The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint #9

This is a 384 page YA (young adult) book that I nabbed on the way through my library toward the kid’s section, where my son picks out his Thomas the Train books again. I didn’t have any idea what it was going to be about, or even what genre it fell into as I was mostly intrigued by the cover and semi-bland title. Maybe ‘bland’ isn’t the right word, but more generic than many books out there.

So I picked it up without any previous bias or preformed ideas on it and was pleasantly surprised.  You see, when I pick up a book based on its cover I’m often wrong, or horribly disappointed.  This book didn’t disappoint me.  YA books pique my interest quite often, not only because I have pre-teens expanding their reading horizons (turning them into mini-book whores for certain!), but because I am eternally immature. Seriously. Farts still make me laugh until I almost puke, I squeal out loud if I’m significantly pleased about something – even in public – and will dye portions of my hair blue just because it sounds fun. I’m immature and like it and will often gravitate toward the YA books over strictly adult fiction (perhaps this is why I’m one of the few adult that really like Twilight).

The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint didn’t disappoint me. It is a very simple story line, which is perfectly fine by me, and he weaves a tale around a strong young girl and her story in a fantastical world, which always gets my vote. Even as a male writer he does a pretty good job of helping us ignore the fact that he doesn’t have a vagina and he gets girl things right. An extremely easy read though and I think it comes across as almost too easy for the aimed audience. A writer has to be extremely careful when writing specifically for the age group that he did. You cannot even remotely hint at talking down towards the group, or dumbing down things, nor can you weave the story so its unintelligible. There was no surprises in this book, but it was still a decent read.

For the down and dirty, this book would earn 7 G-String dollars from this whore. It’d be something I’d possibly purchase for my kids to read as a fun, whip-through type book. I’m likely to check out his other works based on the nice read this one was.

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin #5

I don’t know that I’ve ever put a bad review out there before of a book. Sure I’ve dissed 1984 and Animal Farm, or said that I could not get through The Grapes of Wrath because it was so boring, but an actual, out-there-for-the-world-to-read-and-the-writer-if-he-so-chooses book review? Not so much.

As you can probably tell I didn’t really care for the book.  But let me back up.

The story of An Object of Beauty revolves around the narrator telling a story of a friend’s life as she meanders through the art world of New York City.  The narrator is a friend of hers and the way the story is unwound seems interesting because it isn’t often in stories that the narrator is a character himself.  I would say more about the story itself, but there isn’t much to it … that’s it, that’s all there is.

It has taken me 3.5 weeks to read, and I’ve read 3 other books while this one has been open. It’s all because there is no relatable story.  I found the main character boring and shallow.  The myriad of people she interacts with, I seriously cheered some of them on hoping that they wouldn’t be another notch on her frigging belt of wayward usable friends.  It’s like I’d read along and go ‘oh look, another character, one more interesting than the main and oh look, she screws him too’, either literally or figuratively.  There was one moment where I’d hoped it would get interesting but that didn’t happen.

Here’s the thing though.  Steve Martin is a brilliant writer.  I know, it seems contradictory for me to say that I hated the book, but he’s a good writer so let me explain. His writing style shows the absolute brilliant mind behind the scenes.  I don’t mean he threw out big words just to impress, I could actually tell that he has remarkable intelligence through how he wrote the story together paired with the words.  His knowledge of the art world was the only thing I found truly interesting in the book, and he even included a few pictures of the art he talked about inside, which grabbed my attention.

Here’s the part I hate to do.  This is a book I’d wouldn’t step into the club for as it gets a measly 2 G-String Dollars for informing me about pieces of art I didn’t know about before. If you are an art lover, or absolutely adore The Grapes of Wrath, you could probably enjoy this book, but from my perspective, it wasn’t a good read.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline #4

374 pages of pure awesomeness.

Whoa, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here.  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, the author’s first and only book so far, is a geek’s book for sure.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a true comicon geek or just a regular geek reader, knower of geek things like me (although I am looking into the Comicon scheduled for Calgary because the TNG group is supposed to be there), this book is entertaining, well written and a basically excellent story.  Also, if you’re an 80s child and a non-geek, I’d still recommend the book as well because of his insane knowledge of all things 80s, not just video games, is impressive and nostalgic.

The main character comes across well and is highly believable.  What’s strange is I don’t remember him being described well, physically that is.  Much like Dean Koontz’ Odd Thomas, there’s no mirror trick to get you to visualize the main guy, just a few blips here and there to help you get a small picture.  Yet he’s formed perfectly in my mind.  He’s relatable, but not too loveable as to be unbelievable.

The story of the book nestles around a pretty damn bleak future, which then has the chance for redemption for just one person who can win this contest, that was left in the will of a famous, and beloved, computer geek, much like Steve Jobs (not like Bill Gates).  The contest winner will be set for life, and will have the ability to change the world if only he could decipher the clues that lead him to the end.  A lot of surprises thrown in along the way, and I do have a favourite one toward the end that I won’t reveal, and plenty of action kept me reading (1 surprise I’ll reveal just because it cracked me up – Wil Wheaton is a big dude in the book – not president but something more important, which is awesome!!).

