24 Hours Later

It's been 24 hours since Penny arrived (at this point, more like 36-40 hours), and things are going well.

Oh, wait a minute.  I didn't tell you about this part, did I?  I named my new Kindle Penny.  She shipped from Pennsylvania (I know this because I checked the tracking every 5 minutes from the time I ordered her until she showed up on my doorstep on Friday), and I thought, "Pennsylvania.  Penny.  Perfect!"  I'm from Pennsylvania originally, too, so we started out with a lot in common. :p

It is different from my original Kindle, and there's been a little bit of an adjustment period.  The page turn buttons operate differently.  These click out (which is how I expected the K2's buttons to work, so I guess this is more of an un-adjustment), while the K2's buttons click on the inside edge.  I think I'm mostly used to the change in the buttons, but it is still weird every once in a while.  Also, there is now a page back button on both the left and right hand sides.  On the K2 the back button was on the left, and the button in that position on the right was the Home button.  I'm still reaching for that right hand back button when I want Home.

I don't miss the keyboard at all.  The only time I used it was when I would create a collection, and I'd type in the name.  (TBR, freebies, read, etc.)  Now there's a keyboard that pops up on the screen, and you use the up, down, left, right key to pick the letters one at a time.  Tedious, but creating new collections isn't exactly a daily project.

The funny thing about the change in size and button location is that I sometimes try to navigate as if I'm reading on my Sony Pocket.  They have 10 buttons down the right side that allow you to pick which book you want off the list.  With the Kindle you still have to use navigation buttons at the bottom center of the device to pick your book.  You basically do it the same way you do on the old Kindle, except the button is in a different place-- coincidentally the same spot that it's in on the Pocket, so that probably assists in the brain glitch.

So those are the things that are weird or different or that I just plain have to adjust to.

I'm loving that it is significantly lighter than the old Kindle.  The screen looks really good, and even though the overall unit is much smaller the screen is the same size.  The advanced e-ink gives a sharper image, and there's greater contrast between the text and the background, which makes it easier on the eyes.  There's none of the screen "flash" that so many people hated in earlier versions.  And it's much faster.  Sometimes, with the old Kindle, I would give it a command-- click the Home button for instance-- and then I'd sit and wait.  And wait.    And WAIT for it to finally take me there.  There's no waiting with the Penny.  I hit the Home button, and I'm on the Home screen.  No waiting.  It's lovely.  Even transferring stuff is faster.  The K2 was on Whispernet (Sprint, I believe), and signal strength isn't always so great.  Penny operates off of my home wifi, and so far it's worked like a dream.

To wrap up, there are some things that are different, and I'm adjusting.  There are some other things that work really well-- better than my original-- and I'm thrilled about that.  At 24 hours into our relationship (or 36-40 hours, whatever) I'm very happy with my purchase.  And at $79 I feel it was an excellent deal.

Oh, and the lip balm of the day is: Gummy Bear.  Yum!

My Squick Is Not Your Squick

Yesterday I read Brier's Bargain by Carol Lynne, and it kind of squicked me out.  You see, Brier was abused as a child, and brain damage from that abuse left him mentally handicapped.  His partner, Jackie, is of normal intelligence.

Brier is a sweet, caring person, and he's described as being high functioning.  He holds down a 40 hour a week job (although it's at a company where his twin brother is a long time employee, and it's not entirely clear what he does for those 40 hours), he gets his driver's license during the course of the story, and buys a car with his own money saved for the purpose.  But he's also described as being child-like and having problems controlling his temper (a not-uncommon problem for people who've had head injuries).

This book was actually kind of odd.  It's labeled as being the first book in the series, but it obviously picks up in the middle of the story.  After reading it I did a little research and discovered that Lynne changed publishers, and she had to change the name of the series, although it's a continuation of the old one.  As the story starts, Brier is going about his daily life and missing his lover, Jackie.  Jackie is on assignment in the Middle East.  Brier hasn't heard from Jackie in a while, and as a reader it's not clear if the relationship is real or if it's all in Brier's mind.  It turns out that Jackie was injured in an explosion, and everyone kept the news from Brier.

Jackie comes home missing part of his leg, and Brier settles in to take care of him.  At this point it's clear that there really is a relationship between the two men.  What's not clear is why.  We never get to see the falling in love portion of the relationship, even in flashback.  Why did Jackie, a man who's highly skilled and speaks at least two languages, fall in love with a man with the mind of a child, who at 35 is just learning to take care of himself?

