More Than One Reason You Should Pick Up a Book

I began thinking about this post with the intention of just rambling on pointlessly about my love of books.

But then I thought to myself, “Self, nobody cares that you love books, and anyway, the Book People already understand.”

I realized how very right my Self was.

But then I got to thinking, “What if I gave the non-Book People good and valid reasons to want to read?”

And so, here you are:

Reason #1: You will only be smarter if you read a book.

Even if it a complete disaster of a story line (ahem, Twilight) with questionable self-absorbed control-issue teen romances, you will come out the other end with just a little more knowledge than you went in with- even if it IS only finding out the difference between there, their, and they’re.  It is hoped that perhaps you might learn something a bit more challenging than third grade English, but sadly, some books are meant to entertain imbeciles.

Reason #2: You will have a conversation starter.

Just think, the next time you are waiting in a never-ending line for an open porta-potty behind a man decked out in full pirate regalia at the Renaissance Festival, instead of commenting on the size of his sword, you could mention that you just finished an amazingly entertaining book by so-and-so, and you might find that instead of thinking about his sword, this pirate may come alive with the information that he, too, just finished the same book! Perhaps you will become deeply engrossed in literary conversation, and become friends for all eternity. This also works to pick up girls, but generally only the smart ones.

Reason #3 : Money might fall out.

If you are wise enough to purchase a book at your local used-book store, you might be lucky enough to open your slightly-loved copy of Moby Dick and discover a $500 bill. More likely, it will be a oner, or maybe a five, but hey, it paid for your damn book, so shut up.

Reason #4: You may discover you harbor a secret desire to become an author, or an editor.

If you read your used book and find that you are very opinionated about how the author worded things and/or changed subjects, maybe you were meant to become a world-famous book critic instead of wasting away your days in the drive-thru at McDonald’s.

Really, you will never find yourself wishing, “Dang it, I didn’t get to watch enough T.V. this week.” But you may just be sorry if a certain redhead asks you if you’ve read a book, and you have to shamefully admit you haven’t.

 

Re-Inspiration

My Rockstar went to bed at 7:30 last night.

Now, spare me the “Well, he IS 41” and “he DOES work hard.” These things are both true, but that does not make going to bed earlier than a 4 month old acceptable. Especially when I was actually home, and awake, and my normal horny self. There are just much too much other fun things to do besides for sleep when I’m around, like, doggy-style, spanking, biting, the wheelbarrow… you get the idea.

Anyhoo, while I am never at a loss for ideas of things to do, the thought of watching an Angelina movie or a rerun of Elliot Stabler scowling sexily at a perp did not really appeal to me. Even the newest book I started reading did not spark my interest. And so, I thought to myself, “Hmm, I should work on writing my book.”

It may seem strange that someone who likes to write as much as I would wait until the complete and utter powers of boredom took over before I began typing my thoughts out on the keyboard. Let me explain.

The Book (the main one I’m working on, not all the other ideas I’ve toyed with and barely begun) has been a source of constant nagging in the back of my head since I began it nearly twelve years ago. It has changed and morphed and mutated so because of my hopes of trying to create the next Great American Novel. The characters (and their names) have been changed, and the end of the story has become something I never would have expected. You are wondering where this masterpiece is so you can read it, you say? Well. you’re just gonna have to wait until it gets out of my head. Oh, yes, the entire thing is written- in my head. (Which may very well explain the voices I’ve been hearing for the last 7 years or so.) In fact, the sequel is well on it’s way to crowding the first of the series out, which may be the reason it was so easy for me to write an entire chapter last night.

Because I have written and re-written and yet again re-written the beginning chapters of my book, it has become the bane of my existence. I also found out very quickly that despite having a complete storyline, the writing of such details to get said storyline written can be mundane and worse than scrubbing skid marks out of a toilet bowl. I attempt all of my writings to be as easy to read as a Twilight novel, (without the shittiness) while maintaining only slightly less detail than a Thomas Hardy novel. (Really, is it necessary to write forty pages describing a moor? It’s a swampy plain.) Finally, I wish all my characters to be complex (maybe not as much as I am) and all my readers to finish reading what I’ve written while saying as passionately as Lestat did in Queen of the Damned when he thirsted for blood- “MORE!”

In the original manuscript written in my head, my Book was not nearly as humorous as it seems to be turning out. (Though I may be wrong, because I am greatly amused by “Your mom” jokes.) That having been said, if my Rockstar continues to go to bed at un-Godly early hours, you all shall have a novel worth reading that I shall not be embarrassed about having written in no time at all.

E.L. James and Her Limited Vocabulary

So, I’ve been reading the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

Now is the designated moment when you are to think to yourself, “Ooh! I loooove those books!” or “What a waste of time.”

