We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect

2017 may not have been my personal best year ever, but reading-wise, it was pretty good. My reading game was upped a bit mostly because I chose not to take any vacations (except one day in Chicago to see Hamilton), instead I worked on my house. My vacations were stay-cations and I read a lot.

I subscribed to the New York Times and the local paper this year. I wanted to make sure I was pretty on top of the craziness that is the world now. I devoured those for a while, especially the books section of NYT, but soon dropped off. I have some stacks of papers I want to read, again the book sections and I'm back to working through those. I dropped off reading them because reading is my form of escapism and I ended up in a sad and sour mood after reading the papers. Where was my escape? Yes, I was informed of how things are, how horrible people can be, and how bad the world was. But it hurt my heart. I have a friend who doesn't like to watch movies or shows that hurt her soul. I feel her. Except in my case, movies and shows are escapism from the soul-crushing real world.  And books are my ultimate escape.

Goodreads is awesome in that it puts all of your stats for the year together. My goal was to read 50 books this year and I was sure I would not hit it. So I did what I do and I started reading my comics and graphic novels (they count!). I ended the year with 52 books read and reviewed.

Click to see my reading challenge results

I like looking back on what I've read. Was it out of my comfort zone? Why did I pick that book? I really tackled that monster of a tome??

I can easily say some of the best books I've read this year were courtesy of book clubs. Either my IRL book club or my postal book clubs. My current PBC is 4 years strong this coming year. Same group of ladies.  I tried a new PBC and found I didn't enjoy those books as much. A Before They Were Films club, the books I would have loved, I had already read. The others were ok. Cold Comfort Farm was the stand out to me.

I'm surprised how much I liked Call of the Wild. And I ended up missing that book club night. Boo. Disgrace,  Kindred,  and Shadow Tag were other Book Club books that rocked my socks.

I think my all time favorite audio book was Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. A friend didn't care for it, so I insisted he tell me why. The footnotes. I got used to them but I imagine others would dislike them, so in that case, read the book!

I learned I really can get into Sci-Fi with The Collapsing Empire. That sometime Hollywood CAN do right by a favorite book (American Gods). I learned that someone named Jack Reacher is someone I should follow. And I learned that the alphabet stops at Y and that it can hit hard when you lose a favorite character because you lose a favorite author. RIP Sue Grafton.


So....where are we going in 2018?

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Science fictions meets historical fiction? I was initially so confused about this book but it turned in to me reading WAY past my bedtime and getting a book hangover the next day. This is amazing and new and fresh and Oh My Goodness Where is Kevin???


Dana just turned 26. It's 1976 and she's married to Kevin. They have bought their first house together to solve a problem: neither of their apartments could hold all of their combined books. I love them already.

While unpacking, Dana gets dizzy, things become fuzzy and far away and she's suddenly on the bank of a river, hearing the screams of a boy who is drowning. She wastes no time wondering what happened, she'd out there grabbing the boy and performing CPR to save him. Despite his idiot mother's hysteria (she is an idiot, we get more to that later), Dana does save the boy only to find herself at the business end of a gun. Things go fuzzy and she's back home with Kevin, wet and muddy.

A few minutes away for her was 3 seconds for Kevin. What just happened??


Later, while eating dinner, it happens again. Same boy, this time setting curtains on fire and trying to burn down the house. Dana saves him again but this time questions him. Who is he? Rufus Weylen. He freely uses the N-word and says that Dana talks funny. Dana puts two and two together and realizes this (white) boy is part of her (black) family tree. And she's now in Antebellum South. As a black woman.

Well, shit.

Dana keeps getting called back to the past when Rufus' life is in danger. She saves him, if only because he's needed in her family tree so she can exist. But having to live life as a slave until she can return her to her time is more than she can handle. Back in her time, Dana and Kevin figure out that Rufus can bring her to him when his life is in danger and she can leave if her life is in danger. At one point, Kevin is holding Dana when she's called and he travels back with her. Life as a white man isn't terrible, but life back then is still miserable when you are used to modern convenience. Luckily, Kevin isn't whipped or beaten on a regular basis. How in the world Dana withstood this, I have no idea.

