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Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot: B

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From the back cover:
Katie Ellison is not a liar. It’s just that telling the truth is so… tricky. She knows she shouldn’t be making out with a drama club hottie behind her football-player boyfriend’s back. She should probably admit that she can’t stand eating quahogs (clams), especially since she’s running for Quahog Princess in her hometown’s annual Quahog Festival. And it would be a relief to finally tell someone what really happened the night “Tommy Sullivan” was spray-painted on the new wall outside the gymnasium—in neon orange, which still hasn’t been sandblasted off. After all, everyone knows that’s what drove Tommy out of town four years ago.

But now Tommy Sullivan has come back. Katie is sure he’s out for revenge, and she’ll do anything to hang on to her perfect (if slightly dishonest) existence. Even if it means telling more lies than ever. Even if, now that Tommy’s around, she’s actually—no lie—having the time of her life.

Review:
From the book description, it sounded like this book would be very annoying, but it actually wasn’t bad. Oh sure, Katie could be irksome, but she was at least distinctly different from the rest of Cabot’s heroines. And yeah, the plot was totally predictable, but it was satisfying in a romantic comedy kind of way.

There was more of the “re-explaining” that has bugged me in Cabot’s other books. In this case, it was where the circumstances of the awfulness of Tommy’s return were reiterated. Yes, he ticked off some people in a highschool-football-crazy town by exposing some jocks for cheating on their SATs. Yes, they lost their scholarships. Yes, Katie is now dating the younger brother of one of said jocks, who is still angry about the whole thing. I got all that the first time it was revealed and (gasp!) made all the necessary connections without having to be led through it on a string. I’m quite sure most teens can manage the same.

Also, like most Cabot heroines I’ve thus far encountered, Katie had a hobby that she was serious about pursuing. I think I need to make a list.

Princess Diaries — Mia is into writing.
All-American Girl — Sam is into art.
Pants on Fire — Katie is into photography.

Suze from the Mediator series didn’t have a hobby that I remember, but she had a sort of job/destiny thing, so I guess that qualifies. Their friends are usually into something specific, too. It’s kind of a character shortcut in many cases (this one’s a cheerleader, no need to establish more about her), but it’s better than girls with no aspirations, at least.

Anyway, I shouldn’t be surprised that Cabot books are formulaic and occasionally padded with needless rehashing: it’d be difficult to crank them out at her current pace if she had to come up with something entirely new each time. It was still a fun read and I’m sure I’ll be back for more Cabot when the need for fluff resurfaces.

Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner: B-

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From the back cover:
Lots of women put their careers aside once the kids come along. Kate Connor, for instance, hasn’t hunted a demon in ages. That must be why she missed the one wandering through the San Diablo Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, he managed to catch her attention an hour later—when he crashed into the Connor house, intent on killing her. Now Kate has to dispose of a dead demon and pull together a dinner party—all without arousing her family’s suspicion. Worse yet, it seems the dead demon didn’t come alone. It’s time for Kate Connor to go back to work.

Review:
This book has been described as “what would happen if Buffy got married and kept her past a secret.” It bugs me when characters are compared to Buffy purely based on the fact that they have killed or do currently kill vampires and demons. They’re never really anything like her. Kate is far too flat a protagonist for any comparison to be valid. Sure, she kicks some butt, but she’s still pretty bland. Good supernatural horror should be used as a catalyst to explore character. Buffy did that. Carpe Demon does not.

The plot was pretty disjointed, and sometimes I just had to shake my head and go “Wha?”, like when Kate spontaneously decided to spring an old dude from a nursing home to come live with her family, or when she concluded based on no evidence that the nurses there were demon minions, or when it’s revealed she spent her orphaned childhood at the Vatican. Did she never discuss her childhood with her husband? Did she feed him lies? If so, this is never specifically addressed.

It wasn’t all bad, though. I did like the parts where Kate ponders the void in her second marriage (second hubby doesn’t know about her past, but the first one was a fellow demon hunter) and seriously worries that the threads of her past life will unravel her cozy present. Sometimes the writing was amusing, but also employed tired old clunkers like, “I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.” Also, the demon voices on the unabridged audio were nifty and freakin’ creepy!

Though this book really wasn’t that great, it entertained me well enough that I’ll check out the second in the series for free from the library.

creative morning

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I’ve been working all morning on my graphic novel (I have to laugh a little every time I say that, because of course it is never actually going to be a graphic novel unless some artist comes along to save me). It is a great feeling, though I feel like I have little to show for hours of thought and plotting. The big news is that my main character has, at long last, acquired a name. Also, some bits of the story that have been troublesome and vague up to this point are finally starting to take shape. Maybe this will actually turn into something someday. This is the most positive feeling I’ve had about it up to this point. It’s encouraging.

