Review: Bad Luck Cadet By Suzie Ivy

Definitely interesting and a quick read. Very informative and made me root for Suzie from the first page. It is a writing style I’m not familiar with, but it didn’t interrupt with the story. The fourth wall was broken a few times, but I didn’t mind. I have to be honest and admit I don’t know if this is fiction or autobiographical. But it felt very much like a memoir. when’s the next book out?

Princess of Glass (Princess #2) By Jessica Day George

Princess of Glass is the sequel to Jessica Day George’s Princess of the Midnight Ball. Both are fairy Tales and all that that implies.

While I enjoyed the book on a basic level, such as prose, characters and conflict, I found it lacking in a couple of areas. The most important of which: It’s resolution.

While happily ever after is what we’ve come to expect from the genre, and what was implied in the end of this story, I don’t see how it actually occurred. There was never any clear solution presented to the protagonists problems. They went into the grand finale with no plan and fell out of it, just assuming it was over without actually vanquishing the villain. The villain suggested that even if they did beat her little test she could still not give back what she promised. So why should they assume that just because they escaped her realm that she’s never coming back to get them (literally)? She’d snatched someone out of their home only moments before. What’s to stop her from doing it again? I still don’t know.

The above being said, I am not the target audience for this book. It is obviously geared towards teenage girls, so perhaps I’m over thinking it. But then again, even though I don’t know many, I still assume that teenage girls think logically, and would find this a problem themselves. At least I hope so, since just assuming your problems have vanished when their out of sight isn’t sound teachings for future trials.

In summary: I liked it. But I didn’t REALLY like it.

Review: Little Lady, Big Apple by Hester Browne

I’m sad to say this book didn’t grab me like the first one. It took me six weeks to read. The plot of Melissa joining Jonathan in New York didn’t have much inherent conflict in it. Yes, her office would be manned by two self-absorbed women who thought more of their own needs than those of the clients, but Melissa didn’t spend much time worrying about it. At least, not enough time to make it believable that she really was concerned for her company’s future. But then, she’s so gung-ho about the whole business she’s willing to brave Jonathan’s displeasure by refusing to quit. And that was just one of my problems. Don’t get me started on Jonathan himself. I haven’t liked him from the start and his behavior in this book simply solidified my dislike for him, instead of bringing me around to his side.

At its core, this was just another book where the main issues at hand could have been solved by a frank conversation between the two lovers.

I do intend to read the next book, because I did truly enjoy the first in the series. Hopefully it has all the charm and humor of that first installment.

Review: Smokin’ Seventeen By Janet Evanovich

The latest installment in the Stephanie Plum series is about the same as the last book. Nothing like the first ten, but not as bad as a few of the subsequent novels.
The plot seemed a bit forced. I figured out the murderer before I was even halfway through, but even once the motive was explained to me I still only barely got it. It seemed a bit of a stretch.
The best thing about the book was Ranger. As usual.

A good book

Just finished The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne (Isn’t that a great name?)

This book was pretty good. Funny, clean, and the characters were engaging. It didn’t end the way I thought it would when I started the book, so that was a pleasant surprise. There were only two problems.
1 – The main character is sooooo incredibly naive. But, in her defence, she knows she’s this way and everyone keeps telling her to knock it off, so it’s not annoying.
2 – It ended kind of abruptly after the plot resolution. We didn’t get to see any of the aftermath or adjustment to the new status quo, or even talk to people that I felt still deserved a little page time.

Talents

A while ago we read the parable of the talents and it got me thinking. The point of the story is clear. Take what you’re given and turn it into something more. Don’t squander or hide it. Value it. In the parable the master gave the men their talents. They knew what they had been given. It was right there in their hot little hands. Two men went out and used their talents to get more talents while another guy buried his, only to hand it back to his master later.

Here is my concern: I don’t know what talents I’ve been handed, so how can I be held accountable if I don’t use it/them to gain more talents? Maybe I’m really good milking cows, but I’ll never know because I don’t live on a dairy farm. Some of you might ask, “well, do you have an interest in milking cows?” My answer would be “Of course not. Do I seem like a morning person to you?” But just because I have no interest in doing it doesn’t mean that wasn’t one of the talents given to me.

On the flip side: There are things in my past which I have considered talents. I tried to enhance them, but they never went anywhere. But in those moments, in the midst of those experiences, I really tried. So why, if the Lord wanted me to do something with them, did it not work out? If those were the talents I was given and expected to use to garner more talents then why the big Fail?

I guess what I’m trying to say here is: How do you know? I can’t go out and experience everything. With the things I do suspect as talents, how do I know when to say, “Ok, I guess that’s not one of the talents,” and move on. Maybe I’m spending so much time trying to enhance a talent I suspect I’ve been given that I’m really missing the talents I actually did receive.

At the beginning of the movie Matilda (and maybe the book too, I don’t remember) they talk about people being born into this world as unique individuals. Some will be butchers and so on, and others will only be really good at making Jello salad. For some reason that has always stuck with me. Whenever I get to wondering about my talents that line pops into my head. And before you ask, no, Jello salad is not one of my talents. Trust me. It never sets properly. But I digress.

