Crackin' Spines & Takin' Names

Macbook Air & Apple TV Giveaway

2012-01-21T08:09:00.000-05:00

A seemingly random group of words, but when you put them all together, wow! Head on over to Sparkling Reviews for your chance to win an insanely thin Macbook and Apple TV! Good luck!

Win a Gaming Laptop from Sparkling Reviews

2012-01-19T08:20:00.004-05:00

She's at it again, folks! Head on over to Sparkling Reviews and enter for a chance to win a Dell Alienware Gaming Laptop.

Goos luck!

Contests of Note

2012-01-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let y'all know that Sparkling Reviews is giving away a Kindle Fire and a $50 Amazon giftcard, which is just what you'll need to stock up on e-books if you win! Enter here!

Also, while I'm at it, today is the last day to enter my contest for a chance to win an 8x10 custom canvas print curtesy of Easy Canvas Prints. I really cannot say enough about this product, y'all. It's insanely cool to see a photo you took on canvas. Seriously. Enter here!

Anywhoodle,
enjoy your weekend and have fun entering!
Zombie Girrrl

Easy Canvas Prints Review & Giveaway

2012-01-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

Easy Canvas Prints, a company that puts your photos on canvas. A pretty easy concept, when you think about it, but there's something really exciting about it all he same.

For this review, I'll break it down into the ordering process and the product.

Ordering: Okay, this site is super easy to navigate. Total no-brainer. You can create a canvas with an uploaded image (you can even snag a photo from your Facebook account) in less than 5 minutes by first choosing the size, which range from 8x8" to 24x36" and all clearly priced, then loading your image (there's a handy meter which tells you whether your image is of high enough quality to be printed), then just follow the easy steps which follow and voila. Your very own, one of a kind canvas. The only downside I could find while ordering my canvas was that you couldn't change the orientation of the canvas from portrait to landscape. I had to rotate the image on my computer and reload it. But aside from that, it was really an easy experience, and the hanging hook on the back is oriented correctly to the image.
Another important thing to remember is that when you scan a photo that's maybe not so great--like, say, my parents wedding photo--the pixel count will be high enough for the quality-widget to give you the go ahead, but the image itself won't be good enough for printing. This is what happened to me the first time I placed my order. The good news: Easy Canvas Prints emailed me promptly saying that my order was on hold and why. They suggested that I choose another picture and gave me clear instructions on how to either change the picture or go ahead with the printing. I chose another picture and the canvas arrived three days later. I was very impressed with the service.
Another thing to keep in mind when choosing a digital image from your computer is that the screen is luminous but a canvas is not. Shadows might not seem like a big deal on your computer, but they sure show themselves clearly in print.
Which brings me to...

Product: I was pretty excited to see my canvas when it arrived, so I tore into the box, at which point I became even more excited. This was much more than I was expecting. I don't why, but I wasn't expecting the image to be so vibrant and clear. It's really an excellent product.
I have now ordered a total three canvases from Easy Canvas Prints (one was a prize, the second was for review, and the third we bought as a Christmas present for my parents), and I am really very pleased with each of them. When my review canvas arrived and I unpacked it, I was a bit distressed; the canvas was noticably loose on the frame, but by the next day it had tightened up. I can't explain why this was, but it mended itself; so if you order one and it arrives a bit loose, don't fret, just give a day and see what happens.

Now for the giveaway!
One lucky reader will win one 8x10 canvas with their picture of choice.

Rules:
Open to residents of the continental US (company's request)
Giveaway will run from 1/1/12 and will end at 12:00 am on 1/14/12
To enter fill out the Rafflecopter form below (please do not leave any personal information in the comments)
Winner will be contacted by email and will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner will be picked.
Note: If you Like Easy Canvas Prints on Face Book, which is worth 1 point, you can get 50% off your next order and free shipping! So really, everyone's a winner here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Take On: Tiger's Voyage by Colleen Houck

2011-12-09T10:09:00.001-05:00

In the third installment of the Tiger series, Kelsey Hayes pushes through the pain of lost love and strengthens her friendship with Kishan1. Despite his strong feelings for her, Kishan has agreed to be her ally in helping her reunite with the man she still loves2. Together, they seek to help Ren regain his memory and begin the search for the third magical gift—an object of power that will help break the curse that causes them to live part of their lives as tigers.
They board a luxury yacht3 and seek Durga's aid once again, who supplies them with her golden weapons. With Nilima, Mr. Kadam, Ren, and Kishan at her side4, she soon learns that the task ahead will be even more difficult than the others. Confronting a dark magician, multiple dragons, and terrifying denizens of the deep seems easy when compared to facing the daunting task of stitching up her heart...

...and the synopsis goes on and on and on, but that's the gist of it.
Tiger's Voyage was... well, the first thing that comes to mind is how much I laughed while reading it. I mean, it was a riot. Was it a comedy? Um... well? No, not really. This is straight up paranormal romance. There is a girl (we'll call her Slug-Baby). There is a guy (two of them, actually) that are cursed to spend a portion of their day as tigers. There's love. Lots of it. And kissing. Lots of it. Actually, too much of it4, but at least they never do anything more than kiss. Aside from sleeping in each others beds like a bad episode of Dawson's Creek. Oh, yeah, and there's a quest, or in this case, a voyage5.
I've heard this series described as Twilight meets Indiana Jones, and that is actually a very accurate blurb. The love story aspect is somewhat convoluted and one sided, I'm not actually certain that Slug-Baby loves either guy or just doesn't want to hurt either one's feelings. And the adventure is so much fun, full of traps and quests within quests, and puzzles and pitfalls. Houck really has a knack for classic story telling as she reveals in some of the truly bizarre settings and challenges that the trio face on the voyage. It's the story telling, more than anything, that keeps me coming back to this series.

But I know what you're wondering most of all: "Why do you call Kelsey 'Slug-Baby'?" Gather round, my friends, and I'll tell you the tale of how Slug-Baby got her name...
Kelsey was once a real girl. She was alone, in a sad sense, since she had lost both her parents in a car accident, but she had a polite, vegan foster family to care for her. Then, one day, a marvelous thing happened: the circus came to town! Kelsey decided to work at the circus, and her vegan foster parents encouraged her, though they would miss having her around to babysit while they jogged.
So Kelsey, who was still Kelsey at this point, packed up her hair ribbons and her grandmother's quilt and moved to the circus. Such nerve! There she met a white tiger who seemed sad and alone. She felt for the tiger, all stifled in his cage, and began to spend time with him. Kelsey discovered that he enjoyed Shakespeare, because who doesn't, really? So she read to him, and the tiger was happier for it.
Kelsey and tiger became friends.
One day, a rich, Indian man came to the circus asking Kelsey if she would accompany the tiger to India where the rich man wished to rehabilitate him. Kelsey asked her vegan foster parents what they thought about her, a naive high school grad, traveling to a foreign land with a complete and suspiciously rich stranger. They thought it swell.
So Kelsey, who was still Kelsey, traveled to India.
Fast forward. Surprise, the tiger is a man! And he loves Kelsey, who is becoming less of a Kelsey everyday. And the rich man is not evil or creepy, he's polite and encyclopedic! And also immortal!
Fast forward yet again, and there's another tiger-man! And he loves Kelsey, who is even less of a Kelsey than before. He doesn't care that the girl who was Kelsey is in love with his own brother. He wants her. So he steals her kisses, even as they work to save the brother she loved first. And the girl who was Kelsey finds that she likes him too. Her tigers are perfect and bronze and handsome and brave and they take care of her in marvelous ways! They defend the girl who is no longer Kelsey from enemies and tuck her into bed. They make sure that she's eating and shield her from sadness, as best as they can. They love her even when their love brings her to harm and do everything for her as if she had no arms.
Slug-Baby is born.

So, obviously, this is not a dashing tale of equality, although Kelsey does perform some brave and clever feats now and again, mostly when her tigers aren't quick enough to stop her.
And this isn't a wonderful and swoon-worthy love story, either. Love is...not this. Love is willing the good of another, and I just don't see that in the way Kelsey leads both of the brothers on or the way that they fight for her affection and cause her great turmoil and confusion.
But it is entertaining, especially when read critically.

I give Tiger's Voyage 5 zombies for the story telling parts where marvelous things happened, and 3 zombies for the rest of it, which equals...

...4 zombies.

i am
zombie girrrl
& this was
unintentionally
hilarious

footnotes___________________________________________________________________
1. I believe it's pronounced kih-shin, both with the short I sound.
2. If you write it, it must be true. Kishan was a cad in book the second, Tiger's Quest, but he made a miraculous recovery and is now the better man, in my opinion. Hurray for the power of love and edits.
3. "Luxury" is an understatement. One of the things that keeps me reading this series is the extreme opulence. The yacht was more like a private cruise ship and Kelsey always gets the best of everything. I wonder if that bothers Nilima? Anyway. Everything is described in excruciating detail, but I find it entertaining how very rich and detailed the environment is. It's like taking a tour. In fact, the detail almost moves this one out of Paranormal Romance and into Fantasy, except for the amount of kissing [see footnote #4].
4. I wound up skimming a good portion for the book. Kissing just doesn't make for good reading, especially when it's paid the same amount of detail as the setting. I literally skipped two pages that were dedicated entirely to one kiss. Plus, there was one really creepy kissing scene. Like, really, really creepy. Like, "please don't let this be what girls find dreamy" type creepy.
5. A voyage being a quest which takes place on the water.

Read Dangerously Read-A-Thon

2011-08-12T13:25:00.002-04:00

This will be where I update my reading progress as well as participate in the mini challenges. Stay tuned!

Progress:
Day 1: I didn't get off to a spectacular start. I only read one chapter: Chapter four of Theology of the Body for Teens, to be exact. It was really interesting, and I enjoyed the discussion that ensued immensely, but I really meant to have had more reading under my belt by this point. Now, if this were a crochet-a-thon, then I'd be golden! I'll just have to hang up my hook for the next two days and play catch up.

Day 2: I read most of The Dead-Tossed Waves, staying up till nearly 1am. I wasn't able to finish it, though, as my eyes were crossing with fatigue.

Day 3: Finished The Dead-Tossed Waves! It was awesome. Not as scary as FoHaT, but there was more... feeling, I think. Definitely more of a love story.
I'm now reading FEED by Mira Grant, another of my favorite zombie books.
Mini Challenges:
Challenge #1: fail
Challenge #2: fail
Challenge #3: Describe the book you're reading in 7 words.
Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan: Gabry must face her fears and live.

i am
zombie girrrl
& i have
some reading
to do

My Take On: Paper Town's by John Green

2011-07-28T11:44:00.003-04:00

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night, dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge, he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q. Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.

So, I'd read one of John Green's books, An Abundance of Katherines, and I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I was a bit leery about reading another of his books, lest it be inferior in awesomeness and somehow taint the happy memory of the first. I don't know why I develop these weird reading phobias, but I do, and they keep me from reading really good books for too long.
And, yes, Paper Towns was a really good book.
But before I get to that, because it's important to me (and a lot of readers I know and respect), I'll break it down by content:

Language: There were a LOT of GD's. Just about every character said it, and it was said a good number of times1 throughout the book. Other than that, there were also a lot of S's and D's and the like. I cannot now recall if there were any F-bombs dropped on this beauty because I generally skip over them without even absorbing their presence.
There was also rather a lot of sexually crude language of the ignorant-teenage-boy variety.

Sexual Content: There was implicit language and one scene where it nearly happened, though not to a main character, but (thankfully) this was a pretty clean book in that respect. In fact, Q was a relatively chaste guy, and I really loved that about him. Virginity was, however, viewed as a thing to be lost or given away outside of marriage. It must be said, though, that John Green never uses sex lightly nor for no greater reason than to thrill the masses or sell more books. He is as thoughtful in his use of more-mature content as he is with his trademark wit, and there is always a lesson to be learned--that usually being that physical intimacy does not equate to emotional intimacy. I have a great deal of respect for John Green because he accepts, and even embraces that he, as a writer, has a responsibilty to his readers.

Violence: More of the ignorant-teenage-boy variety with a dose of psychotic bullies.

Okay, on with the show!
I've been watching a lot of Vlogbrothers lately, and it got me thinking about some things that John used in this book, such as how Quentin said, in my all-time favorite quote,

"You can't divorce Margo the person from the Margo the body. You can't see one without seeing the other. You looked in Margo's eyes and saw both their blueness and their Margo-ness."

Notice the use of "you"? You didn't look in Margo's eyes, Quentin did; and if you did look in her eyes, I somehow doubt that you would see all that. John pointed out this phenomenon in Catcher in the Rye saying that Holden referred to you because it was too painful to say I when recollecting his youth and the girl he innocently held hands with.
Quentin seemed to be deeply infatuated with Margo, or at least the idea of Margo, yet he couldn't bring himself to say, "When I looked in Margo's eyes." It cost too much for him to admit that he, himself saw these things when he looked in her eyes, because he thought he could never be with her.
But that's not what makes this my favorite quote, that's just what makes this quote interesting in the framework of the story. What makes it my favorite is that everyone hopes to be seen this way. Despite all the work we put into our appearance--makeup, hair, skin care, clothing, likes and dislikes, all the time and energy, conscious or unconscious, that we spend on cultivating an image--what we really want is for someone to look past the strategically engineered facade and see our souls shining through our countenances2.
This quote and this line of thought, our ideas of people and how far short they fall of the real person, is really what the entire book is about.
As Quentin sets out to find Margo physically, he is also trying to find the real Margo--a window amid all the mirrors--and along the way he finds a bit of himself: What really scares him and how brave he can be, what kind of friend he is, what kind of friends he has3, and how to look through the cracks in the facade to see the light within. Also, how much minivans rock.
I give Paper Towns...

1/2

...4 1/2 zombies!

This is really a beautiful book. John Green is one of my favorite writers because of his truly unique style and wit and his uflinching honesty. I got this from my library, but I'll be looking to add Paper Towns to my personal collection.

i am
zombie girrrl
& i'm
really not
capricious,
you only think
i am

footnotes____________________________________________________________
1. It occurs to me that "a good number of times" is a really poor phrase in this instance. O Language, thou hast failed me!
2. And there's that "you" again. I suppose it's a sort of survival mechanism.
3. I'll tell you now: Q has the awesome kind of friends. Another of John Greens' talents lies in creating amazing friends for his protagonists.

Read Dangerously Read-a-Thon

2011-07-16T14:21:00.004-04:00

This post is very important. This post means I am an official participant in...

This read-a-thon is only a small part of an even bigger event at All By MySHELF, celebrating Ren's 20th birthday. And everyone knows: big event + blogging = PRIZES!

Here are the important details about the read-a-thon:

The Read Dangerously Read-A-Thon will start at 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 11, and end at 10 p.m. on Saturday, August 13. There will be mini-challenges on each day, so you'll have something to amuse yourself during your reading breaks. You can participate on all days or just a few, whatever you feel like or your schedule allows.
But that's not all! Everyone that participates in the read-a-thon will be entered to win $15 to The Book Depository! One winner will get their choice of any already released as of August 20) YA book, and because it's BD, the contest is open to anyone that lives in one of these countries. And if you say Zombie Girrrl sent you, we'll both get an extra entry! All you have to do to be eligible for the giveaway is sign up for the read-a-thon and post an end of day update on one of the read-a-thon days. Yep, that simple.
Now, what are you waiting for? Go sign up!

He's #1!

2011-06-19T08:57:00.002-04:00

Give your dad a hug.

i am
zombie girrrl
& my Dad
is #1
xo

Happy Father's Day!

So You Want to Be More Like Rory Gilmore...

2011-05-27T09:47:00.120-04:00

Well, according to Wikihow, the first place to start is by wearing blue contacts and dying your hair brown, but this is not the most important thing. By far the most important aspect of Rory is her wit and intelligence, the latter being best exemplified by her lengthy reading list1. So, if you really want to be more like her2, then get reading!

