Thirteen in Ten

Gatsby looking peeved (my photo)

1. I'm participating in John Holton's Writer's Workshop today by writing 10 sentences about 13 peeves, and yes this intro sentence counts, which means I have only 9 sentences left for the peeves.

2. It annoys me that there's cheese on everything lately ~ I mean, I like cheese, but I don't need it all the time, especially on a salad, and I wish the default was no cheese/ ask for cheese instead of the opposite.

3. I am turned off from romance novels that (a) are written in first person; (b) are written in present tense; and (c) use spilled food or drink as the "meet-cute" (this is 4 peeves now in 3 sentences for anyone who is keeping track aka me).

4. I'm mad at the incredibly stupid algorithm designer who decided that if I bought, say, an automatic cat feeder, then I need to see a million more automatic cat feeders everywhere I wander on the internet because obviously I want to buy a new automatic cat feeder every damn day.

5. I don't want a romance novel or romcom hero who is (a) grumpy or silent; (b) wallowing in pain from a lost love; or (c) rudely sarcastic, since none of those things are the least bit attractive.

6. It's irritating that all the gift wrap on Amazon is sold in these weirdly sized pieces that don't actually fit any normal gift box (this is peeve number 9, like the love potion).

7. Did Don Francisco's think that no one would notice if they made their coffee cans 2 ounces smaller and "didn't raise the price?"

8. I always stand to the side and wait a polite few seconds before stepping onto an elevator in case people are coming out, but now they're all texting or whatever oblivious thing and don't come out, so I end up stepping in, stepping back, and saying excuse me when it's their fucking fault. 

9. I'm so annoyed at how increasingly inconvenienced we are with all these jump-through-hoops ID methods (that are still imperfect) because apparently it's not possible to catch (and execute!) scammers, hackers, fraudsters, and all the other criminals who prey on us online.

10. As always, I hate litterbugs, particularly those who dump furniture and mattresses in our trash area instead of getting rid of it properly or fling their garbage on the ground because they're too damn lazy to open the gate and toss it in the bin (and that's 13 peeves in 10 sentences, woohoo, almost as good as 88 lines about 44 women).

Two for Tuesday: Dramas

Two ducks in Los Angeles (my photo)

I enjoyed a couple dramas on HBO recently, so I will share them with you now.

1. Knox Goes Away (2024) stars Michael Keaton, who also directed, Al Pacino (always great), and James Marsden (love him from 27 Dresses, Enchanted, etc.). This film asks the question: what if a hitman got dementia? If Knox hadn't been a hitman, he would have made a tragically romantic hero whose mind is dissolving with disease. But he is, in fact, a murderer, so that complicates things. Knox and his friend Xavier (Pacino) come up with a system to deal with the dementia while at the same time helping Knox's son Miles (Marsden) beat a murder charge himself. Suzy Nakamura plays a police detective who has to deal with coworker sexism while trying to solve the case. The movie held my interest throughout.

2. Juror #2 (2024) stars Nicholas Hoult and is directed by Clint Eastwood. Juror Justin (Hoult) realizes he may have accidentally committed the crime that’s being tried, and he has to decide what to do. We watch him wrestle with his conscience throughout the film. Toni Collette plays the prosecutor, and I have to revise my opinion of her. I’ve avoided her for years because of that absolutely awful movie Hereditary, but I didn’t notice that she was in this movie at first. She was great! All the acting was top-notch, and the story was twisty and unpredictable, in the best of ways. If Juror #2 were a book, I would be tempted to give it 5 stars.

Two for Tuesday: Movies Again

 

Two ducks in Los Angeles (my photo)

1. Two if By Sea (1996). This romcom stars Sandra Bullock (Roz), one of my favorite actors, and Denis Leary (Frank). Yaphet Kotto (RIP) plays a detective (O'Malley), and you might remember him in the dual roles of Dr. Kanaga and Mr. Big from Live and Let Die, as well as many other roles over the years, Bill Bennett directs. Frank is a small-time Boston thief who steals a $4M painting he plans to hand over to "Phill the Shill," a big-time criminal who is presumed dead by most in law enforcement, except for O'Malley (who has a personal vendetta against Phill). Roz is a bookstore clerk and Frank's long-suffering girlfriend, who wants Frank to give up his criminal ways and become a legit citizen/ husband/ father, but in the meantime she helps him because she's a lot smarter than he is.

