Average Girl Reads

My friend Anna, the Eclectic Librarian, tagged me for one of those getting-to-know-you memes. No one ever tags me for memes, so I'm assuming she ran out of people to tag :-). These things are so hard to do because I have trouble finding anything fascinating to list. Anyway, here are seven things that some of you know may not know about me:

1. I learned to tap dance while I was pregnant with my twins.

2. I think that drinking milk out of a plastic cup is gross.

3. I love fashion and hairstyles from the past century. Most fashion past the 1970s bores me.

4. For years, jalapenos made my mouth numb. Not fiery from heat, but numb like I was having a dental procedure. No one believes me when I tell them this.

5. I have a hard edge, but I cry at Hallmark commercials.

6. My favorite cuisine is Asian. I could probably eat egg rolls every day for a month.

7. One of my favorite candies is Swedish Fish.

It was difficult for me to come up with these answers, so I'm not going to tag anyone else. You guys can thank me later :-).

Cover Girls by T.D. Jakes

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
I abandoned this story after 25 pages. Perhaps I will give it another chance at some point, but I couldn't get past the slangy tone of the writing. This surprised me because I am generally attracted to slang from all cultures. However, the black urban hipster tone of this book smacked me in the face from the first page. As a black girl, I hear plenty of this speech pattern in real life and it doesn't bother me. It can actually be quite funny when used properly. In writing, it comes off as stilted.






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To Know Her by Name by Lori Wick

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the best Wick book I've read so far. It is from one of her earlier series. Others have said that Wick's early books are better than the later ones, and this book is evidence of that. The storyline, about a woman who masquerades as a man and works for the US Treasury Department in the 1870s, is more exciting than Wick's other books and the writing isn't nearly as stilted. None of the "this woman" problem shows up here.

The books in the Rocky Mountain Memories series don't intertwine much with each other, so you could read this book out of order without missing anything. If I were to recommend Wick to someone who has never read her stuff, this book would be at the top of the list.


View all my reviews.

Lately, I've been consuming a lot of romances, and most of them have had a similar writing style. I've been enjoying the work of Lori Wick in particular. Not only have I been reading her books, but I've been listening to them on audio while I work, as well -- all Wick, all the time. Now I am wondering if such an immersion is making it difficult for me to enjoy other styles.

Yesterday, I tried to listen to Alexander McCall Smith's Tears of the Giraffe, and it took great will power not to abandon it after the first disc. I've been listening to his online novel Corduroy Mansions and enjoying it. I also liked the movie based on the first book of his series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Because I like his other work, I was surprised to not like Tears of the Giraffe. The problem I had with it is what I call his musing style.

In most romances I've read, you have passages that are like this:

Girl goes here. Girl does this. Girl talks to Boy. Girl and Boy go do that.

In McCall Smith's stories, the passages are more like this:

Girl wakes up and muses for five minutes about something that happened in the past that is totally related to the plot. Girl makes a cup of tea and muses about something else that has nothing to do with the plot. Girl gets in car and while driving, she muses about something else that doesn't further the plot.

In Corduroy Mansions, he does the same thing, but the musings don't bother me as much. For one, that book takes place in London so the musings are about things I can relate to (unlike the dogs and chickens in his African books). Secondly, I'm listening to Corduroy Mansions as a serial. The meandering pace of the book is easier to swallow if you only get a small bit each day.

I"m hoping that my readers (do I have any readers?) can help me. I am trying to find books for preteens with overweight heroines. When I did a search, I found a million blogs talking about the Beacon Street Girls series. Unfortunately, my library doesn't carry that series. I also found a picture book for elementary school students and several books for teenagers, but my daughter is only 12. Any other suggestions?

I forgot a couple things in my last post. First, I didn't link to my post with my impressions of The Plain Janes. Here ya go.

Another thing I forgot to mention was a book that I abandoned this past week. Book Smart by Jane Mallison was not the type of book I thought it would be. I'm always going through phases where I want to improve myself, so I am attracted to books that purport to help me with that. I thought that this book would be a study guide to help me understand the classics more deeply. Instead, it is just a list of recommended books with a short synopsis of each. I'm not saying Book Smart is a bad book, but it wasn't what I was looking for.

