A Subtle Difference

It’s hard for me not to obsess over POV when I’m reading because we were taught to obsess over it when we were crafting a scene. One of the very first things I learned was not to have our character die during the story if we were narrating in first person. There are a few exceptions, such as writing as a ghost or zombie or whatever, but generally “and then I died” is bad form. The reader immediately wonders who is telling the story. 

Lately there’s been an epidemic of first person present tense thrillers, often with alternating first person POVs. I can’t even describe how much I hate this, but I try to put my violent rage aside when evaluating the book for a book club discussion, Goodreads review, star rating, etc. I admit that there is a subtle difference in writing “and then I died” vs “everything fades to black.” In the first case, my instant reaction is well then who is telling me this now? In the second case, I could believe I am with the character as it is happening. It’s still not as smooth as third person, so I don’t know why writers persist in doing this. Why not just write in third when you know you’re going to kill your MC?

Another issue I have with first person narration is how much we know when we’re inside the character’s head. If we are supposed to be privy to their thoughts, then they can’t have secrets. You shouldn’t write: “I have been thinking about that Bad Thing I did, but I won’t tell you what it is because I need to focus on the best way to kill Michael right now.” That’s crap writing and throws the reader out of the story. Guess what POV is best for keeping secrets from the reader? Third! “Paula thought about the Bad Thing again, but she forced herself not to dwell on it because she needed to focus on the best way to kill Michael.” Maybe this is too nit-picky, but it really bothers me.

Finally (must have three things in a post about writing), note that my example is in past tense. It’s the best way to tell a story, in my opinion. Past tense lets the reader relax and follow along, as opposed to creating an aura of anxious immediacy where the reader watches the action like a bystander at a car crash. With past tense, the reader relies on the narrator (even an unreliable one) to guide her through the experience rather than standing there trying to figure it out herself. Take this famous opening line from Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 mystery novel Rebecca: 

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

That sets the tone for the story. Something happened at Manderley, and we are going to find out what it was. It establishes first person narration, which is fine because the narrator doesn’t die! The prose continues in slow, deliberate, vivid description of the property with the MC imagining how the estate decayed but still lives on as a character in its own right. The dream segues into the past, when the MC lived at the house and before that, when she met and married the owner, and we get a disturbing glimpse to pique our interest in discovering exactly what went on. Imagine if Rebecca had been written today:

“I dream I go to Manderley again.”

Meh. It’s a totally different vibe, anxious and hurried, not the slow, haunting buildup to a tragedy.

PS: the 2020 Rebecca starring Lily James is excellent. I have not watched Hitchcock’s adaptation. Naturally, the critics have to crap on the 2020 version, but as usual I disregard them. 

Weekend Recap

Happy last day of November. I had a fun friendsgiving, which included several board games, but my opinion of Thanksgiving food, even if perfectly prepared, remains unchanged: I don’t like it. I especially dislike turkey and do not eat any of it (chicken is fine, I like chicken, but everybody else wants turkey). Stuffing can be tasty, but only the way my mommy made it. Green beans and mashed potatoes are okay, but why bother? Now, I do enjoy a baked sweet potato with butter, but I don’t want them all syruped up in a casserole. Yuck. Then we come to the pie ~ I love pie! Why can’t I just have pie? I brought an apple crumb pie from The Flaky Apple Pie Company, baked it at the host’s house, and it was utterly delicious! Everyone loved it. Next year I’m getting cherry. Every pie they make is wonderful. If it were up to me, I would have an all-pie and only-pie Thanksgiving.

I have been trying to watch season two of A Man on the Inside, but I keep falling asleep. Maybe I shouldn’t put it on at 10pm when I am already in bed. I did watch the entirety of Red Joan, a Netflix WW2 drama about “the bomb,” starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson, both playing a British woman Joan Stanley at different ages. The story is loosely based on the life of a KGB spy and depicts Joan as a naive Cambridge physics student who becomes sympathetic toward communism due to her boyfriend’s influence. After graduation, she works in a nuclear research facility and passes information to the Soviets via her boyfriend’s sister. Normally I do not watch anything set in this time period, but I love Judi, and the premise sounded interesting, so I did. It was fabulous! I highly recommend it. 