Frank decides to make a long weekend out of the art thievery escapade, so he and Roz end up crashing at an unoccupied house in a ritzy area, where Roz meets a wealthy, handsome neighbor who falls in love with her, and she considers dumping Frank. There are some funny side characters, including Michael Badalucco, who has been in a zillion movies. I wouldn't say this is great romcom, but there are some laughs, and Sandra is always enjoyable. I watched this on Netflix over the July 4th weekend.

2. Ladies First (2026). This movie would have been hilarious on July 4, 1986, but it felt dated as a new movie. It stars Sasha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike, and it's directed by Thea Sharrock. Charles Dance costars, and you may remember him as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones. I certainly do! The acting is top notch, but the premise that a misogynistic bully male boss hits his head and is magically transported to a parallel world where women are in charge feels a bit "been there done that" to me. There are many funny moments at first, but they soon grow repetitive and stale. We get it, OK: everyone wants to be respected, yada yada. The idea that a man would feel bad about being treated like a sex object by women doesn't really work because I don't think most men would feel bad! The movie should have focused more on gender-based pay disparities, which isn't dated because it's still happening, but I guess that's not as funny as penile implants. 

Usually, I don't bother reviewing movies I don't like, but I did watch Ladies First to the end and figured it deserved a bit of a write-up since it's new and being hyped on Netflix.

Summer Reading Bingo 2

Reading challenge bingo card

Welcome to my summer bingo book series, where I post five short reviews at a time. I'm giving myself the whole summer to finish the bingo card, not just the month of June. This is my second set of reviews; you can find the first set here.

1. Free space. Guarded by the Grizzly Bear by Reece Barden. This book was recommended by Mary, and it sounded fun, so I grabbed it off Kindle Unlimited. It had been some time since I tried to read a shifter romance, and this one got 3 stars, which is a good rating from me for this type of novel, where I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief. While the male main character was a stereotypical possessive jerk, though of course totally hot as required (it's never acceptable when a non-handsome man stalks you), the female MC (a cop) was strong and interesting, until the end anyway, and that was a treat. The setting seemed to be in the USA, maybe Montana, but around the halfway point there were a few UK spellings (favour, pyjamas), so maybe it was set in Canada. Unclear. This kind of thing throws me out of the story because I need to understand the logistics. Even a fantasy novel should be consistent with details. Bad proofreading, assuming there was any.

(I wouldn't normally use the "free space" so soon, except I had already started this book when I decided to join in on the summer reading bingo suggested by my book club leader.)

2. Ice cream on cover. Ice Cream and Incidents by Agatha Frost. I really wanted to like this book because it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a cozy mystery. It began in a promising way with some unexpected characters, but it soon turned into a boring drag (not punning). The writing was simply flat with loads of telling not showing. There was zero chemistry between the main character Julia and Barker, her fiancé; in fact, I thought they might be headed for a breakup given their lack of affection (I know cozies don't do explicit love scenes, but there was nothing here). They were happy with their dull cardboard existence, apparently. The only reason this novel gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because some of the drag queen scenes were fun. The description on Goodreads is incorrect, btw: there was no murder, just a stage “accident.” Finally, the title had nothing to do with the story. Yes, they had ice cream a couple times on vacation, but Julia was a cake baker. Why not Icing and Incidents?

3. Has June in the title. June by K. Nicole. Despite all the typos (what is it with books lately not being properly proofread and edited?!), I really enjoyed this book! Gave it 4 stars. It was a very atypical romance novel with fresh writing and interesting characters. And chemistry, whew! There was lots of graphic sex in this book, which was important to the plot. Another strong female lead carried half the story, with the hot criminal dude taking the other half. As in Grizzly, the female MC was a cop, but in this case the male MC truly was a bad guy. Some of the Black lingo was a little hard for me to follow, but I got the gist of most of it from the context, especially as the story progressed. The writing was full of vivid detail, which I always appreciate. I have a huge TBR pile, but eventually I want to read more books by this author.

4. NY Times Best Seller. Never Leave the Dogs Behind by Brianna Madia. This memoir was hard to read from an emotional standpoint, but it was very well-written and ultimately satisfying. Since her marriage fell apart, Bri is suicidal, manic-depressive, and dissociative. The only thing keeping her going is her love for her dogs. She isn’t a very likable person, but the reader can understand why she became so bitter and ran off to the desert to get away from everyone. Internet popularity is always a double-edged sword, and it was great to see Bri finally quit caring about hateful Instagram comments and root her sense of self in the physical world. Four stars.

