.....Fifty Shades of Grey/E.L. James

Fifty Shades of Grey; E.L. James, erotic Twilight fanfiction that became a bestseller by some miracle; 15 pages

I'm listing this in my blog count as 15 pages because that's how much of the book I was able to read before I threw it across the room. (It landed on my yoga mat, no damage to library items was incurred)
I'd skimmed through it beforehand, looking for all these sex scenes that were supposedly SO racy and kinky and whatnot and nothing I saw seemed that interesting, to be honest!

And then I started trying to actually read the book from the beginning and THESE CHARACTERS ARE SO BORING. I don't care about them! I don't care about their relationship, and I certainly don't care about them enough to slog through the rest of this drivel to read about their supposedly hot sex.

Spoiler alert: This book is so boring. The people are boring. The whole meet-cute is boring. The sex is boring. I'm trying really really really REALLY hard not to begrudge anyone their choices in entertainment reading but I just literally cannot conceive of how anyone would find this book in any way good. This heroine has such low self-esteem! Her mysterious cold powerful partner is so full of secrets! Is the secret that he has passionate feelings but is unable to express them in an open and emotionally healthy manner? I BET THAT'S WHAT IT IS.

It has all the oppressive, sexist, creepy stalker abusive relationship themes of Twilight, but this time it's not couched in any vampire metaphors. So...hooray? Wait. No. Not hooray at all. People can read whatever they want but I'm sorry, I can't help looking a little askance when someone is really excited about reading this one. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

I think I'm starting to talk myself in circles. Really I'm wishing I had never tried to read it in the first place! but alas, my morbid curiosity. Sigh. 

Small Gods/Terry Pratchett

Small Gods: A Novel of Discworld; Terry Pratchett, SF, 344 pages

So I've known about Discworld for a while, but there are just so many books in this series and so many different plotlines that it all seemed way too intimidating for me to get into. And then! One fateful day I ran across a very helpful guide online (no idea where the link is now, but if I find it again I'll edit this post to include it) describing different avenues for newbies to start reading with, which is just what I needed!
I chose Small Gods because, according to this guide, it has basically nothing to do with the rest of Discworld, plot-wise, but in terms of tone and satire it's a great example of Pratchett's style.

And of course I fell in love with said style! I feel like this book was written just for me. Excellent exploration of all the silly intricacies and problems that spring up in any religion, the inherent humor of really militant athiests, and ANCIENT STATUARY JOKES.

I think it might take a particular type of person to be highly amused by ancient statuary jokes, but luckily I am that type of person, so this whole book was a treat.
I highly recommend it if you ever took Latin.

I think my next foray into Discworld will be Guards! Guards! to embark on the stories of the City Watch. I've heard those are good. :)

Fracture by Megan Miranda 264 pages

Delanley Maxwell is pulled out of icy waters when the ice beneath her fractures mostly due to the heroic efforts of her best friend, Decker. However, it was eleven minutes and most people would be dead. Strange things begin to happen. She meets this new older guy, Troy at the hospital. His back story seems to change daily although her frosty mom takes a liking to him.But death seems to be following her ... and Troy around the neighborhood. She gets this itchy feeling in her hands and next thing you know, the person she had been looking at dies.Troy is on a mission and it is not one that Delaney wants to buy into.Her mom just wants to keep her on meds and tied to the house.Thank goodness for ol' Decker, but wait. Is he seeing another girl? Angst and terror add up to a swift moving summer read.

Are you my mother?

Are you my mother? a comic drama by Alison Bechdel 286 pgs.

Alison Bechdel has done it again.  A beautiful memoir/biography/auto biography about the author's relationship with her mother.  At times, I'm sure I was not keeping up with the psychological and literary comparisons and references but there are many books I've added to my list based on her reading.  Her complicated thoughts and insights make me wonder how long my book about my mother would be...probably 5 pages of funny stories and little or no insight aside from, she is great.  Guess we are just not as complicated and alas, not so interesting.
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A Changed Man / Francine Prose 421 p.

This was a re-read of one my favorite authors.  Vincent Nolan is an extremely half-hearted member of a White Supremacist movement in upstate New York when he decides to break free, under threat of retribution from his former friends.  He takes sanctuary at the Manhattan office of Meyer Maslow, a holocaust survivor who runs a Human-Rights-Watch type of organization.  Vincent's story, although seemingly implausible, becomes believable in Prose's hands. 

