9 sexy ladies and one sexy feline

Inspired by Eleni's list, I'm going to make a list of the ten characters I would most like to be. I will warn you that these are from a variety of different places...

10. Lara Croft

Everytime I tell someone I want to be an archaeologist, they inevitably say, "Like Indiana Jones?" and I answer, "Yes, I'm working on my whip work." The other day my sister and I decided that I couldn't quite be like Indiana Jones. We came to the conclusion that I definitely have the rack necessary to be Lara Croft. And who wouldn't want to be Lara Croft? 1) She's hot. 2) She's rich. 3) She's smart. 4) She's Angelina Jolie. Mmm.

9. Daine Sarrasri
Star of Tamora Pierce's Immortals Quartet, Daine was my first fantasy hero. She's by far the coolest of all Pierce's characters. She can talk to animals, for one. She has a very troubled past. And most importantly, she gets the tall, dark, brooding mage. The Tamora Pierce books are very dear to my heart - Wild Magic was the first fantasy book I ever read, and I remained obsessed for years. Also, they're how I met Fae.

8. Aurian
Here's where you realize that I really have a thing for red heads. Aurian is the main character in Maggie Furey's Artifacts of Power series, possibly my favourite fantasy series to date. Aurian herself is a great character - stubborn and powerful, and yet completely naive and dependent on those around her. Sometimes during the books you really hate her, and I think that's the mark of a good character. That they are so firmly themselves that they don't cater to your idea of what they should be. It takes a really good writer to make you change your mind about a character. Oh, and did I mention that she gets two loves of her life, Forral and Anvar - both of whom I'd gladly have.

7. Assassin
I'd always loved Diablo II, but I was so excited when they released the expansion and you could play an Assassin! And not only that, but it's a chick and she has claws. And it gets even better, because I didn't have to give up on the firepower I had when I played the Sorceress. The Assassin can get traps and explode people! Yes, I'm the kind of girl who gets excited over the outfits and such in games. I bought Neverwinter Nights just because your character could change outfits...

6. Clementine
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favourite movies of all time. Kate Winslet is by far my favourite actress. And I thought she was brilliant in Eternal Sunshine. And I love her hair. It reminds me of my purple hair (which not-so-coincidentally was around the same time I first saw the movie). If I ever dye my hair a crazy colour again, it will be that bright red-orange from the movie.

5. Helen of Troy and Cassandra
Okay, Helen is usually considered more of a historical figure than a character. But the Trojan War more of a myth than a historical truth (even though it DID happen, it wasn't necessarily the way it was described in the Iliad). Helen and Cassandra of Troy both tie for this number 5, because I'm torn. Would I rather be the undeniably beautiful Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships? Or the understatedly beautiful prophetess Cassandra? Helen has more fame and fervour. Cassandra has more tragedy and mystery. Either way, I read a book called Inside the Walls of Troy by Clemence McLaren when I was younger, and have adored both characters ever since.

4. G(a)linda
"Whenever I see someone less fortunate than I - and let's face it, who isn't less fortunate than I? - my tender heart tends to start to bleed. When someone needs a makeover, I simply have to take over. I know I know exactly what they need..." G(a)linda from Wicked is beyond amazing. For one, the voice that Kristen Chenoweth gave her (with the strangely beautiful opera-yodel) is astounding. On top of that, Glinda is what makes the musical fun. She's ditzy and cute and in the end, it turns out that she's the Good afterall. She grows so much throughout the musical, all culminating in one of my favourite songs of all time, For Good. I would be G(a)linda so I could prance around in curls and poofy dresses and pink. In fact, I have a gorgeous Glinda costume made by Kaitlyn for that exact purpose!

3. Fainne
The Sevenwaters Trilogy by Juliet Marillier is amazing. Every single bit of it is just so magical and so full of beauty. I fell in love with these books, rife with Irish folklore, before I went to Ireland. I reread them there, and fell even more in love when I realized that the beauty Marillier is describing really exists. I chose Fainne, out of all of the strong female characters in Sevenwaters, because I find her story the most compelling. She's forever haunted by her parents' past. She is constantly torn between helping her mother's family and saving her father's life - and in the end almost loses everything because of it. And, of course, Darragh... He is probably the best of the male characters in Marillier's books. He's just so sweet. And the ending is so sad and yet so perfect...

