The Golden Darter
My Life Through Books
Middle School was a weird mix of classics and Star Wars. I was obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux to the point of the book falling apart. I also discovered that while I love Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters can go hang. As for Star Wars... I've read almost every meta-verse book that was published up until the New Order cannon. I can still go into detail and recite storylines of a few beloved books. Hence, my nerd life began.
High school was very paranormal, vampire, scifi, etc. I would literally go online and search for book series that concerned vampires and read everything on the list. We are talking Anita Blake, Charline Harris, Anne Rice, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tanya Huff, Steven King, etc. This was before they sparkled, ya'll. Early college was philosophical and political theory for school, and mainstream fiction in my personal time. Wicked, Life of Pi, Memoirs of a Geisha. These are the 3 books that pushed me into my next phase, mostly because of how ambiguous I felt about them, and their questionable endings.
Late-mid college I was introduced to LaVyrle Spencer by way of Hummingbird courtesy of a gripe session with my Mom about how depressing the books I had been reading lately were. I've never looked back and have been hooked on the romance genre ever since. I've read and loved a ton of LaVyrle Spencer (who is a little hit and miss), Judith McNaught (of the rapetastic 80s era of romance), and Georgette Heyer (who writes in the vein of Austen). More recently I've discovered the joys of contemporary authors like Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Lately I've been trying to read more non-fiction. I really do enjoy learning about subjects that interest me, but non-fiction can feel like work sometimes. So I fall back to romance. You just can't go wrong with knowing that there will almost always be a happy ending.
Currently reading
I am just not entirely sure what this book was supposed to be. Or really who it's audience is. It is burbled as "a collection of witty musings" but I think I only found one or two of these clever. It was more like a bunch of sayings that you might paste on a t-shirt and market to frat boys. Basically it is a flipbook. On each page is an image of a stick figure man, like on the cover. Layered on that are the apparently witty musings, one per page. I'll give a few examples.There's the a-frat-boy-has-totally-said-this-before pages:I'm blanking on your name but I remember your drink. And that's what's important to me. Simply Awesome.Don't buy rounds for squares.Nice phone. Douchebag.There's the borderline/not-so-borderline misogynistic ones likeIf you don't want me to stare at your chest, don't hold your martini near it.If drinking kills brain cells then why do I remember making out with you last night.I got ants in my pants. I sense you have crabs.I love women who talk about chocolate cats mixed drinks and shoes. (strikeouts are in the book)And then there are several un-clever sayings that are already on t-shirts likeI drink therefore I am.Are you twins or am I seeing double.I don't trust any sports without cheerleaders.Been there. Drank that.I could go on, but it's not worth the time it would take... ARC courtesy of Andrews McMeel Publishing, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.