Speaking of abandonment, I made a shelf for abandoned books on my Goodreads account. There are several reasons why I give up on a book. It isn't always because I don't like it. Sometimes I know I am not in the mood to enjoy a certain book properly. Often I get 1/3 of the way through a book and am not sure if I want to finish it, but there are other books that I definitely want to read before they are due back at the library. I figured it would be a good idea to keep a list of the books I had given up on in case I want to revisit them.

As for today, I did read a book. It was a tiny book -- Babymouse: Queen of the World. I keep forgetting that I can power through the kids' books and the graphic novels quickly. I put them on the bottom of the reading stack and then the library due date comes up before I can read them. I should really move them to the top of my list.

My head is swimming and aching and the same time. I'm feeling better than I was this morning, but I don't know if I will be devoting my day to reading. Last week, I managed to get a good bit of reading done, all of it rather light. I finished four books:

The Plain Janes (graphic novel)
Leave a Candle Burning (audiobook; end of the Tucker Mills trilogy)
As Time Goes By (2nd book of the Californians series)
Sean Donovan (3rd book of the Californians series)

My Sunday Salon posts must be getting boring because I am still on that Lori Wick jag! Well, I've almost finished reading all of her pioneer books, so I will be moving on to other books soon. Trust me, I have 105 books on my TBR list and not all of them are Christian romances :-).

COMING UP THIS WEEK: I have another Lori Wick (of course!), but I also have several graphic novels that I want to read before they have to go back to the library. One of my goals is to post more about my reading during the week, as well.

The Plain Janes is a graphic novel published by Minx, which is the DC Comics imprint aimed toward teenage girls. The story is about a girl named Jane who survives a bombing of a cafe in her city. This freaks her parents out so much that they move the family to a small suburban town. She immediately identifies with a group of misfit girls and sets about making friends with them, while trying to make sense of what happened to her. The main way Jane manages to cope is through art and beautifying the world around her.

I have three daughters and a son and they all like this book. It is a quick read, but that doesn't meant it isn't deep. This book touches on a lot of issues without beating the kids over the head with them -- fitting in, showing kindness to strangers, and dealing with fear, to name a few. The art is black and white, crisp and clear. I'm not a fan of the hairy R. Crumb/Harvey Pekar underground art style, and this is the opposite of that.

The book has a tentative ending. It is conclusive enough to feel like an ending, but there is still a vague feeling that there should be more story. It isn't the cliff-hanger ending that you get with a standard comic book, but it does leave you wanting to spend more time with these characters. I guess that is good because there is already a second book, Janes in Love. I've read that a total of five books are planned, and I say bring 'em on!

This week's prompt, from Just One More Page:

I don't tend to read while I'm sick. My illnesses usually involve weakness or dizziness, so focusing my eyes well enough to read is difficult. When I am sick, TV is my friend.

I do have one story about reading while on bed rest, however. When I was pregnant with my first child, I read The Feast of All Saints by Anne Rice. It is one of her few books that isn't about vampires. It was what book bloggers call a chunkster, but since I was on bed rest I had nothing but time. It wasn't a very good book, but I pushed myself to finish it. I have yet to attempt another Anne Rice book because her name will forever be associated with nausea, cramping, and unsatisfactory endings. I'm not sure that I want to taint another author by reading her books while I'm sick!

This could be considered a good reading week for me, if you count audiobooks. I made it through three of them at work, and that gave me a chance to discover a new audiobook pet peeve. Up until now, all the audiobooks I've listened to were produced by the same company and they use bed music at the end of each CD to signal that it is almost time to change to the next disc. Remember the book-and-cassette sets we used to get as kids where there was a beep to tell you to turn the page? It's like that. Well, the last audiobook I listened to didn't have that. Each CD ended abruptly. I know that it doesn't take long to figure out that it is time to change the CD, but I would prefer a little cue.

COMPLETED: As I said, I finished three audiobooks this week.

Leave a Candle Burning : This is the last book in Lori Wick's Tucker Mills trilogy and it was read by Barbara Rosenblat, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite readers. All three of the books in this series are deeper than the other Wick romances that I've read. The challenges seem more realistic and Wick tied the three books together more than in her Big Sky Dreams series.

A Lady of High Regard: This is another Christian romance, but not one by Wick this time. It is the first book in the Ladies of Liberty series written by Tracie Peterson. Her book is based in roughly the same time period as Wick's pioneer romances, but it takes place in the high society world of Philadelphia. The setting gives this book a different flavor since there is more to do in a city than eat, go to church, and have babies :-).

