i love finishing a series

book: dead in the family

author: charlaine harris

completion date: 26/09/10

method: libraried

i feel sort of funny writing about this book for the same reason i felt strange about writing about the first 9. theres not much to them is the problem. they are trash and a good thing to go to when you need something light. and it was a good relief too from reading about serial killers...

i have to say that this one really let me down. it felt like all she was doing was re-telling the previous books over and over. i was frustrated by it actually. and was really glad that i didn't pay for it in hardcover.

i feel like the series might be stagnating. it needs a serious change and doesn't seem to be moving on. i just wanted this series to stay sexy and fun, and i'm afraid that it might start taking itself too seriously.

xo-ellebee

Cash only from now on

Book: the handmaids tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Completion date:19/09/10
Method: borrowed (baby Ali)

I became a really big Atwood fan this summer. I love the way she writes and how well she tells her stories. However, compared to year of the flood and oryx and crake or even the penelopiade I feel this book fell short. I enjoyed it very much, but I found I was really frustrated with how she resolved this novel. The book (which up to this point I had been unable to put down) ends with a professor lecturing about gilead and what happened and who the handmaid might be. This is by far the most boring part of the book. It was so boring i almost just forgot about reading it. I felt that the book had no resolution at all and that there would be a much better way to end this novel.
What is always so terrifying about Atwood's apocalypse is how they all have a ring of truth to them. At one point in the book, Offred explains that it only could have happened because the nation had almost entirely stopped using cash and they were able to shut down any account that had a f beside gender. They had totally control over everyones finances because everyone used their cards and never cash. Also terrifying is how quickly her husband adjusted to the fact that she had no access to their money and she became a part of his estate. I suppose you could argue that it only made sense to go along with this regime but I would hope that people I knew would fight this and not just allow ourselves to be overtaken and forced into slavery.
One of the major issues I have with this novel is it never really explains why people are infertile and what happened outside the walls of gilead. I felt that this was really integral to how much I enjoyed the book at the end. I felt abandoned and let down, which is not how you want to feel after reading a novel.
I only hope that alias grace will restore my faith, because I really love Atwood, and I don't want to lose her.

Xo-ellebee

Nowhere to go but down

Book: valley of the dolls
Author: jacquline susanne
Completion date: 17/09/10
Method: purchased

I bought this book for school and decided to get some advanced reading done while I still had time on my hands. This was right about the time that I was wrapping up the last of the sookie stackhouse novels so I was ready to read something with a little more substance. I wasn't quite ready for this book in all honesty.
According to my professor, this book marks the beginning of 'chick lit' and what she called the modern novel. Now, the chick lit I have read mainly concerns women wearing fashionable clothing and worrying about what kind of underpants they are wearing on their date with some cute man, not surviving entirely on pills and staggering about with a bottle of bourbon shouting that 'he's no fag and I'm just the woman to prove it'. In all honesty, this book terrified me. Neely, Jennifer and Anne seem to have so much hope and promise and such a strong relationship, only to watch each of their lives slowly fall apart.
Neely was the most interesting and terrifying of the trio. I have never seen a character forget herself and her friends so fast. She is so self destructive, and every time she is destroyed by her own success. It drove her mad. The more successful she became, the worse she forgot herself and her family. Especially how much she despises Anne, the same woman that pulled all the right strings to give Neely her shot in showbiz.
There are also a number of very very compelling supporting characters that bring this world and time to life. Like old iron sides, Helen Lawson. The true diva. A woman that worked her whole life to stay on top, only to be betrayed by everyone.
Susanne paints a very depressing view of humanity and the relationships between men and woman. Every character is betrayed and betrays with almost no second thought. It makes me wonder about susanne's life how much this novel reflects her view on what people are actually like, because everything certainly isn't sunshine, rainbows and true love for susanne.
Xo-ellebee

the sookie stackhouse novels, vol 1-9

books: the sookie stackhouse novels volumes 1-9

author: charlaine harris

method: purchased

i bypassed the completion date on this one because there were just too many to write about each of them, and lets face it- there isn't a lot to them. i think i'm addicted to them, actually. i read all 9 of the books available in paperback over the course of the last week.