I hope to have scans of my sad little drawings of the main characters soon. Perhaps I can bring myself to share. We shall see.

living a life

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As you probably can see from my sidebar, I read Neil Gaiman’s blog regularly, and as I was reading last night (about his mutual fanboy encounter with John Simm), it gave me such a smile. I think what I find so charming about his blog, is that he’s just a guy out there, living a life, and it really made me think about what I’m doing with my time. I spend all this time in my own head, brooding about life and life choices, blah blah blah, when it seems like I could just be out there living instead.

Granted, it’s a lot easier to be out living a life when you have the momentum that comes from really loving what you do. But could I find that if I tried? I lived like that once, I think. Back when I was acting and still loving it, and maybe even after when I was at least still loving the travel, every day was about living. Now this is not to say that I’m unsatisfied with my life, because there is so much of it that I love. But what is all this blogging and introspection really doing for me?

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but as I sit at my desk, forcing myself into taking a break from this long, headachy, meeting-saturated day, I wonder.

incoherant rambling

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Yes, this is what I do when I’m at lunch.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately, trying to define myself, which is not something I generally place a lot of importance on, but has suddenly been in the forefront of my mind. Something I’ve been struggling with a lot is the feeling that the things I am doing lack meaning. I originally chalked this up to Too Much Anime, but the truth is, it is something I’ve been feeling for some time, and Too Much Anime simply provided a catalyst for discussion.

I currently have a number of half-baked projects in the works, and my official “job” is a bit half-baked right now too, which doesn’t help. Obviously I can’t finish baking everything at once (that metaphor is getting old fast, isn’t it?), which brings me again to the question of defining myself. I defined myself in my introductory post here as “singer, songwriter, theater manager, former actor, stumbling writer, dog-lover, fiction addict, mac geek, wife,” and in truth, that’s still probably only about half of the things I’d have to list if I was being really honest. One person can’t possibly be all that, so what am I?

Lately, I’ve been working on something that very desperately wants to be a graphic novel, despite the fact that I can’t draw to save my life. For the time being, I’ve been sketching out frames with stick figures and other indeterminate shapes with the hope that someone, somewhere might be able to see what I’m trying to express with them and help me bring that vision to reality. This seems unlikely, as I have no idea whatsoever how to go about finding such a person. And yet I persevere. I even spent a couple of hours attempting to draw my main characters in some way that would give the stick figures a bit more meaning, but considering how long it takes me to draw the stick figures, that may have been a bit premature. Paul found me a class to take at UMASS entitled something like “Writing the Graphic Novel,” but when I looked it up online, it had been canceled. Is this a sign?

introduction

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I thought I should start this blog off with a real introduction. I am MJ, singer, songwriter, theater manager, former actor, stumbling writer, dog-lover, fiction addict, mac geek, wife. This is my new “real life” blog where I will stand behind my own name, and talk about all of the above as well as whatever else crosses my overactive mind.

Both this blog and I are a work in-progress. Let’s see how they play out.

Twilight by Meg Cabot: B

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From the back cover:
Suze Simon finds it difficult to come across as an average teenager when she’s constantly visited by ghosts. Suze is a mediator, you see. And her boyfriend Jesse is, well, a ghost himself—from the 19th century!

Fellow mediator Paul Slater has figured out how to travel through time and alter Jesse’s future so he and Suze will never meet, leaving Suze in a conundrum. Does she let Paul succeed so Jesse lives an ordinary life in his own time period, leaving Suze with no memory of him? Or does she stop Paul and force Jesse to be a ghost forever? And all the while, Suze must cope with the perils of a normal teenage life.

Review:
This book was really ticking me off until the last hundred pages, but at least it ended the way it should have.

The problems:
1) Suze had never been more annoying. I swear I actually yelled at the audiobook when she was dallying in calling an ambulance at one point. She was also very slow to grasp the ramifications of stuff that’s happening.

2) Bits of the plot were super obvious. Fellow mediator Paul needed an artifact from the past to travel there. (Me: Gee, that random mention of a belt buckle found in Suze’s attic a few chapters ago totally makes sense now! La la la, wait for the story to catch up with my surmise.) Also, by the halfway point, I had completely guessed how the happy ending would be occurring.

3) Re-explaining. Two characters would be having a phone conversation, and something would be pointed out to Suze and she’d realize that it was true. And then she had to explain again why what has just been said was really true.

The good:
Pretty much anything Jesse, particularly seeing him in the past. The ending, though predictable and a little too convenient, was still satisfying.

Ultimately, I don’t really think the series lived up to the potential it showed originally. If Cabot could’ve resisted making Suze incredibly dense at pivotal moments, it would’ve gone a long way toward making this a truly stellar series. Still, even with its flaws, it is recommended.