There was more that left a bad taste in my mouth, like the fact that Brier was sexually abused while institutionalized.  It left me wondering if Brier really had the capacity to consent to a sexual relationship.  At one point Brier asks Jackie about sex with girls.  His only knowledge or experience of sex was with his abuser and then Jackie.  Can anyone really be gay or straight when they're so ignorant of their options?  I don't doubt that Brier loves Jackie.  But in a way it feels like a continuation of the abuse, not a choice freely made.  Would I feel differently if this was a straight relationship instead of a gay one?  I'd like to think not, but I might.  Would I feel differently if Brier was of normal intelligence?  Definitely.

My discomfort with this story has me thinking about disability and my attitude toward different types.  Brier has no problem with Jackie losing part of his leg.  It makes no difference at all in the way he feels about him.  He works hard to learn how to care for Jackie, because he doesn't want his lover to be in pain.  And yet it's a little creepy to me that Jackie takes the same attitude toward Brier and his disabilities.  People who are mentally handicapped are just as worthy of love as everyone else.  But it squicks me when that love comes from someone of normal intelligence.  It feels like the partner of normal intelligence is somehow taking advantage.  And in this situation Brier's history of abuse just increases that feeling.

Am I a terrible person for feeling this way?  I like to think that I believe that everyone is equal and deserves equal respect.  (Except, you know, for asshats who have personally shown that they don't deserve my respect.)  Does this squick come from a reasonable urge to protect someone who may not have the capacity to make the best decisions for themselves, or is my inner asshat showing?  I don't think any less of Jackie because of his physical disability, and would think quite a bit less of anyone who would hold it against him.

The choice of Brier as a romantic lead was a bold one.  I'm all for pushing boundaries and giving all kinds of people a voice in fiction.  But this one left me unsettled.

If anyone wants to check out the book in question, Brier's Bargain will be available tomorrow, Monday, for free from All Romance eBooks.  Or, you can weigh in now and tell me I'm an asshat.

Re-Discovering

Last fall, in a burst of creative desperation, I took Lani/Lucy's Discovery class.  I'd just moved away from the home I loved to live with my parents on the other side of the country.  The yankee side.  The class was my attempt to hang on to my image of who I was as a person before my health trampled me.

It wasn't a terribly successful venture, not through any fault of Lani's.  The day after I arrived in Massachusetts my parents got an offer on their house.  What might have been difficult suddenly became impossible.  I attended all the classes, but there was no time or space or energy to do the assignments or participate in any meaningful way.

At about the same time I got the idea for the book review blog, and suddenly my attention was split even further.  About a month ago I decided that I really wanted to get serious about the blog.  I want the reviews to go up like clockwork.  I want to have interesting reading related essays at least a couple times a month.  Good steady content will drive more people to the site and increase comments.  Eventually, it will become what I want it to be: a conversation about books among people who love them.  But that relies on me reading and reviewing at a steady rate, at least once a week.  My current reading project, which should wrap up next week I hope, hasn't allowed that.  But after the first of the year I want to be going great guns.

The desire to review, the personal train wreck of the class, and the fact that I've done basically no fiction writing in the last four years led me to the idea that fiction writing wasn't the dream for me anymore.  I decided to quietly shelve the idea.  Nothing else about my life was what I'd dreamed or hoped or even wanted.  Walking away seemed like the right thing to do.

That, of course, is when the itch returned.  The idea, the very, very small idea.  Someone laughing.  They're happy.  I have not the tiniest clue who they are or what their story might be.  But I think I want to write it.  Just for me.  Not for a publisher.  Not for my imagined future adoring fans.  Just for me. 

My happiest times writing were back when I first started.  Every night I'd come home from work, eat dinner, and then sit down to write on my word processor.  (Did you ever use one of those?  It was like the bastard child of a typewriter and a Speak & Spell.)  Every night I'd work on my story.  I wasn't picturing the beta readers, I wasn't wondering what some editor or agent might think.  I was just telling my story to a very interested party-- me.  I want to go back to that.  I want to write because it's fun and I like it, and damn what anyone else thinks.  But first I need a story.  So I'm going to do Discovery again.

Lani leaves the class recording up and available to class members.  Tonight I downloaded them.  Maybe next week or maybe sometime after the first of the year I'm going to go through them again.  I want to find out who that laughing person is.  I want to know why they were laughing.  And I want to laugh along with them. 

Ordinarily I'd wonder if I was setting myself up for another fall, to do this again after failing so recently.  But you know, it's funny.  It was only two months ago, but it feels like a lifetime.  Like I was a different person then than I am now.  I think there's value for me in those lessons if I just play around with it, take it at my own pace, and see what happens.