I watched couple of Christmas romcoms too, which weren’t bad, but they were completely forgettable, so I can’t tell you what they were without going to my watch history… and I CBA. I am planning to see Song Sung Blue at the theater with game friends on Christmas Day and The Housemaid with book club peeps later that weekend. Looking forward to those as well as seeing my family for Chanukah. I did a puzzle on Friday; it was only 500 pieces, so I completed it in a few hours. I think I prefer those as opposed to the 1000 pieces ones, which take several days or a week. I am trying not to spend so much time reading the news and social media, except for my FB book club group, so solo games are a good distraction.

I have a lot of social plans coming up, the idea of which stresses me out a bit, even when I deliberately set it all in motion. To ease my anxiety, I spent too much money on Black Friday sales as well as other stuff I “needed.” Now I’m stressed about that instead. I console myself with the thought that I could have spent even more but didn’t. The nice thing is that most of my stuff will be arriving in separate packages, so I will have several fun mail-opening events, woohoo. 

As far as books, I guess I took a little break ~ the last book I read was on November 26. That was What She Saw by Mary Burton, a solid mystery novel, to which I awarded four stars. Yesterday I began a John Grisham novel, The Brethren, which is mildly intriguing, and I will probably finish it. I have several of his in my TBR pile. I’m trying to understand why I don’t fling this book into my DNF donation bag as opposed to all the romances and thrillers that have been so flung, and I guess it’s simply because he’s a better writer. His characters in this book are not likable, but they hold my attention regardless, and the plot threads make me wanna find out what happens and how they tie together. Is it worth noting that Grisham narrates in third person past tense, which is how books should be written, instead of the first person head hopping present tense atrocities we keep seeing in new fiction? Yes, there are exceptions, and I have enjoyed some FPHHPT novels, but that’s despite the FPHHPT not because of it. 

Tomorrow is weigh-in day for Inky and me!

Love Saves the Day

Our book club leader challenged us to read and review two novellas in addition to our three August books of the month, so naturally I decided to read the novellas first because they're shorter. The first one I chose was Shamrock Kisses by Serena Pier (103 pages). This book is the third in a series of six mini-romances featuring a group of friends located in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. A bar called "High Five" serves as a motif throughout the series along with holiday themes, this one obviously being St. Patrick's Day. I found this book first (you don't have to read them in order), maybe because I love Inky's green eyes, though at times they appear golden (and in some old pics Gatsby's look greenish, go figure!), and if I liked it I would read the rest and if not, not. Welp, it's a not, sadly. This story basically has no plot whatsoever. Patrick meets Rachel, and they're both very attracted to each other. They meet up the next day at the High Five to begin flirting and dancing and smooching, et cetera. Except for the fact that Patrick lives in Chicago (but he can go remote), there is no obstacle at all put in the way of the couple's togetherness. They discover all kinds of cool things about each other, become even more attracted, and everything proceeds smoothly. Isn't that great? Yawn. Two stars.

The second book is 186 pages but is still considered a novella: Wrong Number by Daphne Leigh. This one contains very witty, very sexy banter (much of it via text), which is a welcome relief after the cringe convos throughout Shamrock. Honestly, I was a bit envious of Sarah, since James was the type of man I had hoped to meet back in my dating daze. He is confident, happy, witty, expressive, emotionally available, doesn't pretend to be too cool or busy to focus on one person, employed, etc. But then Sarah and James meet for a real date and everything goes to hell. To portray the heroine’s nervousness, the author has her tripping nonstop over her own feet and spilling drinks, not just once but over and over. So annoying and ridiculous. The relationship moves way too fast for no reason, though at least there are some emotional obstacles on her part to overcome, unlike in the Shamrock story. It would have been nice if James also had some kind of character arc or if there was some outside impediment to their togetherness. This could have been so much better. Oh well. Three stars. 

Note: both of these books are pretty high in “spice” aka explicit sex, not that any of you will likely read them to begin with!

