Llew's Reviews

Cutest mouse EVER. Motorcycle Ralph can SUCK it.

I wondered why my dad had thrown away an advanced reader’s copy of this civil war novel. That was until I read it. Talk about being The Meh.

You know South Carolina isn’t showing any of this gay lovin so I figured I’d have to read the story if I ever wanted to know anything about it. Except for the detailed scene of using spit for lube, I really liked it. Of course, the correct quote is along the lines of, “I wish I could quit you, you sonofawhoreson bitch!”

I think I might take to correcting people when they use that line. You know me, always the life of the party.

It will take me longer to upload the picture on dial-up than it did for me to read this entire book. Such a slim little book which I should have read ages ago, but for some reason always overlooked it.

So so sad that it seems that words are but trivialities when it comes to talking about it.

Oh, stop looking at me like that.

Have you not seen what he can do to a woman’s body on extreme makeover?

Hook me up with some of that please, but not
<—— that. He looks something like a stone chimpanzee.

I figured I’d give the most recent winnter of the Booker award a shot. It was a muddled tale of a elderly man whose wife has just died, and his memories of the summer of his first kiss. I use “muddled” because the narrator will be halfway through telling the story, and then suddenly remark something to the effect of, “Hmm, well it couldn’t have been the day of her first kiss because it was evening when we left the movie theater and not afternoon. Anyway…”

*Spoiler* In the end, his first kiss drowns along with her twin brother. I suppose it was an okay novel. I finished it quickly, and it didn’t leave me with any suicidal tendencies. But it’s as if it’s melancholy wasn’t enough to be striking. It was just there. Take it or leave it but with no ability to imprint the story upon the reader. Although, I guess I shall take away using the word “sozzled” for getting drunk. It has a nice little ring to it as if it would make for a great theme of a sea shanty.

I was flipping through a Book Sense picks pamphlet when I came across the review of this book. It read,”I loved Arlene, who was funny yet dark, bargaining with God that she will not have sex, tell a lie, or return to her small hometown, just as long as God keeps anyone from finding the body she left buried in the kudzu.” Normally, this would have never piqued my interest except for that I had seen the book on my dad’s staff recommendation shelf. This didn’t exactly scream “father” read so I picked it up to flip through and ended up devouring it.

It was a hilarious incredibly light read. Not my general fare but definitely something I could recommend to customers, especially when it comes out in paperback. Also it will provide me many a giggle to come as I envision my dad reading a book with a quirky southern woman named Arlene as the protagonist. Oh Captain Squawk, how the might have fallen.

Another cheery topic for 2006! A twelve year old girl drowns in the only free river left in South Carolina. (Free meaning that federal law protects it and keeps anything being done to it.) Her body is trapped, and they can’t recover it so after five weeks her parents demand to construct a temporary dam so divers can reach the body. Only, that would be against federal law. Thus, the crux.

I never knew how fun saying, “Thus, the crux” would be.

But I digress.

The story is told through the point of a photographer who is covering the story for a paper from a larger city several hours away. However, she grew up in the area and knows everyone involved with the exception of the deceased girl’s family because they were on vacation at the time.

Rash is quite talented at capturing what it’s like to be from a place and love it so much, yet feel the need to escape it as well. Then, dealing with the reconcilation between loving it and wanting to run away from it at the same time. Not that I know anything about that. Not at all.

I’ve tried to read Didion’s non-fiction before, and gave up before I smothered myself with the dust jacket. Man, it’s boring. However, since her latest chronicle about dealing with her husband’s sudden death while her only child was in a coma in a hopsital was receiving such accolades I decided to try it again.

I hate to kick an author when she’s down, but I still don’t see what everyone is raving about. It was basically a recounting of things that would only interest me if it had been my own mother or someone else I was close to. Otherwise, it just seemed like I was reading someone’s diary when I shouldn’t. I felt like I was invading her privacy, and listening to thoughts and feelings that weren’t universally relateable. Or maybe they’re just not to me since I’ve never lost a husband of twenty years. Either way – Meh.

The next book I was going to read was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Memories of My Melancholy Whores.” Wouldn’t that be a menage a trois of depression? Fortunately, my order for that hasn’t come in yet so I will have to venture into, hopefully, happier territory.

I was just a few pages away from finishing “A Year Of Magical Thinking” when I decided that I would read another book instead so I wouldn’t start the year on such a sad literary note. Thus, I picked up “The Burn Journals” because nothing is more happy and more of a great foot to start a year out on than the detailing of a young man who tried to commit suicide by setting himself on fire.

The disconcerting thing about this book is that I related so much to the author. We were born in the same year, and so many of the events and people that seemed to bookmark his childhood were familiar. Also, I had the same unsettling way of solving my problems. No, I never decided to make myself a one woman bonfire, but I did set rather harsh consequences on typical juvenile actions. The only difference is that he kept escalating his personal punishments to his actions as they became more serious and likely to get him into even more trouble. Whereas I just realized that I had to make no more mistakes to stay alive so I didn’t really allow myself to screw up, be disobedient, or really even live normally until I managed a better way of coping with making mistakes.

Another note, I rather like the cover of the book that I have featured with this entry, but it was not the one of the edition I read. The one I read has cover art which looks as if it was drawn by someone who had received burns on their hands. *shudders*