I still intend to pull my act together with the book blog.  I feel bad that I haven't been as steady and organized as I would have liked.  (Also, with only two of us reviewing, the work load is much heavier than I anticipated.  If anyone else would like to write a review or two, please let me know.)  I think if I can develop a routine for all of my writing, and that includes blogging here, too, the whole process will smooth out.

It's the getting started that's hard.

A review home of my own

I'm really digging this whole book reviewing thing.  It's fun to take all those little conversations with myself as I read a book and put them out there for others to consider, too.  It's fun to spend more time after I finish a novel really analyzing what worked and what didn't and why.

But from the first one it felt like this isn't the right place for them.  This blog is only tangentially about books.  It's called It's All About Me for a reason.  I considered starting a second blog just for reviews, but since I've only managed, what, 3 reviews in the last six or eight weeks?  Yeah, that'd go nowhere fast.

So here's what I'm thinking.  A group review blog.  The details can be worked out when it's more than just me babbling about it.  But generally I'd like to find at least 4 bloggers willing to commit to one book review every other week.  That should work out (assuming my math is correct-- something no one should ever assume) to two book reviews per week on the blog.  If we find more than 4 bloggers we could either go with more reviews posted every week or back off the commitment by each blogger to one every 3 or even 4 weeks.

I'd like to be pretty broad about the genres.  I read romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and YA.  It would be nice if we all connected in some way with our reading tastes, so that there is some continuity.  But I'd love to have co-bloggers who read in different genres, too, and review things I would never have discovered on my own.

What do you think?  Sound good?  Crazy rambling of a woman who really needs to get some sleep?  If it's something you think you'd like to do, let me know and we can start talking details.

Review: Dark and Disorderly by Bernita Harris

"I was standing there naked when my dead husband walked into my bathroom..."

Lillie St. Claire is a Talent, one of the rare few who can permanently dispatch the spirits of the dead that walk the earth. Her skills are in demand in a haunted country, where a plague of ghosts is becoming a civic nuisance.
Those skills bring her into conflict with frightened citizens who view Talents as near-demons. Her husband comes to see her as a Freak; so when Nathan dies after a car crash, she is relieved to be free of his increasingly vicious presence. Lillie expects to be haunted by Nathan's ghost, but not to become Suspect #1 for her husband's murder and reanimation.

But what's most surprising of all is the growing attraction between her and psi-crime detective John Thresher. He thinks that Lillie killed Nathan--and Nathan must agree, because his zombie is seeking revenge. Now she and Thresher must work together to solve her husband's murder--before his corpse kills her...

I have some very mixed feelings about this book.  I loved the concept, and the first line is a real attention-getter.  (And the cover is beautiful, but as we've previously established, I'm shallow like that.  Show me a pretty cover and I'm half way to buying the book.)  This one has been on my list of Carina Press titles to read since I spotted it just before it was released, and I was so excited when I was able to grab it for 99 cents from Kobo last week.

However.

The reading experience just didn't live up to my excitement.  There was something a little off about the writing.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite right, either.  In some places the phrasing or expressions used were distracting and left me wondering if the author was British and hadn't quite nailed the Americanisms.  (I checked-- she's Canadian.)  Then, as I was writing this, I started to wonder if it really was set in the US or if that was just my assumption.  I've been skimming the book again, looking for clues, and as of page 75 I'm still not sure.  This may seem like a dumb thing to nit pick about, but clearly it's still bugging me two days after finishing the book.  Where does this story take place?

Also, I wasn't completely in love with the main character, Lillie.  Most of the time I liked her, but there were one or two spots where she came perilously close to TSTL territory.  At one point in the story, she and Johnny are trying to make their way through a riot.  He tells her to run, and she decides to wade into the fight instead, because she doesn't want to be a coward and leave the others to fight.  The idea might be nice, but someone with no training, whom the crowd is actively trying to harm, is a liability not an asset in a situation like that.  If the professionals tell you to run, run baby run.  There was a scene late in the novel that really redeemed her risk taking for me, though.  (I won't give any specifics because I don't want to spoil anything.)  The fact that she took this risk when Johnny didn't want her to, and was able to give reasonable, clear headed reasons for putting herself in danger, really showed that she wasn't reckless.  She cared more about others than her own personal safety, which helped me like her as a character.

There were some things I really liked about the book, too.  The supernatural entities that we meet are interesting and grounded in existing myths.  Harris's concept of Talents and how the general public might accept them, or not, was different from a lot of other books in the genre, and I found that refreshing and probably pretty accurate considering human nature.  And this is a small thing, but I really like Dumbarton the spectral dog!

