Embarrassed

Okay, so it's the end of the month (an hour and a half left, and I have a visitor coming...I doubt I'm going to finish another book today), and I've never before been embarrassed to admit how many books I read in a month. Seriously...it's pathetic. I need help. I need a life.

44 books in June. The best part it isn't even a longer month! Geez. This is a cry for a life. Someone save me.

Anyway, that brings my total for this year up to a ghastly...203. And we're only half way through the year. I need serious help.

Angry Conversations With God

I just finished Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky by Authentic Spiritual Memoir by Susan Isaacs. I've decided that it does fit in the biography section of the 9909 challenge, even if it is shelved in the 200's (religion).

Okay, so this is the third time I've blogged about it tonight (this morning? Whatever). Anyway, I probably wouldn't have blogged about it if it wasn't amazing, but it was.

Susan is your typical artsy Southern California native. She wants to be an actor, or a writer. She grew up in SoCal, then at one point moved to New York. She was also raised in the church.

For those of you who don't know what that can do to you, let me tell you. Being raised in the church tends to mean 1 of 3 things. (1) You forever have this cookie cutter image of God where you never mature, (2) you at some point decide God isn't real, and jump off the religion train, or (3) you decide that life is tough, but God is tougher. And you deal with life, and keep God. It's hard, but people do it.

Anyway, Susan had a nice mix of all 3 (so I guess there are 4 choices?), and she turned out okay. Of course, she took God (in her mind) to couple's therapy (for real). Which is weird, but pretty freaking amazing, when you think about it.

And the memoir? Well written, snarky (and you know how I love snarky things), and potent. I was on an emotional rollercoaster all night. I loved it.

If you're curious about religion, have religion, or have ever had religion, you should read this. It's great. 4 snowflakes. Now, excuse me while I go contemplate the state of my soul (sad truth...)

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love

I found this book at work, and it was intriguing. Especially because the Sweet Potato Queens have a whole bunch of books out, and this is the very first. It's written by Jill Conner Browne, the creator of the Sweet Potato Queens.

Did I mention this is nonfiction?

Okay, here's where it get fun. The Sweet Potato Queens are a group of women who live in Mississippi. They are true Southern Women. One day, Jill decided she wanted to be a queen. It didn't matter of what, she just wanted to be one. She knew a guy who owned a sweet potato farm, so she offered to be the Queen every year. He never got back to her, but she (and some friends) decided to declare themselves Sweet Potato Queens. They also decided to throw their town's very first Saint Patrick's Day Parade. The entire parade consisted of the Queens riding around in the back of a truck, wear green ball gowns and waving. Well, it somehow caught on.

And now, in Jackson, Mississippi, they do this every year. It's actually turned into a pretty big thing, I guess (maybe I'll do that next year...).

But in the book, Jill talks about all the things you need to know to be a Sweet Potato Queen (though you can't actually become one...you have to be a Wannabe first, and then a Queen has to die or move away).

Things like The Promise (which I can't talk about, because this is a family-friendly blog, but if you want to know, let me know and I'll totally tell you... lindy [at] anovelbeat [dot] com), the Best Advice Ever Given ("Be particular"), the 5 kinds of men you need in your life (and 4 of them can be gay), recipes for the most fattening food on the planet, and why trashy lingere is actually a good thing.

No kidding, I laughed out loud reading this. And now I pine to be a Sweet Potato Queen (though, I'm probably too young, and have no desire to move to Jackson, Mississippi anytime soon, even if I can spell Mississippi without have to look it up).

4 snowflakes for rocking my world.

Dead and Gone

I finished the latest Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampire/TruBlood) book yesterday.

I know that I really liked the early books, but Dead and Gone was a bit of a disappointment. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but that it was a little crazy. It had this really, really slow build up, then the end was wayyy to fast.

Of course, Eric was his usual ass-type self. He somehow got him and Sookie married, at least in the vampire world. It'll be fun to see how this works out.

And the fairies came to Earth to fight a war. People were lost on both sides (of course they didn't kill Bill, but it was close), and that was sad. And now, no more fairies.

Jason...I just don't know what to think of him. He's an ass (see last book for that one!), but he's hurting. I'm just glad he's not my brother.

3 snowflakes. I enjoyed it, but it could have been better. Maybe the TV show is getting to her?

Unreliable Narrator

I just read my first book with an unreliable narrator.  Well, my first outside of school.

I never realized just how much I trusted the narrator.  I mean, the whole time we're talking about a guy who died, and I'm trying to make the other people fit, and it's just not working.  But still, the narrator never occurs to me!  You're supposed to trust the narrator to tell you the truth...and to tell you every thing they know!

Leaving out that you snuck down the stairs and killed your husband is no good for the reader.

I have no idea what I thought of the book.  I enjoyed it, though it was fraught with oddities.  But still... the unreliable narrator makes me squirm uncomfortably.

Names

You know what I hate?  Names where you can't tell if it's a girl or a guy right off.  Jordan, MacKenzie, Adrian, Madison...I hate that.

I'm reading a book (surprising, right?) written by an "Adrian"  an "Adrian Nikolas" even.  So this is me, assuming it's a man.  But, just to be sure...I look them up.

It's a woman!  Why?!?  Does she not know that I am severely lacking in books written by men for the 9909 Challenge? 

Ugh.

Not that I'm not enjoying the book...but this one (the second in the series), doesn't even take place in Louisiana, like the last one did!  So (enjoyment aside), it's completely useless to me!  Sigh.

Bibliophilia

I read Bibliophilia by Michael Griffith yesterday.  It's a book of short stories, but the longest one (which is actually a novella), is Bibliophilia.

It's about a librarian, who claims that she doesn't fit in with the librarian stereotype (the old, bitter, sex-less woman), but she really does.  And as the story goes on, you find out her past and why she fits it so well.

But that's not all.  Every other chapter is written by a man named Seti, who is in America (Louisiana, in particular), to get a degree in hydrology so he can go back to Egypt and find a way to get more water to people who need it.

So it's an odd mix of Seti's trying to figure out Americans (including his knowledge of slang...it's great), and the librarian's past.

That is, of course, until it all comes to a head.  When the librarian finds a young couple having sex in the stacks, and Seti comes to rescue her.  But the shock of it all...well, it's amazing.

Then she runs home to start her new life...and then the twist happens.

The ending is a little questionable, but still...the twist...oh, the twist rocked my world.  A word of warning though...the whole book is a little sex obsessed.  But I still really liked it. 

And!  If I were double dipping, it would fill 3 spots in the 9909 challenge: Southern, starring a librarian, and by a man.  Stellar.