9.A Separate Peace by John Knowles
10.Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan
11.A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L. Mencken
12.An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
13.A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
14.A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
15.Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Why haven't I read this? I've read so many other books on this topic, yet I haven't read this?! I need to correct that post haste.)
16.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
17.Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
18.A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
19.Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
20.A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
21.A Month of Sundays by Julie Mars
22.A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
23.Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
24.Beloved by Toni Morrison
25.Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
26.Brick Lane by Monica Ali
27.Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
28.Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
29.Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie
30.Cousin Bette by Honore De Balzac
31.Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
32.Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
33.Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (still working on this one)
34.Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
35.David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
36.Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky
37.Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
38.Daisy Miller by Henry James
39.Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
40.Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
41.Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
42.Emma by Jane Austen
43.Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
44.Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
45.Extravagance by Gary Krist
46.Empire Falls by Richard Russo
47.Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
48.Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
49.Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
50.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
51.Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest people in the World by Greg Critser
52.Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
53.Howl by Allen Ginsberg
54.Hamlet by William Shakespeare
55.Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
56.How the Light gets In by M.J. Hyland
57.How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
58.Holidays on Ice by Davis Sedaris
59.Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
60.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (I plan on giving this another go now that I'm older)
61.Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
62.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
63.Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
64.Life of Pi by Yann Martel
65.Lord of the Flies by William Golding
66.Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
67.Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
68.Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
69.Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
70.Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
71.Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Haven't read this, but I loved In The Heart of the Sea: The Sinking of Whale Ship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, which is the true account of the killer, white whale)
72.Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
73.My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
74.Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
75.Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
76.My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
77.My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
78.Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
79.New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
80.Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/a Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
81.Night by Elie Wiesel
82.Nervous System by Jan Lars Jensen
83.Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
84.On the Road by Jack Kerouac
85.One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey
86.Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
87.Othello by William Shakespeare
88.Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
89.Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
90.Oracle Night by Paul Auster
91.Old School by Tobias Wolff
92.Pushkin: A Biography by T.J. Binyon
93.Please Kill Me: Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
94.Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
95.Property by Valerie Martin
96.Quattrocento by James McKean
97.Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
98.Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
99.Rescuing Patty Hearst by Virginia Holman
100.Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
101.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
102.Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia De Burgos by Julia De Burgos
103.Swimming with Giants: My Encounters With Whales, Dolphins, and Seals by Anne Collet
104.Savage Beauty: the Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
105.Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
106.Sanctuary by William Faulkner
107.Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemmingway
108.Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
109.Selected Letters of Dawn Powell 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
110.Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
111.Sybil by Flora Schreiber
112.Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
113.Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
114.Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
115.Songbook by Nick Hornby
116.Small Island by Andrea Levy
117.The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
118.The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum
119.The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir
120.The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
121.The Awakening by Kate Chopin
122.The Manticore by Robertson Davies
123.Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
124.The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
125.The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
126.The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
127.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
128.The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
129.The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer
130.The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
131.The Group by Mary McCarthy
132.The Portable Nietzsche by Nietzsche
133.The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
134.The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
135.The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
136.The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
137.The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
138.Time and Again by Jack Finney
139.Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fritzgerald
140.The Little Locksmith by Katherine Butler Hathaway
141.The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
142.The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
143.The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
144.The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
145.The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
146.The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn by Mark Twain
147.The Art of War by Sun Tzu
148.The Last Empire Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
149.The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
150.The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
151.The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
152.The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
153.The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
154.The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
155.The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (My mom wouldn't let me read this. It was the first time I can ever remember being told No about a book.)
156.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
157.The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
158.The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
159.The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
160.The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
161.The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
162.The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duff
163.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
164.The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
165.The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
166.The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
167.The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
168.The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
169.The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
170.The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
171.The Time Travaler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
172.Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett
173.The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
174.The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
175.The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
176.The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
177.The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
178.The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
179.The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
180.Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher
181.Unless by Carol Shields
182.Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
183.Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
184.War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
185.Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
186.When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
187.1984 by George Orwell
188.In cold blood
189.Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
190.How I live now

i am
zombie girrrl
& i have
a lot
of reading to do

footnotes_______________________________________________________________
1. I don't know why the list begins at 9, but I assure you this is the complete list.
2. And there surely must be people who do, since there was a whole article written about it on Wikihow. There was even one on how to speak like a Gilmore Girl, which is actually a fairly useful skill to have.
3. Key: Read, Incomplete for Whatever Reason, Family Library, Public Library

My (revised) Take On: The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

2011-05-20T21:25:00.114-04:00

Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn't know much about her background - the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip - but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.
Until now.
Strange things have been happening in this claustrophobic town - from the mountain lions that have been approaching Maya to her best friend's hidden talent for "feeling" out people and situations, to the sexy new bad boy who makes Maya feel . . . . different. Combine that with a few unexplained deaths and a mystery involving Maya's biological parents and it's easy to suspect that this town might have more than its share of skeletons in its closet.

So, yeah...
I already said what I thought while I was reading this book, and incase you missed that you can read it here. But in case you don't like chasing links or whatever, I'll just summarize my pre-review by saying this: I was less than pleased and slightly more than bored.
However!
Have you ever read a book that was better in retrospect? It just didn't seem that great while you were actively reading it, but once it was over and you had all the pieces in a row, it was better? Maybe not fully redeemed, but better. Well, this turned out to be one of those books.
I was underwhelmed while reading The Gathering, but as soon as I set it down and mulled it over for a bit1, I came to see that, not only was it not that bad, it was actually pretty good. Just, not while you're reading it.
It's hard to explain.
Like, while I was reading, the lack of action2--and not just fight scenes, but the lack of action taken by the characters--bugged me and made it seem too easy and like there just wasn't a story; but after finishing it, I realized that, hey, this was actually a good story that must have been somewhat hard to tell because the kids didn't know that the company which provided such a high standard of living for their families is evil to its blackened core.They have to figure out what we already know.
And, yes, the ease with which the characters seemed to gain and then dismiss important information was frustrating. They'd just realize something and then say, "Well, now doesn't seem like the right time to deal with this--I'm too hungry, and my friend stubbed his toe, and I need to feed the pine marten--so I'll just sit on this importante tidbit for a few days."
But by the end3, it had much improved. Something was happening!
So. I give The Gathering...

...3 zombies.

It took forever and a day to get going, and it ended right when it was getting good, but I like where the series seems to be headed so I'm looking forward to seeing what develops--especially in regards to certain characters' abilities...

i am
zombie girrrl
& this got
betterbetterbetter
but then
it ended

footnotes_________________________________________________________
1. "A bit" being about 30 minutes.
2. For the first 230 of 359 pages, hardback.
3. Which, let me warn you now, is one of the biggest cliff hangers I've ever read. Seriously, the scene just ended in the middle of the action and I was like, "Wait. That's the end? It had just gotten good!"

Currently Reading The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong...

2011-05-20T12:58:00.000-04:00

...and it is dull, dull, dull. I feel bad saying that because I liked the Darkest Powers series so much and was so looking forward to reading this book, but it's true. I feel like nothing much happened until page 237, and that every time Maya gets close to finding something interesting, or at least reacting in some interesting way to something potentially interesting, she backs off. I'm into the late 200's now and it's finally staring to pick up, but I feel almost like Kelley picked the wrong character to follow. You see, there's this other girl, a peripheral character really, who is actually doing stuff and digging around and asking questions, and I'm left wondering, "Why aren't I reading about her?"
So, you can count this as my review because I don't feel like sitting down and racking my brain over what this was really saying1 and how I felt about the flow2 and the characters3 and the story4, yet I still wanted to say something about this book because I'd been looking forward to reading it so much.
I'll admit that the problem might not lie solely with the book, though; it might also be that I'm a bit emotionally shell shocked after losing my cat5 and I can't seem to get into it as fully as I'd like. With that in mind, I will be reading the second book when it comes out and judging from there whether I'll read the rest of this series. My hope is that this series will pick up in book two, because I do like this world and her writing style, but I'm chalking The Gathering up as a fail, for whatever reason.

i am
zombie girrl
& this was
a snooze fest
that i'm going
to write off as
a bad start

footnotes___________________________________________________________________
1. Nothing much, as far as I can tell.
2. It's slooooooow.
3. I actually really like the characters, especially Maya and Daniel and the dynamic between them. It's one of those friendships that you are either blessed to have, or wish you had.
4. So much untapped potential! So many mishandled clues! So much that the characters seem to know without knowing what they know... if that makes any sense. Like, weird things happen to the characters and they brush it off as being a normal "personal quirk" or talent that some people have.
5. She's not dead, so please don't send condolences, but she isn't coming back. Short story: she wasn't as much of a stray as I thought and her family finally showed up to take her "home". Honestly, after a year and half, I think they just should've let sleeping dogs, or contented cats, lie. I miss her6.
6. *Understatement of the year*

My Take On: Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

2011-05-18T16:51:00.169-04:00

Fever Crumb is a1 girl who has been adopted and raised by Dr. Crumb, a member of the order of Engineers, where she serves as apprentice. In a time and place where women are not seen as reasonable creatures, Fever is an anomaly, the only female to serve in the order. Soon though, she must say goodbye to Dr. Crumb-nearly the only person she's ever known-to assist archeologist Kit Solent on a top-secret project. As her work begins, Fever is plagued by memories that are not her own and Kit seems to have a particular interest in finding out what they are. Fever has also been singled out by city-dwellers who declare her part Scriven. The Scriveners, not human, ruled the city some years ago but were hunted down and killed in a victorious uprising by the people. If there are any remaining Scriven, they are to be eliminated. All Fever knows is what she's been told: that she is an orphan. Is Fever a Scriven? Whose memories does she hold? Is the mystery of Fever, adopted daughter of Dr. Crumb, the key to the secret that lies at the heart of London?

If Hayao Miyazaki were to write a book, this would be it.
Fever Crumb was utterly original, palpable, and strongly visuallized novel based in a distant future that bears the blurry shadows of our own culture.
Archeologists, a very important faction in the city of London, dig up remnants of the past, such as misunderstood tech. The very earth is permeated with our refuse from when the high-tech Now crumbled into the nearly alchemical and superstitious Future.
Even the language and culture was pregnant with slang and beliefs derived from our current pop culture: blog(ger) was a well-used substitute for certain explitives and Harry Potter was briefly mentioned as being some sort of prophet with a zealous following. The nods to the misunderstood past were hurmorous, well-placed, and gave this otherwise fanciful story a root in reality. It also helped show how much knowledge Fever's world had lost, how much continuity they lacked between our present and this future. Not that it was a very realistic story, though--this isn't some sort of cautionary tale. Which brings me, I think, back to Myazaki.
The plot was somehow reminescent of an anime movie: Our hero, surounded by mystery in regards to their origin, must discover who they are; there's a lot of heavy drama playing out around them, including politics and a past and impending war; the boundary between good and evil is found to be not nearly as black and white as it was originally assumed to be; and the ending, well, it wasn't very... end-y. I know that there's another book after this2, but as I read the last few lines and came to realize that, indeed, this was where the book would end, I couldn't help but think of the ending of Howl's Moving Castle3 when the exilude began playing while the characters were still trying to work things out and tie off those loose ends. Not that I'm complaining.
But it was more than just the vague similarity between the plot style and anime movies, it was also the vibe. From the very first scene in which Dr. Crumb and Fever are making Paper Boys on the roof of Godshawk's Head in the middle of a smokey London, I visualized this as an anime movie. And a bloggin' good one, too. It just didn't work out my mind unless I was visualizing it thusly. Again, not that I'm complaining.
It was a bit slow going, I'll admit, but this book made up for it in sheer coolness.
I give Fever Crumb...

...four zombies!

There wasn't a lot to read into with this one, no hidden truths that I could discern beside the important role of the Church in tending the flocks and keeping the paths clear, but Fever Crumb was genuinely fun to read.

i am

zombie girrrl

& this book

is different

footnotes___________________________________________________________

1. 14 year-old (I felt this needed to be mentioned somewhere sort of official because I kept forgetting hor young she was, probably because she was very clinical and logical; somethign that also made it hard to get attached to her.)

2. As well as a whole other series, this being the first book in the prequel series to The Hungry City series which is about "Municipal Darwinism", something that sounds both extremely awesome as well as a bit mysterious but is actually exactly what it sounds like: survival of the fittest city.

3. The movie, not the book. I actually can't remember the ending of the book all that well.

My Take On: The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

2011-05-12T14:10:00.002-04:00

basis, n.
There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.
If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it—you’re done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover’s face.
How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

To be quite blunt, this was an utterly original book about the stinginess of modern love. Yet The Lover's Dictionary was nevertheless an addictive read with style, wit, and, if not moral integrity and sincerity, at least honesty.
It was not, however, YA. This book is about two adults, in a very adult relationship, dealing with the very adult consequences of their not so very adult decisions. Also, there is a good deal of swearing, including several F's, a couple GD's and one use of a worse word. Yeah, apparently there is one.
So, while I would not recommend this to teens--because it really isn't written for teens, no matter what Levithan's past publications or its being shelved in my libraries YA section may lead one to believe--and while I do not agree with the relationship it flaunts as being the modern norm, it was, nonetheless, a good read. It read something like an Anne Hathaway movie, actually. At least, that's what I was thinking of while I was reading it. Just not the fluffy princess kind. More the hook-up kind that I only ever see the previews of and then snub as being too smutty for my taste. But, thankfully, there wasn't anything strictly explicit in this book, though I did skip a few definitions. But I digress.
As for the stinginess I mentioned above: if this book truly is a portrait of modern love, then we are a very poor generation of lovers. The image it painted was one of love being a mere feeling, something that is fleeting and that can be gone in an instant like sunshine behind a cloud, and while that description may be true of such things as trust or amusement, it is not an accurate depiction of love.
Love is one person willing the good of another. It's a decision to do right by them and to take care of them and never willingly hurt them. Love is a choice that must be made several times a day: I will forgive/apologize because I love you; I will be chaste because I love you; I will commit to this relationship 100% by marrying you because I love you; I will make this work because I choose to love you. It was this self sacrifice, which is the true nature of love itself, that the relationship in the Dictionary was missing. Like a cake with no leaven or a smile that never reaches the eyes, without self-sacrifice, there was just something essential missing. This was the type of relationship in which no one is fully commited and everyone is on tenterhooks about it falling apart suddenly like a paper balloon in the rain. And while I appreciate that this cavalier mindset is some peoples' reality, I don't appreciate this view of love being perpetuated as the new norm.
The truth is, there is no new norm of love. Love is and always will be what God made it to be, and anything less is exactly that: less.
I give The Lover's Dictionary...

...three zombies.

It was a stylishly written, interesting look at the flippant outlook people have come to possess of love, as well as a thought provoking look at selfishness in the place of selflessness and how that can altar a relationship from being something beautiful and wholesome to something that causes nearly constant grief and anxiety punctuated by rays of pleasure or affection.

i am

zombie girrrl

& love's got

a lot to do

with everything

My Take On: I Heart You, You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder

2011-05-10T15:04:00.122-04:00

Girl meets boy.

Girl loses boy.

Girl gets boy back...

...sort of.

Ava can't see him or touch him, unless she's dreaming. She can't hear his voice, except for the faint whispers in her mind. Most would think she's crazy, but she knows he's here.
Jackson. The boy Ava thought she'd spend the rest of her life with. He's back from the dead, as proof that love truly knows no bounds.

This is the first novel I've read that was written in verse. In fact, it had never really occured to me, until quite recently, that someone would write a novel in this format. I was a bit unsure as to whether I would like it--would there be enough character development, what about backdrop and details and sub-plots?1--but I need not have worried.
It's true that there wasn't a whole lot of detail in regards to backdrop and apsolutely no sub-plots, there wasn't space for it in this spartan style, but it never detracted from the story. And you really can't complain about it not having enough character developement, even though the book is very short and only took a couple hours to read, because the whole book was based on the developement of Ava, who narates the story, as she grieves the boyfriend she lost and learns to live again.
Another thing about this book that is worth mentioning is the false impression I had of it as being yet another paranormal book. Yes, there is a ghost. Yes, he communicates with his girlfriend in ghostly ways--in her dreams2, by turning on the radio3, or by poltergeisting her room and breathing cold ghosty breath down her neck. But, and this is a big "but", this is not so much about Ava being haunted by her dead ex as it is about her dealing with the grief and guilt of his sudden death. And it's the second emotion, guilt, that really kept me reading. In fact, I was about to get bored with the story of Ava being sad and Jackson being dead when I was thrown a line of intrigue. How did he die? Why does Ava feel responsible? Why did Jackson come back at all4? Schroeder struck a very good balance by adding that aspect of mystery and shame, and the answers were revealed at the perfect pace.

I give I Heart You, You Haunt Me...

1/2

...4 1/2 zombies!

This is a quick, satisfying read that explores the themes of life, death, guilt, grief, and how true love never dies yet yearns always for the best of the beloved.

i am
zombie girrrl
& this was
sweeter
than it was
spooky

footnotes____________________________________________________________
1. Furthermore, would it rhyme? Because that's a deal breaker. I am happy to report that this book is not written in rhyme.
2. Which is insanely awkward though, thankfully, not dwelled on too long nor described in great detail.
3. Music plays a large-ish part in setting the emotional tone between Ava and the late, great, bald-pate Jackson.
4. Ghost Rule #1: a ghosts can't move on if they have baggage or unfinished business.

Harry Potter and the Most Terrible News Ever T_T

2011-04-27T16:27:00.001-04:00

With my Lenten reading fast1 over, I was eagerly looking forward to reading some secular books. My sisters and I had a Potter movie-thon a while ago, and that got me craving some Harry Potter, so the first thing I decided to read this Easter season was The Sorcerer's Stone. I started it today, and already I'm halfway done.
That's not the bad news.
This is: It's falling apart! My first edition hardback, which has been read well over thirty times2 is coming apart at the seams. The spine and the pages no longer imparentato3.

Saddest sight

I just realized that the title of this post might have freaked some of you out. You might have clicked it with the expectations of an obituary or the announcement of a new ending to the Harry Potter movie saga. But the only news, aside from the release date of book 8, Harry Potter and the Aurors of Darkness4, is that my favorite series is falling apart.

i am
zombie girrrl
& i need glue

footnotes______________________________________________________________________
1 I gave up reading secular, or non-Christian, books for Lent. It was a pretty rewarding expeirnce and I'll be reading more Christian books regularly.
2 I have three sisters. We share this series. We all reread it in its entirety before the release of a new volume. 4 x 7 + bonus reads = a whole lot. We are Potter heads.
3 Itialano for "connected", something which no longer describes the spine and pages of this book.
4 Just kidding. There's not going to be an 8th book. But wasn't that a cool title?

Prayer Request

2011-04-22T08:41:00.000-04:00

I'm breaking my Holy Week hiatus for one reason only, and that is to ask you all to join me and countless other Catholics in praying the most powerful prayer in existence, the Rosary, on one of the holiest days of the Church year, Good Friday.

