time of your life

Well summer officially ended last Tuesday, and so I suppose it's time to make my end-of-summer-reading post. Overall I read a decent amount, and got most of the main books on my personal summer reading list read, with the exception of Jacqueline Carey's Naamah's Kiss, of which I still have about 75 pages to go, unfortunately.....I intended this to be the summer of Jacqueline Carey and Richelle Mead, my two favorite authors at the moment, because I was reading more than one book by each author this summer, but my reading list got unexpectedly hijacked by Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire or Sookie Stackhouse series, all 9 of which I also ended up reading this summer, while I also caught up with season 1 of TB and watched all of season 2--so one could say that this past summer was the "Summer of Sookie," just as I've dubbed some past summers as "The Summer of Buffy" (when I watched Buffy seasons 1-5 for the first time) or "The Summer of Harry Potter" (when both the 7th book and the 5th movie came out within a few weeks of each other and I got into FictionAlleyPark)! ;) Or, given the vampiric nature of the majority of the books I read by Richelle Mead, my viewing of the British series "Being Human" for the first time, and all the NM trailers and news, perhaps it could just be summed up as "The Summer of Vampires", period. :p

( My Summer Reading List 2009 )

I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish that book or City of Bones, since I'm so busy now....but yeah, I decided to check out The Mortal Instruments series as well, checking out the first book from the library, since I have heard so much about it on BF and around fandom....I'm halfway through the first book and it's gotten better, and is certainly intriguing, although I'm not fond of the overly-descriptive and flowery writing style, and think that it is definitely "inspired" by Harry Potter (which of course we all *know* Clare has read!). I still can't get over the fact that an infamous fanfic author and BNF like her is now actually writing published original fiction...

But back to Vampire Academy: It took me a little while to get into the first book, but once I did I was hooked, and it was quite an exciting read....I love that I was actually shocked by *two* plot twists at the end, it's nice to have unpredictability like that in a novel these days, especially a YA one! And the rest of the series has gotten progressively better with each book, with the latest two books, SK and BP being particularly fantastic and epic. I actually think I liked the fourth VA book better than the fourth GK book in fact, which is pretty significant since overall I have so far enjoyed and liked the GK series better than the VA books, even though the VA series is great as well! I would highly recommend it, don't judge it by its cheesy-sounding name, it's very a very smart and interesting series, with some memorable characters, just like GK. My favorites are Adrian, Christian, and Dimitri (in that order); I did not like Rose at first, but she has now grown on me....

( Spoilery Review of Blood Promise )

Oh and I was also lucky enough to actually get to see Richelle Mead in person at a signing a few weeks ago on September 9!!! It was wonderful to be able to meet her in person (especially after having met my other fave author, Carey, a couple of years ago), and to get books signed by her (I got GK 1 and 3 and VA, SK and BP signed, with BP personalized). I may get around to loading pictures and more someday....

Well I've now seen the latest HP movie twice (once the evening of the day it came out, a few Weds ago, and a second time last Friday night), and against all odds, despite loathing the book that it's based on, I really enjoyed the movie! I remember remarking after OOTP (the best movie to date then, and perhaps now, not quite sure how I rank HBP yet in comparison) that if anyone could make a decent movie out of the weakest, cheesiest, and dullest volume of the series it was Yates, and I proved myself right--he is absolutely brilliant, improving upon the book in almost every way and taking a book in which not a whole lot happens and making it actually interesting and entertaining!

More spoilery comments on the movie below....

( Alan Rickman is a Sexy Beast and since when did the Weasleys move to the middle of a cornfield? )

Also in other news I finally read and finished (in two days) Jacqueline Carey's (first) new release, Santa Olivia, the one in a new verse and genre. It was very good and a fast read, I was glad that Carey remains an author who never disappoints! :) Perhaps a more detailed review will follow if I feel up to it.....I still also have to read JC's other new release, Naamah's Kiss, the beginning of a new series set in the Kushiel verse many generations later. Right now I'm finishing up From Dead to Worse (#8 Sookie Stackhouse series), soon I'll be all caught up on that front!

I found this meme on LJ (thank you jenuhlyn!) and found it interesting, even if I think the list of books included is a little random (especially in some of the modern books it chose). 

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.

01. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
02. Italicise those you intend to read.
03.Underline the books you LOVE.
04. Strike-through the books you consider unreadable.
05. Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've only read 6 and force books upon them.