2. Nala
I've always wanted to be a Lioness. Rrow. Nala is such a kick ass Disney character. She can best Simba when they're little, and again when they're reunited. She could run the pride all by herself. They make it seem like it's Simba who saves the Jungle, but really it's Nala. If it weren't for her, Simba would still be lounging around in the oasis with Timon and Pumba. And unlike Simba, she never ran from her problems.

1. Kalere Eld
Kalere is one of the main characters of the book Fae and I are writing. Kal is everything I wish I could be. And not just because she's a gorgeous red headed fire mage. No, she's passionate and tempermental and fiery. She's brave and strong and overreacts to everything. You have to hate her and love her at the same time. She's prone to thinking she's the only one with issues, to making a big deal about little things and to making everyone fix her problems for her (especially Kris). She has a horrible temper and for a large portion of her life she's downright bitchy. But she also loves more fiercely than anyone and would kill for any of the loves of her life - Kris, Tia, Essian and her seven children. Oh, and did I meantion she's hot? Artwork by the incredibly talented Fae.

Year of Wonders

Fae and I decided that for the next little while, we're going to give each other one book to read and one movie to watch every month.

In March, I watched Holes. I made Fae watch Camp Rock and read Magic's Pawn, one of my absolute favourite fantasy books of all time.

And I read Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.

The novel is alarmingly descriptive. I say alarmingly because it's a book about the Plague. Based n true events, the book is set in a small English village. When a delivery of fabric arrives from London, suddenly one of the townspeople is struck with the Plague. It spreads, as Plagues do, and many people die. The town minister convinces them to quarantine themselves so that they don't spread the disease to other villages. They do, and within a year the Plague has swept through the village and cut it's population in half.

I have to preface this with the fact that I really did like the book, I was entertained by it the whole way through and it was definitely very vivid.

That being said, I found the main character highly unbelievable. One of the typically perfect characters, barely a misstep. Raised poor and never educated, but somehow able to speak very articulately and read and write well within a year of evening lessons. Somehow able to notice things that more educated people don't. And somehow able to be significantly more virtuous than all her neighbours and family members. Suddenly able to heal the sick and birth babies.

On top of that.. the book changed completely in the last 50 pages or so. Completely. It was like a whole different story. I'm not sure it was needed, and frankly, it confused me enough to have to re-read certain parts.

But still, as I said.. it was a good read. It was a very interesting look at what people do when faced with that kind of destruction. And definitely an insight into what people of faith do when their faith in God is challenged.

Some lines:

"I open the door to my cottage these evenings on a silence so thick it fall upon me like a blanket. Of all the lonely moments of my day, this one is always the loneliest."

"... The reverend was but eight and twenty. And yet his young man's face, if you looked at it closely, was scored with furrows at the brow and starbursts of crows' feet beside the eyes - the marks of a mobile face that has frowned much in contemplation and laughed much in company. I have said that it could seem a plain face, but I think that what I mean to say is that it was his voice, and not his face, that you noticed. Once he began to speak, the sound of it was so compelling that you focused all your thoughts upon the words, and not upon the man who uttered them. It was a voice full of light and dark. Light not only as it glimmers, but also as it glares. Dark not only as it brings cold and fear, but also as it gives rest and shade."

There were a lot of great descriptions of the Plague, but I'll spare you. I hope I never get the Plague....

Oh and by the way, this was book #25. Which means I have to read 25 more between now and June 26th.

my summer of amazing luck

I really loved A Complicated Kindness, and Miriam Toews is one of Kristen's favourite authors. So, the other day when I was trying to decide which book to read next, Kristen suggested My Summer of Amazing Luck. I wasn't sure I was in the mood for it (I had already spent over half an hour looking at all of Taylor's, Kristen's and my books and hadn't been into anything) but Kristen suggested I read the first page and see. I started reading standing up, and by the end of the page I was in bed, ready to start the book.

I really enjoyed it, possibly more than A Complicated Kindness. I think A Complicated Kindness had more great one liners, but My Summer of Amazing Luck has a far better plot. This book is basically a litany of tragic lives, somehow presented in a good light. The narrator moves into a housing project, and most of the books ends up being the sad life stories of everyone who lives there. But it's not what you expect, because it's not so much tragic as inspirational. The characters in the book are great. I guess the book's sort of about the shitty things that happen in life, but that there's still happiness and hope, in small things. It's about being poor and being a mother and being in and out of love and knowing full well that all men are useless.