5. Published in June. The Beach Holiday by Nina Manning. I had mixed feelings about this book. First, it annoyed me with the now/ then narrative. I understand that a lot of thrillers do this, but I find that it lessens the suspense factor. We know Sadie is safe because there’s a “now,” so we may not be as invested in the “then.” Just tell the dang story as it happened! Why is this so difficult lately? Second, the narration was in first person, but we were only privy to some of Sadie’s headspace. She kept secrets from us and lied to us. If you want to create distance from the reader, use third person. All that said, I ended up enjoying a big chunk of the story only because it was so different and weird, though preposterous. There were a lot of unanswered questions too, the main one being… why the heck couldn’t Sadie have told her family about Bruno?! I guess that would have wrecked the flimsy premise of Sadie “needing” to go to Fiji. Three stars.

Alrighty then, I have completed 10 bingo squares, yay me! Onto the next set of reviews…

Eating the Evidence (flash fiction)

Meta AI generated image of flowers and candy

Detective Nicki Finn gazed around the lobby, noting the security guards posted at each door and the ceiling cameras positioned every few feet. 

“I don’t understand why you can’t catch this guy,” the hotel manager fumed as the evidence tech bagged the candy.

Once again, the thief had left behind his usual calling card—a box of chocolates. And not just any chocolate either; this was the finest imported delicacy, direct from Belgium.

“Thank you, Angela,” Nicki said to the tech. “I’ll ride back to the station with you.”

“Our conference bookings are way off,” the manager complained. “No one wants to stay here with a thief on the loose.”

“We are making every effort,” Nicki said. “Thanks for getting the guest list to us so quickly. Please don’t speak to the media, especially about you know what.”

The manager rolled his eyes. “The chocolate, right. It’s our secret. Ours and every other hotel he’s hit.”

Angela drove the van to their usual spot. “Ready?” she asked Nicki, taking the box of candy out of the bag.

“Yes, but this is the last time,” Nicki vowed as she hovered over the selections. “Oh God, this one looks like a creme brûlée!”

“Mmm.” Angela bit into a chocolate. “Tiramisu! The question is: who knows about our addiction? We’ve kept it on the down low.”

Nicki grabbed a second piece. “Gotta be Brian K. We both dated him. He knows.”

Angela nodded, her mouth full of candy. “Brian. Next time we won’t eat the evidence.”

“Next time,” Nicki agreed, eying the half-empty box. “But for now… dibs on the macaroon!”

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #250.

Neighbors (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Neighbor friend in Queens, NY

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with N for Neighbors.

I was born in Tarrytown, New York, and we moved to Queens soon afterward and then up to Buffalo a few years later. I have a few vague memories from Buffalo ~ more like flashes ~ though they could be wrong. My mother vacuuming and telling me about germs. Staring at earthworms with neighborhood kids after a rain. Eating Oreos at the kitchen table with a friend. Mom getting into an argument with a neighbor over Green Stamps. Mom framing a newspaper article about JFK and putting it up on the wall. Playing on the swings alone, falling off backwards, and hitting my head. 

My dad switched jobs, and we moved back to Queens. I went to kindergarten, which I barely remember, except for finger painting, which I enjoyed. The next year, we were in Tarrytown again. I don't think we had much money. My parents rented a one bedroom apartment; I used the bed, and they slept on a pull-out sofa in the living room so they could stay up later. My mom went back to work and had a mean old lady across the street babysit for me in the afternoons. In the summers, I attended a day camp, which I hated because it was full of sporty activities and kids who didn't like me because I was so unathletic. In school, the other kids mocked me for the same reason. 

We were in Tarrytown for two years, and then back to Queens we returned, where I went to third grade. This apartment building was fun, with neighbors from a bunch of different countries, and I actually enjoyed the socializing. I had a Japanese friend (a few years older) who taught me origami. An Indian neighbor taught my mom how to make chai. We were invited to a feast at the Trinidad neighbors' place where we sat on pillows on the floor. The Filipino neighbors had a party, and they played one 45 on repeat: "Sugar, Sugar." I had an alcoholic drink there, with my parents, when I was 9 years old. Times were definitely different!