Now for the juicy part. I’m not truly a picky reader, I’m a whore after all, I’ll do anything. But I am critical of books.  I want something somewhat easy to get into, not necessarily easy to read, but immersing myself into a book must occur or I won’t give it good marks nor recommend it.  I easily devoured this book, and sunk myself into the story and have no troubles giving this book a whopping giant 10 G-String dollars. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find anything wrong with it, it was that I didn’t care, I loved the story too much.  This baby would hustle up some big coin from sniffer’s row.

Geez I’m a pig.

I definitely recommend this book.   Hell, I’m thinking of even buying the damn thing and I don’t buy books easily.  Definitely pick this book up. Go, now, seriously, stop reading and click over to the amazon link and put it in your cart (or the Chapter’s one I provided on the word “One” of the title – Chapters has much better shipping than Amazon as they choose regular post and it gets put in your mailbox or on hold at the post office if you’re like me and order many books. Amazon only seems to use UPS who drop the stuff at your door and take off, not ringing the door bell to let you know you have a package as they don’t care if it’s you that grabs the package or some shmucky walking down the street, and this is regardless of the value of the package – $25 worth of replaceable books or $300 game systems. Just because Amazon is cheaper definitely doesn’t make them better in my books.).  Make sure to put enough books in to make the shipping free.

Go.

Side note: His website is freaking awesome too, you should check that out after you order the book.  When the book comes, check out the picture he has of himself inside the back cover. Can’t you just die? Dude has a DELOREAN!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett – #1

My first book challenge accomplishment I’ve read this year is The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.  Truthfully it’s not perfectly inside the rules of the Sluttian challenge as I did start it a few days before 2012 started.  So in an effort to be fair, I’ve calculated specifically the amount of pages I read in 2012.

Screw that, I’m totally kidding.  But I will only claim half of the pages of the book.  Confused?  Yeah, I was half asleep when I first posted and didn’t really explain the challenge much.  The challenge is not just the number of books, but number of pages as well.  So The Help in the regular paperback edition is 528 pages.  I will only count about 250 pages towards my challenge goal of 40 000 pages. (Yeah, I’m sick, but I love books).  These books can only be newly read and must be reviewed.

Hence this post.

The setting of the book is in 1960s Mississippi, way down deep South.  Just by the title you can get the gist that it surrounds the help, which in those days was poor, black, often single, women, who raised the white babies of the community only to be treated like diseased creatures as they outgrew the nanny.  The viewpoint is from many in the book, but only from those on the help side, including one white woman.  Said woman bonds with the maids of the area with no knowledge of what their efforts will bring, but also a distinctly fervent fear of someone finding out about it.

I don’t want to give anything of the book away, because I hate reading book reviews that go into too much detail of what the book is about.

The book actually started out slow for me.  I can’t pinpoint it, but maybe it was the writing style specifically for one of the characters.  The author wrote in a very Southern dialect for some and it slowed me a bit and I found the initial chapters a bit …. well, not boring, but a bit blah.  It picked up rather quick as you got into what the main characters were up to and by the end I was reading at 2:30 in the morning just to finish it.  Not out of being in a rush, but I could stop without finding out what happened.

I liked it.  I would recommend it to others, so it gets higher tips for that, but the slow start and the not-perfectly-nice ending that I hoped for brought down the cash it’d bring in at the cheesy  motel on the side of the road.

So, I’d give it:  7 G-String dollars.  It’s on it’s way too a full fledged whore, but not all the way there.

I’d be interested in seeing the movie, but after reading the book and knowing most movies from books get a serious downgrade I’ll wait for the library to get it.

2012 Book challenge

Hi, I’m lazy, and rather than explain the entire gist of this blog, I can just refer to the fact that I’m not a real whore, I just pretend to be one on here with regards to books.  

Yesterday I accepted a book challenge, and what better place to record the books I’ve read, along with the required reviews, than over here at a Book Whore blog.

Insatiable Book Sluts has a challenge going on and in order for my entry to be valid I have to record what I read somewhere public and review the books as well.  Some people give book ratings stars, or hearts, or bookmarks, but since I’m a whore I’m going to give it … wait for it … G-String Dollars.  It was either that or STDs and that is just too rude to give away so, dollars it is!  Ratings will be out of 10, and occasionally there will be an 11 or a -2 if I so feel like it.  If a book garners superior ratings they may even get a Free Quickie as an added bonus.

Jeebus I’m sick.

Ok, recap.  I’ve entered into a challenge as a Book Sluttian.  I’m going to read books till I spit.  I will record books here.  I will win challenge, pummelling competition.

Or I’ll just get to read a lot.