Here are my results:

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a lot of re-reading lately now that I'm reunited with all my books (especially the Kushiel ones, after having just finished that series with Kushiel's Mercy!), as well as making progress in Broken, the next Women of the Otherworld book I have to read (I'm a little behind in that wonderful series) which focuses once again on the first heroine of the series, Elena the female werewolf.  It's interesting to compare to the pack in the Twilight books...

I feel like reading a more realistic fiction book right now though, and am especially eager to read the recently released debut novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is based on Hamlet (my favorite Shakespeare play, recently made into the most hilariously bad musical rock opera EVER!), and  which seems really good and compelling from the glowing reviews and the excerpt I read in a free publication recently.  Plus it's a dog story, and I love dogs too!  Hopefully the library will have it (and not checked out!) Monday, or I'll be spending a while in Barnes and Noble reading it...;)

I'm also interested in reading The Stolen Child by Keith Donahue, which I remember seeing in the store a while back, but which has recently caught my attention again....it also is highly rated and looks interesting, being about a changeling; it reminds me of The Moorchild, one of my all-time favorite books which I've re-read more times than I can count......in fact, just thinking of this new book makes me want to re-read Moorchild again! :p

 And a week early too!  Reserved it yesterday (and apparently the lady spelled my last name wrong, as often happens for some unexplicable reason, considering that I always spell it out for them immediately after I say it, putting extreme stress on the letter they usually get wrong....and they STILL spell it wrong! *eyeroll*), picked it up tonight!  Just read the cover jacket description, and it looks AWESOME! :D  Can't wait to get started....even though it's late and I've only gotten 7 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, I won't go to bed until I've read some....I wonder if I'll have any of it left by the time I have to make a long car ride next week?

It will be sad though reading the last Kushiel book with good old Phedre and Joscelin and Imriel and the rest....so it will be a bittersweet experience reading this book!  Still, I'm pysched to learn what happens with Melisande....should be angsty and interesting! :D  There's something on the cover flap that I didn't know about, and which intrigues me....especially if it means we don't have as much travelling as usual! (Carey's only weakness--sometimes those journeys just go on for a little too long for my taste, I want to get back to Terre D'Ange! :p).

She's still my favorite author right now though....:)

Anyway, off to read!

Lol, sorry about the cheesy titles, I can't resist....:p

Anyway, it seems like I just hop from fandom to fandom at random......one week I'm obsessing over the Tudors, the next over Jacob/Bella and Twilight--and now I've recently gotten interested in/obsessed with the Animorphs books once more--an old favorite series when I was younger, which is still enjoyable now I've realized.  With the exception of the earliest books, they are definitely mature enough writing-wise to be enjoyed by older audiences (I just reread #9 and it was fine), and from the beginning there have been mature and complex themes and questions raised in the series. 
There's even the TV show (as cheesy and bad as it often was), to use for music vids, if I can get my hands on the footage....I'm also trying to make my first fanmix for Jake/Cassie, though I have to figure out the photo-editing program first, even though I have a very simple idea in mind.....luckily it's a free program....

And speaking of Animorphs, Stephanie Meyer's new (non-Twilight) book, The Host, is coming out this Tuesday, and it has a lot of similarities with Animorphs--largely in the invading parasitic alien race that wraps itself around the hosts' brain and controls it--Yeerks anyone? :p  Still, I always loved the concept, so I'm really looking forward to the book, and will definitely be buying it tomorrow at the nearby Barnes and Noble and starting it, even if I should be doing other stuff....;)  Still, it's been a while since a long-anticipated book has been released, so I'm going to grab it when I can!  It's the first of the summer book blockbusters for me, with the next being Jacqueline Carey's much-anticipated conclusion to the second Kushiel trilogy, Kushiel's Mercy, which comes out in June....

And in a piece of unexpected, yet almost as exciting news, the teaser trailer for the "Twilight" movie has FINALLY been released! :D  I've been waiting so long for this, so eager to see how they were going to market it, and what it would look like.....it seems they're going to advertise it as a thriller, which I think is good and suits the mysterious mood of Twilight--and which will attract more viewers than a simple romance as well!

Check it out....

http://www.myspace.com/trailerpark

And last but not least, Happy Bonesday! :)  Only one more day after today I can say that until next season....*sigh*  
Looks like it will be a good episode too!  Anything with Max-related angst is usually top-notch....