The Christian content of this book is different as well. A Wick book reads like a combination novel and devotional with lots of Bible quotes. A Lady of High Regard has characters who are obviously Christians and not afraid to say it, but Peterson doesn't do a lot of preaching. I'm finding that some authors use Christian novels as a vehicle to impart Bible knowledge, while others consider a clean book with a "Thank God" or two in it Christian. I haven't decided if I have a preference of one over the other.

Austenland: This novel by Shannon Hale was fun and one of the few romances where I wasn't 100% sure who the heroine was going to end up with until 3/4 through the book. It is about a woman in her 30s who is obsessed with "Pride and Prejudice" to the point that it is causing difficulty in her relationships. The reader, Katherine Kellgren, totally made this book. She added emphasis to words that went with the tone of the book even when it wasn't spelled out in the text. Her acting skills almost changed this from an audiobook to an audio play.

I also finished reading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist this week. I was on a long waiting list at the library for this book. I'm not sure that it was worth waiting three months for, but I'm glad that I read it before watching the movie. I think that reading the novel will give more depth to the movie once I watch it.

ABANDONED: I dropped Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen after about 80 pages. I want to finish it eventually, but I don't feel the need to put it at the top of my list. The author's attitude toward her job helping 9/11 vicitims' families was off-putting. I don't mind a bit of snarkiness, but the way she talked about her job made me uncomfortable.

CURRENTLY READING: I'm finally reading The Plain Janes. It is a graphic novel from Minx, DC Comics' line aimed at girls. I checked it out for myself, but all of my kids got to it first. If the speed with which I am reading this book is any indication, I should move all the graphic novels on my bedside table to the top of the stack and power right through them. That way I could be finished with a good bit of my stack before my next library trip.

COMING UP NEXT: Who knows? I enjoyed Shannon Hale's Austenland and I have her graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge in hand, so I may go with it next. However, The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime and The Clothes They Stood Up In are both due back this week so I may try to speed-read those between now and Wednesday.

Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist is an example of the different levels within the genre of young adult novels. Oftentimes I believe that if a book is labeled YA, then it is safe reading material for my 15-year-old and doesn't require a pre-reading by me. I forget that there is a wide range of suitability within the YA genre, just as there is in the world of adult novels. This book definitely belongs on the adult end of the young adult shelf.

The story, authored collaboratively by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, is done in an alternating "he said, she said" style. It chronicles the meeting of a bass player and the daughter of a record company executive at a nightclub and the all-night adventure that follows. They both are trying to get over their exes, who also showed up at the same club. Will Nick and Norah let themselves fall in love, or will they go a-begging back to their former lovers?

This is the kind of book that I would have read when I was 18 and thought that it made me cooler than my peers. The prose has that hip, mile-a-minute, name-dropping cadence that is familiar to fans of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Gilmore Girls. It is the sort of writing that makes you feel like you are in with the In Crowd if you get all the references, but also makes you feel totally behind the times if you don't.

Another aspect that would be totally over my daughter's head is all the talk about sex. A major part of the text is devoted to how Norah feels about her sex life and her embarrassing lack of experience. I'm not necessarily a prude; my girl M is going to be 16 in a few weeks and I have been slowly introducing her to more mature books and movies. On her own, though, she tends to keep herself out of the deep end of the pool. In the parlance of this book, M is a straight edge. I honestly don't think she would understand much of it.

Bottom line? Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a quick and enjoyable read about that lovely and confusing rush of emotions at the beginning of a new relationship. As far as being YA, I think it stretches the boundaries of that genre. It reminds me a bit of the British show Skins, which is about teenagers but not something most parents would let a teenager watch. I know that I will be waiting a few years before I hand this book to M.

The Year of Living Biblically falls into a strange genre that doesn't have a name. The book chronicles A. J. Jacobs' attempt to follow the Bible as literally as possible for a year. I've heard some people call this type of writing "performance journalism" or "stunt memoirs". Whatever it is called, they seem to have become more popular in recent years. This is good for me because I tend to enjoy them, and this book didn't fail to satisfy.