Imagine what might happen if every Catholic in the world would pray a Rosary on the same day! We have an example in October of 1573, when Europe was saved from the invasion of the mighty Turkish fleet, by the praying of the Rosary by all Christians!
So, on Good Friday, let us all pray a Rosary for peace in the world and the return of moral values into our communities. If possible, please pray your Rosary between Noon and 3:00 p.m.
Please pass this message to every Catholic on you know, and ask them to pass it along to every Catholic they know. Let's unite in praying one of the most powerful prayers in existence, for these intentions, on one of the holiest days in our Church year.

Thank you! I hope you will join me in seeking the intercession of our Blessed Mother for these intentions.

Have a blessed Triduum and a glorious Easter.

i am
zombie girrrl
& i pray
for you

Holy Week Hiatus

2011-04-18T10:50:00.000-04:00

I haven't had time recently to post anything, and I'm going to have less time until after Easter, so I'll make it official. I'm going on a blog hiatus for Holy Week, the most blessed week of the whole liturgucal year.
So, have a blessed Holy Week, and may this season draw you closer to Jesus and eternity in His Kingdom!

i am
zombie girrl
and this is
my time of year

Daily Dose the Third

2011-04-04T14:18:00.000-04:00

Shadows of Shadows of Shadows

Gale and Peeta Have Been Given a Dye Job

2011-04-04T14:09:00.000-04:00

I'm not really the type to follow movie news, but this needed to be posted because the casting folks got their hair backwards. Josh is going to play the blondey Peeta, and Liam is going to play the raven-haired Gale. But don't worry about them having the opposite hair color from the characters they're going to portray, because I fixed it.

Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth

Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson

I gotta say, Liam makes a better brunette than Josh does a blonde. Also, why is Josh's forehead so big?! Whoops. Hopefully the hair and makeup people will do a better job than I did.

Anywhoodle.
I am
Zombie Girrrl
& I am bad at scalping

Friday Five

2011-04-01T16:38:00.000-04:00

You know you've fallen behind on posting when your F5s are practically cheek-to-cheek, but...

Going to Stations of the Cross with my family tonight, just like every Friday of Lent. My patron saint is Saint Veronica, the woman who "flouted the Romans" by stepping out of the crowd and wiping Jesus' face as He struggled to carry His Cross to Calvary, which is depicted in the sixth Station. I love the Stations, which is part of the reason I chose St. Veronica; the other reason is that she helped Jesus, she showed Him love when he needed it the most, and for that I love her enough that I wish to be like her. If you haven't experienced this traditional devotion for yourself, I suggest you do. It gives you a whole new appreciation of the Passion. And it doesn't matter what denomination you are; if you love Christ, then take the time to walk the Way of Sorrow with Him.
My current obsession is origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. So far I've made a tulip, an ugly lily (didn't turn out as it should have), a dove, and a flock of orizuru (cranes). I can now make a crane without consulting a diagram! I find all of the patterns, along with some handy photos and links to instructions, at Origami, a blog devoted entirely to origami. What else.
Lenten Reading Fast update: I have begun reading Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen and it is a-mazing! I want to quote it at least every other page. I'm only to the second chapter, but he's already blown my mind a bit with his explanation of eternity. Not an easy concept to grasp as we are finite creatures who cannot wrap our minds fully around what eternity is, but it was fun to read about. The reason he was trying to explain eternity: the prologue to the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, etc." It's not like he's shown me anything new, but he's helped me to see it more clearly, which is perhaps even better.
I volunteered at the food bank on Monday with my dad and two of my three sisters. It was a lot of fun. Everyone there was so nice. We helped 245 people, a new record for that food bank. I'm really looking forward to going again next month (the FB only operates once a month). I wish I could write more about that experience, but anything else I could say would come off as either boastful or sickeningly sentimental. Sometimes you have such a good time doing something good that words just can't do it justice.
Tomorrow is a very busy day at church and beyond. First is Mass, then a brunch followed by a Lenten reflection, Reconciliation (part of the First Saturday Devotion), then the newly Confirmed are doing a service project. Oh, yeah! My Confirmation kids were Cofirmed last Saturday! Hurray!!! (I think I saw my librarian there, too...) The Cofirmation Mass was one of the proudest, most humbling, happiest yet at the same time sad events of my life. Proud because God had called me to work with these amazing kids; humbling because I didn't really have anything to do with their being up there, they were called by God to join His Church; happy because they're now as fully incorporated into the Body of Christ as they will be on this earth; and sad because my time as their catechist is over. I'm going to miss having them as a class.

I am
Zombie Girrrl
& I gotta
go or I'll
be late for
Sations of the Cross

Daily Dose the Second

2011-03-28T08:58:00.001-04:00

Theme: Cloud 9

A hint for next week...

I am
Zombie GiRRRl
and they all look
like cherubim to me.

Friday Five

2011-03-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

In which I regale you with the happenings of my life.

My Lenten reading fast is going... well. I'm craving a little Harry Potter and there are a bunch of books I won these past couple months that I would very much like to read, but it's nice to purge the ol' system of God-less books and read something where He is as much the focus as He should be. Not that I've had much time to read lately, though...
Because my Confirmation kids are being Confirmed by the bishop TOMORROW. I can't believe it's here already. FYI: I'm a Roman Catholic and a catechist, basically a Sunday school teacher, at my church and help teach the Confirmation class, which are the 9th and 10th grade kids who are (were) preparing to receive the last Sacrament of Innitiation (there are 3: Baptism, which all Christians have in common; Confirmation, in which we are strengthened and sealed by the Holy Spirit; and Eucharist, which, as the Body of Christ, is the regular nourishment that a soul requires, etc.). Anywhoodle. Please pray for them and all the confirmandi that they will receive with open hearts and willing spirits the strength and Gifts that they need to live bravely their Christian vocations. Thanks!
I volunteered at my local Humane Society animal shelter last Friday, and I highly reccomend that y'all do the same. I went with my Confirmation kids as part of a service project they decided to do while on retreat, and, seriously, it is so rewarding. All we did was walk and wash dogs and love on some kitties, but that's all you have to do! The animals just want to be out of their cages and with people, and giving them the exercise and attention they need is a lot of fun. The staff were saints, I mean, to be able to love and care for that many animals, and they were all so well cared for even though the shelter was run down and underfunded. And I just want to say: whatever stigma you may have about shelter dogs, about them maybe being mean biters or that they're there for a reason, is wrong. Those were the sweetest dogs and cats, and they just wanted love. So, next time you're looking for a family pet, go to the shelter! Oh, yeah, and the dog I walked was a basset hound/ labrador mix named Snicker. He was the sweetest thing with the stubbiest legs! I called him Embassidor Snicker. Get it? Bassit labridor? I crack myself up.
Spring has sprung! Not really news (especially if you live up North and have seen neither hide nor hair of the elusive spring), but I'm just so happy! I wore shorts this week. Shorts! Jubilation!
And lastly, an example of what happens when I try to write an essay about zombies. But first, a brief explanation: On Random Buzzers, the site where you earn "buzz bucks" to buy Random House books by doing challenges, there was one such challege where you had to write a 200 word essay about what you would look like as a zombie. Everytime I began writing, I became carried away and wound up writing something along the lines of this:

The wounds on my arms burns, but it’s nothing compared with the heaviness in my limbs or the helium in my head. I feel as though my body were sinking into a thick, dark ocean of fire while my head—or maybe my soul—was floating away on a zephyrous breeze. Floating, yet still anchored to my failing body, fully aware of what is happening.
I am on fire.
I am drowning in fire.
I stagger on, breathing heavily and colliding with trees, their bark rough beneath my leaden fingers. The earth pitches beneath my feet and I sink to the leafy floor like St. Peter in his moment of doubt. I land hard on my seat and the impact causes me to bite my tongue. My mouth is flooded with the metallic sweetness of blood, but the pain is no worse than anything else I am feeling. Or maybe there is no more pain. Maybe I’m beyond pain. I know now that I am beyond help.
I think of my family piling into the car as the cacophonous, collective moan of the hoard drew nearer, of my mother screaming as a lone figure rounded the corner of our house and lurched toward us with the inevitability of time.
I froze.
When I finally did move, it went all wrong. I was not used to wielding blunt weapons and I did not know how to take a person down quickly—or that it was better in some instances to run. He got inside my swing and—and…
My family left me.
I am glad they did.
Looking down at my hands, because I cannot lift my head anymore, I see that my fingers have turned ashen, the nails are bruised and blue-tinged. The toothy wounds no longer bleed; I can see the whiteness of my bones beneath. I try to wiggle my fingers, but they do not want to respond. My mind is playing a riff from a song I can no longer name, but the deadened flesh will not move.
I want to cry.
I want to scream.
I try to do both but the only thing that escapes my lips is that dreadful moan. It scares me so badly that I quickly stop. I listen hard for a second—or a minute, who knows—sure that the noise came from something else, but it was me. I know it. I know what I am becoming. What I nearly am.
I want my mom.
I want her to hold me and say that everything is going to be okay.
I want her to lie to me, and I want to believe it.
I want…
water.
My head lolls onto my shoulder and I see the gleam of still, cool water. I want it. I am on fire.
Somehow I manage to drag my dying body to the edge of the pool and prop myself up on my numb elbows. Looking into the sudden depth of the water, the leaves shimmering around my head, I see myself for what I have become. I am grey with dark bruises beneath my eyes. There is blood dripping down my chin; my own blood, I know, but it seems more like a vision of what will be. My hair is matted with sweat and leaves and there is even a blue feather stuck in there. I marvel at the beauty of it, contrasting so perfectly with the red of the blood and the green of the leaves. Then I meet my own gaze.
The primal, animalistic, throat-rending cry tears its way out of my mouth and it will not stop. I cannot stop screaming after seeing the dull, hateful hunger in my own eyes.
I am horror.
Finally, my arms give out and I am silenced by the coolness of the water.
The string that attached my soul to my body, fine as spider silk, snaps with a soft sort of feeling. It is almost a relief to be free of the fire-ridden, heavy body.
For a moment, I see myself from above, lying face-down in the water. I feel a tug from behind me, but I want to see what happens next. The tug is insistent, though not threatening in the least, but it yields to my curiosity. I float for a moment longer watching my body. It does not move, and relief floods my soul—for that is all that I am now. A soul.
The body in the water is not me anymore. So I know that it is not my will that causes it to stir. Not by my will does it raise its dreadful head and rise to its uncertain feet. Not by my will does it turn back toward the town I fled from hours ago, back toward the neighbors and families I loved too much to endanger by dying on familiar ground.
The teeth that were mine gnash the air. The fingers with which I played music grasp at the victim which is not yet before it.
I turn toward the warm, tugging Presence behind me, tired of this world and its endless suffering, and am taken Home.

This happened several times. The essay-turned-story, I mean, not turning into a zombie. Obviously. Zombies can't type. Anyway. I finally just took the shortest of the "essays" and butchered it down to the mandatory 200 words. It is nowhere near as good as it was, but it fit their requirement. Will I win the signed Carrie Ryan books that were the grand prize of this challenge? Probably not. Could I have if they had let me use all 500 or so words that I wanted? You tell me.

i am
zombie girrrl
and i rather detest
word restrictions

Daily Dose the First

2011-03-21T10:12:00.001-04:00

Props to Good Golly Miss Holly for this, the most beautiful of memes!

Theme: Not Just for Scribbles

I am

Zombie GiRRRl

and I like

crayon smell

PS Here's a segue into next week's theme...

Further Thoughts On Top Ten Tuesday's Fictional Family

2011-03-16T12:11:00.006-04:00

I've been thinking about what it would be like to actually be related to the fictional family I built yesterday, to have Molly Weasley as my mother and Atticus as my father and so on and so forth. Mainly, what it would mean to have all those stories attached to reality--to my reality. Here's what I came up with:

I might be a witch. "Might" being the key word here as none of my other siblings exhibit any aptitude for magic; I might be a squib or a muggle like them. I'd like to think I would have inherited my mother's magic, though, and since this is my story, I'll say that I did.
I might run on the short side and have enormous, hairy feet. Thanks, Grandpa Bilbo. No, really. Although, again, this is my story, so I'll say I did not inherit this trait.
We have a comfy hobbit hole in the country where we spend our summers. Unfortunately, Grandpa Bilbo is something of a local celebrity so we can't really get any peace from the neighbors.
After doing a little figuring, I've realized that I live in the early-mid 1900's and that WWII has effected my family a great deal. On the bright side of this is that my sibs and I often take a little holiday in Narnia and that our sister, Sara, takes us shopping with her huge diamond-mine-fortune.
We're all red heads.

Except Ed, he takes after Datticus and Uncle Clive (C.S. Lewis, to you). Molly seems so pleased.

I'm never bored because half of my family are gifted story tellers and the other half are always game for whatever you throw at them. This comes in handy when we can't go outdoors for extended periods of time due to A) the English rain, B) the zombies, or C) the Blitz.
Unfortunately the world is not a safe place. We have to deal with a world war, Death Eaters, Orcs, The White Witch (when in Narnia), and the aforementioned zombies. Oh, yeah, and my big brother, Shaun, is infected with a dormant zombie virus that will turn him as soon as he dies, which might happen sooner rather than later because he likes to live dangerously. And I don't mean ride-your-bike-with-no-hands kinda dangerous, we're talking poke-a-zombie-with-a-stick dangerous.
There's a lot of good advice floating around the house. With Datticus, Grandmarmee, and Uncle Clive, there's no shortage of wisdom. I imagine dinners with this family would be anything but dull, especially when Grandpa Bilbo has his buddies over. *please-invite-Legolas-please-invite-Legolas-pleasepleaseplease*
I might be the most boring child of the lot. This is just an occupational hazard when your siblings are Jo March, Shaun Mason, Edmund Pevensie, Sara Crewe, and Jem and Scout. And my lack of adventures probably bores my grandfather to tears. However, perhaps being in such close contact with the lot of them will have some effect, maybe some of their interestingness will rub off on me. One can only hope.
The following people are close family friends: Harry Potter, Gandalf, Laurie (oh no! conflicted!), JRR Tolkien (can you say "tear in the fabric of space and time"?), the Large Family, Boo Radley, and Aslan.

I wonder what the extended relations are like. Would I be cousins with Eustace Scrubb and the Proudfoots...?

i am
zombie girrrl
and that was
the story of a
fictional family

Top 10 Tuesday: Fictional Family

2011-03-15T11:58:00.000-04:00

This week's TTT, which is hoted by Broke and Bookish, is: Characters You Would Want As Family Members. So, time to build me a fictional family! I'm not so sure I'd want these people as my family but I think they would make a good family even if I wasn't in it. Oh, and I know it's only supossed to be ten, but I like big families.

Hello, Mother:
Molly Weasley from Harry Potter and the Epic Quest to Defeat Voldemort. I loved how protective she was of her children, like a mama bear. That's a very good quality, one that my real mom has.

Hello Father:
Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Really, you don't even need to say anything about this choice. He was a courageous defender of truth and justice and I love that he read to his children.

Here's the Sisters:
Jo from Little Women. She was a lot of fun and I liked that she was alwasy willing to join in or start something, like their plays. I always loved that. Plus she was brave ans self-sacrificing. Excellent qualities in a sister.
Sara Crewe from A Little Princess. I would love to gather after dark and huddle around the flickering light of a candle to listen to this girl's stories. She had the most fabulously vivid imagination ever and she was so caring. A charming little sister.
Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved her tomboy ways and how she was always the at center of things without being in the spotlight. She'd be an awesome little sister.

& the Brothers:
Shaun Mason from Feed by Mira Grant. He was totally insane and so much fun, but underneath all that he was such a caring and sweet brother. I think he'd be ideal as an older brother.
Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia. I mean the Ed at the end of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, not the coniving little blighter that he was at the beginning. He was brave and just and I admire that. Plus, he might take you to Narnia! That'd be beyond awesome.

Jem Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. In regards to age, he may be the (fictional) little brother, but he had several excellent big brother qualities. I don't have any brothers in real life, but I'd love have him as one.

Grandfather:
Bilbo Baggins from LOTR. He has the best stories to tell! Plus, who wouldn't want to visit their grandfather in a hobbit hole, "Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Grandmother:
Marmie from Little Women. She'd be a great grandma. Caring, entertaining, and wise.

Uncle:
C.S. Lewis. Now, I know what you're thinking: "You can't have an actual person as your fictional uncle!" Oh, but I can! The Great Divorce was written as a first hand account and was narrated by the writer. So, HA! He can be the fictioanl uncle because he fictionalized himself. And he'd be awesome; I'd love to discuss religion and faith and spirituality with him and maybe he could tell some stories. he's very good at that, you know.

And that's my fictional family.
Tune in next week when I list my top ten book related pet peeves.

as always,
i am
zombie girrrl
and while these people may be interesting
I would never trade my real family for them

My Take On: Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer

2011-03-12T11:09:00.002-05:00

"Even my most humiliating moments seemed funny somehow when I told them to Jess." Gemma Mitchell is a normal girl who somehow gets herself into abnormally embarrassing circumstances. And while she thinks she's the biggest loser in school because of them, there are a few people in her life who would disagree. One of those people is her best friend, Jess Tyler, who is opposite to her in every way. He's popular, good looking, athletic, and intelligent, and he can't get enough of Gemma. But while Gemma is dealing with problems like wrong locker combinations and Valentine's Day dances, Jess is living in a world of serious issues that are foreign to Gemma, until she realizes that he's holding on to her for dear life. Humorous and true to life, Second Kiss is an entertaining saga about a boy and girl who find that their lives have a lot more meaning once they have shared them with each other.