Johnny Thresher, and his relationship with Lillie, is something else I have some mixed feelings about.  Johnny is an enigma, and I definitely like the fact that there is much more to learn about him.  I love a romance that develops slowly over the course of several books, when well executed, so I had no problem with this plot element still being up in the air at the end of the book.  I didn't quite buy the chemistry between Johnny and Lillie, though.  I really wanted to, but I didn't.  The transitions between the mystery/supernatural storylines and the romance storyline were too abrupt and didn't feel natural.  Johnny seemed to blow hot and cold throughout the book, and Lillie's sometimes overreaction to him got annoying after a while.

That said, I think this book showed potential.  There were storylines that weren't resolved, not enough to be annoying but definitely enough to make you want to see what happens next.  And I'm hopeful that as the series progresses the romance will be worked more seamlessly into the narrative.  Overall, I'd give this a C-.  I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to, but I'm interested enough to give the next book in the series a try.

Review: Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville

After witnessing a mob hit, surgeon Jack Francisco is put into protective custody to keep him safe until he can testify. A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won't allow him to murder an innocent man. Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies. Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D's cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person who can help him reclaim the man he once was. As the day of Jack's testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives... but also fighting for their future. A future together.

I'm a little behind the times on this one- Zero at the Bone came in second in this year's DA BWAHA tournament.  It's the first time a GLBT novel has ranked anywhere near that high, so I figured it must be something special.  I was right.

I don't read a ton of m/m romance, but I've read enough to be at least familiar with the sub-genre.  This is by far the best written m/m romance I've ever read.  Jack and D are real people with serious, complex problems.  And while it took one of them some time accept the attraction, there was refreshingly little gay angst.  Jack and D have enough problems, serious life and death problems, without worrying about how family or society will feel about their relationship.

The outside threats to the couple weren't straightforward, either.  Jack has the mob after him, which is dangerous enough.  But D has been in the business for years and has built up some treacherous enemies himself.  The mystery of exactly who is pulling the strings kept me guessing through the middle of the book.

There were some things that bothered me about the book, however.  Jack and D had a tendency to squabble, which got annoying after a while.  I know that fights are often used in romance novels to up the tension and signal buried attraction.  But somehow that didn't work between these two.  It felt like the same argument over and over again, even if the subject wasn't the same.  I'd rather have seen some real conflict in those scenes than fights that never go anywhere.

Toward the end of the novel, D does some things to make it safe for Jack to go back to his old life.  But he refused to tell Jack at first what he's done.  The reader knows, so there's no mystery there, and there was nothing wrong or shocking in his actions, so I don't know what the point was.  It just created more unnecessary conflict in the relationship.  D had already revealed a lot about his life as a hitman, so why does he feel the need to hide this?  I was ready for these two to get their happy ending already, and it was frustrating to me that this refusal to share caused problems.

Which leads me to my biggest problem with the book.  Romance has expanded to encompass a lot of things-- heroes can be cowboys or vampires or, in the case of D, even hitmen.  They can be set in the past or the future or on a whole different planet.  For many readers, including me, the couple can be gay, straight, or more than a couple.  But there is one contract you can't break.  There has to be a Happily Ever After.  You can even bend that one a little bit and leave them with a Happy For Now in certain circumstances.  But there is no Happily Ever anything for Jack and D at the end of this book, which seriously impacts my reading satisfaction.

If the author had finished with Chapter 29, I could have believed as a reader in Jack and D's happy ending.  But the author spends the last 10% of the book (30 pages or so?  I don't know for sure as I read this on my Kindle and it gives me percentages, not pages.) showing Jack and D having relationship trouble.  Realistic?  Yes.  But romance lovers read for fantasy, not reality.  They clearly love each other, but neither is happy in the relationship as it stands on the last page, and that is a disappointment to me as a reader.  There's a note after the last line that says, "Jack and D's adventures aren't over," and invites the reader to visit the author's website.  The website has a couple of short stories and says that Ms Seville is working on her next book featuring these two heroes, which is good to know.  But I want some sort of relationship resolution now, in this book.  I don't want to have to find the author's website or wait for the next book.  It doesn't have to be Happily Ever After.  I'm OK with a sequel, although you don't see that too often in romance novels.  I'd like to read more about these two characters.  But to give me a satisfying reading experience I need at least a Happy For Now ending.

To sum up, the characters were well defined with exceptional depth.  But there were some problems, especially with the ending.  Overall, I'd give this one a B+.