The Re-Reading Project: The Princess

Key West, Florida – 1942

J.T. Montgomery stretched his long legs out in the motorboat, resting his injured calf against one of the crates in the bottom of the boat. He was the remarkably handsome product of generations of remarkably handsome people. His dark hair had been cut too short by the navy but that did not detract from his good looks: brilliant blue eyes, lips that could be as cold as marble or as soft and sweet as the balmy air surrounding him, a slight cleft in his chin, and a nose that on a smaller man would have been too large. His mother called it the Montgomery nose and said it was God’s attempt to protect their faces from all the fists aimed by people who didn’t like the Montgomery hardheadedness.

This is the post in which I confess my early addiction to romance novels. It was the summer of 1996 and I was 14 years old. We lived in a suburb of Atlanta called Marietta. Everybody was going crazy finishing the preparations for the summer Olympics. I was bored and had read all of my books several times, so I snuck an inappropriate book off my mother’s bookshelf. That book was Jude Deveraux‘s The Princess, published in 1987 (when I was 5). Each day, I read for a few hours, memorized the page number and then slipped the book back on the shelf before my mom came home. It took me longer to read than normal because I had to be sneaky, since I thought I wasn’t supposed to be reading it. My mother never seemed particularly interested in censoring my reading (I read my first Dean Koontz at age 10!), but it didn’t seem like the kind of book I should carry around the house for all to see.

In fact, I was so scared and later embarrassed to be seen reading romance that I later stuck the book into a slipcover, where it has remained, on my bookshelf, ever since.

It wasn’t my first romance novel, not quite. Once, while staying with my grandmother and aunt in Ohio, I discovered a shelf of Harlequin romance novels, all published around 1986 to maybe 1989. They all featured strong, career-minded women (in bold 80s power suits) falling in love with intractable men, often in exotic locales. They were, almost without exception, between 186 and 187 pages long, so I could easily read 2 a day, even though they already felt ridiculously dated just a few years after they were published. Because they were the same size as a lot of the books I was already reading (Christopher Pike, Richie Tankersly Cusick, Lurlene McDaniel and L.J. Smith) and because there wasn’t really any sex in them, the Harlequins didn’t seem inappropriate. My aunt even shipped her whole set of 1980s Harlequins to me after my visit and I must’ve re-read each of them several times before I bought new ones at the used bookstore (10 cents each, even in 1996).

There’s actually not a lot of sex in The Princess, either. More suggestions of sex. But when you’re a precocious bookworm of a 14 year old in 1996, a little sex seems like lurid stuff. I remember thinking this book was very romantic, a cross between Roman Holiday and Candleshoe, with some Anastasia thrown in. I have read lots and lots of romance novels since I was 14 (and I still read every Gaelen Foley book pretty much the second it’s published), but I’ve never re-read my first until now. In many ways, it has stood alone among all other romance novels in my imagination over the years – partly because it was my first “real” romance novel, partly because I don’t think I’ve ever read any others set during World War I and partly because while it is named The Princess, it is more J.T.’s story in many ways.

The fact that we start with him is a bit unusual (not exactly rare, but not typical, as romance novels are usually weighted more toward the female character, in my experience). The Princess (Aria) doesn’t appear until page 9 and doesn’t speak until page 11. We don’t get her perspective until Chapter Two (page 13). They’re both relatively stock types (I might be the only person on the planet who judges romance novels for their characters), but on the re-read, now, as a 32-year-old with lots more experience (with romance novels and in life), I just didn’t like either one of them. J.T. is autocratic and passionate, but I sometimes suspect he has a personality disorder. Aria is a shallow flake whose intelligence is really inconsistent, even taking into consideration she’s been kidnapped while on foreign soil and doesn’t understand a lot of what’s around her. They’re both incredibly mean and then randomly (and unbelievably) open and warm. I don’t buy that they’re falling for each other or that either one of them is learning or changing as an individual person (which are the things that characters usually do in romance novels). I was really disappointed.

Until about page 200, almost near the end of the book. Once they return to Aria’s homeland, I actually start caring a bit about them. It made me wish that the American misadventure of the first 200 pages had been collapsed down to about 50 pages, so we could get to the good stuff sooner. And then, of course, the nefarious plot to assassinate Aria (hardly the main point of the book, though it is the plot) is wrapped up in about a page and J.T. and Aria end up happily ever after in a surprise twist. That’s sarcasm, but not really, because it is surprising that two unlikable stock characters do end up somewhat convincingly in love with each other at the end.

