Re-living High School

For years I have seen Megan McCafferty's lime green book Sloppy Firsts I've even checked it out a couple of times in an attempt to start reading it.  The first time was when my friend moved from New Jersey to Louisiana.  I had heard the book was about something similar and thought it would be great to read.  I mean I'm from New Jersey (relatively the same region in the book, though I can't quite pinpoint where the author has located Pineville) and my friend had just moved.  Well I couldn't get through it that first time.  I then picked it up again and that attempt failed also.  Must be third time's the charm.  I finally read it.  It seems fated that I hadn't read it yet.  The series starts of with Jessica Darling in the middle of her sophomore year of high school.  If I had started reading this at the oh-so-young age of 14 I really don't think I would have understood it or been able to appreciate what happens to Jessica (this coming from someone who started to read adult romance novels and the age of 15).  But I honestly think any appreciation I would have had for the book would have been lost.  

To begin with, I can appreciate where Jessica lives.  I think this has always been the most intriguing factor.  Its about where I live.  Someone actually thought the place I live in was important enough to write about!  Other than wining the Little League World Series over a decade ago (wow it's scary that it has been that long) and a few other local things my town (small city by population definition) is just like most other American towns, unless that town is called Forks.  Oh and I forgot that I also live near the former(?) summer home of MTV.  Nothing (other than the gobs of money poured in to the area) makes this fact a good thing.  But anyway...The mall mentioned by name is the same mall I go to for all my mall needs.  Jessica listens to 98.5 at a time when it was the hottest music station around.  The newspapers she reads are the ones that are regular visitors to my house every Sunday (although one has now become a free paper delivered on Fridays).  For all intents and purposes, Pineville might as well be my town!  It was so weird to have such a strong connection to something fictional

What else was great?  The fact that I practically re-lived my high school years.  Now, that's not something I would have elected to do given the option, but this was as a completely observant person who has already gone through high school and the highs and lows that come with it.  Jessica seemed to have a foot in everything and so you had a bird's eye view of this microcosm and the emotional roller coaster it can be.  A little be of everything is thrown in and I loved every minute of it.  Even though the series is for young adults (minus the fifth book, which is, at least in my library, shelved with regular fiction and not young adult fiction) it really should be something someone reads not long after high school and even college, but ruling is still out on that since I haven't finished the series yet.  As good as the books I can't stress how great I think they are having been through high school and college.  I finished Second Helpings and I am currently reading Charmed Thrids (with Fourth Comings and Perfect Fifths waiting in the wings).  I also think this series is best read consecutively.  I know everyone who was a fan of the books before had to wait most likely a year if not more for the next book in the series and was in agony waiting to know what happened next, but I don't think that necessarily works in the favor of the books here.  This series doesn't have the same effect that has me dying to know what happens next.  I'm not left on a cliff desperately wanting to know if Jessica is going to survive to the next book.  But I do want to know what happens.  The books aren't quite consecutive (at least the first three aren't) because they don't pick up immediately where the last one left off.  The first ends in the middle of Jessica's junior year and the second picks up the summer before her senior year.  I like this.  I don't think anything is lost by the gap.  I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series because I've "been there and done that".  It just seems very appropriate to be reading this right now.

Listening to "Just Ran Out of Whiskey" by Gaelic Storm

A bit of a let down followed by something that has me intrigued

So I recently read the book Maneater by Gigi Levangie Grazer and I was thoroughly disappointed.  Earlier in the summer I had someone ask me if I had ever gotten to the end of a book and realized that it was a waste of time.  I thought about it and said yes.  As a literature major there were a number of books I read that I thought were a waste of time The Scarlett Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Frankenstein are among them.  But those didn't really count because I had to read those.  He meant if there was anything I read for pleasure that ended up feeling was a waste of time.  I thought about it again and was reminded of a book that I had recently read over the summer and wrote about here called Belle.  By the time I finished it, I wanted the time I spent on it back.  It wasn't very well written and the plot just went nowhere.  It was just very boring and went on for no reason.  Since I was asked the question I have encountered yet another book I wish I had the time I spent reading it back.  While I was not extremely impressed with Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse novella, I wouldn't call it a total waste of time.  Maneater on the other hand was.

Listening to:  "Turn This Ship Around" by Gaelic Storm 

In case anyone is curious, this is the book the that two-part movie with Sarah Chalke shown on Lifetime a few years back was based on.  I thought the bits of the show I was able to catch were interesting.  So one day at the library I was saw the book on the sale rack for 50 cents and picked it up.  I finally finished it and I'll say it again, I want my time back.  I enjoy chicklit like Bridget Jones and Jane Green's books (Love her!) and I've even read some of the teen series Gossip Girl (not that chicklit and Gossip Girl deserve to be in the same sentence).  So I was prepared for the idea of someone who has alot of money (or was raised that way) who cares about nothing except themselves and what they can get from other people.  So I was prepared for this.  Usually at some point those characters have an epiphany and realize the world does not revolve around them.  This character did not at all.  Even after someone dies, she is still self absorbed.  I think that was one of the biggest disappointments.  After everything went wrong for this person, she learned nothing!  The plot twist that I should have enjoyed was nothing because the main character didn't deserve it!  It only left me annoyed and showed me how stupid the book was.  I was even further annoyed when I read that this came from the same woman who wrote the movie Stepmom (a good movie) and the book The Starter Wife which also ended up as a tv movie/series.  I watched The Starter Wife and thought it was good.  It wasn't too bad, about what I was expecting.  Maneater on the other hand was just a waste of time.

Luckily, I had something to intrigue me after this.  I was told to read the series The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I started it as an audio book so it seemed to be pretty slow going at first be after I got a copy of the book it really picked up.  It hasn't quite caught me the way Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Twilight did, but I think that may be because I started it on audio and also because I am not into dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories.  I never read The Giver and skipped other things like it.  I did finish The Hunger Games which is set in dystopian America (very very weird) and I am looking forward to reading the next installment and the final book.   My anticipation is only enhanced by the fact that I can see the second book Catching Fire has shipped to the library, but is not quite ready for me to pick up.  Its at my fingertips and I just can't reach it and its driving me bonkers!  I can't stand it!  Its even worse because I am sitting in the library where it is and I am at my computer compulsively checking my account to see if it has come in!  I can't read anything right now because I don't want to get involved in something and have to stop to read Catching Fire.  This is beyond frustrating.  If I knew there would be no consequences for my actions, I would go over to the circulation desk and find my copy just to speed things up, but I don't even want to think about what would happen if I went over there.  I think what has me most intrigued is the love triangle that is bound to develop between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.  I like that as of The Hunger Games  Katniss seems oblivious to boys/men in romantic terms.  I personally am rooting for Gale, there's something that reminds me of George Cooper from Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet.  I don't want anything to happen to Peeta, I like him and feel for him, but I want Katniss to end up with Gale.  He seems to understand her better.  I'll see what happens.  I'm glad there are only 3 books in this series.  Nice and short so I won't have to continually keep up with it (even though I enjoy that, I have alot to read right now!).