"Do what makes you happy because there is no sure thing. Just because you can pick out four-leaf clovers doesn't mean you'll get lucky."

"The first part of the song is so beautiful because the second part is so sad. We can't have one without the other. It doesn't turn out like we thought. But still it's a beautiful song."

It was a really great book - Miriam Toews has such a different, engaging style of writing.

Handle with Care

There are a few reasons not to read more than one Jodi Picoult book in a row.
1) They're a little predictable, especially when you remember the last one you read very clearly.
2) A lot of the characters are the same (in some cases, actually the same, but in most just remarkably similar)
3) They're emotional roller coasters and too much can upset you.

I'm mostly dealing with the latter right now. Handle with Care just came out on Tuesday, and I just finished it like ten minutes ago. It was good. Sort of a combination of different parts from My Sister's Keeper, the Tenth Circle and the Pact.

It's about a little girl with a disease that makes her bones really weak and she breaks them all the time. Her mother ends up filing a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn (also her best friend...) to get enough money to pay for the things her daughter will need later in life. But it sort of just ruins all the good parts of the life they already had - the parts that money can't fix.

When The Tenth Circle came out a couple of years ago, I read it right away too. It's the only Jodi Picoult book I have ever not liked. Why? Probably because the issue she focused on in this one was one I actually knew something about - cutting.

I was - am - a cutter. It's a little like being an alcoholic I think. You're still an alcoholic if you don't drink. You're still a cutter if you don't cut, because you still think about it all the time. You still think you need it, despite having overcome it, mostly. It's taken me a long time to be able to talk about it - and indeed this is the first time I've talked about it in such a public place. But it's a really important issue, I think, and a really big part of who I am today. I have at least three friends who have cut and I have read so many articles about how it's a growing "trend" among teenagers today.

In The Tenth Circle, I just kept thinking that Picoult didn't get it. She didn't get why people cut, what it was like... any of it. And I thought it was so superficial. To the point where I wondered if that's how people who knew about the issues in her other books felt. Do domestic violence victims dislike Picture Perfect? Do victims of school violence hate Nineteen Minutes? Do people who have been molested think that Perfect Match has it wrong?

With Handle with Care, I've started to believe that isn't true. Because in this book, Picoult got it right. She missed the mark by a mile in Tenth Circle, but her description of cutting in Handle with Care was so true that it made my skin crawl, filled my eyes with tears.

"They weren't on my wrists, don't think I was trying to kill myself. I just wanted to hurt, and understand exactly why I was hurting. This made sense: you cut, you felt pain, period. I could feel everything building up inside of me like steam heat, and I was just turning a valve. It made me think of my mother, when she made pie crusts. She'd prick little holes aal over the place. So it can breathe, she said."

"People always want to know what it feels like, so I'll tell you: there's a sting when you first slice, and then yor heart speeds up when you see blood, because you know you've done something you shouldn't have, and yet you've gotten away with it..... You literally make yourself sick, becase you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again you've let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enogh to cover the cts, even if it's summertime and no one is wearing jeans or sleeves."

Though the rest of the book was good, for me this sub plot was the best part. It redeemed Jodi Picoult in my eyes. For though I had remained a devout reader after Tenth Circle, everytime I thought of that book it made me mad. Now I'm considering that Picoult did her research just as well as the rest of her books - but that Trixie in Tenth Circle really did cut for a different reason than me or my friends. It doesn't make me like the book anymore, but it gets rid of the hatred.

I know this is a depressing post, but I don't intend it that way. It's a problem that millions of people face, and I'm lucky because it was never too serious and I had a really great support system to help me through it. If only it could be that way for everyone. If only it wasn't such a dangeorus "fad" now.

So, there you go. A piece of me, tightly entwined with a piece of the book.

Second Glance

Last weekend I finished reading Second Glance by Jodi Picoult. It had been a long time since I read a Picoult book, but I've read almost all of her book over the last four years.