I needed to read something light and charming and hopeful and delightful, yet not empty because I can't abide empty books, and Second Kiss delivered in spades1.
Gemma and Jess are one of those duos that dumbfounds me; they've known each other since they were knee high to a grasshopper, have lived across the street from each other since they were born, even, and have walked to school every day since Jess's mom offered him as an escort for Gemma on her first day kindergarten2. I'm a military brat since birth, so every time I come across someone like this, my eyes kind of bug out. It seems unnatural to me to be in one place that long, let alone to know someone you're not directly related to for so long, but I so enjoy reading about it. Y'all might find this sort of thing to be mundane, but it's incredibly exotic to my mind.
I loved the relationship between Gemma and Jess. It's the sort of relationship that you either have and are eternally grateful for, or, if you don't, wish you had or spend your whole life looking for.
The story was very character driven. There were some big issues that Gemma and Jess had to deal with as they grew up but it always came back to how they relied on each other to get through those rough patches. Up to a point, that is. Eventually they must learn to stand on their own, and it's a hard lesson to learn for two people who have spent their whole lives sharing each other's burdens.
Second Kiss wasn't just an endearing say-awww-at-the-end-of-every-chapter3 story, though. It also had a lot of humor. Gemma's life is ripe with embarrassing stories that she shares with Jess. He gives her a sense of balance, and, while he may not always make her feel better about her lot, he at least gives her perspective. He also gives her the Jess Smile4. Who wouldn't feel better about having sat by the dumpster all day after being on the receiving end of that? And, no, the story wasn't all smiles and adorableness; Jess, as the synopsis let on about, is dealing with very serious issues that lead him to rely more heavily on Gemma for consolation and strength. Gemma, who is incredibly naive and in some ways childish, has to grow up as she learns to help her friend deal and as she, too, learns to deal with her own drama. She was a bit dramatic at times, but I never found it to be annoying because that's just who she was. My only issue was that Jess sometimes seemed like he had always been 16-17 and Gemma had to grow into him. I suppose it was because he had to grow up a lot faster than Gem5, due in no small part to his home life, but it was due to his God-given nature6.
Another thing I loved about this book was Gemma's family. Her parents were very realistic and loving and, most importantly of all, present. Her family was there through all the drama and she talked with her mom and dad about her life. They weren't just cardboard standee type characters,either, they were just as real as Gemma in their troubles and reactions and failures and triumphs. I loved them.
Anywhoodle.
I give Second Kiss...

1/2

...four and half zombies.
I can't even explain what it is that I love so much about this book. It was endearing, and sweet, and hopeful, and real, and so full of adorable and love that you simply must read it. Seriously. Second Kiss is my new favorite love story, and Gem and Jess are one of my favorite duos.

i am
zombie giRRRl
& i recommend
this book

footnotes___________________________________________
1 Fear not, Reader, I read this the week after St. Valtentine's Day. The Lenten Reading Challenge lives on!
2 Jess is one year older than Gemma, though lightyears more mature. I loved the contrast of Gemma's dramatic innocent naivete with Jess' wise and stalwart sweetness.
3 Which, BTW, I did. At the end of almost every chapter, I just closed the book for a moment and basked in the charm of this story.
4 The Jess Smile has great power. It could bring about world peace. On the flip side, it could also start wars, if mis-fired...
5 Jess was the only person allowed to call her Gem.
6 He was just an old soul with a very mature outlook on love and life. Oh! I just realized what I like about him so much: Jess was a gentleman, pure and simple. But I digress.

CSN Winner

2011-03-11T08:43:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, ♥ttyloverit17♥! 46 was your lucky number!

Have fun cooking with your mom! Thanks to everyone who entered. :)

Lent + A Bit of a Reading Challenge

2011-03-09T13:02:00.003-05:00

Lent, one of my favorite liturgical seasons, begins today with Ash Wednesday.

What it is: Lent is the season that leads up to Easter, it is characterized by penance, fasting and abstaining from meat on Fridays, acts of charity, solemn prayer, and many Christians give something up for the 40-day observance. Lent is a time of spiritual renewal, of a deepening of faith and prayer. Basically, it's a 40 day retreat that culminates with the glorious Resurrection of the Lord on Easter.

This year, to cut out the things that distract me from my relationship with God, I'm giving up books1. Not all books, though, just the secular2 ones, which is, basically, everything I read. My TBR for next 40 days or so will contain only works of Christian fiction and nonfiction.
Now for the challenge part: I'm opening up my personal challenge to all my readers! It's pretty simple, too.

Guidelines for the Lenten Reading Challenge:
You can either give up all secular books, or add a predetermined number of Christian books to your TBR for Lent, which begins March 9 and goes through April 20. To participate, simply write a brief acceptance post and leave a link in the comments. You can join the challenge any time from now until the 20th, and you don't need to follow my blog to join in.

To give you an idea of what books I'm talking about, here's a list authors4:

C.S. Lewis3
Scott Hahn
Madeleine L'Engle
Gertrud Von Le Fort
Robin Caroll
Christian M Frank
Tosca Lee (Havah)*5
Colleen Coble (Lightkeeper's Ball)*
Ronie Kendig (Digitalis)*
Camy Tang (Only Uni)*
Cheryl Wyatt (Steadfast Soldier)*
James Rubart (Rooms)*
Brandilyn Collins (Deceit)*
Rachel Hauck (Dining With Joy)*
Kristen Billerbeck (A Billion Reasons Why)*

I'll add to this list as I go. I'll also be adding links on this post to anyone who chooses to participate. I hope you'll join me, and that you have a blessed Lent.

Participants:
Orchid of The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

i am
searching,
searching,
always searching
for Truth
zombie girrrl

footnotes________________________________________
1 *Gasp*
2 Secular = non-Christian.
3 I'm really excited to finish reading CS Lewis' Signature Classics (Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and A Grief Observed), which I got for Christmas, and the Chronicles of Narnia which I won from Ky of Can't Find a Bookmark.
4 Feel free to suggest any other Christian authors or titles, fiction or nonfiction, in a comment. Much obliged.
5 Thanks to Robin Caroll for suggesting all the authors and titles marked with *'s

Top 10 Dynamic Duos

2011-03-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

I'm really excited about this week's Top Ten Tuesday, brought to us by the letter M and the blog Broke and Bookish. As always, these are some of my favorites, but they are in no particular order.

Jess and Gemma from Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer. I loved the dynamic between these two, it was so sweet and innocent and completely enviable. If you happen to have a Jess (or a Gemma) in your life, then consider yourself blessed.
George and Shaun from Feed by Mira Grant. I really enjoyed the way these two played off each other, and not just in the witty banter, but emotionally. I love sibling duos, and George and Shaun are two of my faves because they were more than willing to take a bullet for the other.
Sara Crewe and Becky from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. In a seemingly hopeless situation, Sara found strength in the friendship of Becky, and Becky was brought to life by the care and imagination of Sara. Had it not been for the other, I think they both would have succumbed to an incurable despair.
Cal and Niko Leandros from the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman1. Another sibling duo that I love. Cal, who views himself as an abomination because, well, on some levels he is, and Niko, the only person who's ever said otherwise, are the butt kickingest brothers there ever were with a soft spot held only for each other. Not only do they have each other's backs in battle, but they take care of each other too. Niko sacrifices everything, even the chance to have a normal life, for Cal, and Cal would do anything for Niko.
Rose and the White Bear from East by Edith Pattou. What's not to love? Basically it's Beauty and the Beast, but Belle goes on an epic quest to restore the Beast's humanity. Thrilling and so sweet.
Scout and Jem from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Growing up is hard to do, but having a sibling to do it with, particularly when all your growing up is crammed into a very short period of time, makes it a whole lot easier.
Aly and Nawat from Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce. Aly, the fiesty and resourceful daughter of Alanna, a living legend of Tortall, and Nawat, a crow who shed his feathers for his love of Aly, are one of my favorite couples. Their courtship was hilarious because, while Nawat may have had the body of a man, his customs were still that of a crow, complete with preening and bugs. They were really sweet together and I liked that their relationship, which was as inevitable as the sunrise, grew over time. I do wish, though, that pierce would write a character who lived chastely. That's my only complaint about her books.
Jonah and Bea from How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford. This was a pretty complex relationship. They were closer than friends yet completely platonic. Like siblings but not related. They just completed each other at the point that they were feeling the most incomplete. It was a very bizarre relationship, to be sure, sometimes they didn't even acknowledge the other in public, but they were like peanut butter and jelly. Mac and cheese. Golden oreos and chai spice tea2.
Rapunzel and Flynn from Tangled. Yes, the Disney princess movie. It's one of my favorite movies ever, and this couple is one of the main deciding factors of that. I could watch Tangled on loop for a week and not get tired of it.
Merry and Pippin from LOTR. Sometimes when I watch the movies, I skip the Sam and Frodo bits so I can watch these two. They always make me laugh, and I love the way they represent the loss of innocence in war.

i am
zombie giRRRl
& that was
my top 10 tuesday

footnotes_________________________
1 BTW, did you know that Rob Thurman is a woman? When I saw that, I was like, "Whaaaa?" Don't know how I went so long without knowing that, but it was pretty shocking.
2 Trust me on this one. It's a good match.

Signed Breathless Reads Poster Winner

2011-03-05T20:14:00.001-05:00

Congratulations, Vivien! And thanks to all who entered.

The winner has been notified via email and we will send her prize ASAP.

Friday Five

2011-03-04T10:15:00.002-05:00

Ack! It's Friday again!
Okay, here we go.

I finally got a You Tube account1, so now I can vlog. Hurray. I don't know why I'm so excited to do this, seeing as how I'm not a particularly big fan of vlogs, it's probably because it's easier to tell you some things than it is to write them and I'm lazy like that. The fact that they're fun to make might have something to do with it as well.
Lent starts this up coming week with Ash Wednesday, and I have a bit of a reading challenge in store. It's more of a personal thing, but I'm going to be posting about it anyway because I thought it would be cool if someone would like to join me. More details to come, probably later today or tomorrow.
Contest announcements: Today is the LAST DAY TO ENTER for a signed poster and bookmarks from the Breathless Reads Tour. It's a pretty cool poster featuring the covers for The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller, Matched by Ally Condie, The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff, Across the Universe by Beth Revis, and Nightshade by Andrea Cremer, and, of course, it's signed by all five authors. Also, my CSN Stores Giveaway has about a week left until it closes, so if you haven't entered yet, be sure to.
Speaking of the Breathless Reads Tour, now seems as good a time as any to relate the story. I had a really good time, which is good because it makes the reeeaaallly long drive worth it. I met some bloggers, well, more like one blogger, namely Laura from Tattoed Books. There were others there, I just didn't have the gaul to walk up to perfect strangers and say HI more than once. Such is life. Anywhoodle. It was a lot of fun listening to the authors questions during the Q&A portion, mainly because the all had such different writing styles. My question was: Who would you cast as your main character. I can't remember all the answers, but Kirsten Miller said she wanted the girl from Easy A and that she always pictures, get this, Paul Newman as her leading guy. Hilarious story behind that, BTW2. Beth Revis said she'd want a new-comer as Elder. Brenna Yovanoff said she'd have a hard time picking because there was always one little thing wrong with her favorites, i.e. they're too old or something, and that she wasn't up on the whole Hollywood scene. Niether am I. We got a group picture; from left to right: Kirsten Miller (a very witty lady with much in common with 12YO's), Laura (she's super nice), Ally Condie (who writes because she hates sorting socks), Brenna Yovanoff (who was homeschooled and wrote many, many, many stories before The Replacement, which I am currently reading), Me (who stands awkwardly in group photos), Andrea Cremer (she enjoys writing kissing scenes), Ren (darn birds!), and Beth Revis (a professed fangirl who likes to blow things up. In her stories! Yeesh).

So anyway, I went to the signing with Ren. We'd been planning on going with Orchid as well, but she got sick, literally, at the last second, so she had to stay home. It was such a bummer, but Ren, who is full of great ideas, decided that we'd just get her a card and ask all the authors to sign it. And, guess what. They did! She was so excited when we gave it to her. So, I'll wrap this segment up by saying thanks to everyone who signed the card! Orchid loved it.

And lastly, I leave you with a bit of a geek-out in the from of a (very) short story about my favorite fantasy realm, Tortall: The first time Gem had strung a bow she had been so nervous that her sweat-slick fingers failed to secure the string which then slid off the bow causing it to spring back and snap her her sqaure in the forehead. She remembered well the pain, but more sharp in her mind was the humiliation of hearing her brothers laughter and taunts. Her father, ever patient, had consoled her and, more importantly, humbled her brothers for being so cold. He had knelt down at her level and told her that they, too, had once been new to the art of archery and had not always been so poised and deadly.
"Garret," he had said in his gruff yet gentle voice, with more than a twinkle in his eye, "shot himself in the foot the first time he ever drew a bow."
It had been just the elixir for her smarting pride to know that her oldest and most talented brother had once been as unskilled as she, and it gave her heart to try again.

Now, years later, the warning-song of her horn dying in her ears, Gem smoothly drew the bow taught, feeling the power it held in the muscles of her back, and she felt no fear. No fear that her brothers would ever discount her for being the only girl on the hunt. No fear that she would miss her target. No fear that the hissing spidren her bow was trained on would come any closer to her village.
Breath smooth, hands steady, she released the arrow, watched as it planted itself in the grim eye of the beast, and calmly fit another to the string as she trained her bow with deadly accuracy on another of the nest of spidrens she had stumbled upon so near her village.

I race the second-hand of time. Sometimes it nearly catches me.
I am

Zombie GiRRRl

footnotes_____________________________________
1 A lot easier than I thought it would be since it's tied into my pre-existing Google account. Handy-dandy.
2 And now for the funny story which is not mine: Not long after Kirsten Miller first arrived in NYC, she went to visit a friend at her apartment. When the elevator opened, out stepped none othet than Paul Newman. He said, and I quote, "Hiya!" Kirsten was stunned. She excitedly related the story to her friend who looked at her and, after a dramgtic pause said, "Kirsten, you're in NY now, stop being so dazzled."

My Take On: XVI by Julia Karr

2011-03-03T14:12:00.001-05:00

Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council–ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world–even the most predatory of men–that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina’s worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina’s mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past–one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

At first I was shocked (and disgusted) by the premise. I work with teens, and the thought of the underlying message was frightening, but I applaud Karr for choosing this as her subject and for handling it with such class. It's something that we definitely need to discuss more, something that we need to change.

Now, this review ran a little long, and I know that's a big turn-off for some readers, so I'll first do a quick sum-up with...
A Few Choice Words:

Tense
Frightening
Plausible
Timely
Well written
Some swearing, including 1 or 2 F-bombs
Implied sexual content throughout, though nothing explicit or graphic, including violent acts

Now on to my my take.
In Nina's world, which is frighteningly similar in some ways to our own, kids--not just girls, this is a two-way street, folks--are raised viewing sex as, well, the closest word to it that I think of, and I know it falls short of what Karr was trying to say, is a goal or rite of passage or recreation. This was best displayed in the attitude of Nina's best friend, Sandy, who blindly followed all of the Media's hype about turning sixteen by her dress, which was skimpy at best, her behavior, which degraded her value as a human being immeasurably, and her language, which was so sex-driven1 I felt bad for Nina having to feign interest. But despite all this, Sandy was a nice girl. Under all the layers of makeup and the too-few layers of sexteen2 clothing, she was a sweet girl who loved visiting the cows at the zoo, hanging out with her friends, and dreaming about the future. You never would've known any of this, however, by mere observation. The face that she put forth to the world was one of over-sexualized abandon ready and willing for anything with anyone. And that's exactly how the Governing Council wanted her, and all teenage girls, to be. By insidiously enforcing this mold on the youth of their society through clever propaganda and extreme marketing, they ensured that women were seen as second class at best, though more often than not they were completely objectionalized, abused, and disregarded. In this way, the Governing Council ensured that no one had the sense to look beyond what was right in front of their face, that being the latest trend or the hottest whoever, to see that there was indeed something wrong with the way their society functioned and that they desperately needed to change it.
Now about that two-way street I mentioned earlier: Women were completely objectionalized by the society at large and this was brought to the story in the person of the scariest, most despicable, revolting, and realistic villain ever, along with a cast of brutal yet equally realistic secondary characters who were present mainly to drive the plot or illustrate some aspect of the belief system that Nina's harsh world (mal)functioned under. There were some truly frightening men in this story, but Karr didn't completely write off the whole gender, which would have been a shame. She included a cast of admirable and even chivalrous male characters, such as Nina grandfather and best friends. And this story, when looked at from another perspective, is not just about the negative effect that sexual degradation has on the over all treatment of women, it's also about the backlash that men experience in the same situation. They weren't as obviously opressed as women, but the men of this society--which, allow me to reiterate, was a lot like our own in many ways--were encouraged to act on their most base instincts. They were encouraged to act like animals and were raised viewing women as something to be conquered3 and owned. It was one of the saddest things, I think, that the men had lost their spine, their desire to treat women with respect, and thus to treat themselves with respect.
Okay. I'm going to cut myself off before I continue to ramble, and say that XVI gets...

...five zombies.

And how could I give it less when it held such an important underlying message, that being the importance of chastity in the battle to protect and uphold human dignity. When we sell ourselves short by allowing ourselves to become sexual object's, or by treating others in that manner, we damage our dignity. And I'm not talking about pride, as in "I have my dignity!", I'm talking about our God-given dignity. The thing that sets us apart from animals.