I’m being a little harsh, because I’m grumpy that The Princess doesn’t stand the test of time for me. The same way I was getting grumpy reading the Stephanie Plumb books and the Sookie Stackhouse series. Once you read something that feels new, you really want it to follow through, and not resort to swiftly wrapped up plots and stock characters or easy tropes. Which reminds me of an author who makes me the grumpiest – Iris Johansen. I thought her early thrillers and romance novels were wonderful, but that annoying Eve Duncan character just kept popping up and suddenly all of Johansen’s books seemed like a 300-page cookie cutters with the names replaced. I’m afraid to re-read her romance novels, honestly, though I’ve considered trying in light of this project. But essentially, the grumpiness comes after the thrill of discovering a new author or character, of falling a little in love and being disappointed down the road. And, it’s got to be hard to write something that feels new every time, especially when you’re writing as much and as fast as romance writers generally do.

Jude Deveraux was already a well-established author when she published The Princess (the copyright is held by Deveraux Inc.) and as many romance novelists do, she wrote several books about the Montgomery/Taggert families, characters related to J.T. I was surprised to read, while researching the post, she lost $20 million when she was victimized by a ring of con artists posing as psychics after the death of her young son. Not only did she participate in the indictment of the matriarch of the con artists, but she used her experience as inspiration for her book Scarlet Nights.

And while I never read another Jude Deveraux book after The Princess, I was fully hooked on romance for a while. I could say that I’ve wasted a lot of time reading what are usually only mediocre books, but I think that it was an education. Because, in a genre that relies so heavily on format, stereotypes and tropes, a genre that is generally disregarded, you have to be inventive and inspired to rise even an inch above mediocre. If  you’ve written twenty romance novels and they each have four to eight sex scenes in them, you have to get pretty creative when you’re writing a new sex scene, mostly by writing as if it’s your first sex scene. There are several sex scenes in my novel The Winter Circus and I’ve been told that I’m very good at writing them. I probably owe a lot of that to my history as a romance novel reader. Beyond this obvious takeaway, I think they’ve taught me not to disregard the power of sentiment. How can romance novels (or romantic comedy movies) make us invest, even if we feel like they are silly and unrealistic? Because they’re grounded in very real sentiments that we all feel and they’re unafraid of dealing with sentiment nakedly, as if it is something new.

I’ve considered writing romance novels, of course, but I think what might have inspired me to write them was not so much any romance novel I’ve read or what I know about the genre and industry, but the fantasy inspired by Romancing the Stone (which is still one of my all-time comfort movies and face it, basically a romance novel come to life):

2013 Q2 Reading Report

I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve been in the process of moving during the end of June and all of July, so that’s why this 2nd Quarter Reading Report is coming so late. My 2nd Quarter in reading was strong, but the 3rd will be a bit paltry, I’m afraid (especially the first third) because of how time- and energy-consuming this move has been.

April

A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin – This book, along with the next, A Dance with Dragons, only follows half of the characters from the series. Considering how many of my favorite characters died in A Storm of Swords or were absent, I found this one a slower read. GRRM never really lets up, kills some more major characters and really tortures some others. Still, it was fascinating reading, the kind that just sucks me in and holds me hostage.

The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker – The premise of this book is brilliant: the planet’s rotation starts to slow, which makes the days gradually lengthen, causing a societal schism and also some very real environmental catastrophes. The story is narrated by a young girl who’s going through an ordinary adolescence in the middle of extraordinary circumstances. I was continually surprised by the details that made it all feel very, very real. Best of all, it could be read as a giant metaphor for our current times. Like this haunting sentence near the end of the book: “No one knows what the world will be like by the time I finish school.”

Her, Christa Parravani – A memoir about two twins, one who was raped, struggled to recover and overdosed, and the other who survived the loss of her sister. This book, while incredibly hard and heavy, is also beautiful. Parravani talks about family, sibling (and twin) bonds, competition between women, art and ownership, addiction and mental health. I read this book obsessively and the end was cathartic and earned. I felt like I’d been on a journey by the time I got there.