Jacobs doesn't just sit in his apartment and grow his beard, although his facial hair is mentioned a lot in the book. He focuses on the biblical rules concerning eating, prayer, purity, and a host of other things. He also went out to visit many different Jewish and Christian groups to get a feel for what they were really like behind the media's portrait of them. All of this was done while working at a men's magazine, raising a toddler, and trying to conceive another child with his wife.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I almost didn't read this book due to negative reviews. Thankfully, I changed my mind. I didn't find Jacobs' tone to be as snarky as many people suggested. There were certainly many amusing passages where Jacobs described other peoples' reactions to his projects, but I never felt that he crossed the line into disrespect. As a matter of fact, I found many of his observations gave me something to ponder in my walk as a Christian. Looking at the Bible through Jacobs' eyes renewed the desire to dig into the Bible myself. This book isn't a devotional, but I would recommend it to my Christian friends.

Although I've sampled several Librivox and Podiobooks offerings, my experience with traditional audiobooks has been limited. Until recently, the last audiobook I checked out from the library was back when Sue Grafton was still on the letter "D" in her alphabet mysteries :-).

I started my current audiobook experience because I was developing a mild obsession with Lori Wick's pioneer romances and hated waiting until the end of the work day to get back to the one I was reading. Her stories have turned out to be simple enough to follow on audio while I work; unfortunately, the library only has three of them on CD. So I had to go on the hunt for other books. So far my results have been mixed.

The bad: I picked up Fern Michaels' Hey Good Lookin' on a whim while I was trying to find another pioneer romance. The story was interesting enough but there seemed to be chunks missing. At the end of the last CD, there was some music and then some credits for the book. It was then that I found out that the audiobook was an abridged version of the original book. It wasn't marked anywhere on the case itself. I understand why a book might be abridged; the problem for me was the editing doesn't seem to have been done very well. A character was sent out to get information but the scene where he reports it is missing, leaving the impression that the villian got off scot-free. I think I will try to make sure I pick unabridged versions from now on.

The good: I'm having much better luck with Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith. I found out about this online audiobook from another book blogger, but I can't remember which one (I've got to get better at jotting that kind of info down!). A new episode is being offered every weekday in audio and text form on the London Telegraph's website. I came in late, so I still have a backlog of 50 episodes to keep me busy. Once the 100 episodes have been posted,
the book is then going to be sold in traditional book form.

Some are viewing this as the modern version of Dickens' serial novels in newspapers, but Corduroy Mansions isn't particularly revolutionary in the online world. Authors like Mur Lafferty and Matthew Wayne Selznick have done the same thing with their books. The difference is that McCall Smith is a well-known author and has partnered with a major newspaper. Hopefully, this venture is successful and open doors for other lesser-known authors.

As for the story, I am enjoying it. It is following the lives of various people who live in the same apartment building. If I had to use one word to describe the writing style, I would say "gentle". Last year I watched the movie version of McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and it had the same feel. The characters' problems aren't earth-shattering, yet I still am caught up in them.

The readers: Several bloggers have talked about what genre is easier to listen to and follow on audio, but I haven't seen anyone talk about the readers. For me, the reader makes a big difference. The reader of the Lori Wick books, Barbara Rosenblat, has such a pleasant and engaging voice that I would be willing to try a book outside my normal genre preferences if she was reading it. I also have a fondness for British voices, so I pricked up my ears as soon as I heard the first sentence of Corduroy Mansions. The reader for that book is a British TV actor and he manages to differentiate between the characters without really doing voices. I've heard readers who go overboard trying to do voices, and it sounds like they are auditioning for Saturday-morning cartoon work.

Do you have any readers that you know by name and follow? Do you prefer male or female readers?

Sometimes I think I will never learn my lesson. I read comments about The Year of Living Biblically on Goodreads after I had only read 10 pages of the book. My enthusiasm for reading the book took a dip as I read about how several readers felt the author was too snarky and flippant. I wasted the rest of my Sunday reading time debating whether I wanted to finish reading the book based on the information.

This isn't the first time that this has happened. The temptation to read others' opinions makes me forget how easily influenced I am. If I read or watch something on my own without any preview, then I can form my own opinion. If I read reviews first, then it is difficult for me to form an opinion that isn't tainted by the reviews, especially if they are negative.

Do any of you have the same problem? Do you have to avoid commentary about a book until you have read it yourself, or are you unfazed by other people's negative thoughts on the book?

This week's Musing Mondays prompt, from Just One More Page:

Do you have a system for borrowing out books from the library? Do you know what you're going to borrow before you get there? How often do you borrow out books?