The next year, my parents bought a house on Long Island with my father's parents. My grandmother hated it ~ she said she was "living in the basement." (It was one of those bi-level houses intended for two families.) I understand now that she was prone to depression, and moving away from the familiar triggered an episode. She could no longer walk to stores and had to wait for someone to drive her (she didn’t drive). She missed her friends. My grandpa got a part-time job and wasn’t around as much. I can see how this would be upsetting. The end came when she was mugged while walking with my grandpa. All those years she lived in the city and no muggings, but out in the 'burbs, bam, victim of a crime. We sold the house so she could go back to Queens. 

There were things I liked about living on Long Island, such as watching TV with Grandma in the "basement." We both loved The Brady Bunch. But I had a terrible time of it in fourth grade, made actual enemies of other kids, and was completely isolated from my peers. For a while things were OK in the friend department, and I did bead crafts with some girls on my block, but I think they were just using me because I had better beads and was willing to share. My misty memory is that one of these girls pushed me into the street when a car was coming, and I got so mad I threw a Coke bottle at her. Of all the times to have good aim, right? I think I hurt her, not sure, and after that no one in the neighborhood would talk to me. 

When my parents announced that we were moving to Middletown, New Jersey, I figured it had to be better than being the ostracized girl. Mostly it was... and I got a puppy too. The great thing about our NJ house was the big backyard with a weeping willow tree and an actual little creek. It was such a wonderful place to play, and I managed to make some neighbor friends who enjoyed make-believe and board games and crafts. We played a lot of badminton and ping pong. We even played baseball! It turned out I wasn't bad at everything athletic. I became good friends with two girls, for a couple years anyway. By seventh grade, they always wanted to hang out with the neighborhood boys, and I didn’t.

I already wrote about our move from New Jersey to Illinois, so I will link back to that if anyone is still reading along. I also wrote about our move from Chicago to California, but that wasn't part of the A2Z challenge.

We have made it past the halfway mark of the 2026 challenge. Hang in there, fellow A2Z-ers. You’re all doing great!

Heroes and Antiheroes

It’s easy to love a fireman who rescues kittens from trees, but would you want to read a whole book of the fireman acting heroically scene after scene? To me, that would become boring. Let’s give the fireman a flaw or two. Maybe he has gambling debts with the mob. One of these thugs has kidnapped his sister. Now we have a plot!

I just finished a contemporary romance novel with two perfect protagonists (Snowy Mountain Christmas by Sharon Sala). Despite the fact that the hero had a sad and lonely childhood and terrible parents, he was a wonderful person, generous and loving, and he never put a foot wrong when he met the girl of his dreams. She was beyond perfect: beautiful, successful, popular, a great cook, on and on, and talked to angels. As you might imagine, this story was boring af! We need a conflict to resolve (or not). We need dramatic tension. We need to see character development, which isn’t possible when the MC’s are already at the pinnacle of existence.

Most halfway decent romance novels assign character flaws to the protagonists, even if they’re as mundane as grumpiness or naïveté. We experience the problems that the flaws cause as we read, and we watch the characters transcend their traits. This is part of a good love story: the relationship helps each MC become a better person. People who are already perfect aren’t interesting to read about. 

But what about antiheroes? I think whether we root for a particular villain (or not) is determined by personal preference. In general, I don’t cheer for criminals, but inexplicably I did like Tony Soprano. Sure, he was a brutal murderer, but he was funny and kind to animals. In the book I am currently reading (The Defense by Steve Cavanagh), the protagonist Eddie committed insurance fraud as an occupation (before he became an attorney). Supposedly, he felt justified because a greedy health insurance company refused to pay for treatment for his father. But Eddie didn’t rip off health insurance companies ~ he did auto insurance fraud, which makes costs rise for all of us. I find this enraging, and I don’t like Eddie because of it.

There are other reasons why I probably won’t read any more books by this author, or at least not any starring Eddie Flynn, but disliking the hero usually means I am not enjoying the novel overall. As I gobble up books like it’s my job, I find that the ones I enjoy most are about relationships, not necessarily romantic ones, but the endless variety of human relationship possibilities. And maybe they don’t have to be human! For example, the most interesting part of Snowy Mountain Christmas was not the perfect romance between the protags, but the messy relationship between his screwed up parents. We barely caught a glimpse of that though. I’m not really finding much of interest in The Defense, except for technical information regarding trials and police procedures, but I am well over halfway done, so I will finish it. 