A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin – So, I got to find out what the other half of the characters were up to with this book. Everyone (who’s still living…) is in such a tough place in these last two books. It made for compelling reading, but was also hard on the heart. The evening I finished this book, I went to a literary cocktail party and was asked what I would do if anything happened to GRRM before the series is finished. I immediately started tallying the cost of hiring private security for him. What would I do? What am I going to do while I wait for The Winds of Winter? It was like 6 years between the last two books and 5 for the two before that. The last one was published in 2011. I’m going to go mad if I have to wait till 2016 or 2017, even with the t.v. series to enjoy. Dammit.

May

Jake and the Giant, E.G. Foley – The sequel to The Lost Heir. Like the first book, I read it at the same time as one of my favorite kids, the son of a friend. We have our own little book club of sorts. He sped through this, sneaking it to school and reading it in the car, etc. (I miss being a kid). Since I had to, you know, drive, instead of read in the car, I was a bit slower. I found this follow-up dealing with Norse mythology entertaining and silly, but also really hefty reading (literally, the book is heavy). The Kid and I are looking forward to The Dark Portal in October.

The Half-Life of Planets, Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin – I started this book because I love Emily Franklin and I finished it because I fell in love with the characters. It seemed a bit formulaic and earnest at first, but then it started to feel like the kind of books I loved as a teen. I’m kinda fascinated when writers (especially Y/A writers) team up to write dual character narratives. Since I’m now on a memoir kick, and after reading this, I’m looking forward to reading Halpin’s Losing My Faculties.

The End of Your Life Book Club, Will Schwalbe – I expected this to be really sad, since it’s about a mother and son reading books together in waiting rooms while she’s being treated for terminal cancer. It is sentimental, highly so, but also highly celebratory of the life that Schalbe’s mother Mary Anne led. It’s a remarkable story and reminds me why I love books so much, the power they have to form and heal relationships. The variety of books that they read during her last days is fascinating, both how they weave into the narrative of her life and how they may be situationally incidental, but speak so much to character and passion.

The Spindlers, Lauren Oliver – Thought I’d zip right through this one, since it’s a short middle-readers book by an author whose older books I read in a few hours. It was a bit treacly and light for me, but I’m not exactly the target audience. Also, I’m not really in a light, childish frame of mind, reading-wise, lately. If you combined The Borrowers and Labyrinth, you’ve got The Spindlers. I think kids growing up with this book will adore it.

Dead After Dark, Charlaine Harris – So I’ve basically been reading the last few books in this series because I hate leaving things unfinished (see my recent reviews of Iris Johansen books and the Stephanie Plum series). It’s hard for me to voluntarily not finish the ride, which is why I try to start series only cautiously lately. I totally respect why Harris decided to end the Sookie Stackhouse series and I basically felt rewarded by how things turned out for Sookie. But this book was so crazy and over-packed with returning characters and plot threads. It felt like a bit of a rush to finish.

The One and Only Ivan, Katherine Applegate – This book is amazing! Took me totally by surprise. The first person narrative of Ivan, a gorilla who paints in captivity, is so funny and poignant and such a smart book. I flew through this, laughing out loud, quoting the book to friends in conversation and was entirely invested.

June

Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman – This is a pretty unique book, but not a unique experience. Each section of the book, illustrated by Kalman, is about an object from a break-up box and the story behind it, from when the couple were together. I’ve had at least one such box and stories about the scraps of paper and objects that carry relationship residue. Another book I underestimated which stuck with me long after I finished it.

Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell – This is a quick, vital book that everyone should read. Period. Mostly about women in the workforce by the COO of Facebook, it’s packed with fascinating personal stories and research about the disadvantages women are dealt (often, by themselves) in business, how both women and men can counteract these disadvantages to everyone’s advantage. This came up in no fewer than 300 conversations since I read it.

Poser, Claire Dederer – The subtitle says it all: “My life in 23 yoga poses.” Each chapter focuses on one particular pose/period of Dederer’s life as she’s learning yoga and what it reveals about her history and relationships. I have to add this one into the gumbo of my own book – the way she uses yoga poses as a frame for her memoir is a lot like what I’m hoping to do with my memoir (framed by tango). If I can be anywhere near as funny and brave as Dederer is in this book, even better.