For my in-person book club meeting next Sunday afternoon we have chosen the book Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper. This novel made me so angry! The reason is because this could have been a great book, a five-star book for sure, but the idiotic, mixed-up chronology is beyond irritating. Why can't contemporary writers just tell their stories straight? LSTD is all over the damn place timewise, and on top that, half the narration is from "the cat" (Prudence) in present tense. I don't mind this if it's done well and/ or if there's a small amount of it, but it isn't done well, and there is a lot of it. Granted, there are some funny/ cute moments, such as when Prudence speculates that Josh may be off-balance because he shaves his whiskers every day, but much of her narration is repetitive. The bones of an excellent novel are hidden beneath the fluff and silliness, and I became angrier at Gwen for hiding those bones than I would be at a lesser writer. She's a good writer! She could have begun this tale with Sarah's interesting life and proceeded chronologically to her daughter Laura's story, including all the gritty parts about how hard it is to live in NYC if you're not wealthy and the stuff about real estate and evil developers, etc., and perhaps incorporated some kitty input once in a while. Argh! Three stars. I'll probably read it again at some point and possibly fling on an extra star, but right now I am really tired of time jumping.

Speaking of cats, Inky is so mad at me right now because I brushed her and put a cute, blingy collar on her sweet little neck. She pretended she was over her snit when I offered her a bite of cheese (she adores cheese), but then she went right back to pouting in her cubby. 

It's Been a Minute!

Days are flying by, faster all the time (I know it’s my aged perception, and time has not changed in reality). It's hard to believe that I used to post multiple times per day, when now I barely manage twice per week, but I flung out posts like a maniac for years on WordPress. I didn’t have much to say, but I responded to prompts in a compulsive way. I felt that slacking off would let down my readers, who were all doing the same thing, and then we engaged in a frenzy of liking each other's stuff before posting again and again. What's your favorite color? Describe your ideal breakfast. Where did you go on vacation when you were a child? WHO CARES?! I did get a few decent poems out of that mess though.

For a while, I participated in music related prompts on Bluesky, and now I'm utterly bored with everything on that app due to the proliferation of politics on every feed. I have decided that memes are the emptiest form of communication, a way to be at the party but not in the party (that’s a line from Mamma Mia 2). You don't have to take responsibility for the content of a meme, since you didn't write it, but it keeps you in the loop of views. Does it accurately reflect your view? Then why not take a minute or 10 to write out your own opinion in your own words? No, that's too onerous, plus it would take time away from reposting 20 more memes.

There's a reason I gravitate to Facebook when I crave interaction. Sure, there are a lot of memes there too, but friends sometimes post photos from their real lives and give mini updates once in a while. I would rather hear from someone I know about a book or movie or recipe than read reviews from randos on Goodreads or scroll through repetitive memes on Bluesky. It is an entirely different thing when someone in my FB book club posts a meme about books because we engage in the comments; it’s not a contest to accumulate likes. Social media seems to be much less social as people try to build a brand in the hope of monetizing their “content.”

Of course, if I had become "successful" on the internet and could now monetize my own words, I would be championing all this instead of dissing it. These grapes are very sour.

This week I’ve been hosting a prompt on Bluesky, which consists of giving one key word per day for peeps to create a 7-syllable sentence. It's kind of fun to see the variety of responses. But I am utterly sick of politics, and most of my main feeds are political. The poetry and zoo feeds aren't super active, so I get bored quickly there.

As far as Substack, I am giving it a chance ~ trying to ignore the main feed in favor of the accounts I follow and poetry generally. (The main feed is 99% political just like Bluesky.) I think there are good writers there, and I need to have patience to fill my feed with those who enjoy sharing their writing for free (or some of it) as opposed to writers who only post links to purchase. Nothing wrong with trying to sell your books! There are literally hundreds of clever pitches every week that pass through my various feeds though, and my TBR pile is enormous already.