Three Movies and a Book

I actually went to see a movie in the theater! My friend L and I had the entire place to ourselves Sunday afternoon, which doesn't bode well for the future of movie theaters, especially because the film we chose received good ratings. Drop was classified as horror, which is why some other friends declined to go, but I see it has been reclassified as mystery/thriller. That makes sense ~ I would call it psychological suspense. Anyway, we enjoyed it, and it reinforced our hatred of online dating. After that, I had a delicious veggie sandwich at Boudin Bakery. It is fun to leave the house sometimes, lol.

Also this past weekend I watched 99 Homes on Netflix, starring Michael Shannon, and it was entertaining, though it became a bit preposterous. It's based on the sad reality of evictions during the 2008 foreclosure crisis, but it veers into absurdity at times, such as when a super wealthy house flipper partners up with a random construction dude and brings him to high-level meetings. It has an intriguing ending however, which generated an interesting Reddit discussion.

The Residence is a popular comedy on Netflix, so I checked it out. Hated it! DNF'd episode one and will not try again. I loathe the new way of TV writing/ editing with super short scenes and random snippets of convo flickering past as if the entire show is a montage of previews. Is this due to viewers' short attention spans? It gives me a headache and also irritates me on Bachelor Nation shows. I'm never sure if I'm getting the real gist of a conversation when all they show are truncated snips. Some of the other "reality" shows I've tried are even worse (like Mormon Wives).

Behold the Monster by Jillian Lauren allowed me to check off the true crime nonfiction box on my 2025 Reading Challenge. Sort of. When I requested the book, I didn't realize that Jillian had taken great liberties of fictionalization to the point where I wasn't sure where her actual interviews with Sam Little (serial killer) ended and her imagination began. For example, were all the parts about Sam's childhood abuse real, or did she enhance those same as she did his victims' stories? I found it interesting at first, especially when she did a dive into genetics, but after a while I became bored. Jillian went into great detail about police bureaucracy and such, and I didn't care at all about the layout of buildings and offices blah blah blah. Nor did I need vivid descriptions and back stories on the officers. It was all too much, and the book was too long. I got the feeling Jillian was doing an assignment and needed to pad her wordcount. Two stars.

Weird coincidence ~ right after I began the book, Jillian Lauren (Shriner, married to a rock musician) got shot by the cops outside her own house in Los Angeles (see this article). Jillian's waving a gun at the police kind of makes sense because while I was reading the book, I got an eerie feeling that she was a bit too in sync with psycho Sam. Not every writer who creates monsters is a monster of course, but Jillian seemed to go above and beyond what she needed for the book. Case in point, she has the urn of his ashes in her garage. 

Pillories and Pall Malls

The weekend slid away from me, though not in a bad way ~ I accomplished most of the tasks on my list, but I never ended up having the time to paint. Some may think that I've been deliberately avoiding getting out a canvas again because I am usually so displeased with the results. That's probably partly true. It's also true that I need to feel a surge of creative energy early in the day in order to be motivated to paint, plus I must have a block of 3-4 hours of uninterrupted quiet time. These factors have not coincided for a while. Painting isn't like poetry: when inspiration strikes, I can write verse anytime, anywhere, and it doesn't matter if I'm tired or if there is chaos all around me. I guess painting is more like novel writing for me... I need a lot of time just to get in the mood to get started. Does that mean I shouldn't bother at all? I don't think so. I've written a few novels I’m proud of, and there are paintings I've done that I liked so much I hung on my wall. I suspect I will return to both hobbies eventually.

It's Sunday night now, and I have the block of time but not the surge of energy, so I figured I would write a post to publish in the morning. January 20, 2025 is notable for several reasons. First, we celebrate the life of a great man, Dr. MLK Jr. Second, a convicted felon will take the inaugural oath to become the 47th President of the United States. Some people are happy about this, while others, like myself, find it disgusting, terrifying, heartbreaking, etc. Perhaps we shall be proven wrong and everything will be "great again,” but I doubt it. (NB: the US was never great, but it was getting better until it started going backwards.) 

Third, the Santa Ana winds are returning to Southern California Monday night, and thus the horrible, dry conditions for more devastating firestorms will be present. I fervently hope there are no more fires and that all the poor people who lost so much during the previous ones can begin to recover. Fourth, I was very moved by the long overdue return of the three hostages in Israel. May the rest of the hostages be alive and healthy! May the terrorists released from Israeli jails in trade not cause any more harm. Fifth, I have a dental appointment at 8am, which is not exciting, but I forgot about it until the office called Friday to remind me. Obviously, I've been flossing like a maniac.

