BOOKS!!

I've read quite a few books over the past month or so. Figured I should start giving reviews (aka. book reports).

Why We Suck: This was totally Denis Leary ranting - for about 200pgs. Seriously, I don't even know why he broke it up into chapters - it all sort of bled together, but it was a good funny read. My take aways are:
1. He hates Paris Hilton.
2. He's had a really interesting upbringing.
3. He hates Dr. Phil.
4. He really loves his wife.
5. His ADD entertains him.

This is a great book to give for Father's Day.
Matt & I went to see him back in April and the show was great. Yes, he sang "Asshole". He's done tremendous things via the Leary Firefighters Foundation. We've got a couple firefighter friends and they are amazing people. Hug one today.



Graveyard Book: This one I read because Willie is a huge Neil Gaiman fan and kept telling me about this one and Coraline and even last year when he told me that I had to read American Gods. Matt first introduced me to Neil Gaiman by telling me a little about the Sandman graphic novel and we saw Mirrormask and The Fountain when those came out. Neil's is an incredible story teller for both kids and adults. Most of his stuff has to do with a character crossing over into worlds/universes humans don't necessarily notice but are surrounded by at all times.
Neil says this one was inspired by The Jungle Book (heh...hence the title) and is about a boy who's parents get killed at the very beginning. His home becomes the nearby town graveyard and ghosts become his foster parents and guardians.
Adventure ensues.
I thought it was a little slow building but once you hit the halfway point, its all downhill from there and speeds up quite nicely. The Danse Macabre was my very favorite part.
Its quite good - one for the kiddies who love adventure and aren't afraid of the dark.





Dead Witch Walking: This one was a Christmas present from Matthew. Finally got around to reading it and it was really fun. At first I was like *eyeroll* "freakin' pixies?" but its a cool cop-like story only the cops are vampires, wereanimals and witches and....pixies (a boy pixy if that makes it any better and yes, he does say "Tink" at one point). There are fairies too and fairies and pixies don't get along too well. Its like a gang war out in the garden.
Anway, this book is first in the Hollow Series. Each of the books titled with a play on Clint Eastwood movie titles. Takes place in Cincinnati (further justifying my Ohio theory) and explains that vamps, witches, and the like have all been living among us - some in gov't, some as your next door neighbor....it only took a tomato virus epidemic to draw the line between them and humans. So now there are 2 rival agencies that work to take down the not-so-mythical creature law breakers and send agents out to right wrongs. Rachel is a witch who works for one of the agencies and gets mixed up with a bounty on her head and tangled in a city councilman drug ring scandal.
Overall this was a pretty cool read - the only part that bugged me was that Rachel, the witch, was so jumpy. If you're a badass witch that's seen all kinds of crazy stuff, would you still be jumpy?? I guess if you lived with a vampire, you might be. Reckon I'll find out more when the 2nd book comes in this weekend.


Currently reading "The Great and Secret Show" by Clive Barker. No opinion on it yet since I'm only on page 8. I actually got to page 12 yesterday at the gym but snapped myself out of a zone when I saw the word "medallion" and I was like, "wtf is going on??" so I had to go back to page 6 and reread all the weird stuff I'd just missed.
Stay tuned.

My cousin keeps telling me about these books by Karen Moning and is on my ass about reading them. So those will be soon - maybe after this one.
And then Pride & Prejudice & Zombies which everyone is talking about.
And then maybe it'll be time for our Alaska trip in July. I bought "The Historian" for traveling.

THE READING LIST IS LONG - BUT I SHALL BE VICTORIOUS!!