As I have not yet completed the series, I cannot say that I have formed a complete opinion on that subject, but it is safe to say that my preferance is leaning toward the “waste of time” choice.

I’ve been trying my darndest to forget the fact that these books were originally Twilight fan fiction. Sadly, if you take away the vampire/werewolf angle, all the reminders are there. The lead character is named Anastasia Steele (it seems E.L. has a hint of Danielle Steel’s imagination) who is a self-described plain jane. She is reminiscent of Bella Swan in the fact that she falls down alot, though she has slightly more personality- or should I say personalitieS, as she refers often to her inner goddess and subconscious as seperate entities within herself?

The question is, what makes a write like this try to make us believe that EVERY male mentioned in these books is unfailingly attracted to our main character? I understand that many men can be attracted to a somewhat normal looking gal, (as this seems to happen to me quite frequently) but really?! Not every sequal in my life is filled with another incident of would-be rape by my boss or my best male friend. And I will fully admit that not EVERY guy I come in contact with is attracted to me. There was that one guy that one time…

Moving on.

The biggest flaw I’ve noticed thusfar in these books is the repetitive mentioning of Anastasia’s love interest’s beauty. E.L. has surely gotten this idea from Stephanie Meyer. Christian Grey is described as beautiful, adonis-like, and HOT. Don’t get me wrong, but why the fuck does every main character in a book need to be so fucking perfect? Can’t they have a perfect face with an acne problem? Or maybe just a hint of a pot-belly going on? I have been in love a few times, and none of those people were exceedingly perfect to look at. Of course, if Christian Grey wasn’t so beautiful, Ana would never even look twice at him, because he is a controlling, stalkerish asshole. Do you think she would have let him spank her mercilessly if he looked like John Malkovich? I think not.

Let us not forget how “mercurial” he is. This is not in the god-like sense. It is in the “I’m bi-polar” sense. But let me just ask- what 22 year old woman describes ANYONE as mercurial? I love descriptive words, but even I would never use this one. And most definitely not repeatedly. I would instead have worded such sentences this way- “The dude once again forgot to take his meds, which caused him to be entirely too moody, and made me want to punch him.”

The thing is, I really want to like these books. The S&M factor is quite intriguing. Or at least it WOULD be, if Ana hadn’t ruined the only attribute of interest that Christian possessed. It’s not fair that because virginal Ana isn’t into caning, Christian has to put aside his darker desires. E.L. could have at least made it believable. I do not think a man who is used to beating women mercilessly is really going to be satisfied with a little spanking here and there. He sounds hardly more adventurous than my Rockstar after he’s gotten into the Jim Beam.  I think a prequal based on Christian’s Red Room of Pain BEFORE he met Ana would be much more interesting.

Also, I would like to point out that a woman does NOT come every time a guy says, “Come for me, baby.” And a man does not always come at the exact moment that the woman he’s fucking comes. It would be more believable if he came right in the middle of her orgasm and pulled out, leaving her to finish up her orgasm manually while yelling, “You fucker! You never wait for me!”

That’s all I have to say about that.

“Breaking Dawn”: A Review

In another life, I believe that I should have been a movie critic. My belief is only confirmed when, year after year, completely uninteresting movies are nominated for Oscars (the exception being Inglorious Bastards. That movie kicked ass.) Anyhoo, time for a review.

I may have mentioned once or twice the utter abhorrence for Stephanie Meyer writings, and I do not recall if I mentioned the loathing I have for movies with “Twilight” in the title. That in no way impedes me from having watched all the Twilight movies to date. Call me masochistic, but I for some reason cannot halt myself from wasting 2 hours of my life that I KNOW will be wasted each time another chapter of this ridiculous Pale Skin/Doggy-style/Lack of Personality love triangle unfolds on screen.

I am proud to say that I restrained myself from wasting my hard-earned $9 an hour at the theatre for this last one, and waited patiently for it to come to Red Box. My embarrassment at renting such a load of crap was kept to a bare minimum, since I ventured to Red Box in the dead of night after closing at work last night.

I must admit, while reading Breaking Dawn a few years ago, I couldn’t put it down. Simply for the fact that I couldn’t believe the storyline could get any worse than it had in the 3 previous books. How wrong I was. I honestly believe the book should be kept in the HUMOR section of any good bookstore, because there were many instances when I burst into uncontrollable laughter. But we are not talking about the book.

I awoke this morning a bit groggy, until I remembered that I had rented such a deliciously foolish film to waste my time with- then I was instantly awake. I served myself up a bowl of the finest Cinnamon Toast Crunch and hunkered down to rot my brain.