I read The Love Child by Philippa Carr (aka Victoria Holt). This was a fab read, and I gave the book five stars. All my life, I have increased my vocab and my history knowledge via historical romance novels. It's so much more interesting to learn in this way than from dusty, dreary schoolbooks. I had always assumed that stocks and pillories were the same thing, but they aren't, and the use of "pillory" in this book prompted me to look up the definition of both. A pillory is that locking wooden frame where someone is forced to stand uncomfortably for however long with hands and head sticking out of the front. Not only is it painful and humiliating, but also passersby can abuse the person. Stocks are just for hands and/or feet, no headlock, so in comparison being assigned to the stocks is somewhat of a lesser punishment.

I also looked up Pall Mall, which goes back a lot farther than the cigarette brand some of us may have heard of. Pall Mall was a 16th-17th century game, played with a wooden ball and a mallet, where the object was to whack the ball down an alley and through a ring in as few strokes as possible. The alley was also referred to as the Pall Mall. If the game sounds similar to croquet, that's because it is. When the game fell out of fashion, some of the Pall Malls turned into shopping areas... and were simply called malls. Did you know that? I didn't! 

Love Child ticks the box on my 2025 Reading Challenge as a book that takes place in a foreign land. Hey, England is foreign, and the main character was in Italy for a while too. I checked the "involves a sport" box with The Unraveling by VI Keeland. The MC's dead husband was an ice hockey player, and that fact is relevant to the story. This was an enjoyable read ~ I gave it three stars ~ but it wasn't great, and I found the ending very confusing. Spoilers!

The premise is that Meredith, a drunken psychiatrist, is stalking Gabriel because he looks too happy to be someone who had recently lost his wife and daughter in a car accident, and she gets obsessed with the need to discover how he is coping. Meredith's dead husband was the drunk driver who killed them, and Meredith is not coping well at all. DH had also been addicted to oxy due to an ice hockey injury, and he stole Meredith's prescription pads to get more drugs. Meredith knew the pads were gone, did nothing, and now blames herself for the deaths (as she should). She's consumed with guilt bla bla, but despite that she becomes super attracted to Gabriel. He appears to feel the same. She breaks doctor/patient rules many times, while steadily increasing her drinking.

There are all these weird coincidences where they keep running into each other (in NYC, no less), but then it turns out Gabriel is stalking Meredith. Why? His motivation is completely unclear (and we get only one short chapter at the end from his POV) ~ Gabriel was cheating on his wife and may have told his unhinged girlfriend to kill her by pushing her in front of a car (very iffy way to attempt a murder). If so, why would he stalk the dead driver’s widow afterwards? And why was the wacko girlfriend also stalking Meredith? It's all a big tangled blob, but who really cares since none of the characters are the least bit sympathetic, except maybe the dead wife and kid, but we don't get to know them in the story.

That's it. Have a good week.

My Dark Vanessa

There will probably be spoilers in here.

This novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell is one of the November challenge books for my online book club. It could definitely be triggering for some peeps with themes of rape, grooming, older teacher/younger student, substance abuse, and suicide too. The only thing missing was anorexia! I liked it though and thought the writing was excellent. The abundance of specific sensory details and emotions were so on point that I felt connected to Vanessa's world from page one. She is simultaneously disgusted by and attracted to Professor Strane when they first meet at the boarding school, and this makes sense ~ he isn't some studly 24 year old recent grad, but a paunchy, bearded, 42 year old teacher in a sweater. There is nothing about Strane physically that would make a 15 year old girl swoon with delight, but he pays close attention to Vanessa, noticing every nuance of her appearance, voice, mood, etc. (and she's been starved of attention), while simultaneously praising her intelligence and writing abilities. No one paid much attention to Vanessa previously, including her parents, plus she doesn't have close friends, either at home or at school. Also, not insignificantly, Vanessa isn't particularly attractive to boys her own age, partly because her looks are ordinary and partly because she doesn't have a bubbly personality, but to an older man who is turned on by awkward underage girls... Vanessa is a goddess. 