It is rare that I have time to browse the library stacks and pick books at random. ABM used to drop me off once a month for an hour and I would find as many books as I could. With work and kids and such, I don't have the chance to do that any more.

My library's online reserve system, which has only been in place for a little over a year, has been instrumental in bringing more books into my house. I go online and reserve books and ABM picks them up. He likes this because he doesn't have to find time in his schedule to take me to the library; he can just pick them up on the way home. I like it because I no longer feel rushed when picking out books.

Since we have several readers in the house, ABM goes to the library every week. My kids read pretty quickly, so I like to have a fresh supply of books on hand for them. Also, half the books I reserve are rejected as soon as I see them. When I went to the library personally, I could flip through a book and know right away if it was for me. Now I pick books based on a brief description or a friend's recommendation.

The way I reserve books has changed since I started Goodreads. Previously, I would check the library's site for a book as soon as I heard about it and reserve it if they had it. I did this so I wouldn 't forget about the book. Since October, I've been adding books to my Goodreads TBR shelf instead of requesting them right away. Now that I have over 100 titles on the list, my plan for 2009 is to reserve books from the top of the list while adding new books I've heard of to the bottom of the list. I haven't decided yet if I will delete books from the list that aren't available at my library. Maybe I will make a new list for them so I can check the library again later.

Last week I finished off four books! Two were short books that I started that week and two were books I started the week before. I guess the lack of new shows on TV freed me up to turn to reading.

Blue Like Jazz was the Christian philosophy book I commented on last week. I didn't like it much, but I made myself finish reading it. I don't want to get back into the habit of avoiding challenging books.

The Marriage Benefit was not exactly what I expected. The subtitle, The Surprising Rewards of Staying Together, made me think that it would be full of statistics showing that married people are healthier/richer/thinner than the single population. Instead, it was filled with scenarios based on the couples the author treated in his marriage counseling practice. It reminded me of the long-running column "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" from Ladies Home Journal magazine. It was an interesting read, but not what I thought.

The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own was written by Nina Garcia, a former fashion editor and judge on the reality show Project Runway. It is another book that was fun, but not exactly what I expected. I was looking for a book that would tell me how to build a wardrobe from scratch by giving me classic pieces that will work together. The book did list some classic clothing items, but it was more of a history of when these items appeared on the fashion scene. I picked up a few tips, but I am still looking for that wardrobe-building book.

The completion of Moonlight on the Millpond marked a change in my reading habits because it was an audio version. As recently as a few months' ago, I've had trouble focusing when listening to audiobooks. I was amazed that I was able to follow this book and do data entry at the same time. True, it isn't a terribly deep novel, but it is still an accomplishment for me. I am checking my library to see if it has audio versions of some of the books on my TBR list. I have such a short lunch break that I don't get much reading done and my evenings after work are filled with family stuff. Listening to audiobooks while I work will help me pare that list down.

CURRENTLY READING: I'm only a few pages into The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible and I can already tell that it is going to be funny. The title page shows how much the author's beard grew without shaving for a year. I can't wait to dive in and read what else other biblical rules he follows.

On CD, I'm about five chapters into Just Above a Whisper, the second book in Lori Wick's Tucker Mills trilogy. Yes, I am still on the Christian pioneer romance kick. Since I tend to be a bit of a completist at times, I will probably keep reading them until I've worked my way through Wick's entire catalog.

I've never been a person who writes in the margins of her books. The extent of my interaction with a book is usually reading it. Occasionally, I will actually make a recipe or pattern found in a book. Making notes in the book hasn't even been a temptation until recently.

As much as I hate to admit it, my memory skills have taken a nosedive. I can remember useless trivia like who starred in a certain movie, but I'm having trouble recalling whether I made a certain recipe. I've prepared the same bad recipe several times, only remembering as I eat it that I didn't like it the first time. Clearly, I need to start making notes!

The funny thing is that I feel bad about writing in my books. Perhaps it is because I have been a library gal for so long that I don't believe the books are truly mine. Maybe it points to a bigger problem. I experience the same hesitation when I dig in my backyard or hammer a nail in the wall. It's like I'm waiting for someone to give me permission.

To get over myself in this case, I am trying to convince myself that the next owner of my cookbooks may benefit from my notes. Who knows -- maybe some historian will unearth my copy of the Fix-it And Forget-it Cookbook and learn something about how working women fed their families in 2009 :-).