This was such a great story. I've never read anything by Butler before.....but I'm about to stock my library with her books.

Big Damn Classic of 2018.......Drumroll

Just kidding! Voting ends when 2017 ends so we still have time to vote!

As of right now, Slaughterhouse-Five is in the lead but seems like it could easily be knocked out by Huck Finn.

Click to embiggen

Frankly, I don't think the others stand a chance (Doctor Zhivago, we never even saw you!) .

If you want to see the contenders and vote, click on THIS HERE LINK to go to my post. Read the summaries of the books and then vote for my Big Damn Classic of 2018!

Moby Dick was the Big Damn Classic of choice for 2017 and I'm still working my way through it. I think I have less than 100 chapters to go now!!!!  (oy vey).

Paper Girls Volume 3 by Brian Vaughan

Volume 2 left us with 1988 Erin and friends jumping through a fold in time, from the helicopter flown by 2016 Erin's little sister (and technically 1988's sister too). Space snot demons are tearing apart the city, and seemingly the helicopter, when the girls jump.....


straight into pre-historic times? Whoa.

My understanding here is that the parallel universe theory is a myth and time is really in a straight line. Who created the rifts in the timeline? How are the girls jumping around like this without injury? Hey, they'd like to know the answer to that too.

Thankfully, the weird little Apple gadget really did lead them to KJ. This volume is crazy full of Apple symbols and computer symbols on pre-historic creatures and landscape. Bizarre in the weirdest way, especially since I'm not an Apple fan.

The girls meet up with a cave woman and her baby and someone from the future who may have invented time travel and may have caused this mess!

Add in KJ's disturbing visions of her future, which she might come to like, more monsters and insane cavemen. Oh, and a 12-year-old getting her period in a time where there are clearly no maxi pads to help her out. Awesome.

Keep going...... Now where is Volume 4??

Paper Girls Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan

Back in November, I read the first volume of Paper Girls. I bought volumes 2 and 3 immediately and finally had time to sit and read them both back to back. I might be poor if I keep using my Kindle to buy more and more volumes of this comic. Geesh.

The end of Volume 1 brought 1988 Erin face to face with 2016 Erin. Volume 2 throws them both together, along with ANOTHER Erin, into a whirlwind of "Now, how did she get here? And how will the other she get back?" goodness. 2016 Erin isn't married, has no children, and pops Xanax. 1988 Erin is a little perturbed by 2016 Erin's language and the pill popping but loves that she is single and without kids. They still need to find KJ (read Volume 1) so Erin and Erin head off to the old, dead mall. Wait, why? Ah, that Apple device 1988 Erin had? It pops a map into 2016 Erin's head to help them get to the Fourth Folding.  Oh, stick with it. It's all pretty much explained.

And there are monsters.

Mac and Tiffany try to find their adult versions, but it ends in devastating news.1988 Erin is proud of 2016 Erin and vice versa. Man, I wonder if young me is happy how old me ended up. Eh, old me is happy.

Anyways, so much fun. Read read!

Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson

I was searching for another book in my stacks when I saw this. I flipped it open, read 2 pages and didn't stop reading until I was done. That's what adults do sometimes, sit on their floor in front of a bookcase, reading comics....right??

Kamala Khan is just some sixteen year old Muslim girl in New Jersey. Nothing special, except because she's brown, Muslim, has weird diet restrictions and a crazy Muslim family, she's on everyone's radar. She just wishes to be blonde, pretty, and superhero-y. Is that too much to ask for?

After sneaking out of her bedroom to go to a party that her father explicitly vetoed, she realizes that the students whom she thought were nice...really are not nice. She leaves just as a strange fog envelopes the city. When she passes out from the fog, she's visited by her favorite Marvel heroes. When Kamala wakes, she's become what she always wanted: a pretty blonde superhero.