Curious Case of Benjamin Button: and Other Jazz Age Tales / F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook

I was familiar with the title story from the film with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and it was fun to hear the many ways the original differed from the film.  The tone here is more strange and macabre than the film, which could be said about the other stories as well.  In Diamond as Big as the Ritz, which is a cheerful enough title, a naive prep school student spends a summer with a classmate whose family is in possession of said diamond, as well as an elaborate security apparatus for protecting it.  Uneasy listening for a long, dark road trip.

Something from the Nightside/Simon R. Green

Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green
Ace Books, 240 pages

So I've been desperately wishing for a series that fills the void left between installments of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, something featuring a cynical, hardboiled private eye investigating the weird and supernatural. Something from the Nightside has reminded me that, while I was right to wish for all of that, I should have added a caveat to my wish that the resulting book also not suck. John Taylor, the protaginist, has all the cynicism of Phillip Marlowe, but none of the humor, all the guts of Harry Dresden, but none of the charm or loveable nature. But the author goes to great lengths to tell the reader that John Taylor is, above all, TOUGH and DARK. Men fear him, women want him, and he's so dark he probably farts bats.

Green adopts a "tell, don't show" method for explaining how hard-as-nails his PI creation is, with other characters shuttering in fear at Taylor's approach. What makes his so dangerlicious? Hell if I know, and I read the book. Taylor's only power seems to be his inner third eye, his "private eye" (and yes, that is what Taylor calls it, repeatedly, no matter how much I swear at the book in protest) which allows him to see the truth of things, kind of, a little bit...it depends. When he's really hacked off he can, apparently, see the hell out of something, like a door, and thereby destroy it...just by really SEEING at it. Weird. Expect a tragic romantic entaglement that only exists because the genre formula demands it, a sufficiently grey ending to keep with the book's mood and a TOUGH, DARK boatload of sequels full of TOUGHNESS and DARKNESS. Fin.

Fludd

Fludd by Hilary Mantel  181 pp.

This is an odd little book full of odd characters. Father Angwin of the village Fetherhoughton has lost his religion and is dealing with a bishop who wants him to modernize. The bishop orders Angwin to remove a majority of the saint statues in the church in spite of protests that his very superstitious flock won't like it. The order is obeyed and Angwin has the statues buried in shallow graves in the churchyard. Enter Fludd, a curate that arrives on a rainy night. Everyone assumes he was sent by the bishop. Add to the story the nuns at the school, the evil tempered Mother Perpetua (called Purpiture by everyone), Sister Philomena, who is having difficulty dealing with her life in the convent, the rest of the nuns at the convent, and Agnes Dempsey, the priest's housekeeper. Superstitions abound in the village, and all believe they have met the devil in various guises, including the tobacconist. But who is the mysterious Fludd?  He celebrates mass like a priest and hears confessions. He conspires to return the statues to their rightful place in the church. He also "helps" Sister Philomena with her "problem." Is he a priest, an angel, or a demon?

Birth of Venus

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant  416 pp.

In spite of the title, this book has nothing to do with Botticelli masterpiece. However, it is a book about art and artists. Alessandra Cecchi is a headstrong teenager in 15th century Florence. Her wealthy merchant father brings a reclusive artist into the household to paint frescoes in the family chapel. Alessandra is an aspiring artist who desperately wants the young painter to teach her more than just art. Meanwhile, Florence is undergoing big changes with the death of Lorenzo de Medici and the increasing popularity of the fanatical monk, Savonarola. Alessandra agrees to an arranged married with an older man when she learns that he will not deny her books, education , and her painting. However, she sacrifices the hope of married love with Christoforo when she learns he loves another and has married only to protect himself by producing an heir. The fear of Savonarola's torture and his Bonfire of the Vanities alters their lives. The ending to the story contains a twist and is a bit disappointing. The story is intriguing but not as well done as the author's previous novel "In the Company of the Courtesan."

Red Glove

Red Glove by Holly Black  325 pp.

This is book two in "The Curse Workers" series. Reading the first book is essential before reading this one. Cassel Sharpe is a curse worker of the rarest type. His family of curse workers each have their own particular talent which they use for criminal purposes. Cassel is recruited by the FBI to help find the worker who caused the disappearance of five people. With the help of his friends from the private school he attends, he attempts to find them and the culprit who killed his brother without revealing too much about himself. He is also being recruited by his girlfriend's father to work for their crime family. Will Cassel turn in his own family members or those of his girlfriend to the Feds? Of course, the ending is a set up for book three, Black Heart.