Elysian Fields, Suzanne Johnson – My 225 Magazine review is available here.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith – I hope they make a movie based on this book. Hell, *I* might make a movie off this book, if someone doesn’t. It’d be a sweet, smart rom-com like The Wedding Date meets Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Oh look, someone is making a movie. Good. I can focus on my memoir, since I’m all moved into my new place.

Now, I’m gonna go read so I can bulk up my third quarter…

2012 Q2 Reading Report

Sooooooooo late on my 2nd Quarter Reading Report. With no further ado…

March (addition)

Louisiana Saturday Night, Alex Cook – Read the 225 Magazine review here.

April

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins – This was me re-reading the trilogy again for the third time, around the release of the first movie. I re-read the first two books before I saw the movie and this one afterwards. It was really interesting applying all of the actors to the delicious craziness of the third book, imaging who would be cast for other roles, how they would depict certain things. I like these books better each time I read them.

Rose Sees Red, Cecil Castelucci – This is such a weird, cool book. It’s listed as “historical fiction” because it’s set in the 80s, which is pretty weird for me since that’s the decade I was a kid. It seems like a pretty random time to set a piece of fiction, but I think as writers like Cecil Castelucci (and myself) are reaching a certain stage of our development, we’re naturally turning to this time, mining it for all the weirdness and coolness it contained. It’s about dancers (which comes up more and more lately for me) having this one fantastic, rebellious night in New York. I love books and movies about that One Fabulous Night and this one certainly didn’t disappoint.

The Arizona Kid, Ron Koertge – On his website, Koertge says he’s one of the oldest people writing kids’ fiction and his young readers are always surprised to see an “old guy” walk into the room. That’s probably because, judging by this book, he writes about things that kids are actually dealing with in a real way. I read a lot of YA and kids’ fiction, but even I was pleasantly shocked at some of the subject matter of this book. He has a book coming out this month that looks really, really good – Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses – and I can’t wait to read it, as it deals with the most shocking of material, fairy tales.

Bayou Vol 1 and Vol 2, Jeremy Love + Patrick Morgan – These graphic novels are pretty overwhelming. The art is gorgeous and disturbing, lush. The story is about a young girl on a mythic journey to find her missing friend and save her father, who’s been accused of kidnapping/killing the girl – in the 1930s South. The way these stories deal with race and history is fascinating (and terrifying), but it’s the storytelling aspects that are most astounding. I’ve been waiting impatiently for Vol 3 and I think it’s coming out sometime this year.

Anya’s Ghost, Vera Brosgol – Here I have to admit to judging a book by its over. I saw this graphic novel laying on a rack at the library and I snatched it up. It felt like I was reading a movie and I was constantly entertained as I read about Anya’s fall down a hole in a field, discovery of and friendship with a girl’s ghost and then her bid for independence from her new best friend. I think all these graphic novels I’ve been reading are the result of conversations I’ve been having with Dana and Maurice from Peauxdunque and it’s been amazing to discover them.

What Doesn’t Kill You, Iris Johansen – I definitely like Johansen’s new character Catherine Ling better than her most famous character Eve Duncan. A fast, entertaining read. I’m on the fence about whether I’ll read the next Eve Duncan book where she discovers she has a…half sister! Drama. Yet, why do I keep reading these books? There’s something enjoyable about them, even as the melodrama and write-by-numbers style drives me nuts.

Hell or High Water, Ron Thibodeaux – Read my 225 Magazine review here.

Bossypants, Tina Fey – Parts of this book were sheer genius and parts were kinda eh. I hate to say it, cause I love Tina Fey so much. I definitely loved reading how she became the Comic Genius Tina Fey and I love reading both funny women and women who have a true sense of themselves. I think Tina Fey is both kind of woman.

May

The Bridge to Neverland, Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson – Love these Peter Pan books so much. Barry & Pearson continue to find ways to reinvent and enrich the original story and also, now, to tie to to our modern world. This one might just be the best one. I’m also really interested in how two such different writers work together on such a cohesive, complicated story. I think they may be the best role models for how my sister and I will write together.

Delirium, Lauren Oliver – Lauren Oliver is a seriously good writer. Her book Before I Fall devastated me and this one is very different, yet also just tore me apart. It’s a fat book and has a really unhurried pace at the beginning, yet still feels compelling. Then, there’s this breathless rush toward an ending that slams into you like a train.

Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup – I have been meaning to read this book for at least a decade. I think I worried that I would find the language too old-fashioned and the story too sad. It’s taken me a long time to read non-fiction eagerly. Boy, was I wrong. This book, a narrative of Northup’s experiences in the 183os-50s as a Northern freeman sold into slavery in the South, is enormously compelling. Though it’s a horrific story, there is such subtly in the way that it’s told, and it’s an important story.

June

Zone One, Colson Whitehead – I can’t believe I only read this book last month because I feel like I’ve been living with it for years. It has been haunting me since I started reading it. Phenomenally clever and well-written, this novel luxuriates in the zombie movie aesthetic and tropes, but is constantly stretching and pushing it further. With enough gorgeous language to send any word nerd into ecstasy, there’s also enough true danger and gore to please horror buffs.

Deadlocked, Charlaine Harris – The t.v. show True Blood doesn’t feel anything like this book series anymore. They are each their own monsters at this point. Harris’s series is cozy in its own graphic, humorous way. I feel like her Sookie has a lot more dimension and the relationships are far deeper, so it’s kind of like checking into the paranormal version of Mayberry from time to time and seeing what everybody is up to.

Pandemonium, Lauren Oliver – I had NO idea how this sequel was going to be as good as Delirium. I thought if anybody could do it, Oliver could because I’d loved both of her earlier books. I just didn’t see how it could be done. Pandemonium goes into far different places and gives us a far different Lena from the first book. It is delicious to see how she’s been scarred by the events of the first book and how she’s grown over the scars. While I totally predicted the “shocker” ending, I was still very, very satisfied by it and excited about what it will mean for the third book, which I’m trying to wait patiently for. February of next year! How will I survive now that i have no more doubts that it will be incredible?

Just a head’s up for the 3rd Quarter Reading Report – I have been working on another film, with just a short break after my previous one (in April, which is why I read so much). Probably, July and August will be light on reading, but hopefully September will be plentiful. However, as I usually do, I’m reading several books at one time and I can’t wait to tell you about them.

 

Reading in Q3 – August

I really picked up the reading pace this month, making up for lost time and visiting the library a lot. Whenever I’m between movie gigs and freelancing, reading and library visits are two of my favorite things.

Dead as a Doornail, Definitely Dead, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, Dead and Gone, Dead in the Family, Dead Reckoning, Charlaine Harris – I’m taking something of a reading vacation for myself and breezing through these books in 2-3 days each. Definitely Dead was a bit confusing in some places, especially at the beginning with the timing. Something pretty interesting happened in the gap between books and Sookie mentions Bill was with her when it happened, so that was a bit strange to me. I’ve been loving the series so much that I’m actually becoming increasingly disappointed with True Blood and how much it’s veered away from the plots and characters of the books. Trying to enjoy the books and the show as two separate things, though I was incredibly disappointed with the Season 4 finale. I don’t know if I’ll keep watching the show.

The Southern Cross, Skip Horack – My review will be published in 225 Magazine. Link coming soon. here.

Twenty Boy Summer, Sarah Ockler – I specifically requested this book from the library after reading about it being banned. The description of the book sounded really good and the reasons for it being banned were so incredibly dumb, so I was intrigued. I’ve so rarely read a book that addressed grief so well, especially grief processed by a teen. It really resonated with my own experiences and relationships growing up, and then also with things I’ve only experienced now, as an adult.

The Devil She Knows, Bill Loehfelm – My review is upcoming in 225 Magazine. Link to come.

Bumped, Megan McCafferty – Really fascinating look at a very possible reality where teenage girls are the only ones who can conceive and so become the most important people on the planet. Up until they’re about 19. Really says a lot of powerful, interesting things about our tech-addicted society, the marketplace, relationships, growing up, all of those things. I’m increasingly impressed with not just the books that are available for teens, but the teens themselves for being such a hungry audience for these extraordinary books.

Matched, Ally Condie – And this one just blew me away. Set in a “perfect” future society that orchestrates every detail of the lives of its citizens — their meals based on ideal caloric intake, their deaths on the their 70th birthday, their jobs and their “matches” — it really demolishes the idea of perfection. This Utopia has selected 100 of the greatest paintings, songs, poems, etc. and banished the rest, a form of banning so extensive that it’s terrifying. There is no new art, no new creative thought. Citizens don’t even know how to write with their own hands, only how to select words to form messages, a cut-and-paste method. The teen characters in this book are so hungry for choice that unauthorized poems become a way of communicating connection, love, secrets and history and learning to write your name by hand becomes an enormous act of rebellion. This book has a lot in common with Fahrenheit 451 (as well as 1984), but is so cleverly wrapped up in juicy, romantic melodrama. And the most haunting thing is that the future depicted here is not at all unlikely or very far away.