What if my talents are in that realm? What if my talent is getting knots out of shoelaces? What if my talent is memorizing movie lines? Folding underwear? Brushing the cat? If this is the case, then shouldn’t things I gave up on in the past stop bothering me? Shouldn’t I NOT have to wonder, “maybe that was it, and I missed the boat. I gave up to soon, and now I’ll never get that talent back, and I’ll have to answer for it when I meet God.” Why do I feel the need to do something more if this is what He intended me to do?

On to the next!

I’m trying to figure out what project to work on next. I’ve got a lot of ideas floating around, and even a few projects that are started. I just can’t decide which way to go. Do I want to go the urban fantasy route, LDS chick lit, contemporary romance, or murder mystery? I’ve got ideas for them all but I just can’t narrow it down. perhaps I should combine them all. How does an LDS urban romance mystery sound?  Or maybe I should stick with the editing and work on something I’ve already finished.

I just can’t decide.

List o’ things to do

Friday is my last day out in corporate america for a while. I’m really looking forward to the change of venue but have realized something over the last few days as I’ve created my list o’ stuff to do. That realization: This is going to be way more exhausting than working for someone else. And I know exactly the reason why. My expectations are too high. There’s no way I can live up to them. But I’m going to try. Wish me luck.

What’s your theme? Otherwise known as: Something that’s bothered me for a long time.

Does your life have a theme? Because mine doesn’t. I don’t know anyone who’s life is so simple, so cut and dry, it can be summed up by a simple word or phrase. Even when talking about a specific moment or incident in life, there’s no theme. There is what happened. There are the facts. Why does everything have to have some deep underlying, cloak and dagger, hidden meaning? Why can’t something be taken at face value and deemed valuable for what it is, rather than what someone else thinks it ought to be? Maybe the point isn’t ‘what is this person not saying that I have to figure out’. Maybe the point is ‘something happened and the consequences are significant’.

When I read I don’t want something I have to analyze and stew over to get the full meaning. I want something I want to think about because the writer wrote it in such a manner that the characters were engaging, realistic, flawed and relatable despite the gap between my experiences and theirs.

My life doesn’t have a theme, so why should my characters’? If a story isn’t worth reading without a theme, then why do people force other’s to listen to their inane anecdotes that don’t mean anything? It’s all subjective anyway, depending on the person who reads it.

When Past Meets Present

Facebook is in interesting tool, probably best left unused in some cases. People from your past are all over the place, begging for attention, and in some cases you can’t help but give it, in hopes that things are working out well for them. You go to their wall, read their last few status updates and big as life, there it is between the lines. Their tone and content is pleasant, even humorous at times. But you can tell, you can just tell, that it’s all one big farce.

The latest person I’ve read about will remain nameless, but some might be able to guess who it is. Please, if you can, don’t name him/her/it. We will call him/her/it The Topic. Now, The Topic was once a dear friend. We did lots of things together. Spent endless hours talking on the phone, hanging out at school, after school, at work, at home, on vacation together. Pretty much, we were inseparable for a few good years. Then, lives changed, circumstances changed, and we drifted apart. I made decisions, The Topic made decisions, and we have arrived at March 6 2011, both alive, thought having not spoken in ages. There was no scene, no horrid falling out. We simply grew apart due to our responsibilities and goals. We reconnected for a time, but during that brief time span it became clear to me that The Topic had changed. I didn’t want to judge. I still don’t. It’s just evident, (then, just as much as now) that perhaps The Topic had made a few regrettable choices. I too, had made such choices, and resumed the friendship after airing a few grievances and talking them over. No harm, no foul.

In the course of that period The Topic did some things I would never dream of doing. It caused irreparable damage to another friendship, and put me in the middle of a rather uncomfortable situation. Still, I tried to remain friends with The Topic. The Topic went about life, making choices, achieving goals. I supported The Topic as a friend, lending a shoulder to cry on when upset and never doling out recriminations for choices made. Then, after a serious crisis in The Topic’s life, ties were severed. I had nothing to do with said crisis. Yet in the fallout, I became a casualty. The Topic disappeared.

Years later, another friend and I found The Topic on Facebook through sheer happenstance. The Topic had changed last names to no last name we ever knew The Topic to go by, but the photo was unmistakable. Also by sheer happenstance, The Topic happened to be online at that exact moment and we spent a good hour or two chatting over the social medium. We friended each other and every now and then I see a post that sparks my interest, pinches my memory about something in our past, and I take a look at The Topic’s wall.

Absolutely depressing.

And not because I see The Topic doing things I would like to do (because The Topic doesn’t). It’s because I see The Topic doing things that I know are in direct contrast to who The Topic is. Or at least was. Perhaps that is who The Topic is now. If so, it makes me wonder what happened in between that time of crisis and now, to completely destroy that wonderful personality and turn it into such a phony facade. I know The Topic. I know The Topic is in a desperate place. I can see it dripping from every status update. And it’s depressing to think The Topic could get out of it, just by admitting a few things were wrong. By manning up, and saying “I was wrong. I need to take a step back and reevaluate the things I value in life. I need to give a few apologies and make a few amends. I need to make a few adjustments.” Why is that so hard for some people?

I’d like to help The Topic. But I don’t know how. Even if I did, I don’t think The Topic would accept it. I think the bitterness and despair is too deep. I can only hope someone else, Someone above or someone The Topic calls a friend now, sees it too, and helps where I can’t.