I really wish this type of graphic novel had been around in my teen years. Being pretty and blonde amazingly does not fix Kamala's problems. Crazy, right?  Instead, this new power of hers is something she really needs to master, all the while not pissing off her parents anymore than she has, not getting detention anymore and not alienating her friends. This part sounds very familiar to me, being a HUGE Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. Which maybe why I loved this so much.

Already on my way to get the next volumes in the series.

The Walking Dead: Here's Negan! by Robert Kirkman

I KNEW IT!  Negan could only have had one career in his pre-zombie life that made sense and I WAS RIGHT. I feel....validated.


This is a quick graphic novel that gives us a look at Negan's past. Yes, he was always an asshole. But he wasn't always a leader. Now we know where Lucille comes from, we know where the bat and the jacket come from (did you catch that??) and we know how Negan created the Saviors and rose up in the ranks.



Spoiler.....................




He was a  GYM TEACHER. I knew it. It's the only thing that made sense, dammit.

Origin by Dan Brown

Usually I love a good Robert Langdon book. It seems odd to me that a professor gets into such physical peril and he's not Indiana Jones. Origin, just judging a book by its title, should have been an awesome book with crazy codes and patterns and running around beautiful cities.

Origin teased the questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Essentially, it was trying to cause "discussion" between evolutionist and creationists. Science vs. Religion. Because of this I thought we'd be in for one hell of a ride.

We weren't. Honestly, the best character out of this book was a computer named Winston. Edmond Kirsch is a futurist, and one time student of Langdon's, who believes he has answered the two questions the book poses. He is also a grandstander and apparent drama queen who always needs all eyes on him. He meets with the top three religious leaders from different religions to show them his presentation that will all but obliterate religion. Obviously, they are upset and then things started rushing along to a worldwide announcement and people dying left and right.

Somehow we get the upcoming King of Spain involved because his fiancee, Ambra, is now running around with Langdon trying to release the announcement to the world (Kirsch is.... indisposed) and set off this science vs religion firestorm.

But, we're not really running around, we're not really solving much, and the supercomputer Winston is doing the majority of the brainwork for Langdon. Yes, there's a guy out there killing people, but he seems very inconsequential. Once we get to the announcement, we seem to spend A LOT of time with Ambra and Langdon sitting on a couch just listening to something that isn't that spectacular and was really pretty obvious.

The end, I think, was supposed to have some jaw dropping revelations, but the only one I thought was pretty good was the Winston reveal. For some reason, that made me happy.

If you are new to Robert Langdon, professor-slash-action-hero, don't start here. Go back to the beginning and enjoy those. Perhaps skip Origin altogether.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

I started listening to the Book Riot podcast and on a few episodes, they mentioned Sourdough. It sounded interesting: an IT woman is gifted a special sourdough starter that turned out to be magic.

I'm on the fence. I'm not really sure that I liked this although I did finish it. Maybe I just didn't LOVE it.

Lois Clary is the young woman who graduates college and gets recruited to a robotics firm in San Francisco. All was well until Slurry was introduced. She doesn't have the time or inclination to cook so she orders from a Clement Street restaurant every night. She gets spicy soup and sourdough bread. When the brothers of the restaurant are forced to leave America, they leave her their starter for the bread (as well as all the ingredients and utensils Lois needs because she clearly has nothing in her kitchen).

Amazingly, Lois learns to bake perfect bread and build a brick oven from a book. Her bread is so perfect that she is accepted into an alt-food market full of bizarre fake food, cricket food and weirdness. Because that's the next big trend, apparently.

The starter turns out to be magic and there is a "thrilling" adventure.

It was ok. Probably more of a beach read than anything serious.

The Butterfly Effect by Jon Ronson

If you haven't heard of the concept of the butterfly effect, it's essentially "small causes can have larger effects". Ronson ends up immersing himself in the porn world so he can understand how the man who started the concept of free porn has changed people's lives, usually for the worse.  This was a free download on Audible for a bit. At about 3 hours long, it's well worth downloading and listening to.