Strane's grooming is insidious. The reader can see it happening even as Vanessa doesn't and/or is trying to process it given her lack of maturity and experience. Sometimes we may imagine every rape as forceful and violent, but that's not always the case. Strane asks for and receives Vanessa's "consent" each step of the way. There are no threats of violence, overt or implied, only the possible withdrawal of his attention, which is enough to keep her motivated to please him. To our horror, Vanessa views her abuse as a "love story" and believes she has all the power in the relationship due to her ability to out Strane at any time. Yes, she does have that one bit of leverage, but he knows she isn't going to use it, and he reinforces the need for utter secrecy by describing how her life would also be ruined if their "affair" became known. Why wouldn't she believe him? She has no experience otherwise nor anyone to turn to for advice ~ and Strane is a Harvard grad to boot.

Of course, I found this book disturbing while at the same time enjoying the excellent writing. Often, evil is presented as binary and obvious, and thus it's unbelievable that anyone falls for it, but it's more often cloaked in a dizzying fog of gaslight accompanied by a tray of sweets. When evil is layered and complex, we can see how someone, especially a naive teenager, is slowly drawn into its silken web. Strane's abuse of Vanessa is a process, not a one-time event, and he makes sure to protect himself as much as possible along the journey. He doesn't even have to exert himself to get her to lie for him and ultimately throw herself under the bus so he can continue on unscathed; Vanessa believes everything is her own idea ~ she is making sacrifices for love because she is 100% bought into the idea that they are soulmates. Again, she relishes the delusion that she is a powerful goddess and Strane is under her spell. 

There are Lolita references sprinkled throughout the novel as well as other literary notes (Strane is an English teacher after all), and Russell dedicates the book to the fictional Dolores Haze (aka Lolita) as a stand-in for all the victims whose names we do not know. "My dark Vanessa" is a snippet from "Pale Fire," a poem by Nabokov (Lolita's author), that Strane refers to when suggesting that Vanessa has dark desires. She absorbs this idea and reinterprets it as her own, along with all his other suggestions that she is special and different, as opposed to simply being a lonely teenaged girl who should be hanging out with her peers. Strane worms his way inside her head until Vanessa believes that everything he wants she wants too, and later, when he's accused of misconduct, her only goal is to protect him.

I would have given this book five stars, except that the timeline is all jumbled. We begin in the present, then jump back to when Vanessa is 15, go forward, leap to the present, back to the past, etc. There is absolutely no good reason for this, since the story is compelling and could have simply been told chronologically. In fact, I think it would have been better that way. Maybe start with a teaser in present time then go back and stay back until we reconnect. It was a letdown to see Strane in the future when we weren't done with him 15 years prior. Jumping around in time created a distance for me as a reader, when otherwise I would have been totally immersed. Four stars.

Three Short Reviews

 Joker (Max), 2019

This movie was amazing. Joaquin Phoenix really outdid himself here and deserved every bit of praise, including the best actor award. I'm not really a fan of the comics to movie genre, and the only reason I watched it is because I want to see the new Joker movie with JP and Lady Gaga, which is a musical, and my friend M said I must see this 2019 one first. Luckily, it was available on Max, and I'm so glad I watched it! JP's portrayal of mentally ill Arthur Fleck was so believable, disturbing, and haunting that I can't shake his face or that laugh out of my mind. Also, Robert DeNiro was magnificent as always as the comedian/talk show host.

The Loft (Prime), 2015

SSC: I only watched this movie because I noticed that my honey from 27 Dresses James Marsden was in the promo pic. The premise is that five men buy a luxury condo together in secret so they can have a place to bring their mistresses. The story jumps around in time with flashbacks, and you know I hate that. A woman is murdered in the condo, and the men try to cover it up while suspecting each other. The film treats us to a bunch of shenanigans where each man is revealed to be a horrible person; thus, it's hard to get invested in the outcome.

DWTS, Season 33 (Hulu)

I enjoyed the second ep of the current Dancing with the Stars season more than the first because they featured songs from movies this time. It's fun for me to watch Joey and Jenn from Bachelor Nation because I "know" them.  It made me happy that they eliminated Tori Spelling because I have never liked her, and her fake lips are utterly ridiculous. They also eliminated Anna Delvey, who is the woman convicted of perpetuating financial fraud via a fake identity (see Inventing Anna). She served prison time and apparently is on probation ~ she appeared on the show in a bedazzled ankle monitor, which was fun. Everyone is criticizing her for her remark at the end, when she was sent home. They asked her what she would take from the show, and she said "Nothing." I thought that was hilarious. She's basically a thief, and she was saying she wouldn't take anything. Why don't people find that funny? I vastly prefer humor to a weepy, phony statement about journey, growth, and courage. Barf.