There isn't much to say about the book itself. It was good, as most of her books are (except The Tenth Circle). I really enjoy reading them because while they're easy to read and dramatic, they're still very well written for "chick lit." I have a hard time classifying them as chick lit, because to me chick lit's always been like Shopaholic or Devil Wears Prada sort of books. Picoult is more of a... Chick Fic? Haha. I don't know.

When I'm right in the middle of a semester, I can't read really complicated books because I have too much homework and other shit going on, so I often end up reading Picoult or Nora Roberts or something similarly entertaining. The only problem with Jodi Picoult books is that I get very involved in them, and if I have sometihng else going on it can be difficult to stop reading.

Second Glance itself is about ghosts and ghost hunting. Until this year, I had never really thought about ghosts and whether or not I believed in them. When I started working at Pinhey's, I had people asking me all the time about ghost stories from the house. I even have a couple of my own stories, though they're better as stories than as proof. When I worked at Billings in October, we did ghost hunting. All of this, and books like Second Glance, have made me start thinking about whether I believe in ghosts or not. But I'm still completely undecided and I find that I can believe in them, in the right situation, but that they don't necessarily scare me. I think the reason I can't decide is because I have no definite opinion of what happens when you die - Heaven, reincarnation, whatever. And I think I'd need to decide what I think about that before I can decide whether some people stick around or not.

The book wasn't really quoteworthy but it was definitely a good read!

Sing the Four Quarters

So, at heart I'm a huge fantasy geek. I used to read all fantasy, all the time, when I was teenager. I haven't read a pure fantasy novel in a really long time, so I really enjoyed getting back into the very predictable genre again.

The Tanya Huff books, though I have never read them before, are actually what drew me to fantasy. When I was about 11, I was wandering around the bookstore and I saw the Tanya Huff books and really loved the covers. I took one to my mom and said "I want to read this!" and she told me it was too old for me, so we went into the Kids section, and found another fantasy book. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. Which led not only to my obsession with fantasy, but also to my friendship with Fae, Lea, Ali and Kitty.

Given all this, I figured it was time for me to actually read a Tanya Huff book. As far as fantasy books go, it was pretty typical. It included the perfect characters, the fair government, magic, and more than the occasional typo. But how can I complain about a book with magic, a sexually open and promiscuous society and ridiculous attractive characters whose names I can't pronounce?

Thoroughly enjoyed.

Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak

I bought myself a Valentine's Day present yesterday. Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak is the new release from the people of Smith Magazine, who did Not Quite What I Was Panning and have an awesome website you can post your own six word memoirs.l

I love these. I love the idea of telling a story in a limited number of words, the same way I lov the idea of trying to tell it in one sentence. Because if journalism has taught me anything, which I'm sure it has despite our mutual hatred, it's that people use too many words. It comes to be that we waste words, that they don't mean anything anymore because we're always saying things. Things we don't mean. Things we don't need. Words are cheap. And when you only have six of them, well, you agonize over the meaning and validity for every single letter in the sentence. And the result means more than 600 words you wrote for the sake of it.

Some of the best:

"A kiss can write a secret."
"It never hurt as good again."
"Maybe some pots have no lids."
"Don't worry, I'll make myself come."
"I loved the idea of you."
"Will always follow you. On Twitter."
"Romance remembered often better than experienced."
"Leap of faith. Shit, no parachute."
"You were my Little Red-Haired Girl.""
"Shh. You won't feel a thing."
"May I have the last dance?"

And mine?

Never loved, doesn't mean I can't.

A Long Way Down

I've heard a lot about Nick Hornby, but this is the first book of his that I've read. At first, I really liked the style, and the plot was what drew me to it originally. It's about our people who meet on the top of a high rise in London on New Years Eve, all planning to jump. The concept is very interesting. I loved the first few chapters. The characters are interesting - you sort of love to hate them. In a lot of ways you understand why they'd want to jump (because they're either pathetic or annoying). But the whole middle of the book really dragged. I just didn't understand why it kept saying the same things over and over. It picked up again in the end, though, and I'd say it was generally worth reading, if only for the style.

Quotes, as per usual:

"Surely the coroner's report should read, 'He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become.'"

"The truth was that I didn't feel like a dying man; I felt like a man who every now and again wanted to die, and there's a difference."

"We started with Virginia Woolf, and I only read like two pages of this book about a lighthouse, but I read enough to know why she killed herself: She killed herself because she couldn't make herself understood. You only have to read one sentence to see that."