The beginning of the movie started off with ugly Bella Swan getting married to an equally ugly Edward Cullen. I forgot to check the credits, but I have no doubt in my mind that Stephanie Meyer contributed to the writing of the screenplay, because it was as badly written as the book. Perhaps some people have a horrific aversion to the idea of marriage, but I have yet to meet an 18 year old girl who is one of them. This being said, Kristen Stewart perfectly portrayed a teen with no personality dreading marriage. She showed no excitement whatsoever over the beautiful wedding provided her (way to marry into money, girl!) Edward, (I’m sorry, I refuse to use the boy who played him’s actual name) equally seemed unthrilled to be marrying such a douchey bride. (Understandably so) I am slightly disappointed in Taylor Laughtner’s performance- he was superb in the first two movies, but I believe the dread of being a part of such a horrendous series has leaked into his acting. (Or maybe he was just sucking so as not to offend the other stars with his superior acting)

Part of the reasoning I had in watching this movie is the promise of seeing vampire sex. As the movies are geared toward young adults, I understood that there wouldn’t be the hard-core ass pounding that there should have been. (Or that I wanted to see) However, I do believe after a century of living like a priest, ANY vampire would have a little bit more reaction than, “Oops, I cracked the bed frame and hit you with a feather pillow.” There should have been AT LEAST one “Fuck yeah! I’m gettin’ laid, baby!” (You are allowed to say “fuck” once in a PG-13 movie) All I can say is, Bella must have been REALLY frickin’ bad in bed to have Edward completely refuse her after breaking the sex seal. (Call me up, Bella. I’ll give you some pointers)

I had thought on occassion, that Kristen Stewart couldn’t really look any worse than she did. (I think it’s the constant look of constipation that gets to me) I was wrong once again.

The story goes that they do sex once and then she is pregnant with a demon baby that is eating her from the inside out. I must say that the computer editing they did to make Bella look skeletal was excellent, she indeed looked worse than she did before. There’s not really too much to say, since they stretched out a book where not much happened into two movies where the same amount of nothing happened. There was alot of “Kill the fetus!” and “I’m keeping my baby!” and “Damn you, Edward! Everything is your fault! If she was with me we’d be having hot dog sex right now.” That is, until the baby was born- then it was, “Damn! That baby’s hot! I’m going to marry her one day!” (The werewolf imprinted on the baby. Don’t even get me started. Just read the book if you want to be greatly disturbed.)

Since it’s been awhile since I read the book, I didn’t recall exactly what went down after the gruesome labor scene (Kudos, Stephanie, you should really write horror), but I knew it was something like Bella almost died, blah, blah, blah.

Just when I was getting thrilled at the possibility that they killed Bella off for good, she opened her damn red eyes.

 

Suckage Part 2: “Breaking Dawn” or Breaking Down?

On to part 2… Sorry, I may drag this out.

I have readily admitted that I failed to read Twilight in it’s entirety. Now will ashamedly admit that I DID read the rest of the series. I  will tell you why. Because I work in a bookstore, and so I feel that it is my job to keep abreast of the popular literature of the day. Too bad for me. That is not to say that I wasn’t entertained by Bella’s adventures in the last 3 books; actually, quite the contrary. But it wasn’t because I was drawn into the heart-wrenching love story, or the “epic” (there’s that word again) battles, or even the werewolves. No, no. It was because as the series went on, it got only more and more ridiculous, and by the end of Breaking Dawn (the 4th book) I was laughing my fool head off. (out loud)

There is not really much to say about New Moon, other than “Way to go again, Stephanie! You once again made every pre-teen girl want a debilitating relationship with a sparkly vampire.” Edward leaves Bella because he is afraid for her safety, which sends Bella into a depressive state for 4 months. Great inspirational reading for today’s kids. Don’t worry. He comes back. (I personally think he came back because what dude who hasn’t had sex in 100 yrs could stay away from a horny girl who throws herself at him?)

LALALA. I don’t really remember much about Eclipse either, except that in order to get Edward to agree to turn her into a vampire, Bella unenthusiastically agrees to marry him. I really think she didn’t want to say yes because then she wouldn’t have had a hot werewolf bugging her all the time. Points for Stephanie Meyer- she got me to wanna see what happens in the last book.

