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Author: Jenny Hamilton

Busy freaking out

I have been reading books but not posting reviews of them.  This is mainly due to three factors: school having started, me having a ‘sode, and the damn damn damn hurricane. I’m going to go ahead and blame it mostly on the hurricane, though that really isn’t fair.  But who cares?  HURRICANES ARE VILE.  Today a really loud whooshing noise woke me up which may have been a great big enormous jet plane going over my head, and I suspect that this is ALL THE FAULT OF THE HURRICANE.  I say no to hurricanes.  No more hurricanes.  Not one bit…

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The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary Pearson

Recommended by: Melissa I know that when writing a story is going well, everything seems connected, but it felt a little weird reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox right after spending an hour hunting for titles for my own story.  I was thinking of themes and words and trying to free-associate and when that failed, I went and read The Adoration of Jenna Fox with all the words still whizzing around in my brain.  The three primary ones – family, protection, secrets – as well as agency, actually – were remarkably relevant. The Adoration of Jenna Fox is about a…

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An Unkindness of Ravens, Ruth Rendell

I confess.  I got this one because it has the same title as the book Lucas writes on One Tree Hill.  And you know what I realized when I was composing this review in my head while washing dishes?  I realized that Lucas’s book title?  Ravens is meant to refer to his basketball team, the Tree Hill Ravens.  Which kind of makes me want to gouge out my eyes.  Like, bad enough he’s written a pretentious book full of pretentious sentences and given it a pretentious title, and bad enough they’re pretending that this idiotic autobiographical book about Lucas and…

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Vanity Dies Hard, Ruth Rendell

I began Vanity Dies Hard with the working hypothesis that Ruth Rendell was infallibly brilliant, and that even if her books were not as emotionally satisfying as Anna’s Book, they would always have satisfying and elegant plots like Anna’s Book did.  I was most disappointed.  Vanity Dies Hard had an ending that was the biggest let-down since the ending of The Machinist.  (Did you see The Machinist?  I already didn’t like Christian Bale, but my God, even for a movie containing Christian Bale, The Machinist was awful.) Anyway, I had to create a new hypothesis based on my new data. …

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Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

Spoilers. Many. Nothing but spoilers. Breaking Dawn is an extravagant symphony of screwed-up sexuality and dysfunction. (Enjoyable because of the funny, loathsome because of all the people who think it’s romantic.) I had to stop about every twenty pages and update my sister, who, lucky duck, was the only one home, and we would have a long moan about how insane this book was, and how dismayed we were that people were all, Oo, she’s the next Harry Potter and – still less forgivable – Oo, she’s the next Buffy. Next Buffy. HA. When people are dysfunctional on Buffy, they…

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Why She Left Us, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

At the library the other day, I did two things that I never do.  First, I walked in with a self-imposed limit to get no more than ten books.  Then when I was looking for the books I wanted, I grabbed random books off the shelves because they looked interesting.  This is so not me.  I am not that girl.  Indie Sister is that girl, but I am not that girl.  I get books I’ve heard of, or at least books I’ve seen around several times before and I can’t take the curiosity anymore. Well, this isn’t like that.  I…

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Why I Don’t Like Those Vampire Books by Stephenie Meyer

I’m getting so much anger from Twilight fans I thought I’d go ahead and actually say why I think these books are bad. It’s not because they contain vampires (you’re talking to a girl who owns all seven seasons of Buffy and all but the last one of Angel), and it’s not because the characters contemplate having sex (I’m all for sex – plus, see above with the Buffy and the Angel, cause Buffy at least has people having sex all over the place, and not infrequently sex with vampires), and it’s certainly not anything to do with any belief…

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Anna’s Book, Barbara Vine

I have dreams like this. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I should be very calm and relaxed. I shall probably go to the library tomorrow, get sixteen of Ruth Rendell’s books, and find I don’t like a single other one of them. I liked Anna’s Book.  I read it because I keep hearing everyone going on about Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine.  So the last time I was at the library I went to the Barbara Vine section, as I like that name better, and got Anna’s Book because my sister is called Anna.  And it was quite good.  A most…

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The Secret of Lost Things, Sheridan Hay

I’ve been wanting to read this for a while, ever since it was in the New Books section at Bongs & Noodles and I almost but didn’t quite buy it.  It’s all about an Australian girl whose mother dies, and she comes to work in a bookshop in New York that is a very good and famous bookshop and contains many strange people who are albinos and trannies and emotionally unavailable snobs.  They are a motley crew. I had high hopes. All dashed, unfortunately.  It’s not the worst book ever, but I could hardly be bothered finishing it.  I only…

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Carrie’s War, Nina Bawden

Recommended by: GeraniumCat’s great big list of children’s books you should have read as a kid Nothing as appealing as people mentioning things that you might have missed but they hope you haven’t.  Unfortunately most of the books on the list weren’t at the library on account of, I assume, being wildly out of print and based in the United Kingdom, but I got Carrie’s War.  It’s about two little Blitz evacuee kids (I love books about evacuee kids) who get evacuated to Wales and live with a family and the older girl, Carrie, does a terrible thing. I like…

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