I am
Zombie Girrrl
and I endorse this book.
footnotes__________________________________________
1. Not that her language was particularly derogatory. Mostly she would say stupid things like how she wished she could have sex with whatever sex-symbol the government-run Media pushing, and, oh, how cool would it be, and sex must be the best thing ever, yada yada yada. Nina mostly tuned her insipid ramblings out, until she realized her friend was endangered by her eagerness. Ooh, teaser.
2. Not a typo.
3 Sound familiar?

Teaser Tuesday

2011-03-01T14:56:00.000-05:00

I don't normally do this, but I just read the funniest line and I had to share. But first, the madatory song and dance:
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, simply do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Etc. etc.

This teaser comes from page 93 of Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck.
"His smile filled me with golden bright happy rays."

Top 10 Tuesday: Books I HAD To Buy...

2011-03-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

But are still sitting on my shelf. I can only assume that this week's TTT, a meme hosted by Broke and Bookish, is referring to books that I bought yet have not read and not books I bought and kept.
Anywhoodle. I only have five this week. These are not in any particular order.

The Road by Cormick McCormick. Wait... that's not his name.
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. The reason I haven't gotten past the third page is sort of stupid, but the font was too big! Large fonts make me feel like the author/publisher/type-setter is talking down to me. Plus I'm going through a bit of a rough patch with supernatural.
The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret. I went through a very big pathology-of-bloody-diseases phase. This one came in on the tail-end of that phase. I'm sure the plague has come by now, that's how long it's been sitting on my shelf.
Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan. I lurrrrrved Forest of Hands and Teeth so much. The only thing that's kept me from starting this one is, well, I'm bein' a big ol' chicken. You gotta be in a certain mood to have livin' daylights scared out of you, and I just haven't been in that mood yet.
Linger by Maggie Stiefvater. Again, I really liked the first book, but in this case it's not fear that's held me back, it's plot. I was reading this at the same time as my sister, no big deal, we just used two bookmarks. Well, I was loving the story, it was good, I got to about page 40 or something like that before I opened it to the wrong mookmark. I started reading it from the mid-way point. And. I. Didn't. Even. Notice. It took me several pages to realize that I had skipped forward by a good chunk because the story seemed as though it hadn't really moved on. Not good.

Not that I'm writing off any of these books, I just haven't gotten to them for one reason or another.

I am
hungry for justice
tired of violence
full of hope
Zombie GiRRRl

"Technical Difficulties" Is My Middle Name

2011-02-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

Please ignore my last two posts on your Google reader. They are drafts that I meant to delete but accidentally posted, so A) they don't go anywhere anymore, and B) the bits you can read are irrelevant and incomplete. Whoops.

Breathless Reads Tour: Signed Swag Giveaway

2011-02-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

Hey, y'all! I had a blast at the Breathless Reads Tour where I met Kirsten Miller, Ally Condie, Beth Revis, Brenna Yovanoff, and Andrea Cremer. I'll post more details about it later, for now I just wanted to let y'all know that Ren and I are giving away some swag to one lucky reader! Ren contributed some signed book marks and I'm giving one of you my signed BRT poster (pictured left) which features some of the prettiest cover art of the year! Just fill out the form below and we'll draw a winner on Saturday. Good luck!

Friday Five

2011-02-25T09:46:00.001-05:00

That's Freitag funf, in German.

Today is the big day! The Breathless Reads tour is in town and I. Am. Going! If you're going, I will see you there! I'll have ribbon on my wrist, as will a number of other bloggers who will be attending. As for the signing, I have no idea what I'm going to get. I had been planning on getting Across the Universe, but after reading an excellent and detailed content rating at Reading Teen's sister site, Parental Book Reviews, I have decided that, due to content, this book is, sadly, not for me. T_T Now I think I'll be getting The Replacements. Maybe. Not sure. Argh! I'll let you know.
My CSN contest ends on March 10, so hurry up and enter if you haven't already! Ren of All By MySHELF is also hosting a CSN giveaway which opened today and ends March 15. We're giving away $35 each, so enter both and if luck is on your side, you could get $70! Put that toward the bigger bookcase you know you need.
Currently listening to: Percussion Gun by White Rabbit, New Low by Middle Class Rut, and Arise by Flyleaf. But mostly I'm watching Tobuscus dance.
I tried vlogging an IMM last week, and it was awesome, but I can't get it to upload. It was a lot of fun, especially since my sister was sitting across the table laughing at me the whole time, so I will definitely have to figure out how to upload videos for future vlogs.
On a sadder note, I'm sure y'all've heard the news of Lisa Wolfsan's, aka L.K. Madigan, passing yesterday. I'd just finished, and I mean just finished, reading The Mermaid's Mirror when I heard the news. It really put the whole book in a new perspective--all books, really. The written word is the legacy that some people leave behind. Not the only one, and certainly not the most important, but perhaps the most tangible. And it makes me wonder: if people kept that in mind, would they write the same thing? Would they still tell the same stories?

just wondering.
i am
zombie girrrl

My Take On: The Mermaid's Mirror by L. K. Madigan

2011-02-24T18:02:00.002-05:00

As her sixteenth birthday approaches, Lena has just one wish: To learn to surf. She's been drawn so strongly to the waves off the coast of California her entire life, but her father, a former surfer himself, will not allow her to take lessons. When Lena begins sleepwalking to the beach—seemingly drawn by an unrecognizable force—she is compelled to learn to surf even if it means putting herself in grave danger and going against her father's wishes. That force is the presence of a woman. A woman who finally reveals herself—and her silvery tail—to Lena. She has a message. She has a key. The key opens a brown leather sea chest Lena's father has kept hidden for many years, and when Lena discovers what's inside, her life, and what she thought she knew about it, will never be the same.

I finished reading this shortly before hearing the news that Lisa had passed. It put the whole book in a new light for me.
What first seemed to be a tale of a girl who longed to experience the ocean more fully by riding the waves she was so drawn to, turned out to be a tale of love, loss, and how life must, and indeed does, go on.

Lena's life, which seemed so simple as the story opened, became immensely more complex as the story unraveled; and even though there was a significant dose of fantasy to the plot, it was always somehow believable. Life is messy and complex and unexpected, and Lena's life was no exception. The only difference was that her issues were far more fantastic than the average person. Every time I felt that I had a handle on her situation, it would change. I never fully felt that I had the ending pegged down in my mind, and I was very surprised with the conclusion to this story. I don't think some people would appreciate the way that Madigan chose to end it, but, to me, it was perfect in it's realistic unperfection. A bit bittersweet, more bitter for some than others, but I enjoyed it in that it gave the story a chance to live on in my mind. Lena's life wasn't tied up in a perfect little bow, and I liked that because it was real. A real-life fantasy.
The underwater world of the mer-folk was original, enveloping, and just fun to read about. I've never read a book that was based, in any part, underwater, and I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing this setting through Madigan's mind's eye. Not once did I think of The Little Mermaid while I was reading this1. In fact, this book, which could have fallen into any number of the traps set by the cunning Cliche, managed to, not only dodge them all, but outwit them so completely that once I began reading I never even thought of them. It could've turned out to be a rather cheesy homage to the surf culture or a sparkly Lisa Frank mermaid story, but it wasn't, and I am so glad, because if had been, I don't think I would've been able to bear reading it.
Back to the story. Lena struggles more and more throughout the story to find where she belongs, never feeling that she fully belongs in one place or the other, but the thing that gives her a sense of belonging is love. She loves her dad, mom, and little brother2, but she also finds a profound love in and of the world of the mer-folk. In the end, she must make the unthinkable decision. No matter what, someone will wind up heartbroken, including herself, but she has to choose. Sea or land? And which side of her heart should she follow? As I said, bittersweet. And not everyone will be pleased with the ending, but it really does give the story a chance to develop further in your mind. There's a million what if's, and I can't help but return to them again and again and wonder where the story would've gone, and where it still can go in the endless sea of my imagination.
I could say more, but...
The Mermaid's Mirror gets...

...five bouquets.

I could pick a million things as my favorite part of this book--the beautiful scenery, the realistic and relatable characters, the fact that this was a completely clean read, the flawless mix of fantasy and reality--but my favorite part of this story was by far the letter to Lena. It was very moving, given the circumstances. I flipped back to it a few times after having finished and just read it slowly, taking in the fact that Lisa must have called on her own life experiences to write it. My heart and prayers go out to the Madigan family. Words fall short.

I am

footnotes________________________________________

1. Except, of course, for when it was actually mentioned by name.

2. Who was, by the way, the cutest! I loved how sweet he was and the relationship that Lena had with him, they were very close. My favorite part was when Cole, who's 6YO, would order a group hug and everyone, no matter what, would come together and embrace. It might seem corny, but it wasn't in context.

I Was Going Through My Books and I Found...

2011-02-23T17:00:00.001-05:00

girls with no eyes!

Top Ten Tuesday: Book to Movie Adaptations

2011-02-22T08:57:00.001-05:00

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme/feature hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. As you can see from the title, this week's theme is book to movie adaptations, something that always has us buzzing like a nest of angry hornets. Here's my top picks...

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yes, I can pick an entire franchise as one. The books are some of the best fantasy ever written, in my opinion, so I was pretty stoked when the movies came out. I view the films as visual aid to the books.
Harry Potter and the Most Amazing Seven-Part Story Ever Told in Eight Parts. I wasn't that thrilled with films 5 an 6, but 7 more than made up for it.
A Little Princess. The movie version had one major plot change, but I can forgive that because I actually like that outcome better. This just swept me away when I was little. I can't say anything more that.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I know I've been counting entire franchises up to this point, but this one was my favorite of all the movies thusfar because none of the symbolism was compromised (there was actually another layer added) and the casting was so fantastic. I just hope they manage to squeeze ed into the Silver Chair because he's my favorite.
To Kill a Mockingbird. Flawless adaptation and perfect casting. 'Nough said.

Now to shake things up a bit. Here's the top five yet-to-be-released book to movie adaptations that I am most looking forward to...

Jane Eyre starring Mia Wasikowska from Alice In Wonderland. I read this book when I was about thirteen and it bored me to tears, but after seeing this preview I've decided to give it another go. Yeah, it looks that good. And to think, I always rolled my eyes whe my mom said this was her favorite book. Comes out this March.
The Hobbit. I'm so exicted for this one, and I'm super happy that's it been split into two parts--more chances to nerd out! This is set to drop sometime in 2012.
The Hunger Games. This was such an amazing book that the thought of it being put into the hands of, well, anyone had me nervous, but I've heard that the director, Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, the one where Spider Man rides a horse), is a huge fan of the series; so here's hoping that he can, not only handle it, but keep it true to the book without having an R rating for violence. This should release sometime in 2013.
World War Z. I love, love love this book, and it's not just for the zombies. This was an epic alternate reality tale with some truly gritty and realistic characters. Milo Ventimiglia is perfect for the lead. Set to release in 2012.
This last one is just for Ren: Airborn, based on the book by Kenneth Oppel. I know how awesome you said it was, Ren, and, lucky for you, it should be coming out this year! Cross your fingers.

And that concludes my Top 10 Tuesday. Tune in next week for: Top Ten Books I Just HAD to Buy...But Are Still Sitting on My Bookshelf. It's time to come clean about some of my book purchases.
I am
Zombie GiRRRl

PS Don't forget to enter my CSN Stores giveaway!

M.A.D. Challenge #4: "Zombie Strong" As Sung By Gwyneth the Ravenous-Skullcracker Paltrow

2011-02-19T11:31:00.001-05:00

A little bit country, a little bit rot and mold. I give you...

Zombie Strong

By Gwyneth Paltrow

I know you see me, like some dead eyed rotter

That just rolled out of a dusty Midwest grave

Yeah on the outside, putrid corpse

But on the inside something you can’t crush

‘Cause I’m zombie strong, hard to break

Like the ground, I crawled out of

You may trip me, and I’ll fall

But I won’t stay down long

‘cause I’m zombie stro-o-ong

I have weathered, colder winters

And longer summers, without a drop of blood

Push me in a corner and I’ll come out fightin’

I won't lose 'cause I have a steady pace

‘Cause I’m zombie strong, hard to break

Like the ground, I crawled out of

You may trip me, and I’ll fall

But I won’t stay down long,

‘cause I’m zombie stro-o-ong

‘Cause I’m zombie strong, hard to break

Like the ground, I crawled out of

You may trip me, and I’ll fall

But I won’t stay down long,

‘cause I’m zombie stro-o-ong

Happy Saturday,
Zombie GiRRRl

CSN Stores Giveaway

2011-02-18T14:55:00.002-05:00

For y'alls sake, I'm gonna just skip the fluff and cut to the chase1.
One winner will receive a $35 promotional code to do some shopping at CSN Stores, the online mega-store where you can find anything and everything, even the kitchen sink!

Ooh, shiny!

Importante Informacion: Must be 13 years or older to participate and have a US or Canadian mailing address. Contest runs from February 18 to midnight EST March 10. Winner will be chosen by Random.org and notified via email.

Bonus entries are as follows with +1 for each activity completed:

Tweet about the contest
Write a post with link(s)
Link it on your sidebar
Comment telling me what you might get from CSN if you win2.

Contest Closed

Good luck!

Footnotes_________________________________________________
1. I'm direct like that.
2. As for myself, I would buy these adorable Rachel Ray ramekins. They look perfect for my home-made mac & cheese. Too bad I can't enter my own giveaway. *hasasad*

I Was Going Through My Books and I Found...

2011-02-16T17:00:00.001-05:00

Epic crying!

Pssst, You Wanna Win Somethin'?

2011-02-16T14:24:00.000-05:00

Then stay tuned for my CSN giveaway! CSN Stores has over 200 online stores, where you can find anything from office desks and cat condos to rainboots and wall art, and now one lucky winner will have the chance to do a little shopping!

Now this was just the teaser, and what a tease it is! The official contest post and entry form will be up soon.

Good luck, my lovely horde,

M.A.D. Challenge #... Whatever Number This Is

2011-02-12T07:54:00.000-05:00

This week's M.A.D. Challenge was inspired by a bit of a scandal that has been circulating the blogosphere concerning a self-published author, a poor review of her work, and a lengthy post which called non-provessional reviewers "trashy" and "ignorant", among other, less savory things.
You'll notice that there are no links on this post and there is a very good reason for that: her bitterness makes me sad and I don't want to fuel the fire that she started and possibly turn people off her books because of the way she views her readers. I couldn't, however, pass up such a primo song!

Without further ado, I invite you now to press Play and read along as we imagine none other than crooner, Nat "King" Cole, serenading us with that old standard...

Irretrievable
by Nat "King" Cole

Irretrievable, that's what posts are
Irretrievable, spread near and far
Like the bitterness which clings to thee
Tactless posts hurt sales, you soon shall see
Never before has something been more

Irretrievable in every way
And forever more, online it'll stay
Copied, pasted, blogged, and Tweeted
Your rant cannot be deleted
It really wasn't that bad of a review
...

Irretrievable in every way
And forever more, online it'll stay
That's why, darling, it's incredible
That a post so very regrettable
Was inspired by a legitimate review

I hope you enjoyed that little classic and that you'll join me again next week.
This is
Zombie Girrrl

Friday 5

2011-02-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

I had fun doing this last week, so I figured I'd give it another go!

I'm working on a new song for a M.A.D. Challenge which pertains to a current blogosphere scandal which I shall not be naming or linking to as I don't wish to actively destroy a career or sully an industry that I like so much. See if you can figure out what it is when it drops on Saturday!
Also preparing for a retreat on Sunday. The Confirmation class I help teach is going to be at it from 12 to 8, myself without a single drop of coffee (can't handle that much caffeine). Wish me luck as this is the first retreat I'll ever have gone to and I don't really know what to expect. What I do know is that it's being graciously hosted by someone with a lot more experienced than me. Thank you, God! They told us that all we have to do is show up and that I should bring a book because it'll be a long day. Now I just need to decide what to read...
I'm currently reading the first book in my 6 Degrees Challenge, Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve. So far it's a fairly fabulous trip into a realistic-ish future that pays homage to the present we live in. Reeve has fit in a lot of skewed references to things we experience and take for granted, and it's hilarious! For instance, there's a character who hunts down mutants and called the Scriven, and when he's on a trail, they call it "a'goolin'", as in, "I was a'googlin' for a good deal on a used car." The story isn't as funny as the glimpses of what will be, though; it's more of a fantasy-steampunk-mystery type thing, and I'm lovingevery minute of it. So original!
I'm going to a big library sale tomorrow with my sisters Orchid and Ren. We went once last year and we are hooked! The deal is thus: one paper grocery-bag of books for $5!!! I got 13 titles last year including Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why, which is being made into a movie that I won' see. Two reasons for that: A) I don't really want to watch this story, it just seems like a better thing for me to read than watch; B) Selena Gomez as Hanah Baker? Really? Yeah, I don't see it. I'd love to listen to the audio book, though, because it almost seems more fitting to listen to this story than to read it, even.
I am finally on Face Book! Yes, I, ZG (though not as ZG), have conceded to the modernity that is social networking. I've made an account, I've "liked" all my favorite books, I've "friended" my family members, now all I have to do is add a profile pic and, oh yeah, figure out what I'm supposed to do on there! I logged on this morning and just stared at the screen, wondering why exactly this seemed so vital 48 hours ago. I'll let you know if the answer comes to me.

And that concludes my Friday Five.

I Was Going Through My Books and I Found...

2011-02-09T17:00:00.001-05:00

a guy that laughs like me!