The Sandman 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman: B+

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From the inside flap:
Enter a dark and enchanting world of dreams and nightmares and meet the Sandman, master of dreams, and his kin—the Endless.

This first collection of Neil Gaiman’s unique and multi-award-winning Sandman saga introduces key themes and characters, combining myth, magic, and black humor.

Review:
This volume collects issues #1-8 of the Sandman comics. Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, was inadvertently captured by some occultists who were attempting to trap and contain his sister, Death. They imprisoned him for 70 years and stole his stuff, and when he finally escaped, he wanted it back. He took the next few chapters to complete the quest.

I was occasionally lost when the story veered too far into mythological territory, and one story called “24 Hours” was incredibly disturbing, but on the whole I liked it. The best, however, was the last story, called “The Sound of Her Wings.” In it, Morpheus was a bit mopey because he’d completed his quest and his spunky sister came to drag him out of his doldrums. And throw bread at him.

As seems to be the case with comic books, the physical appearance of Morpheus was pretty inconsistent. I decided to think of him as Stephen Rea with blue hair, and that worked pretty well.

Haunted by Meg Cabot: B

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From the back cover:
Suze is used to trouble, but this time she’s in deep: Ghostly Jesse has her heart, but Paul Slater, a real flesh-and-blood guy, is warm for her form. And mediator Paul knows how to send Jesse to the Great Beyond. For good.

Paul claims he won’t do anything to Jesse as long as Suze will go out with him. Fearing she’ll lose Jesse forever, Suze agrees. But even if Suze can get Jesse to admit his true feelings for her, what kind of future can she have with a guy who’s already dead?

Review:
Haunted was a bit of a disappointment after the previous installment, Darkest Hour, was so good. Not a lot happens, really. Paul shows up at Suze’s school and throws her into turmoil. Suze is convinced that Jesse does not return her feelings. Then Jesse beats Paul up. That’s kind of the whole plot. Well, and Suze learns she might actually be something called a Shifter instead of a Mediator, which comes with more dangerous powers.

Suze is pretty annoying in this book. At any one point there are three or four things she’s not telling anyone, she goes to the house of a boy she dislikes and distrusts and ends up smooching him, and she also is able to convince herself that Jesse hates her, which is obviously untrue. I rolled my eyes at her fairly regularly.

The blurb on the back of the book is also wrong. Suze agrees to let Paul teach her the Shifter skills he knows after extracting a promise from him that he’ll leave Jesse alone. There really isn’t any coerced dating going on, though they’ll obviously have to spend some time together.

Despite not being thrilled with this particular installment, I still must know how the story ends. One volume to go!

Section 31: Abyss by David Weddle and Jeffrey Lang: B

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From the back cover:
Section 31. They are the self-appointed protectors of the Federation. Amoral, shrouded in secrecy, answerable to no one, Section 31 is the mysterious covert operations division of Starfleet, a rogue shadow group commited to safeguarding the Federation at any cost.

Mere days after the startling events of Avatar, Doctor Julian Bashir faces his darkest nightmare when Section 31 compels him to undertake a mission to stop one of their own. But this renegade is no ordinary agent. Like Bashir, Dr. Ethan Locken is genetically enhanced, a human superior in body and mind. But Locken dreams of remaking the galaxy in his own image—and creating a new human empire based on the example of the infamous Khan Noonien Singh.

And as he begins to understand the terrifying truth about his opposite number, Bashir will learn more about himself than he ever wanted.

Review:
I’m continuing to enjoy the DS9 relaunch series. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay the book is that, for the most part, I could easily see this story playing out over a few episodes of the show. Some little reveals wouldn’t have been possible in a visual medium, though.

Mostly, the interaction between the characters was good and felt in character. I appreciate that the series isn’t just about plot advancement, but about character development, too. None of the plot threads that were introduced in the first two books was abandoned, though some of them only had a chapter devoted to them. The main story kept my interest, though I thought the very ending wrapped up too tidily. I don’t understand how Commander Vaughn knew of the existence of some indigenous alien folk that needed rescuing. Especially after Kira was just telling Julian that he isn’t superhuman and shouldn’t expect to be able to save everyone.

I am also very intrigued by the character of Taran’atar. Taran’atar is a Jem’Hadar who is not dependent upon Ketrecel White. He’s also very old by their standards (22) and more wise than usual. He was sent by Odo to learn about the Alpha Quadrant by observing, and has been told to follow Kira’s orders. He is the catalyst for and participant in some interesting conversations, and is also a very capable guy to have around on a secret mission. I look forward to seeing what will happen with him down the line.