"You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible."

"I wanted to kill myself, not because I hated living, but because I loved it. And the truth of the matter is, I think, that a lot of people who think about killing themselves feel the same way... They love life, but it's all fucked up for them."

The History of Love

You can't help but fall in love with this book. It's poetically beautiful. Krauss weaves the lives of several people together through different points of view , all of which revolve around one thing: The History of Love, a book written long ago. The book was given to Alma's mother by her now dead father, and she is now translating it into English on the request of a wealthy man, whose life is also connected to the book in a mysterious way. The origins of this book are a mystery, one that Alma is trying to solve in order to help her mother's grief. But what every character in this novel is really trying to find is the origin of love itself.

I can't say much more about it, other than it's beautiful.

Instead of folding down the corners of the pages I wanted to remember, like I normally do, I decided to put little sticky notes. Well, the book is now full of sticky notes, and these are some of my favourite lines:

"When I got older, I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely."

"At times I believed that the last page of my book and the last page of my life were one and the same, that when my book ended I'd end, a great wind would sweep through my rooms carrying the pages awa, and when the air cleared of all those fluttering white sheets the room would be silent, the chair where I sat would be empty."

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."

"There were rumors that Mr. Goldstein slept only an hour a night in the basement of the hul, that he had been in a labor camp in Siberia, that his heart was weak, that a loud noise could kill him, that snow made him cry."

"She's kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she's turned life away. Sometimes she subsists for days on waterr and air."

"During the Age of Glass, everyone believed some part of him or her to be extremely fragile. For some it was a hand, for others a femus, yet others believed it was their noses that were made of glass."

"During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life."

"The mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn't go around with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they'd understood correctly."

"It's possible I cried. What' the difference?"

"Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret."

"It's also true that sometimes people felt things and, because there was no word for them, they went unmentioned. The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved' but to describe it - just to name it - must have been like trying to catch something invisible."

"From time to time when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact."

"So many words get lost The leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon'tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI'veneverlovedanythingIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgive me..."

"His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom."

"Why do people always get named after dead people? If they have to be named after anything at all, why can't it be things, which have more permanence, like the sky or the sea, or even ideas, which never really died, not even bad ones?"

Prologue

I have always had at least three books in me. There are three things I have always known I would be able to write a novel about. The first in my adaptation of the Metamorphoses. The second is the story of Cleopatra and Antony's daughter, Cleopatra Selene.

The third is the story that Fae and I have been writing since we were 13 years old. A story with a cast of over 500, at least half of which we know almost personally. Now we're going to write it. And putting it down here makes it more real. I don't know how we're going to do it, exactly, living in two different countries and with completely different schedules (neither of which include that much spare time). But I'm really excited to start it.

I don't know what happens when I finally write these three books. But I've always know I would. Maybe they'll be good, maybe they'll be bad. But they need to be written.

And I'm so happy to be writing this one with my Faebala.

Son of a Witch

Last night I finally finished reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire.

I read Wicked a few years ago, and I was a little disappointed with it. I wanted it to be more plot and character based, I guess. So I never read Son of a Witch, thinking I would probably feel the same about it. Then, Maguire's new book, A Lion Among Men came out and I decided I wanted to read it, so I bought Son of a Witch to read first.

I loved it. A lot more than Wicked. I think that it struck the right balance between being beautifully written and good plot, while Wicked was mostly just really well written, but not necessarily a page turner.

Another big difference for me, I think, was that I sort of love the main character, Liir. He's so screwed up, it's so entertaining. And you actually watch him grow up in the shadow of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and possibly his mother, throughout the book.

I don't know what I can say about it, I think it will be more effective to put my favourite lines down and let it speak for itself.

"Perhaps he just didn't have the feeling for faith. It seemed to be a kind of language, one whose gnarled syntax needed to be heard from birth, or it remained forever intelligible."

"'Well, Scarecrow, your turn. What'll you do with your brains?' 'I'm thinking about it,'"

"Candle was not simple, not in the least, but her debility had made her a still person. She listened to church bells, when they pealed, trying to translate; she watched the way the paper husks of an onion fell on a table, and examined the rings of dirt that onion mites had life in parrallel rows on the glossy wet inside. Everything said something, and it wasn't her job to consider the merit or even the meaning of the message: just to witness the fact of that message."