Win Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer

2011-02-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

You ust saw my Wish list, now here's your chance to win the book!
Natalie Palmer, the debut author of Second Kiss, has generously put together an excellent prize pack which includes a signed copy of her book, among other things. All you have to do is spread the word her book and you'll be rewarded with lots of entry points for her Buzz of Luv Contest!

Click here to enter.

But hurry, because today, Feb 9, is the last day to enter!

"Even my most humiliating moments seemed funny somehow when I told them to Jess."

Gemma Mitchell is a normal girl who somehow gets herself into abnormally embarrassing circumstances. And while she thinks she's the biggest loser in school because of them, there are a few people in her life who would disagree. One of those people is her best friend, Jess Tyler, who is opposite to her in every way. He's popular, good looking, athletic, and intelligent, and he can't get enough of Gemma. But while Gemma is dealing with problems like wrong locker combinations and Valentine's Day dances, Jess is living in a world of serious issues that are foreign to Gemma, until she realizes that he's holding on to her for dear life.

Humorous and true to life, Second Kiss is an entertaining saga about a boy and girl who find that their lives have a lot more meaning once they have shared them with each other."

What are you waiting for! Go enter, and good luck.

Wish List Wednesday, the First

2011-02-09T13:44:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is my first Wish List Wednesday. And on this, my inaugural post for what might become regular participation in this meme, I offer you a first look at...

Second Kiss
A Novel
by Natalie Palmer

"Even my most humiliating moments seemed funny somehow when I told them to Jess."

Gemma Mitchell is a normal girl who somehow gets herself into abnormally embarrassing circumstances. And while she thinks she's the biggest loser in school because of them, there are a few people in her life who would disagree. One of those people is her best friend, Jess Tyler, who is opposite to her in every way. He's popular, good looking, athletic, and intelligent, and he can't get enough of Gemma. But while Gemma is dealing with problems like wrong locker combinations and Valentine's Day dances, Jess is living in a world of serious issues that are foreign to Gemma, until she realizes that he's holding on to her for dear life.

Humorous and true to life, Second Kiss is an entertaining saga about a boy and girl who find that their lives have a lot more meaning once they have shared them with each other."

Why? It sounds like it has a lot of depth and humor, and I'm loving the relationship between Gemma and Jess, or at least what I think it is from the bit I gathered from the synopsis. The story just sounds really good. Also, I'm a big fan of the name Gemma. ;)
This debut sounds like it has a lot of potential to be be one of my top reads of the year; I just have a good feeling about it, you know?
And that's why it's on my wish list!

Breathless Reads Tour: Raleigh, NC

2011-02-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

Short Version:

Starting February 9, Beth Revis, Brenna Yovanoff, Kirsten Miller, Ally Conde, and Andrea Cremer will be touring together for the Breathless Reads Tour.
On February 25, they will be in Raleigh, NC.
I'll be there.
Will you?

Long Version:
Ren, Orchid, and I are all going to be attending the February 25 Breathless Reads event at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, and we thought it would be fun to organize some kind of Book Blogger Identification Thing (BBIT) so that other bloggers could easily identify each other and we could say, "Hey! I blog too! Nice to meet you." But before we decide anything (or show up at the signing with Heidi braids (my idea) or all wearing the same color shirt), we wanted to see if any other bloggers would be there and if they were interested in participating in the BBIT. These authors are only going to make five appearance nation wide, so I'm sure you'll be there if you can, the question remains: are you in or out?

So, will you be there, and are you interested in meeting other bloggers in person? And do you like the idea/have any suggestions for the Book Blogger Identification Thing? You can reply in the comments or (preferably) fill out THIS FORM. If enough people RSVP, we'll post a poll to decide on the BBIT, probably in about a week. Spread the word!

Queen of Hearts Tour Game

2011-02-05T12:15:00.012-05:00

I'm playing the Sweet Treats for the Queen of Hearts tour game, part of Random Magic Tour: Vive L'Amour (Feb. 1-14), feel free to compete with me: How to play.

In the game of love, hearts play for keeps.

In the Queen of Hearts tour game, I play for this book:

The Language Of Flowers:

A Treasury of Verse and Prose Scented

by Penhaligon's Sheila Pickles

This lovely little tome is scented and has artistic illustartions of flowers. It explores the language of flowers, something that the Victorian era turned into art, and somethung that has always caught my fancy.

Here are my five hearts!

♥ #1 comes courtesy of Velvet

+ I commented and entered this lovely contest.
+Tweeted

♥ #2 courtesy of Book ♥ Soulmates

+ I left a comment sharing my favorite flower and what it says to me.
+Tweeted

♥ #3 is courtesy of The Book Worms

+I commented and picked this as my favorite quote:

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.”

Isn't that lovely and true?
+Tweeted

♥ #4 comes from My Love Affair with Books

+I left a comment with my favorite romantic story.
+Tweeted

♥ #5 was found at Books, Sweet, and Other Treats

+I commented saying what I'd make for my hypothetical valentine (or myself).

+Tweeted

Check back for more Bonus Hearts!

♥ #6 was found at Tina's Book Reviews

+I commented on her list of romantic tales.

+Tweeted

♥ #7 came from Reading Lassie

+I commented with my potential dream getaway.

+I tweeted

#8 is This Miss Loves to Read

♥

+I commented on her lovely post

+Tweeted

♥ #9 is from Fiction Folio

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #10 comes from A Reader's Adventures

+I commented

+Tweeted

♥ #11 comes from Fluidity of Time

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #12 is from A Reader's Adventures

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #13 came from My Love Affair with Books

+I commented and shared my favorite romantic movie.

+Tweeted

♥ #14 A True Book Addict

+I commented with my favorite odd couple.

+Tweeted

♥ #15 is from This Miss Loves to Read

+I commented here and picked my favorite historical couple

+Tweeted

♥ #16 comes from none other than Velvet

+I commented about which love poem I liked best

+Tweeted

♥ #17 is from Velvet

+I commented with my favorite love song, which I rewrote on Saturday

+Tweeted

♥ #18 is from The Book Worms

+I commented

+Tweeted

&heasrt; #19 came from Tina's Book Review

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #20 comes from This Miss Loves to Read

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #21 came from The True Book Addict

+I commented here

+Tweeted

♥ #22 is from Fiction Folio

+I commented here

+Tweeted

Friday Five

2011-02-04T16:01:00.007-05:00

I saw this on Sarah's Random Musings, and I thought it looked like fun, so here I go!

Battling a mild cold right now. I say "battling" because I have to be over it by... this evening. And by "over it", I mean I have to have regained my voice by 6pm. Yes, typing and a high-pitched whistley sound are the only ways I can communicate at the moment. It would funny if it weren't so ill timed.
Gearing up for the Breathless Books Tour on Febuary 25 which will be stopping in Raleigh, a mere hop, skip, jump, and bit of a drive from where I live. And I fully intend to hop, skip, and jump my way over there because it sounds awesome. Question: Will any other bloggers be there? I'm almost more excited about the prospect of meeting a few of the bloggers I've come to know in person than I am about seeing Beth Revis, Kirsten Miller, Ally Condie, Brenna Yovanoff, and Andrea Cremer. Almost. I'm pretty excited about getting a signed copy of Across the Universe, though. It's at the top of my wish list.
I'm hammering out the details for a reading challenge that I will be hosting during Lent (March 9 through April 20). Details coming soon!
Currently reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. It's really good. It's based on a series of lectures he gave over the radio during WWII, and what he does is he comes around to Christianity through logic and from the perspective of someone who knows basically nothing about the faith. First he points out that there is in fact Good in the world by showing that everyone everywhere agrees that there are certain things which we unanimously hold to be innately bad. If we can all agree that something is bad, then there must some Good to which we are all measuring the bad against. Or something like that. Really, you should read it because I can't explain it justly; it's one of the most interesting things I've ever read.

Hmmm... I'm having trouble thinking up a fifth thing. I could tell you how much I rolled my eyes at that guy's "stunning revelation" that the Mona Lisa is a dude (So dumb. What did he do, ask DaVinci? Oh, that's right! He's dead.), or I could share the story about how my cat has taken it upon herself to nurse me back to health (we call her Nurse Puddy because she doesn't leave your side if you're sick), or that I had nutella on toast for beakfast, or how happy I was that the grounhog didn't see his shadow... Oh! I got it! I'll share a recipe that for what I was craving the most this week.

5. Creamy Potato Soup with Seared Steak and Tomato Relish (makes 7 1/2 cups)

For Tomato Relish:

Stir together and chill...

1 1/2 C. tomato, diced and seeded

1/2 blue or feta cheese

1/2 C. fresh chives

For the soup:

4 russet potatoes, pierced, rubbed w/ olive oil, and baked at 450* for 45-60 min,

or until tender. Skin and mash potatoes, be careful, they are hot; set aside.

4 T. unsalted butter, melted in a big pot over med-high heat. Add...

1/2 C. onion, diced; allow to cook for 5 min, or until soft, then whisk in...

1/4 C. flour and cook for 2-3 minutes. To the flour/onion pot, add...

3 C.warmed milk (recipe calls for whole milk, but I say use whatever % you're used

to) and...

2 C. chicken broth, whisking constantly till thickened, 4-5 min.Stir in potatoes and...

salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 5 min. Heat a skillet over med-high heat

for 5 min...

For steak:

1 lb. top serloin steak, 1" thick and seasoned w/ salt and pepper. Sear in hot skillet,

4-5 minutes per side. Allow to rest for five min befoire slicing into thin strips,

going against the grain.

While steak is resting, puree soup in a blender till smooth.

Serve this hardy soup with steak strips and tomato relish on top and Ceasar salad on
the side. Also good with diced bacon and shredded sharp-cheddar.

And that concludes my Friday Five!

Frosty the Snowman: A Tale of Terror and Holiday Cheer

2011-01-29T16:55:00.001-05:00

Woops! I haven't done one of these in a long time. I meant to post this little ditty sometime during Christmas, but at first it seemed rather irreverent, then I just plum forgot about it.
So anyway...
A long while back, after posting the rewritten "Every Body (Backstreet's Back)" lyrics, I received the following challenge via comment from none other than M.A.D. (aka Mary Ann DeBorde; reader, writer, and fellow zombie lit enthusiast):

Mary Ann: Okay. I am now OFFICIALLY tossing down the gauntlet to ya (hehe)

ZG: Bring it!

Mary Ann: Let's see what morbid, post-mortem deliciousness you can do with... FROSTY THE SNOWMAN!

ZG: *gasp!* Oh, it's on like Donkey Kong!

And now, without further ado, or faux-macho posturing, I give you the dark and twisted tale of...

Frosty the Snowman

Frosty the snowman was a dark and twisted soul,

With a brimstone pipe and a broken nose

And two eyes that burned like coals.

Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale, they say,

He died in the snow but the children

Know he came back to life one day.

There must have been a curse trapped in that

Old candle they found.

For when they burned it on his grave

On his coffin he did pound.

O, Frosty the snowman

Was alive as he could be,

And the children say he would slice

And flay and come after you and me.

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

Look out, here he comes!

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

The devil's on the run.

Frosty the snowman knew

He'd soon meet his demise,

So he said, "Let's run,

We'll kill everyone

Now before I'm exorcised."

Down to the village,

With a big blade in his hand,

Running here and there all

Around the square hissing,

"Catch me if you can."

He led them down the streets of town

Right to the traffic cop.

His blade never paused a moment

Even when he hollered "Stop!"

But Frosty the snow man

Was banished by a priest,

But he waved goodbye saying,

"I can't die,

I'll be back again to feast."

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

Look out, here he comes!

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

The devil's on the run.

Share that one with the kiddies. On second thought, don't. It even creeps me out, and it came my brian!

My Take On: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

2011-01-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?

This futuristic book looks at the consequences of medical advancements and asks what it means to be human.

I don't want to write a rave, but I'm afraid that is what this will turn into anyway. The truth is that this book was just plain amazing. The characters and back story, the questions asked and answered, the relevance of the story--it all lined up for me to make for very good reading.

Jenna is a pitiable and relatable girl who has one problem: She can't remember anything about her life. Not her favorite color, or if she had friends, or what foods she likes. She can recite literature as if were before her eyes, yet she struggles with basic colloquial English and with reading peoples' faces. These and other things about her life lead her to make a disturbing and life and altering discovery--the likes of which I'm sure you'll be able to guess before the book reveals it, but which I will not be mentioning lest I ruin the story for you.
This book had, not only some serious moral questions about how far is too far with the advancements of medicine and prosthetics, but also religious undertones that kept me satisfied. Jenna's grandmother, who seems to hate her for unknown reasons, is a devout woman, and through her Jenna comes to question the existence of her very soul. It was interesting, to say the least, reading about Jenna's identity struggle and having it put on such a profound level. It was also deeply satisfying to see how that particular struggle resolved itself.
The whole book, while focusing mainly on Jenna and her search for the truth, also shows the true life struggle of a family going through the nightmare of nearly losing a child and coming to grips with that beloved child growing into their own person. What they ultimately need to learn is that it's not about letting go so much as holding on less tightly.
Jenna struggles, not just with her humanity and the world around her, but with her role as the object of adoration of her devoted parents and the pressure she feels to be perfect and please them.
Awesome story telling, great character development, loads of depth, and an ending that you'll read two or three times before setting the book down make this lightly-scifi tale of the meaning of humanity worthy of...

...five zombies.

An excellent book with a lot of depth and morality, and just the right amount of scifi-ness, makes this one of the best I read in 2010.

My Take On: Nomansland by Lesley Hauge

2011-01-24T18:45:00.001-05:00

Sometime in the future, after devastating wars and fires, a lonely, windswept island in the north is populated solely by women. Among these women is a group of teenaged Trackers—expert equestrians and archers—whose job is to protect their shores from the enemy. The enemy, they’ve been told, is men.
When these girls come upon a partially buried home from the distant past, they are fascinated by the strange objects—high-heeled shoes, teen magazines, make-up—found there. What are they to make of these mysterious things, which introduce a world they have never known? And what does it mean for their strict society where friendship is forbidden and rules must be obeyed—at all costs?
Reminiscent of The Giver but with a feminist twist, Nomansland is a powerful, shocking story that will challenge young readers’ perspectives and provoke much discussion over the timely and controversial issues presented.

Nomansland is a love it or hate kind of book. You're either going to love the symbolism and thought provoking nature of it, or you're going to hate the lack of action and dialogue-driven writing.
Personally, I loved it. Based on the synopsis, I was expecting more action. I mean, it's about teenaged equestrian archers fighting off men, right? Yes and no.

The story is a first person account of Keller, a young Novice Tracker, who discovers that the world she knew isn't what it seems. The writing was without flourish, but then, so was Keller and the world she lived in. The landscape was as harsh and grey as the society she was raised in; iron skies to match the iron fists.
What really makes this book stand out to me is the thought provoking views of femininity and the question: What does it mean to be a woman? To some members of the austere Foundland society, it means sneaking into the nursery where the girl children live to sing them to sleep; to others it means pinching your cheeks till their quite red in a forbidden attempt to look beautiful; but to most of the women, it is a mystery.
Keller was raised thinking that anything "feminine" was evil; they call these evils Pitfalls. There are seven Pitfalls: reflection, decoration, coquetry, triviality, vivacity, compliance, and sensuality. It is these seven rules that give the women their identity and keep them from dwelling on such trivial things as vanity and friendship, yet at the same time they cause their lives to be trivial and empty in a different way. The Pitfalls are seen as the very root of the weakness from the Time Before that Keller's society tries so hard to forget. Their women are one, they are unified, they are strong. Yet they are lonely. And they have no idea of the true power of women because they are raised in fear of their true selves, of every womanly inclination.

In this society, girls are raised from birth to fear men, who were portrayed as slavering barbarian animals bent on savaging and conquering them and their island. They live a delicate balance between fear and loyalty. I'd say that there was a certain level of Stockholm-Syndrome going on in this tale because Keller both loved her society and was willing to toil and even die for it, yet she lived in constant fear that the leaders would come bearing the Seed or that they would be locked away in the Darkness, possibly never to return, or else receive cruel beatings. Their society practiced a variety of evils that I found appalling, the most offensive of which pertained to the murder of all male infants and the forced impregnation of chosen women, though these points were veiled or not really spoken of. They were incredibly, and realistically, taboo.
There were many views of femininity portrayed in this novel--from out and out fear and misunderstanding of it, to the vain embrace of beauty as the pinnacle of it, to a disordered view that one sex can exist completely without the other, and even a healthy view of masculinity and femininity's compatibility. I feel that all sides were told here; from rational to irrational; from true womanliness to extreme, radical feminism. For me, reading from a Christian perspective, I found the most normal, healthy, and true understanding of what it means to be a woman in those characters who, despite the threat of punishment and the fear that they were raised with, discovered that man and woman were not meant to be enemies. They complement each other because they were made for each other, and one cannot live solely without the other, not in the way that the Foundlanders did.

I give Nomansland...

...five zombies!

I was afraid Nomansland would be a thinly veiled feminist rant about how women don't really need men or how they can deny their nature, but I need not have been worried. The moral of this story is that womanhood is a uniquely powerful blessing. Some people make it seem like a burden or a disease, and that makes me sick, but Hauge portrayed womanhood as being a strength and, ultimately, that woman cannot exist without man, and vice versa. That's what makes this one of the best books I read in 2010.

