My mother always admonished us for using the word ‘hate’. “Hate is a very strong word,” she would tell us. That said–and no offense to my mom–I hate winter.
Oh, I like snow. But, the cold and the ice and the lack of sunlight make me gloomy. So, I try to keep myself occupied by reading a lot during the winter months. A good book can transport me away from the snow and ice and gloomy skies here in Ohio to make winter more bearable, at least for a short time.
So, here’s what I’ve been reading lately…
The Twilight Series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn) by Stephenie Meyer
To be honest, I hadn’t heard about the books until the Twilight movie was released. All the hype (including the swarms of crazed teenage girls swooning over Robert Pattinson) and the fact that it was a vampire story initially turned me off from reading Twilight. I kept hearing it was a good story, however, so I eventually borrowed a copy from a friend (who had urged me to read it) and started reading. I started Twilight around 11pm and couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it around 5am the same night. The other three books were the same–I loved them! Stephenie Meyer has a wonderful writing style with very vivid characters. The Twilight books are better described as an intimate, epic romance story (without being raunchy) that happens to include vampire characters. I can’t recommend them enough!
I have Meyer’s book The Host reserved at the library and I can’t wait until it comes in so I can read more of her work.
Dead Until Dark & Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but after reading the Twilight books I was a little fascinated with vampires/vampire books/vampire culture. (To be honest, I think I was hoping for another Twilight to come along because I was so disappointed the books were over.) Charlaine Harris’s writing is about as different from Stephenie Meyer’s writing as you can get. Regardless, I enjoyed the first two Sookie Stackhouse novels. Harris’s writing style is very light…almost flippant. Even so, she craftily tackles such social issues as homophobia, racism, and ‘vampire-ism’ in her books. The main character in the books is Sookie Stackhouse, a bartender in the rural south who happens to be able to read people’s thoughts. In Dead Until Dark, she meets Bill, the town’s first vampire inhabitant, and they fall in love. Together, they solve a string of murders that occur shortly after Bill moves into town. In Living Dead in Dallas, Bill & Sookie go to Dallas, TX to solve a mystery involving the vampires living there.
As a side note, HBO’s new series True Blood is based on these books. The series was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best TV Series Drama and Anna Paquin (who plays Sookie Stackhouse) won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series. I haven’t seen the show (we don’t get HBO), but I’ve heard that it’s good…and also that there’s a lot of sex on it (one of the characters is a bit of a womanizer).
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale & Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black
I picked up Tithe on a whim as I was browsing in the library and the cover caught my attention. I’d never heard of the author, Holly Black, nor read any of her books. Tithe is about a 16 year-old girl, Kaye, who travels the country with her mom’s rock band. Kaye has been visited by faeries in her childhood, and–when she and her mother are forced to move back to her childhood home–she meets an injured faerie knight. This meeting begins the process of Kaye being catapulted into the faerie’s world. I enjoyed Tithe enough to check out another of Black’s books, Valiant, the next time I was at the library. That said, I have to admit that Black’s books are a little edgy for my taste. The thing I do like about her is that she creates a new social structure and brings together a faerie vocabulary in her stories, which I find refreshing. Tithe & Valiant aren’t necessarily intertwined stories (you can read one without reading the other), but I recently found out that Black wrote a sequel to Tithe, called Ironside. Yep, I’ll be reading that one, too.
Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
First off, I have to say that I’ve read, and liked, Emily Giffin‘s books Something Borrowed and Something Blue. However, I didn’t care for Baby Proof. Giffin’s stories are very…well, girly. If you’re me (a tom-boy), you have to be in the right mood to read them. I think I could have enjoyed Baby Proof, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for at the time I sat down to read it. The story is about a woman, Claudia, who doesn’t want to have children. After much searching, she meets a man, Ben, who doesn’t wish to procreate, either. They fall in love and get married. Fast forward a few years and–boom!–Ben decides that he wants a baby. He tells Claudia that having a baby is now a deal-breaker for him and he will leave her if she doesn’t change her mind. The majority of the book is about Claudia’s inner struggle between the man she loves and the child-free marriage she wants to have.
I also have a Stephen King novel–I just haven’t started it yet. I’ve never read anything by King–I always assumed that his kind of writing isn’t my kind of reading. But, I figured I should read one of his books just so I can say that I have! And I found a Black Stallion book that I must have missed when I was younger. Yes, I know I’m “too old” for those books, but I really don’t care. They were my favorites back in the day!
I’m pretty sure that I didn’t read 25 books in 2008 , so I’m trying to get a head start on 2009. 🙂
Aspiring Alverna 