"A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partly through their lives. They woke up, were lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do: feeing themselves with currants. Walking the dog. Knotting up a broken bootlace. Singing antiphonally in the choir. Suddenly: This is I, I am the girl singing this alto line off-key, I am the boy loping after the dog, and I can see myself doing it as, presumably, the dog cannot see itself."

"A capacity for interiority in the growing adult is threatened by the temptation to squander that capacity ruthlessly, to revel in hollowness. The syndrome especially plagues anyone who lives behind a mask.... A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I know what I know?"

"By force of personality, by dint of their vicious beauty and untamed ways, children tromp into the world ready to disfigure it. Children surrender nothing when faced with the world: it is the world that gives up, over and over again. Dying in order to live, that sort of thing."

"'I didn't cause you to live or die,' she said. 'Don't give me credit for skills beyond me. I played music; you remembered. Music will do that. What you remembered - that was within you, and nothing to do with me.'"

"Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery."

"I loved it when I was alive, too. Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget that we loved it when we were live."

The only qualm I had with Son of a Witch is that the ending didn't answer all of my questions, but hopefully they'll be answered in A Lion Among Men.

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose: My first "meh" review. Chick lit that tries to be deep.

It wasn't a bad read, but it wasn't a great one either. I like the idea that they're trying to bring things like philosophy into a chick lit style. I liked that the character of Harriet Rose was very imperfect. But the style was very basic and the plot was sort of anti-climatic.

Favourite line:

"Heraclitus famously said that we cannot step into the same river twice. Everything, that is, is in constant change. Nothing remains the same. By the time I have reached the end of my talk to you, I shall be a different person from the one who began it."

The Fire Gospel

The Fire Gospel was a must read for me for two reasons: 1) It's by Michael Faber, who wrote The Crimson Petal and the White, one of my favourite books and 2) It's the newest book in the Myth series that I love so much.

It's based on the myth of Prometheus giving fire to man. Loosely based, I'd say, since the links aren't too obvious - but that's not really a bad thing.

The premise for the novel is that Theo has found these secret fifth gospel while in a museum in Iraq. This fifth gospel essentially emphasizes that Jesus was very human when he died on the cross. When Theo translates the gospel from Aramaic, the book sells like wild fire. And, as the book's jacket says, "Like Prometheus' gift of fire, it has incendiary consequences."

This book was very plot driven, easy to read. Which is different from most of the myth series books I've read so far, like Weight, The Helmet of Horror or Girl Meets Boy. I do love all these books which are suddenly taking re-thinking the bible as a theme (I haven't read DaVince Code.. but the newest Jodi Picoult book talks about the Gnostic Gospels).

I'll say that the book wasn't what I was expecting, thinking about the Crimson Petal and the White, and also based on the other myth books. But it was still pretty good. I really like the idea of it, most.

Favourite line:

"And that is our misfortune, brothers and sisters: we speak of things that cannot be spoken. We seek to store understandings in our gross flesh that gross flesh cannot contain, like a madman who would snatch a moonbeam and put it in his purse. We try our best to tell a story, so that others might be led towards Jesus, but Jesus is not a story. He is the end of all stories."

A Complicated Kindness

Book number fourteen, A Complicated Kindness, is a book I've been recommended by many people. I've heard that you either love it (like Kristen) or hate it (like Laura). I loved the beginning and the end, I wasn't sure about the middle. Of course, this could be because I've been reading it for a couple of weeks and therefore the middle was interrupted.

The book is really about being left behind. Physically, emotionally and culturally. I think it's something that anyone can relate to. What I loved most about the book was that the metaphors are so effortless. You'll read a line that's just a line and then realize that she isn't just talking about sand or a road or a piece of chalk, but about life. It's beautiful.

The characters voice is great too. Have the time you think Nomi is insane, the other half your heart aches for her.

The book wasn't what I thought it was going to be, in the best possible way.

Some favourite lines, as per usual:

"I had a thought, on the way home from the rock field, that the things we don't know about a person are the things that make them human, and it made me feel sad to think that, but sad in a reassuring way that some sadness has, a sadness that says welcome home in twelve different languages."