Walk For Life

2011-01-22T12:05:00.002-05:00

Today's the big day. Bigger for some than others, such as those lucky enough to go to DC, but big nonetheless. I'll be participating in a local Walk for the Respect of Life later today to show my support for life and to execrate1 the legalized murder that is abortion.
It would be easy for me to just say that I'm "ProLife" and be done with it, but I think it would really be far more productive to explain why I am. It would also make for more interesting reading for y'all.

The reasons I utterly detest abortion are simple. A life is a life, and every life is a gift from God. To destroy something, and by "something" I really mean someone, that He created is evil. It's evil to kill a baby in their mother's womb, just as it is evil to kill a baby in their mother's arms. Your pulling a trigger. Your ending a life.

But that brings up that whole, "When is a life a life?" debate, which you'd think would be a whole nest of thorns that could never be untangled, but really it's quite easy to debunk. Life begins at conception. Simple as that. An embryo in the womb is a human being from the moment the cells come together; what else could it be other than human life? An unborn baby, no matter how early on in the stages of development it is, is a living human being from the moment it was conceived because it was created by the union of two humans. It cannot be anything but a human being. Furthermore, and brace yourselves, because I'm pulling out the big guns, the Bible says, after the angel of Lord visited Mary and she conceived by the Holy Spirit, that she visited her cousin Elizabeth because she was also with child, and, "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out, 'Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb [Jesus].'"2 Jesus was Jesus from the moment he was conceived, and the same is true for us as well because He was True God and True Man. And notice the wording; Elizabeth didn't say, "Blessed will be the fruit of your womb." She said, "Blessed is." That one verb explains simply and completely the value of a human life from conception to natural death.

Another reason I loathe abortion is because of the havoc it wreaks on our world and on individual souls. In our world, the further propagation of abortion increases sexism. Now, hear me out. We've been led to believe that birth control has set us free, that being able to "do it" the same as guys and not have to worry about getting pregnant has given women a leg up in the world. But the truth is that birth control and abortion turn sex and the natural consequences there of--that being the creation of another human life-- into something less than it was ever meant to be, and thus it turns partners into something less than they are meant to be. By saying that sex is for anything other than giving love, you are saying that people are meant for something less love. It turns people into objects of pleasure, into material things with less value. But every human being who has ever or will ever live, even if they are denied the fundamental right of being born, is of far more value than you could ever hope to comprehend. God loves each and every one of us as if we were the only person He had ever created. You are unrepeatable and irreplaceable, as is every other human being. That is why it's so wrong to kill someone, even an unborn or unwanted baby, because God so loves that person that He gave up His only Son.
As for the aforementioned havoc wreaked on individual souls: Killing is a sin. A big, big, big sin. It stems from pride, which is putting yourself or your will above the divine will of God, and such an act destroys the sanctifying grace in your soul. Basically, it runs Jesus' presence out of your soul and utterly destroys the relationship you have with God. I cannot possibly stress how bad this is. It's the difference between heaven, eternal happiness in the Presence of God, and hell, eternal separation from the divine and glorious Presence of God. We're talking life and death here, the life of your soul. So, one of the biggest reasons I hate abortion is because it will cause people to lose eternity with God. God wants to be with all of you in heaven. It's what you were made for. But if you choose to kill a person, to destroy someone that God loves in defiance of His will--and his will for pregnant ladies is that they bear children--then you are in extreme danger of losing that eternal happiness.
Now I want to make a couple things crystal clear; I am not condemning anyone. It's not my place to do so, and even if were, I wouldn't want anyone to. Furthermore, I hold only grief and remorse in my heart toward those women who choose to subject themselves to such a horrendous and scarring procedure. I can't imagine what that must make you feel, and I wish that i could turn everyone of you away from it for your and your baby's sake.

And lastly, I have a little story to share: Dorothy Day, a woman who is destined to be a saint, had an abortion. But she repented. She realized that what she had done was fundamentally wrong and offensive to God, and she asked for His forgiveness. She joined His Church, and turned her life completely around.
I once heard someone very wise say that the True Cross is located before the gates of hell, and that Jesus will do anything to keep even one soul from going through them.
I hope that by walking today and by posting this, that I'm helping Jesus turn people away from this most grievous sin and toward His eternal love and forgiveness.

Please join us in prayer to end abortion and save lives3--and souls.

footnotes_____________________________________________

1. Definition of EXECRATE

transitive verb

1: to declare to be evil or detestable : denounce

2: to detest utterly
2. NAB, Saint Joseph Edition. Luke 1:41-42.

3. 3,600 lives a day.

Contest Alert!

2011-01-15T15:24:00.000-05:00

Here's DL1, the skinny, the deets, the 411 and what all the hullabaloo is about: Ren2 of All by MySHELF3 is hosting a contest in celebration of her new layout!
One winner will have their choice of the following titles:

Dead is Not an Option by Marlene Perez

Outside In by Maria V. Snyder

Serpent's Coil by Christy Raedeke.

Ends Jan. 20th at 11:59 pm.
For more details and to enter click HERE.

Good luck!

footnotes__________________________________________________
1. "LD" stands for the "low down", a slang phrase meaning "information". Not to be confused with "DL" which is an abbreviation of "down low", meaning to keep something secret.
2. The blogger formerly known as Dahlia
3. The blog formerly known as Dahlia's Eclectic Mind. Personally, I'm glad she's changed the title to something with less Cs. It was sort of like a tongue twister, trying to type that!

My Take On: Flight #116 Is Down by Caroline B. Cooney

2011-01-15T11:41:00.001-05:00

Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue people from a plane crash on her family's property, and the experience changes her life forever.

Just as the synopsis is brief, so too will my review be.

"There is no such thing as time... man invented it, but pain and fear are not acquainted with it,"1 though, Caroline B. Cooney proves that she is the master of it. This book is an old fall back for me because no matter how many times I read it, it still excites me, still gets the old juices flowing.

The story follows several characters' perspectives in a minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow writing style that lets you see the full scope of the event and feel a range of emotions. The change from calm to chaos to yet more chaos might seem a bit jarring to some, but that was the point. I enjoyed the stark difference between the nothingness of the families' breathless wait in the airport to the hellish havoc of the Dove House Crash2.
The story focuses on Heidi, an undervalued rich kid who happens to have a plane crash in her on her estate; Patrick, a junior EMT who longs for something, anything, to happen in his small town so he can really test his merit; Carly, a teenaged passenger on board the flight who wants nothing more than to go home and be reunited her with her twin after having run away; and Daniel, another teen passenger who, along with his younger brother, is going to his father's second wedding against his will. The story follows several other characters, but these are the main narrators.
In the space of one night, all of their lives are changed, some ended, by this one event. And we have a front row seat to the excitement! And I'm not being morbid; what really makes me love this book is the heroic, Good Samaritan nature of it. Everyone who showed up on the scene, and everyone showed up, had so much love to give. That was the point that Cooney returned to again and again: Love. Not everyone was a saint, and not everyone had a lot to contribute, but everyone did give, even if all they could do was brew coffee or hold a hand. And so many of the amazingly real, down to earth characters had a lot more than they could have conceived to give. take Heidi for instance; her parents have no pride in her and she feels that she is pretty near useless, but she rises to the occasion so well and keeps her head on her shoulders. She saves lives and makes friends and grows a sense of value in herself that she hadn't had before.
Okay, before I go on too much longer--I give this book...

...five zombies!

So my review wasn't as brief as I first intended, but it's not War and Peace long, so I'm pleased.

Happy reading, cheerio, and God bless you all,

footnotes___________________________________________________

1. Quote taken from page 124.

2. Heidi's century-old, palatial home was called Dove House because it looked a like a ginormous English dovecote. So, plane crash + Dove House = Dove House Crash. Heidi was not happy about this development.

The REAL #1 Killer in America

2011-01-14T21:47:00.002-05:00

More lives are lost to this than to
                                   heart disease,
                  cancer,
                                   lung disease,
          accident,
                       you name it.

In fact, in 2005, 49% of all deaths in the United States were caused by this.

And it was 100% preventable.

But don't take my word for it.

Visit AbortionBlackout.org

When I found this site earlier through Twitter1, I was blown away by the numbers. I felt like something drained out of me. 3,600 people are killed every day. By their mothers. It made me feel cold. Innocent human life taken by the ones that should cherish it the most.

So please. Watch the video. Visit the site. Face the facts. Make a change.

footnotes_____________________________________________________

1. I found the link in a tweet by @Sr-Lisa, a sister in Rome, Italy, who enjoys graphic design and techy stuff. Her tweets are excellent; none of this trivial stuff that you see clogging up the Trends.

My Take On: Winter Survival Gear

2011-01-11T15:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday there was so much snow that I couldn't leave my house. It started out with light flurries, which then turned to a heavy, fluffy snow, which then turned to sleat and freezing rain. This bout of bad weather got me thinking about all the things I was most thankful for, things that I couldn't survive winter without, and they are:

My teal Ugg boots. I got these five or six ago and they're still good as new. I've worn them snow tubing, through slushy parking lots, in the rain, everywhere.The insides are still as baby-soft and the color as bright as the first day I got them. I love these boots, not for the brand name, which I could honestly care less about, or because they garner so many complements, which frankly is a bit awkward, but because they're so high quality and as comfy as walking on fat, happy kittens. Comfier, even, because these don't scratch my ankles.

My skel-y gloves. I got these for Zombie Week from Velvet, and I love them. They're really cute, sort of quirky, and, most imporantly, warm. I love gloves with grips on them, and the skeleton grips on these are great. It's a touch of the macabre that makes winter chapped hands a little easier to deal with. You can find them at Zombies and Toys, an online zombie themed store, for a real steal; only 4 bucks. My only complaint is they're pilly as all get out, but the anatomically correct grips make up for it.

My Snuggie. I got it for Christmas, and it is the coziest, most unflattering thing ever. And when it comes to keeping warm, the less flattering something is, the warmer it is. I use it when I read, during family prayers, while playing video games, using the computer (yes, I'm wearing it right now), basically whenever I sit, which is a lot of the time. Two complaints for this one, even though I love it. 1: Not of the best quality. The seams are a sight and there are stray threads which should have been cut everywhere, but I guess that's what you should expect from something that's sold in drugstores. The arm seams are pretty sturdy, though, so no hard feelings. 2: It's hard to find the "upside." Seriously, the Snuggie folks should consider a new design; a solid color with a large arrow pointing toward the top end. It would make such a bold statement. "This side up."

And lastly, Mexican hot chocolate. It's not a product, so much as a beverage epiphany. While Googling for a picture of the stuff, I came across several very difficult steps for making this involving blenders and whisks, but I assure you, it is much easier than all that. You just make a regular cup of hot chocolate using whatever brand of instant stuff you like best, then add a tiny drop of vanilla extract, a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, and a dollop of whipped cream. Viola! Liquid delight. I'm insisting that you try it today, but be warned, once you try it, you won't go back to the regular stuff.

And that's how I survive my winters; with sheep-skin boots, funny gloves, a fleece slanket, and gallons of Mexican hot chocolate.

Oh, and I give all of these things...

...five zombies.

But all this leads me to wonder, what is it that gets you through the winter months?

6 Degrees Reading Challenge 2011

2011-01-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

Ren1 of the blog All By MySHELF2 is hosting what I hold to be the most fun and original reading challenge ever: 6 Degrees3!

As you see from the nifty badge, I have opted for the INFERNO level. I will be attempting to connect 24 books, starting with Fever Crumb. I've already worked out my 24 links and will be revealing them to you as I read them. I must say, some of the links are pretty clever4.
Da Rulez:

Be Creative - Books cannot be connected by author, genre, series, or publisher. Anything else goes. Using legitimate connections, you cannot connect more than 3 consecutive books from the same genre.
Deadline - All challenge books must be started and finished between January 1, 2011-December 31, 2011. Books started/read before signing up count as long as they're connected.
Data! Data! Data! - All connections must be listed on your challenge post.
Sharing is Caring - Books from other challenges count as long as they can be connected.
Make It Count - YA, mid-grade, children's, adult, graphic novels, mangas, and comic books count (all together now, "As long as they're connected."), but individual short stories DO NOT count. Books from the same series count as long as they're not read back to back (and try to limit the number of books you use from one series).
One Time Use - Connections and books can only be used once!
*singing* Put One Book In Front of the Other- You don't have to read all the challenge books back to back, but you do have to read them in the order that they're connected.

So anyhoo! I challenge you to accept this challenge!

footnotes____________________________________________________________

1 The blogger formerly known as Dahlia.

2 The blog formerly known as Dahlia's Eclectic Mind.

3 Perhaps an homage to Kevin Bacon?

4 I am nothing if not humble. Oh, and awesome. So awesomely humble. Although, in all honesty and with not a trace of hubris, I can assure that it is pretty funny. At least it is to me, but then I am a bit biased. Also, I have my list and links completely memorized. I couldn't tell you ten books that I read in the order I read them, but I can list 24 with all the random factors that link them together off the top of my head.

My Take On: My Top 15 Reads of 2010

2011-01-07T12:40:00.009-05:00

Another year, another crop of excellent books. Here are the top 15 books I read last year along with my brief thoughts on them. They're not listed in any particular order, mostly chronological as read. I tried to narrow it down to a nice round ten, but it just wasn't happening. Also, please note that all titles are linked to Good Reads.
And without further ado, I give you the best that 2010 had to offer...

1. Nightlife by Rob Thurman
If you're looking for an action packed supernatural series that doesn't revolve around a "forbidden love," than this is for you! This book took the overused supernatural mold and smashed it to bits! It raised the bar on what has become an overly romanticized genre by getting back to the roots. The monsters are original and the story is so, so fresh. The Cal Leandros series is a new take on the old hat that supernatural has become and I would recommend it for men and women alike.

2. Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Manchev
This world is so full and textural! The Theatre Luminata is officially my favorite fictional world. Manchev has woven, not only a great story, but an amazing world that was just as much a character as the protagonist! But the world, great as it is, is only half of the book. The characters are all borrowed from plays, but they've had new life breathed into them. And come on, who else has ever written a bad boy with a trailing cloud of butterflies? No one, that's who! Another completely original book, and an absolute must read.

3. The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott
This is not only a good story with immaculate and heartwarming characters, it's also got an interesting story of its own! This is the manuscript that "Jo" was working on for years and years in the novel Little Women! How's that for art imitating life? It definitely has the air of a first novel, too awesome characters and overuse of a favorite word or two, but I love it. Edith is one my favorite characters ever, and if I had to switch places with a character, it would be her because she is such a rare mix of purity, charity, and guts.

4. Hold Still by Nina LaCour
This is a story that has stayed with me. It was heart breaking, and sometimes gut-wrenching, but the ending was nonetheless hopeful, and I loved the artistic aspect--I especially loved the sketches in Ingrid's journal. I read this one very early on in the year, but it has remained fresh in my mind and it still speaks to me, not only about the horrors of suicide, both to the soul and to the ones left to deal the loss, but of the importance of loving others and being there fully for them because you can never know what it's like to be in their skin.

5. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Besides being hilarious and tragic, this story asked a lot of pretty deep questions. Questions about life, how you live it, and what reality really is. The main thing I came away from this book with was a sense that life is fleeting and that our time on earth could come to an end at any time, so you better get your living done while you can! And to me, that doesn't mean go and party like Miley Cyrus or BASE jump off a sky scraper or anything crazy, it means make what you can with what you've got. Love your family no matter how flawed, know your friends and allow yourself to be known, and seek God always and with every ounce of your being; because you never know when your family will be gone, when you'll need true friends, or how soon you'll be meeting your Maker.

6. How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford
Finally, a boy/girl duo that is completely platonic! I'm so used to reading books where the boy and girl are forced into some convoluted, lust-driven "love" by the climax, or worse, the second page, and it drives me nuts. Why can't a book ever portray them as simply being friends? But no more, world! This books has taken that standard and dumped it on it's butt. In this book, Beatrice and Jonah are more than friends, yet not in a romantic way. One is the peanut butter to the others jelly. Their relationship is sometimes strenuous, always complex, and often times misunderstood, but I loved it nonetheless.
It was quirky, it was funny, and ultimately, it was heartbreaking.

7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I'm a big fan of the "new classic" genre, and this is one of the best I've read yet. Within these pages are some of the most endearing characters ever written. Well, that weren't fuzzy animals, anyway. I loved the dynamic between Atticus, Scout and Jem; they were such a great family! And the voices were so innocent and frank. I felt as though I were there with Scout and Jem as they discovered the hard truth of innocence: that it is often lost, and that once gone, it is nearly impossible to regain and will be sorely missed--and not just by those who lost it, but by those who were blessed enough to be touched by the ones who possessed it. The picture painted in this book of a small, Southern town and its dramas is worthy of the title Classic. It really is a must read.

8. Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics by Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
I've yet to read a book about faith or my religion that was boring, and this one was no exception. It set my faith-life afire! LTCF is about learning to take a your spiritual pulse; reawaken your deepest, truest self, and rekindle your relationship with Christ and his Church. It reaffirms the obligations--or as a very wise friend of mine likes to say invitations--of being a Christian in our society by showing, among other things, all the ways in which the life of a Christian is destined to lead them down roads that many people won't agree with. It gave a me the jolt I needed to re-realize that the life of a true Christian is often one lived in moral opposition; that we are called to live counter-culturally. In the world, but not of the world. I highly, highly recommend this book, not just to Catholics wishing to reawaken their faith or get reaquainted with the Church, but for all Christians of all denominations wishing to fulfill their lives as the members of Christ's Body.