i have this thing with true blood. i don't like it, but i want it to be really good. i keep hoping for it to be better. i keep coming back (maybe because of alexander skarsgard....). i have just found it infuriating, especially lately, because they keep changing the rules. anyways i am not here to talk about true blood, only the books that inspired them. now the books were exactly what i was hoping for. they are trashy and witty. sookie is no longer a whiner but strong and independent. she doesn't take crap, and actually kicks some serious butt. bill is still kinda whiny, but she isn't totally hung up on him, instead she focuses on eric, who is so much more awesome than bill. some of the supporting characters i loved so much are absent but still i totally enjoyed them. they were fun and sexy and everything i was hoping true blood to be. its bloody and awesome. all the vampires are actually scary and there weres are real wolves not puppies. everyone is so much more raw and scary. it makes so much more sense, because vampires are not friendly or cute and they make terrible life partners. they are trashy but the best kind of trashy.

i can't wait for more!!

xo-ellebee

thank god for hugh

book: when you are engulfed in flames

author: david sedaris

completion date: 03/09/10

method: purchased

i remember listening to this book on a family trip to detriot. there were moments of brilliance that i remembered but i slept through most of it because we were driving so late and i had probably not slept very much previous to it.

its difficult to me not to compare this collection of stories to the collection compiled by david foster wallace i had read previously. the two authors are both similar personalities but have extremely different writing styles. they are both hopelessly maladjusted misanthropes who are also slightly agoraphobic. in one of his stories, sedaris talks about how his boyfriend is always walking so far ahead of him and getting lost and whenever he is searching for hugh, he makes up his mind that he's going to end the relationship, only to realize that without hugh he's have nowhere to live, and be completely un able to live on his own because he needs hugh so much. he and wallace don't seem to have much in common on the surface but i felt like they were connected.

sedaris tends to skip around in his stories. he begins in one place and ends in a completely different place (quitting smoking then beating a woman with downs at the y. at swimming... not physically). but you never feel like he loses you. his transitions are all very smooth.

what i wonder about his stories is how true they are. they all feel like they are very truthful but it seems like a lot happens to him for someone who hate being around most people (similar to wallace who describes it as mild agoraphobia). i feel like they are all based on something that happened to him or a friend of his and are richly embellished. however that doesn't at all detract from the joy of reading this novel.

xo-ellebee

the other side of the apocalypse

novel: year of the flood

author: margret atwood

completion date: 01/09/10

method: libraried

i really loved oryx and crake. i thought it was a fabulous post-apocalyptic novel because we weren't just flung into the apocalypse, we were warmed up to it because the past and the present were mashed up. in year of the flood we have more of a linear story, but following the paths of two woman as they join and separate.

i loved how this novel was really just another perspective on the apocalypse. it didn't take place before or after but it made me really really want to read oryx and crake again because the two are so perfectly interwoven. also it totally stands on its own as a novel. the connections are there because they are based around the same characters but it doesn't feel entirely like a companion novel. you could read oryx and crake afterwards and be happy about it. the connections are really well thought out, almost in a way that points out what a small world it is that ren could be amanda's best friend and they both could have dated jimmy. of course thats possible and the way that atwood writes it makes sense. it doesn't feel outlandish at all.

one of my favourite additions was the cult that ren and toby came from and the poetry that divides each of the chapters. the gardeners are waiting for the waterless flood. and we never know if the adams and eves survived but it seems possible. the adams and eves were prepared. but could they have been prepared for this? does a virus count as a waterless flood?

i need to read oryx and crake again, but now i'm afraid that after i read it i'll want to read this again...

xo-ellebee