The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jenny Han – Swoon. This was a just delicious teen romance set during the summer, but written so very, very well. I loved Jenny Han’s Shug and I knew I’d love this series, too. Belly, the main character, was so vivid and ferocious in her desires and uncertainties that it was impossible not to completely fall for her and identify with her. And then it turns out the book is so much more than “just” a lighthearted teen romance and I’d gotten so beautifully conned into reading a deeply emotional book about families and friendships. I had to read the next two books as quickly as I could, but my local library didn’t have them. Good thing I have a library card in three cities and two states…

The War of Art, Steven Pressfield – This book kicked my ass. It’s a drill sergeant of a book, but also calm and encouraging. It’s a short book, often with just a little text on each page. But I read it s l o w l y because each page kinda punched me in the gut. I read passages aloud to my friends, fellow writers and artists, and they never failed to kind of gasp after I finished, cause they’d gotten punched in the gut too. I can’t recommend this book enough. I actually kept it out from the library because I want to re-read it.

Reading in Q3 – July

July was a month for freelancing, which meant lots and lots of good reading.

While I Live, John Marsden – If you love Hunger Games, you have to read Marsden’s Australian series, which starts with Tomorrow, When the War Began. I think of it as a precursor to Hunger Games, because it features a strong, kick-ass girl as a protagonist and kids fighting a war. While I Live is the first of a trilogy, The Ellie Chronicles, that follows the Tomorrow series. It features Ellie and the gang recovering during an uneasy peace following the treaty that ended the war. Except this “peace” includes some pretty brutal stuff, as well as Ellie’s struggle to run her family’s farm and take care of her and Gavin. I was 19 when I read started reading the Tomorrow series, so it’s a bit odd and cool to read the follow-up trilogy after experiencing The Hunger Games.

A More Noble Cause, Rachel L. Emanuel + Alexander P. Tureaud, Jr. – Read the 225 review here.

The Cinderella Deal and Trust Me On This, Jennifer Crusie – These are plain fun and also, funny. Toni introduced me to Jennifer Crusie. I read all of Crusie’s books that Toni had while I was staying at her house during Gustav. The intro to Trust Me On This says it’s Crusie’s first screwball comedy, which was odd to me because all of her books seem like screwball comedies to me. They’re comedic romances which usually feature a cast of interesting characters and implausible but interesting events, if I’d have to describe them.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling – This was my third time reading the last Harry Potter book. I probably shouldn’t have read it right before seeing the last movie, because I was extremely conscious of the differences between the book and the movie, which has never really bothered me before. It was pretty cool to watch Part 1 of the last movie while re-reading the book, though. And it’s always fun to re-visit this world, which is so comforting and real.

Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris – I read the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series back in December of 2009 and bought this second book soon after, but didn’t feel terribly compelled to read it. I’d enjoyed the first book, but wasn’t caught up. Reading this second one, I did get well and truly caught up. So much so that I asked my mom to find the next few books at the used bookstore we love and send them to me. It boggles my mind that some people don’t realize that True Blood is based on a series of books, this series, but several people have been surprised to find that out. Now that I’m more invested in the books, I have to say that while there are a lot of differences between the show and the books (of course), Anna Paquin has really nailed Sookie. But maybe I think that because I picture Paquin’s Sookie in my head while I read. 🙂 Well, regardless, the books confirm that I really prefer Eric to Alcide and Alcide to Bill.

Hollywood Car Wash, Lori Culwell – Read the NOLAFemmes review here.

Club Dead and Dead to the World, Charlaine Harris – Eating these up like candy, reading one book every three days or less. Dead to the World may be my favorite so far, but as an Eric fan, that’s probably to be expected. Also, since this book covers the current season of True Blood, it was interesting to see Sunday’s episode. It diverged enormously from the book and in some ways, I was okay with that and in some ways, I was actually a little disappointed.

I read a TON of books in August and I’ll post my mini-reviews later this month.