"I folded my hands and pressed the top knuckle joints of my thumbs hard into my forehead. Dear God. I don't know what I want or who I am. Apparently you do. Um... that's great. Never mind. You have a terrible reputation here. You should know that. Oh, but I guess you do know that. Save me now. Or when it's convenient. We could run away together. This is stupid. What am I doing? I guess this is a prayer. I feel like an idiot, but I guess you knew that already, too. My sister said that god is music. Goodbye. Amen. I lay in my bed and waited for that thick, sweet feeling to wash over me, for that unreal semi-conscious state where the story begins and takes on a life of its own and all you have to do is close your eyes and give in and let go and give in and let go and go and go and go."

"I wondered if I could spend my entire life in two gears, neutral and fourth. I was so tired of shuffling."

Again I want to say that Canada is home to some of the worlds best writers. That's all for now.

Life of Pi

The reading of fifty books in one calendar year by yours truly has faltered since the beginning of school. Alas, I do not have as much time to waste (also, I am working at Pinhey's less, so that cuts my time wasting back significantly haha).

But... *drum roll* I had to read Life of Pi by Yann Martel for the Religion class I'm TAing this semester.

I loved it. Absolutely adored it. I can't believe I hadn't read it yet. Like Anil's Ghost, Life of Pi truly proves to me that Canada has some of the best authors in the world. (If only Jeanette Winterson were Canadian...)

I don't really know what to say because I could probably talk for days about each page of the book. It's so.. rich and full. Also, I'm a little tired of talking about it in class and I'm sure that after marking 100+ exam questions about it I really won't want to think about it anymore...

But, as usual, I will post some of my favourite lines. Really, I could have had so many more than this. But here goes:

"I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right. (It was daylight that brought my protest: 'No! No! No! My suffering does matter. I want to live! I can't help but mix my life with that of the universe. Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto vastness - how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!') I mumbled words of Muslim prayer and went back to sleep."

"It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse."

"Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer."

Virgin Suicides

It's taken me a while to write about this, but here we go!

I don't know what I thought about the Virgin Suicides, really. It was okay. It was definitely an interesting style of writing. But I don't think the book itself was terribly interesting, nothing really happened. It was a whole lot of foreshadowing and not too much plot.

I... don't have anything else to say! hahaha.

The boys in the trees

Another book I got for my birthday, from Kristen and Taylor.

This is a very interesting book. There's no dialogue. There are no actual events. It's all retrospective and inside different characters heads. For this reason, it gets a little long sometimes. But it's also very interesting most times. I'm not sure it's one of my favourite books ever, but it was definitely an intriguing style.

Some good lines:

"Sitting in the hard chair besides the hospital bed, he knew that what he was feeling was the rest of his life without her."

"And in the paper-strewn kitchen in the middle of the night they talked abut how strange it was, that the person you were was perhaps formed most by all that you had forgotten."

love is a mix tape

I got this from Fae for my birthday. Non-fiction, it's Rob Sheffield's memoir of his life, through the mix tapes he's made or had made for him over the years.

I loved it. It was as good as Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. Better, in some ways, because it was about music but it was so personal. It definitely reminded me of Chuck Klosterman though.

I love mixes. The fact that it's about tapes, reminded me of driving around in Blanche, in high school, playing tapes I'd made. And the way they never really worked, just like Blancher herself and just like life at the time.

Mix CDs, though, for me, are essential. Fae and I make mixes for each other all the time. I have mixes that I love more than real CDs. I make mixes that tell stories. That match moods. I've made winter mixes, mixes to dance to, mixes to cry to, mixes with one song for every month, mixes all about September, mixes to fall asleep to, Christmas mixes, traveling mixes, even a "people are dying mix."

For me, the best gift is always music.

This book was a gift, it was music and life. It was beautiful. I don't normally like non-fiction but... wow.

Good choice, Fae. <3

Breaking Dawn

Yeah. While I was reading it I was thinking "Damn, this plot is even stupider than the last three books."

And yet I kept reading. Addictively. Who can understand the human need for horribly cheesy romanticism?

Shopaholic and Baby

Book number seven. Hey, I never said they had to be good books.

I think this one was my favourite Shopaholic book. It was fun to read. I really do like the style, it's very entertaining.

What more is there to say about a Shopaholic book?