6 posts tagged “libba bray”
We weren't able to find anything in the tide pools but the beach was empty and we sat there and watched the water for a time. I miss the ocean. Something about it really seems to balance me. I know that sounds like goofy new age stuff, but it does. I could sit and watch the water for hours. Of course I say that but at a beach, I tend to be the person that doesn't stop moving. In theory I am enjoying the water but in reality I think I am perpetrating a strange criminal act in standing still. It must be a control thing.
D told me this story about this town that sits below the mountains and all the real estate is cheap because the mountains landslide once every so many years. I saw it as we drove by and it's not much to look at. I wonder if you are so desperate to own why you wouldn't invest more sagely. Maybe some people are just risk takers. It made me feel sad. It seems like a hopeless cycle.
We listened to New Moon on audiobook for the car ride and it made me remember how much I love the chapters from Visitor on. We got from Visitor to The Truth in our travels and it just made me want to read the book. I think tonight I will read from Volterra to the end and see if it doesn't settle me some. I love the part where they are in the sewers and Edward is drawing her near and touching her face. It is such a quiet devotional act. And then I love The Truth so much. There is not a sentence in the entire chapter that I would have rewritten. I'm a silly romantic at heart. I love when they love and I ... well I was going to say, hate when they hurt, but I love well Bella hurts. It makes up for all the times she's stupid and I'm wondering what Edward sees in her.
I am on page 678 of A Sweet Far Thing and I am having a problem reading farther. I know what happens to one character in the end and I don't want it to happen so I am resistant to reading further in the book. It's childish and silly but very much a real reaction. It doesn't help that Bray writes imbuing each sentence with such tension that I feel rung out at the end of each chapter. It is not the sweet forget-me-not writing of Stephenie Meyer, it's rather angsty and bittersweet. I mean Meyer writes a love story of a vampire and girl and she thinks they are star-crossed. Bray can one up her and write of a 16 year old British sorceress and an Indian man, who is educated and alone, who are in a situation where they may have feelings for each other but they won't be accepted anywhere. Not to mention everyone wants the magic of the realms and Gemma doesn't know who she can trust. Bella and Edward have it easy.
And lastly, and only Heather and David will get the significance of this photo, but a silver S60 Volvo.
I am about 250 pages from the end of A Sweet Far Thing and I really hate Libba Bray. There is just no way that good things can really come from the mess she has unveiled. I had hopes for this book, that it would have a great deal more of Kartik in it, but I think it's even less than Rebel Angels. I love some of the scenes she has with Gemma and Kartik, but she marks them all with an awful exclamation point. Since I spoiled myself concerning the end with Kartik I can't say that she is particularly good to him in this book and that makes me really sad. I wish Ann and Felicity were left behind in the realms. They are really annoying. I actually am annoyed with 90% of what Gemma does and I don't know how it is that I claim this trilogy as something I like. But I would read it again. I would love to get it on audiobook so D can listen to it.
Nothing has been going on in the Twilight fandom since Wednesday. It makes me antsy when nothing is happening. I need the constant influx of information or I feel like it's being forgotten. But it is the weekend now and Tuesday will be Twilight Tuesday. Then after that will be the book signing on Thursday. Although I know that will be more Host related, but somebody, maybe me, will ask a Twilight question. I have to think hard and come up with something never asked before. I think I'm formulating one right now.
I bought two new books today. I will have to read The Host before Thursday, so it will be a few days until I get around to reading them. One is The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint and the other is Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Both are YA books but I don't think that means anything at all. I hope it doesn't anyway. I also have plans of reading a book D has been wanting me to read forever called Sword Dancer by Jennifer Roberson. That is a pretty good reading pile.
I have so many things I want to write about today that I just don't even know where to start. I finished Rebel Angels this afternoon. What can I say, I really love Kartik. I loved how his character was developed in book two of the trilogy, although I was a bit disappointed about how things end between him and Gemma. The action was great in this book. The twists and turns were diabolical. All those things you sort of thought you were right about you find out you are, but you no longer think you are. It's tricky. I liked Gemma more in this book than in A Great and Terrible Beauty. She was still terribly immature at times but she isn't as blindly naive. I was ambivalent up to a certain point about Simon Middleton and then flat out didn't like him. Not to mention I measured him up to Kartik the entire time and he doesn't compare. I think Bray is doing an excellent job of defining the taboo and the expectation of the society. I just wish that Kartik wasn't taboo. I'll take him if Gemma can't make it work.
I went and bought The Host and A Sweet Far Thing today. I am currently torn because I don't know if I should read either one of those or Stardust. Stardust, I could probable read by tomorrow. Okay I have to study so maybe not. But I could read it quickly. The Host is 600+ pages and A Sweet Far Thing is 800+. Those are real commitments. With how fuzzy my head is at the moment I just don't know which is the better book to start. And I'm reading Twilight again with Jason and I told him I would be ready to discuss chapter 5 by Thursday. So many books and so little time.
While at the bookstore I took note of the display for Twilight. It is so big and always in flux. Sometimes stocked, sometimes not so much. The woman who checked us out gave me a small happy when she noticed that I was buying The Host and asked me if I was waiting for Breaking Dawn to come out. I admitted, shyly, that I was and told her how many days until 2 August. I mentioned the movie coming out in December and she surmised that it was going to be huge. She thinks the sequels won't be a problem. It made me feel good about the whole situation. Random bookstore clerk who sees popularity of the books, thinking that the franchise is a go. *sigh* Happy thoughts.