Breaking Dawn. I don’t even know how to begin.  I believe Stephanie Meyer thought that exact same thing when she sat down to write this poppycock. It begins with Bella and Edward getting married and going to stay on their own personal island for their honeymoon. They do it, (finally!) and then I have decided that Bella must have sucked (not literally) in bed, because Edward’s like, “Umm, no. We are NOT doing that again.” He gives the excuse that his rock hard…. abs and other assorted muscles left too many bruises on her, so he makes her do other fun stuff that you are supposed to do on an island. 3 or 4 weeks later, (sorry, it’s been a long time since I read it) Bella realizes, “Damn! I haven’t been on the rag for awhile, I must be pregnant!” then “AGH! My baby is growing at an extremely accelerated pace and ripping my guts out!” So they go back home to the family doctor, (yes, that was a pun) and Edward, like the normal prick he is, becomes completely unsupportive and tries to get Bella to abort. During this time, Jacob the werewolf is back and he feels compelled to stay by Bella’s side at all times. So in less than a month, Bella ejaculates this perfect baby and dies. (Hallelujah!) But no. Stephanie couldn’t have just been smart and left her dead. She made Edward turn her into a vampire. The coolest, slickest vampire that ever lived. (or didn’t live, if you wanna be technical) By the way, she still has no personality. And in the time that it took her to turn, Jacob fell in love with her baby. Yeah. I’ll repeat it. Jacob, who is 17, is “in love” with the baby. WTF?!How did the only character who had a personality in the book end up being a pedifile?! They blame it on this thing called imprinting, which I think Stephanie just threw in there to keep Bella from looking like a major cunt because she didn’t have the balls to tell Jacob to go away. Anyway, the only thing I can think of is that Stephanie Meyer did some acid, or smoked some really good weed before she figured out what she was going to name the baby. She named it Renesmee. Say it out loud. You will laugh too. It’s supposed to be Bella’s mom’s name intigrated with Edward’s mom’s name. It just ends up sounding like Bella was drunk. Anyway, the kid grows up to be a three-year-old just like that, and there’s almost another “epic” battle, (that doesn’t matter) and everyone lives happily ever after.  I read through this book so hastily, waiting to see how it progressed, and I was not disappointed. Every time I thought it couldn’t get any stupider, it did. I was so wildly entertained that I told everyone I worked with about the “worst book I had ever read.”

I’m sorry I didn’t post something more interesting, but I gots lots to do today at work. Be happy! XOXO

Suckage Part 1- Shame on you, Stephanie Meyer :Twilight

I shall be blogging later about the more important things in life later (namely me), but I’m cranky about that right now, so I shall delve into my multi-parted rant on vampire literature I have entitled Suckage. And so we begin…

I have long held a fascination with any book depicting the Un-Dead. I read Dracula when I was 11. And I believe I was turned onto Anne Rice novels because I caught the end of the movie version of Interview with a Vampire. Oddly enough, that was not the first Anne Rice book I read. Though her stories are somewhat gloomy, I think her writing style is superb. Anyhoo, this rant isn’t about Anne Rice.

Enter Stephanie Meyer. Once upon a time, when Sparklebumps got hired at a little used bookstore, she was bombarded with customers asking, “Do you have the Twilight books?” and “Have you read the Twilight books?” Now, I am ashamed to say that I was a little bit behind the times in the area of Young Adult novels then, and had never heard of these mysterious books. A few months after hearing these questions repeated had me intrigued, (as did a shiny boxed set of the series at my store.) and I decided to begin this “epic” saga. First, I would like to say that I am not entirely fond of books being written in first person, but if the writing is done well, I will forgive the author. A quick premise (in case you have been living under a rock)- Bella is the new kid in town and falls in love with a GOOD vampire (Edward), while flirting with an old family friend (Jacob). Bella is dull and has the SWEETEST smelling blood Edward has ever smelled in 100 years (what are the odds?) and with teenage angst, he suffers through the whole book trying to tell Bella they can’t be together. Then some BAD vampires (who actually drink human blood) show up and wanna eat Bella, so there is this “epic” battle where Bella almost dies, but doesn’t. (DAMN it!) It ends with the dorky couple going to prom, while Jacob looks on in torment. At least that’s how I heard it goes. I got 30 pages into Twilight and had to stop. It made me irate that Stephanie thinks we are all so doltish that we needed to be told how beautiful Edward is EVERY OTHER SENTENCE. If he is so beautiful, why the fuck does he want the mouseish lummox Bella?And I understand her writing Bella as a character pre-teen girls can relate to, but do we REALLY want our daughters trying to simulate someone devoid of personality? But wait! Bella is the “grown-up” one, taking care of her divorced parents, yet she is immature enough to fall in love with the first boy who want to eat her, while being completely oblivious to the handsome boy WITH a personality who doesn’t wanna munch on her. The only way that Stephanie Meyer used her talent is to write in such a way that makes you want to keep reading. But I didn’t, because I have good books I need to read. Stay tuned for my next Suckage post.