Artificial Intelligence

There's a lot of AI hate going around social media, but I am not jumping on that bandwagon. I find that AI, as with most things, has positive and negative aspects.

1. It's fun to give AI a few keywords and have it create cute fantasy pictures, such as otters having a birthday party or unicorns playing poker. Is this taking money away from "real artists?" Not as far as I'm concerned, as I would never pay for this stuff ~ it's just fun to look at for a few seconds. Back when I had my WP blog, I used these AI creations sometimes. Otherwise, I uploaded my own photos or images from free sites, such as Pixabay, but I never spent money on images for a hobby blog.

2. It is not fun to see people using AI to create nasty images of other folks, deceptive political ad/memes, and revenge pr0n videos. This is becoming a real issue now that AI is so "good" you can't tell if someone is really in a photo/video or not without forensically analyzing the metadata or whatever, and obviously bad people are using these fakes for political propaganda and other nefarious purposes. Most of us don't have FBI labs on premises to figure out what is real.

3. When I do a Google search, AI pops up first now with a summary of the results, which is convenient. I don't see how this is costing anyone money. Sometimes the AI blurb is enough; other times I scroll down to see what else is there and visit a site. It depends upon what I seek ~ a definition vs info about a movie or whatever. I guess it's possible I see fewer ads this way? Boo hoo. 

4. AI is used by advertisers to market to us more specifically, so instead of seeing a bunch of garbage ads I'm not interested in, AI combs through my texts, emails, etc., to serve me ads I sometimes click on. This doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother other people. It's still my choice whether to buy a thing or not, same as it always was, even when I was tempted by actual products in a meatspace mall. And as far as the intrusiveness aspect, for most of us that bird has flown once we enter cyberspace, unless we take extreme, time-consuming measures to defeat all the spying.

5. Obviously fraud/identity theft is a huge problem and getting worse. It angers me that AI can be used to facilitate crime, but so can a lot of modern technology and conveniences. I am angrier at the actual criminals and the lack of consequences for them though than I am at the technology itself. I mean, I am not mad at gas stations for letting us pay at the pump; I am mad at the thieves who use credit card skimmers and the lack of the death penalty for same. Sorry not sorry, but if we lined up a bunch of thieves/scammers and shot them, I bet that would discourage others.

6. AI's editing/reminder functions are useful. From spell/grammar check to asking me if I want to reply to an older email I may have forgotten about, I appreciate these tools, both for work and for home. I mean, we've had spellcheck forever, so I don't think anyone objects to that, and I’m grateful that AI helps me to send clearer emails too. Sometimes the suggestions are silly, of course, but that's why we have "natural" intelligence to allow us to accept or ignore the suggestion. Apparently, educators are now utilizing AI to grade student papers and check for plagiarism, which causes problems when the automated features are too general. Again, there is an easy fix: use human intelligence to review the results. 

7. Some "enterprising" folks are using AI to write their entire 50K NaNoWriMo output, which I guess is annoying, but only because NaNo has changed from a fun way to help us get a bunch of words on paper to a slick, corporate organization. I've had nothing to do with NaNo for years, mostly because I can no longer summon up the motivation to stare at the screen from 4am to midnight and be an exhausted zombie for a whole month, but back in the day you could still fake your output by simply copy/pasting any glob of words into your document. Why though? To get a sticker? Now maybe it’s more than that with real prizes and contracts up for grabs. Idk. However you cheat, you're only robbing yourself of the opportunity to learn to write faster via stream of consciousness. 

8. Finally, let’s talk about creative writing. I have no problem with AI-generated prompts/ideas to stimulate a story or poem, and I already said I have no issue with spell/grammar check. But what about a piece of work entirely written by AI? Welp, I don’t like it, mostly because it offends my sense of creativity, and not so much because it takes money from “real” writers, since there are many other things I resent in that department before I get to AI, such as the ridiculous monopoly the big publishers have on Amazon. If I search for “paula light books,” it’s like I don’t exist at all because of all the popular/sponsored titles/authors that contain light. I am more pissed off at that than by some clown who decides to use AI to generate a children’s story about elephants or whatever. I understand why this makes other writers upset, but I just can’t get all wrought up about it when I was selling nothing to begin with. PFFFT!