9. The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong
This is the last book in one of my favorite series (thank you, Sarah!). Usually a series has at least one dud, but Darkest Powers was one of the exceptions. It was never dull. The pace that Armstrong set in the beginning was kept up throughout the entire series and wrapped up nicely with a very satisfying conclusion. It was just what I was hoping for and I couldn't be happier! Plus, we have more adventures to look forward to in this world with her new book The Gathering which comes out later this year. I can't wait!

10. FEED by Mira Grant
This is the zombie book I have waiting for. It had, not only a great setting, one that had found a logical balance between fear and the futuristic, but the pathology was so real. Grant really did her research when forming the zombie-virus. She took two real life viruses and added a realistic amount of optimism and naivete, stirred them together with a touch of anarchy, and came up with a fearsomely realistic outcome. Well, as realistic as any zombie-virus can be. Something else I really enjoyed was the characters. George and Shawn are two of my favorites ever; I loved their quirky relationship, how closely knit and co-dependent they were, and the way they played off each other. And, oh, the ending! I actually mourned. It was excellent.

11. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This is one my old favorites. I first fell in love with the movie when I was little; I loved the oppulance of Sara's life early on in the story, but my favorite part was when she and her fellow captive of fate pretended their way into bliss. The book is a bit different from the movie though, and when I first read it, I almost didn't like it for it's differences. It wasn't the story I remembered, and the ending much sadder, but I grew to love it more than the film version. The reason: Sara. She is one my favorite, most admired characters, and the book allows you to get to know her much more than any movie ever could. Despite the many hardships she faced, and her own character flaws--pride comes to mind--she always tried her best to treat everyone with the same amount of courtesy and respect that she would expect of a princess. She always strove to be a princess, and not the kind that gets every little thing she wants and rules with a heavy hand and an empty heart, but the good kind; the kind of princess that hears the complaints and troubles of all who come before her and spreads largesse to everyone in need.

12. My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick
Sedgwick makes good use of the rich history of European vampire lore in this well researched, beautiful, and creepy story of a father, a son, and a village plagued by the undead. These creatures pay tribute to the true roots of the myth, not as seductive, misunderstood antiheroes, but as the embodiment of every primal fear of man; death, darkness and damnation. And the creatures, which not once in the entire narrative were called "vampires", were actually scary! This is an amazing homage to the truly horrific nature of the myth with an ending you won't see coming. I recommend this for anyone who is tired of witnessing the systematic immasculation of one of the world's most dreaded myths.

13. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
This book had, not only some serious moral questions about how far is too far with the advancements of medicine, but also religious undertones that kept me satisfied. Jenna's grandmother, who seems to hate her for unknown reasons, is a devout woman, and through her Jenna comes to question the existence of her very soul. It was interesting, to say the least, reading about Jenna's identity struggle and having it put on such a profound level. It was also deeply satisfying to see how that particular struggle resolved itself.

14. Nomansland by Lesley Hauge
I was afraid Nomansland would be a thinly veiled feminist rant about how women don't really need men or how they can deny their feminity, but I need not have been worried. The moral of this story is that womanhood is a uniquely powerful blessing. Some people make it seem like a burden or a disease, and that makes me sick, but Hauge portrayed womanhood as being a strength and, ultimately, that woman cannot live without man, and vice versa.

15. The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
I love E's style; she takes the unrealistic chick-lit genre and adds an almost painful amount of realism to the overly bubbley norm. This book had me laughing out loud one minute and mad as a nest of hornets the next. The characters were great, especially the ones that E. led you to dislike rather strongly, and I loved seeing into the mind of Ruby as she struggled with the mess that her life had become. I found her immensely easy to relate to, especially as she struggled with the anxiety that her crumbling social-life gave her, and I can't wait to continue this series.

And that concludes my list of the 15 best books read in 2010! Hopefully 2011 is just as good or better in regards to reading.
May this year hold many good reads and happy memories in the making!

Potter-Thon + My take On: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

2011-01-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

I signed up for the January Harry Potter-Thon at Pure Imagination because Harry Potter is the most brilliant thing I've ever read. My favorite thing about this series, the thing that calls me to read the whole series on an almost annual basis, is the thought that JK put into it. You will never read another series with so much... focus! Every detail, even the seemingly unimportant, is tied into the plot later on. This style, which Rowling has down to a fine art, is called foreshadowing, and it makes for excellent, high quality reading. It's the amount of foreshadowing and forethought that really brings me back to this series again and again; every time I read it, I find some little detail that I missed the time before! And I've yet to find a flaw or plot hole.

For my first act of Potterism during this Potter-Thon, I went to the theater with my sisters and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. For the second time! Yes, folks, it seems my Chronic Harry Potter Mania (CHPM) has flared up again. I've never seen any other movie in theaters twice. Ever.
My Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:
This was by far the best HP movie to date. 1-4 were excellent, though, keeping in line with the books, a little juvenile, in the case of the first and second. And it is my firm belief that 5 and 6 were a complete waste. The visual appeal was there, but the story was so watered down that if I hadn't already been a fan of the books, I might not have shelled out for the 7th.
But, man, I'm glad I did! The affects were first rate and the story was actually told. I was getteing rather tired of bridge-style movies, and thankfully this movie broke away from that.
The performances were amazing. Grint, Radcliffe, and Watson's portrayals were spot on. They've really grown into great actors; very likely the best that this generation of actors has to offer. Though, it must be noted that a good deal of the movie is spent under the influence of pollyjuice potion, and thus, it wasn't Grint, Radcliffe, and Watson that we were watching, but some people whose names I don't know. They must have had a hard job because they had to not only portray Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but do it in the style of the original actors. I thought they were awesome. The lady who played Hermione/Emma Watson was definitely my favorite; she had it down pat. It was really quite funny seeing it for the second time and being able to really appreciate their task and how well they did at triple acting: a new guy playing Danial Radcliffe's Harry Potter as he, Harry, tries to be someone else. Did that make sense?
There were a few rumors revolving around this movie, namely the fate of Hedwig. As I said before, this movie is very true the book, but certain liberties have been taken while still remaining true to the original story that I feel made the movie better. Although, some liberties that were taken do not make me happy. One such change to the story was the departure of the Dursleys for safety. In the book, the Dursleys were evacuated from their home and Dudley, the dim object of his parents adoration who made Harry's life so hard for so many years, showed that he actually had some level of fondness for the object of his brutality. In the movie, this was completely cut out. The Dursley's left with no fanfare whatsoever and the audience was jipped out of a chance to experience some real character development and insight. This isn't to say that all character development was neglected, not by a long shot. All the pressure in this department has been rested on the shoulders of Draco Malfoy. You really get to see that he and his family are no longer acting out of loyalty to Voldemort, but fear. They're genuinely afraid for thier lives, even Bellatrix, and it added a lot to the movie to have that showcased.
In conclusion! I give HP&tDH...

...five zombies!

If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you go now. Or this weekend. Or at least get it on DVD. Whatever you do, just be sure that you don't let the poorly handled fifth and sixth movies scare ou off from this one.

Happy Potter-Thon!

Happy 2011!

2011-01-02T07:17:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all! Just wanted to drop a quick post to let all of you know that a) I am not dead, nor have a I b) joined a cult which forbids the use of internet, or c) gone on the lam and changed my identity so as to avoid detection. I just don't really use the internet on vacation; a fact that tends to slip my mind between holidays.
So happy new and merry Christmas! yes, I'm still wishing people merry Christ even though it's the new year because Christmas is actually a 12 ay long celebration starting on Christmas morning. The more you know...

Merry Christ-Mass and happy holy-days!
Zombie Girrrl

P.S. A vair special Christ-Mass and New Years wish to M.A.D.: May ye have a blessed an' prosperous new year filled w' abundant happiness an' may the LORD bless and keep you always! *hugs!*

The Winner of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Is...

2010-12-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

Throughthehaze!

Congratulations and thanks to all who entered! I would also like to thank Eric from Quirk Books again for providing the prize for this contest and for just being awesome. Thanks, Eric, the Pride and Prejudice and Zombie guy!

I've sent an email to our lucky winner and will be shipping the book as soon as she replies.

Happy Holy-days!

2 Contests for Across the Universe by Beth Revis

2010-12-10T09:01:00.002-05:00

Who: Beth Revis, author of Across the Universe.
What: A contest with 100, yes one-hundred, winners!
Where: Click here to enter.
When: Now through December 20.

OR

Who: Scribbler to Scribe, Stephanie M. Loree
What: Frozen in Time Giveaway; one winner, one signed copy of Across the Universe, and swag. Where: Click here to enter.
When: Now through December 25.

Good Luck!

My Take On: My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick

2010-12-09T17:41:00.001-05:00

In a bitter winter, Tomas and his son, Peter, settle in a small village as woodcutters. Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so that they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn’t understand why his father has done this, or why his father carries a long, battered box, whose mysterious contents he is forbidden to know.
But Tomas is a man with a past—a past that is tracking him with deadly intent. As surely as the snow falls softly in the forest of a hundred thousand silver birch trees, father and son must face a soulless enemy and a terrifying destiny.

If you're tired of reading about the systematic immasculation of vampires and want to read something that'll take you back their truly horrific roots, then this gothic tale is for you!
Sedgwick makes good use of the rich history of European vampire lore in this well researched, beautiful, and creepy story of a father, a son, and a village plagued by the undead.
Peter and Tomas have been on the move for as long as Peter can recall. Something else that is as old as his memory is the wooden box that his father keeps secreted away beneath his matress. Peter has always been curious, sometimes dangerously so, and the mystery of the contents of the box has become a burden. It's also become a symbol of the chasm that has formed between him and his drunkard father. But this is pushed to the back burner when a series of events leads to his sweetheart being forced to marry a dead man and the dead man subsequently stalking her. Peter is forced to face the cause of the villagers superstition and fight for those he loves, and his very life.
The beginning of this book was a bit confusing for me. I thought it was a prologue, but what it turned out to be was the story behind a local folk song that is woven throughout the book and ultimately plays a very large role. Aside from that, however, this is one of the best vampire books I have ever read. I rank it up there with The Historian and The Den of Shadows. The vampires were much different from either of those, however; they were closer to blood-thirsty zombies than the modern image of a vampire. Sedgwick's creatures pay tribute to the true roots of the myth, not as seductive, misunderstood antiheroes, but as the embodiment of every primal fear of man; death, darkness and damnation. And the creatures, which not once in the entire narrative were called "vampires", were actually scary! They had unearthly speed and fearsome strength. They were brutal, and they truly hated the living. It was that loathing that was the most frightening. Sedgwick portrayed the undead as having a serious grudge against those among the living--you know, an example would make this easier to explain: the villagers were a very superstitious lot, and one example of this was how they treated the dead. To prevent a body from rising, or at least to slow it down, the villagers employed a variety of means, such as burying the body with a net because the undead would have to untie all the knots before they could escape their grave; or filling the coffin with charcoal because they would have to write with it until it was all gone. In one instance, Peter, one of the few literate people in the area, had the misfortune of reading what was written inside one such coffin. The messages scrawled across the coffin lid in a cramped, hurried, and cold hand were so horrific and hateful that he dared not describe it to his companion, a brazen gypsy girl. This weakness of vampires was scary, yet odd. It payed tribute to the myth of the dead rising from their graves due to unfinished business, yet it made his vampires come across as being alsmost comically OCD. But I can let that slide because it led to one creepiest scenes ever involving a vampire, a gypsy girl, a long wait for dawn, and a pocket-full of bird seed. If the unnaturally darty movements of spiders makes your skin crawl, then you'll agree with me on this one.
Anyhoo!
I give My Swordhand is Singing...

...Five Zombies!

The climax alone is worth three of the five zombies. I swear, you will not see it coming, and I'm not even going to talk about it because I'd hate to give any of it away. My Swordhand is Singing is one of the best books I've read this year and I absolutely insist that you read it.

Happy reading!

Win Pride and Prejudice and Zombies HERE!

2010-11-26T16:25:00.008-05:00

That's right! Just in time for Christmas, Crackin' Spines & Takin' Names, in conjuction with Quirk Classics, is giving away a copy of the acclaimed novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. This is the perfect gift for the quirky reader on your list, or even for yourself. And, naughty or nice, I thought you deserved a treat.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton — and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers — and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield. Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

Rules:
1) Must be 13 years or older to enter.
2) Must have a US mailing address.
Contest will run from Black Friday, November 26, to the third Sunday of Advent, December 12. The prize, which is adorably bound in twine and comes with a personal note from Elizabeth Bennet, will be shipped out no later than December the 15th. The USPS website has a handy chart for Holiday Shipping Cutoff Dates which says that the 15th is the absolute latest date if you want your package to arrive by Christmas, which I do, so I will ask now that my winner please respond promptly to the email announcement.

I would like to thank Eric of Quirk Classics for making this contest possible. Eric has played the part of Christmas Elf, doing the hard work of providing the prize, and I will be playing the role of Santa, giving it away and garnering all the glory and thanks for myself! Ha-hah!
If you wish to read my review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I said was, "Proof that a crypt full of zombies helps the literature go down. The literature go do-own, the literature go down," click here!
              Or here.
                                                                               Or here.
                                      Or here.

Good luck and happy reading!

Spooky Six Flags New Orleans Tour

2010-11-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

Here's a little something to make the hairs on your neck stand at attention.

I kept waiting for a zombie to appear, and at first I was disappointed that there weren't any, but after further thought, the utter lack of humanity was perfect. It took the video from being just spooky, to actually saying something about our fleeting presence in this world. Too existential? No such thing! I only wish that the park wasn't set for demolition. How cool would it have been to let it crumble away to nothing, to document it and see first hand what all our handy work will eventually become?

Anyhoo! My favorite part, aside from the music, was the children's play aparatus with the tattered canopy upon which someone had written "Love is Universal". There was a good deal of graffiti, as is to be expected, I guess, but that was more like a message in a bottle from someone who had lost something, maybe everything, but still retained their hope. Oops, getting a little existential again.

So what'd y'all think? A horror movie look at what will might be, or an up close and personal view of a tragedy whose scars are still fresh?

M.A.D. Challenge #2 (Dung) Beatles Mania!

2010-10-30T16:32:00.004-04:00

Or is it #3?... Whichever it is, it is late, and I apologize.
Anyhoo! For this M.A.D. Challenge, Mary Ann and I decided that we would each pick our own song to mangle, er, I mean rewrite, and I have chosen...

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

or as I like to call it...

While the Maggots Slowly Eat

I look at my flesh and I see that it's seathing

While the maggots slowly eat

I open my mouth and blowflies come forth swarming

Still the maggots slowly eat

I don't know why someone embalmed you

It only slows decay

I don't know how someone could mourn you

They should have burned you

Entombed beneath the world I notice that it's turning

While the maggots slowly eat

My coffin my cell my slice of hell in which I'm burning

Still the maggots slowly eat

I've got a plan and I won't be diverted

I will break out of here

I don't know how death was perverted

I am personified fear

I look at you all you are fruit ripe for reaping

While the maggots slowly eat

I look at you all

Like my maggots I will eat

There's actually a bit of a story behind this choice. I love this song, but that's not really why I chose it. I'm currently reading Dust by Joan Frances Turner, which I won during Zombie Month, and one of the characters is, shall we say, more alive than the rest. He's got a veritable ecosystem beneath his skin and there's a constant buzzing, chewing sound that comes from him. I call it his munchy noise. Well, I was listening to this song and thinking about what it would be like be eaten alive, slowly and with full awareness, and the first line popped into my head. Okay, so maybe it's not much a story, but it is an explanation of my choice and my inspiration.

Until we meat again, happy feeding!

M.A.D.'s Marvy Contest Du Jour

2010-10-29T15:34:00.000-04:00

M.A.D. is having her first ever contest over at Mary Ann Deborde Reads (and Writes!). I'm feeling kinda bullet points-y today, so I'm gonna give y'all the low down on why you should enter this contest. Que bullet points!

M.A.D. happens to be a superb blogger type person with a wicked imagination and an odd streak a mile wide, so this contest does not lack in M.A.D.isms!
The book up for grabs is The Host by Stepahnie Meyer, and before you condemn this as yet another abomination of book-kind, let me tell ya a little secret: The Host is everything that Twilight wished it could be. It's an awesome book, trust me. It's chocked full of parasitic space-worms and super-secret survivalist colonies. What more could a girl ask for?
There are foil hats involved. 'Nough said.
Reading this book will help you survive an alien invasion. And let's face it, if the zombies don't get us, it'll be the aliens. Or maybe the zombies will come from space! In either case, this is essential reading. ;)

It's open to US only and ends November 10th at midnight, so don't dilly-dally! Oh, and in case you missed all the handy linky-loos above, here's one you can't miss... CLICK HERE TO ENTER!
Good luck!

Contest Reminders

2010-10-27T18:32:00.000-04:00

Orchid and Dahlia's Duel Mega Blogoversary and Contest ends tomorrow at midnight, and I feel compelled to tell y'all that the prizepack has been sweetened by a signed copy Peeps by Scott Westerfeld! I can attest to its signosity as I was there! Scott was really nice and he gave an awesome presentation on his newest release Behemoth. But I digress. A lot.
Orchid's giveaway of The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman ends Oct 31. This is an awesome sounding steampunk novel that Orchid has given her seal approval. You can eneter here, and she'll have a review of it up very soon.
And lastly, Sparkling Reviews' super generous Kindle giveaway will soon begin! They only need 33 more followers before they reach the 500 mark and open the contest. But until that time, sign up early and often. Yes, often! You can enter daily for this one, folks!

Good luck, ya'll!