We start off listening to how a man, Fabian, made his fortune offering up free porn. Illegal porn, uploaded by users after it's stolen from other sources. He doesn't worry about that, because he put a warning on the site to tell people not to upload stolen media. That should help.  Ronson, chasing the butterfly effect, travels to San Fernando Valley and interviews a porn director who laments his lost money because, as soon as his films hit dvd, they are uploaded for free. He barely makes ends meet, but yet continues directing porn.

We meet folks who create custom porn videos for anyone who has money, as well as a porn star whose 13 year old daughter found out the hard way what her mom did for a living....on the daughter's bed. What?? That is some damn poor decision making there, mom. Seriously.

In the end, we learn that even male porn stars can't "get it up" without help from free porn sites even when their naked female co-star is RIGHT THERE WAITING. It's a little crazy how much damage sites like this actually cause. And how much money the people who run them make.

Jon Ronson is always interesting to listen to, so give it a whirl.

Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence

Sometimes, I enjoy reading books about books. My To-Read list on Goodreads is toppling at 1,775 books now so why not add more? I found this book on the new non-fiction shelf at my library, skimmed through it and decided I needed to read it.

Spence, a librarian, wrote love letters and breakup notes to the books in her library, personal or work. Through those letters, I only had one that shouted at me to mark as a to-read (Big Stone Gap series). Still, I was ok. Even getting one idea is good, right? The letters were funny and made me laugh.

The second section REALLY made my to-read list grow. Things like, excuses to make to get out of going out, book hookups, books about librarians, falling down the rabbit hole books, etc. I was constantly putting this book down and picking up my phone to add another book to my Goodreads list. Whew. I won't live long enough to read all of these, but that's ok.

This is the perfect little book to read in between your heavy hitters. I'm the type who loves to think about all the possible books I could read, and want to read, when I'm finally retired or find that sugar daddy. This indulged that habit.

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Well now, this was an interesting book. I loved the premise. What happens if the women in the world fell into a deep sleep and men were left to handle things on their own? If you guessed guns and bloodshed, you would be right. I actually don't think King is too far-fetched with this notion.

The folks of Dooling are what you might think of a small Appalachian town. There's a women's prison and we meet some of the inmates and employees of the prison. Immediately, we hate Don Peters, a guard who freely takes what he wants from the inmates and threatens them if they speak up. He was a touch too on the nose to Trump (I assume King intended that). The prison psych doctor is Clint Norcross, whose wife Lila is the town Sheriff.

Lila is called to a homicide scene at a meth lab that is pretty brutal. En route, she clips a woman walking in the middle of the road. Evie Black is beautiful, nearly naked and seemingly crazy. Lila takes her to the prison for a psych eval.

We get into the mundane lives of the Dooling folk when, inexplicably, women start falling asleep and becoming cocooned in a gauze-like fabric.Destroying the fabric to "free the women" leaves them feral and ready to kill the ones who disturb them. Leave them alone and they end up in another place where women are the sole gender.

In this place, they form a pretty decent society and get along well. Back in reality, the men have lost their shit and are tearing up the town. They know Evie Black is the one woman in Dooling who can sleep and wake up so they form a mob (really, that's what it is) to get her.

This book is 700+ pages so much more happens and much more is explained. It really is a good story and it was slightly disheartening to read some of the threats and slurs against women in this book, only because I know they are said on a regular basis in this time.  The Blowtorch Brigade was sickening because I have no doubt that men would take sleeping women and torch them. Because, clearly, it must be the woman's fault - which is touched on here as well. My goodness, women want to wear pants and get abortions! This is their fault!

They threw a bit much into the pot, including a white cop shooting a black person, in my opinion. Not every social injustice needed to be represented. It got slightly overwhelming.

Not my favorite King book but still worth reading!