but we’re always moving forward.  I can hardly wait to here the discussion surrounding this title when my bookgroup meets next week! 

Dalí & I: The Surreal Story by Stan Lauryssens

Dalí & I: The Surreal Story doesn’t lie…it is indeed VERY surreal.  I’m always suspicious when a memoir has this much prose.  I had the same feeling about Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle.  When I think back on my childhood and early life, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of telling you what the clouds looked like, or what I was thinking at the time or what I ate for breakfast that day.  So, when the author describes landscapes, meals, thoughts, feelings, and conversations from the late 1970’s and 1980’s as if they were yesterday, I hope he kept a thorough diary.  

That being said, I LuRvEd this little book.  It is an up-close, no-holds-barred, can’t-turn-away, train wreck look at the life and work of…well, Stan Lauryssens.  He sold fake Dali artwork for many years and got in a good bit of trouble doing so.  It is not so much what he does, but who he meets over the years that makes this delectable little book float along.  

Um, not for the faint of heart.  We are talking about surrealist art in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s and we are talking about Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and various other outsiders to any kind of status-quo.  Mr. Lauryssens goes to great lengths not to hide a bit of the outrageous sensibilities, sexualities, and spending sprees of the day, so consider yourself warned.  This is gossip of the juiciest variety.  I have no idea if it’s authorized, but I imagine not.  Some one else can research that.  If Lauryssens is to be believed (or rather, his sources, I suppose) MOST of the Dalí works in existence are fakefakefake, painted by studio assistants while Dalí was…um…occupied.  

Am I the only one in the world who hasn’t heard any of this?  I started reading up on Dalí after I heard Robert Pattinson was portraying a young Dalí in the film Little Ashes.  Now, I think I know a bit more than I cared to but if it ever comes up in conversation I won’t be at a loss, that’s for sure!

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks

I can’t say enough good things about Robert Hicks’ The Widow of the South.  I’ve read good reviews and I’ve read some tirades as well but I personally loved this book.  I liked this book just as much as I did Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders and that is possibly my favorite book of all time!  

Hicks’ tale centers on the small town of Franklin, Tennessee and one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War that took place there on a frosty November day in 1864.  He draws history to fictionally fill in the gaps in the life of Carrie McGavock, wife of a Franklin plantation owner.  On that day, 9,000 casualties (Confederate and Union combined) resulted from the day’s battle and her house was requisitioned as a hospital.  I won’t go into detail but Civil War medicine was a nasty business on many levels.  Over half those who died did so from sepsis and disease.  Over 1700 Confederate dead were hastily buried in a nearby field after the battle.  When the owner of the field decides to return it to cultivation, Carrie and her husband move all the soldiers to their property, creating the only private Confederate cemetery.  So, all of that is the real story.  Hicks’ takes this framework and imagines a life for Mrs. McGavock, her family, and some of the soldiers that you will find in no history book yet it provided me a glimpse into what that time might have been like, unpleasant as it no doubt was.  It is not an easy topic, nor is Mrs. McGavock all that easy to like but she does mature into a character I can respect.  There is a great Author’s Note at the back with some additional information on the Battle of Franklin as well as archival photos of the McGavock plantation, Mrs. McGavock herself, and the cemetery. 

The Chopin Manuscript by Jeffery Deaver et al

The Chopin Manuscript is a weird little book in a couple of ways: 

 

1. It is only available as an audiobook as far as I can tell.  That’s how I stumbled across it and Amazon doesn’t list a monograph version.  It won the 2008 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year from the Audio Publishers Association and I can see why.  The narrator, Alfred Molina, was one of the best I’ve heard, though I did have a bit of a problem isolating his female character voices.

 

2. It has about 15 different authors.  Jeffrey Deaver writes the first chapter, outlining the major characters and plot points then 14 authors (and it’s a star-studded lineup, make no mistake) each write a chapter to move the story forward.  Mr. Deaver steps in after that to wrap things up.

 

It was a fairly exciting story that kept me interested until the very end, but those different authors and different writing styles began to take their toll after awhile and choppiness abounded.  I expected more Da Vinci Code and less agonized introspection.  The bad guys didn’t seem quite as bad as I wanted them to be (except for one VeRy bad guy…and I never saw that one coming) and the good guys always got out of trouble immediately.  I know they were going for a tense, DVC-esque tale of intrigue, and it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t tense and edgy either.  In the end it didn’t resonate with me in any way, it was just a decent story.  Again, Molina is a great narrator!  I’m going to have to look him up and see if he has any other work.