Speaking of Twilight, today is Twilight Tuesday and MTV released the official movie poster. I'm not that excited about it. I think it could have been better. Edward looks disjointed to me, not like he's looking over her. I think she looks soft and he looks too dead. Maybe he should look dead, but it just makes me not like it. I do like one thing. His eye looks topaz. Score points there. There was a fan poster made by Loleia that I liked, I'll post that too. If I had my choice between this and the cast photo I would pick the cast photo. I think the teaser trumps them both. Although with some time and space I can recognize that the teaser caters too much to those who already know and love the books and were going to see the movie anyway. It could have been catered more toward a more diversified audience.
Tomorrow is my second exam in Art History and I am not, exactly, looking forward to it. I am sort of dreading it. But to save me from real dread, the class is at the Getty. I hope to go in early and be able to look at one statue in particular. I want to do my paper on it. It's called the Venus Genetrix. She's very much in the style of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I hope to compare them to one another. It will also give me time to study a bit before the exam. Of course I don't think we will have a tour tomorrow. Since we have so much to make up after last weeks class fiasco.
After class it will be a comic book day. Angel: After the Fall, Buffy and Lords of Avalon are all coming out tomorrow. It will be a nice reward after the exam. LOA left off at the place where Seren is stabbed by Kerrigan. It's one of my favorite parts of the book and I loved seeing it done in comic. D told me that after Angel: After the Fall that they are going to do a Spike: After the Fall. I am interested in that. I still can't get into the Buffy comics. I don't like the legions of slayers. It was hard enough for me when there was Faith. I hope that there could be a Twilight Manga. That would make for good adaptation.
I had D take me to two different bookstores last night to get my hands on Rebel Angels. Of course things being what they are and life getting in the way, I've yet to start it. I am freaking out over not having all the images for this next exam in Art History. I'll get around to it. I am happy that Jason notified me that he got a copy of Twilight from his library. We are going to read it together. So I will have that in the juggle soon too. I can handle it. Rebel Angels is only 500 pages. The third book in the series is 800. I'm not looking forward to that. I have to finish this in a timely way because a week from Tuesday The Host will be out and I will want to read that. I'm so eager to see how it is.
D and I saw two movies this weekend. I hate going to the movies on a Friday night but we did and the theater was basically packed. We saw Harold and Kumar 2 Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I really liked the first one. I love Neil Patrick Harris in both films, but he was the only highlight in the second one. I was really disappointed. They over did it on the 'our government sucks' jokes and the Kumar is an idiot theme was a little overdone. I kind of want my money back.
Today we went and saw the Tina Fey movie Baby Mama and I really liked it. It was formulaic and predictable but, all the same, it worked. I think you get what you pay for in this film. I really like Tina Fey and I think she is really pretty too. Much better than Harold and Kumar.
6 May is when The Host comes out. It will be the first non-Twilight book Stephenie Meyer has written and I am oddly excited about it. I'm a little afraid for the subject matter, alien life forms that inhabit the host body of humans but the story goes beyond that to humanity and love. I am excited for it all the same. It's no Edward Cullen but I'll give it a try.
Tonight I tried to read Dark Side of the Moon to tide me over. I found it really hard to concentrate on and I also was skipping parts in the book that moved too slow for me. All in all I would say I probably don't really want to read this book right now. That makes me sad, it wasn't too long ago when I read it four times in two weeks. Maybe I am a little burned out on it. Maybe I'm reading too much fanfic and it is ruining me for real books.
I do have one other new book which I have yet to read. I bought it when I bought my Twilight Saga books. It's Jennifer Ashley's Highlander Ever After books and the last in a trilogy. I reread the other two books not long ago so I am refreshed and ready to commence this series at any moment. It's the story of Egan and Zarabeth, who you get tidbits about in the other two books. I should have tried to read that today instead. Or Sebastien by Anne Bishop. That is another book I could have tried to read instead. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
Battlestar tonight was nerve wracking. I want to know what is happening with the Sixes and the Eights. I was very happy with the end of the Chief and Callie story. I never liked her. Kara as a little bit crazy is par for the course. I love seeing her on the edge. I sort of hope she and Lee are reunited. I want the happy ending. There was a lack of Baltar which I was a little disappointed by, but that just means there will be a ton of him next week.
I started a new book last night. Heather brought to my attention last week and I BookMooched it. It's called A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I don't know if I'm liking it. The main character is sort of a brat and I can't say I regret the bad things that happened to her. It feels like it moves really slow and I feel like I'm waiting for something that hasn't paid off as of yet but I'm only 50 pages in. I'm going to try to stay patient and stick with it. I even added the next two books to my BookMooch Wishlist, so I am trying not to get down on it so early. I'm sure that it's just that I'm used to the pacing and style of Stephenie Meyer and Twilight. I'm sure that I'm just not adjusting well. I also hated the small romance novel, My Wildest Ride by Isabel Sharpe, that I read yesterday. I think I'm just being a petulant reader. It's not the Twilight Saga or a Dark-Hunter novel, so it's just not good enough.
Tomorrow D and I are going to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I guess I am still mildly Veronica Mars fan-ish. Kristen Bell is part of why I want to see this movie. I also loved Knocked Up and it's by the same people that made it. After D has promised me a trip to the bookstore. He's going to get Belladonna, the next book after Sebastian. I want to look for a copy of the Iliad. I'm not sure I'm buying it. I could BookMooch it, but I think if I get it, I want it to be a nice edition. I have yet to get my 2nd issue of the Iliad in comic form so I haven't started reading the comic yet. Although, note to self: the 5th issue came out on Wednesday and I haven't got it yet.
I spoke with my father yesterday. He wasn't expecting her to make it through the night. I am assuming, as I haven't heard from him as of yet, that she is still fighting. I was hoping that this would be fast. He tells me she isn't suffering, that they have her on pain medication so she isn't feeling anything. But he also tells me her respiration is shallow and at only 6 breaths a minute, so she's slowly suffocating. That still is an awful way to die.