Speaking of... I read The King of the Castle by Victoria Holt and gave it only 3 stars. It was a standalone (not part of the Daughters of England series), and I couldn't relate to the MC Dallas or her love interest Lothair. His actions often felt stuck in for dramatic effect and made no sense. For example, it turned out he really loved his daughter, so why then was he so verbally cruel to her? It seems that Holt wrote him this way in order to make Dallas feel all conflicted about him, but to me that would be enough of a red flag to kill any romantic interest. Since Dallas' attraction flourished despite Lothair’s nastiness, I began to dislike her as well. That all said, the story was solid with an intriguing mystery, told straight up first person without gimmicks except for a few passages from Lothair’s dead wife's diary. It's nice to relax into a well written past tense narrative without being bombarded with constant nah nah I have a secret but won't tell you, plus podcasts and other annoyances that contemporary writers use to pad their wordcounts. Also, the ubiquitous use of present tense irritates me so much!

Here's the thing I love about Victoria Holt's writing: she begins by introducing a woman or girl MC in first person (always past tense), and this MC tells us that there is a problem. She describes what let up to this issue, and we know what she knows within the first chapter. She doesn't tease us by alluding to the "big thing" that won't be revealed until much later, which in my opinion is poor writing but seems to be the way of every new book on the shelf. Holt creates suspense by carrying us along with the MC as she discovers and solves the mystery without keeping secrets from us. If we are in the MC's head, then we should know what she knows. Writing 101! 

Otoh, I awarded five stars to Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier, even though she does tease us with secrets (and uses present tense) because when it's done well, I am more than fine with it. Good stories can overcome broken rules, iff they are excellent! I highly recommend this book: it’s a deliciously addictive psychological suspense novel with several compelling characters.

*

Inky continues to be the cutest sweetest cuddliest most loving cat ever (or at least since Gatsby, RIP), and I am beyond happy that we chose each other.

Peach Nectar Iced Tea

Decades ago I discovered Dean Koontz and gobbled up a bunch of his thriller novels... but I grew tired of his writing style. He was fond of certain clunky words, like obsidian and chitinous, that he reused in every book. It grated on my nerves. He's also politically conservative and can get a bit preachy through his characters/ narration. That being said, I needed a "recommended for you" book for one of the boxes on my 2025 Reading Challenge, and Amazon recommended Koontz's The Mercy of Snakes. I decided to read it because (a) it was short, and (b) it was free with my Kindle Unlimited program.

Reader, I loved it! Four stars. I enjoyed it so much that I decided the heck with my reading challenge... imma just read the rest of the books in the Nameless series (two series, six books each). I proceeded to devour all 12 stories and starred them between two and four depending on the story. I appreciated that each one was a standalone novella, but if you read them in order until the end (which I did, after I dived into the middle with Snakes), there is actually a progression and a satisfying conclusion at the end of book six and a dramatic conclusion in book twelve. The basic premise of each story is that we have a hero called Nameless (among other monikers) who receives assignments via anonymous texts to eliminate various terrible people who have escaped conventional justice. The ways in which the bad people get their just deserts is clever and satisfying. I gave only two stars to Preying Mantis because it didn't have a bad guy anywhere near as bad as the others. All 12 books were "free" with KU, and I guess they should go into the horror category.

One thing though: in several of the Nameless stories, Koontz has different characters drinking iced tea sweetened with peach nectar. It made me laugh. I didn't see any obsidian or chitinous however, so that was good. He again gets on his political soapbox, but what's interesting (and terrifying) is that the current party in power is now doing all the awful things they warned that the other party was going to do, so if you didn't already know Koontz was conservative, you might come away thinking he is very anti-Republican. Tee hee.

I also read Ten Things I Love About You, a Regency romance by Julia Quinn. It was spicier and funnier than the usual fare in that genre, but some of the characters were so cartoonishly ridiculous that I could not in good conscience award the book four stars. We learn at the beginning that the hero Sebastian is writing romance novels himself, under a female nom de plume. This makes for amusing situations, and I enjoyed that motif even though generally I am tired of writers turning their characters into writers. The heroine Annabella basically does absolutely nothing, which isn't unusual for the wealthy set in Regency novels, but it didn't endear her to me either. The love-fall was very well done with alternating POVs between the two main characters. Three stars.

This afternoon I wrapped up Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, a psychological thriller that fulfilled my reading challenge requirement of having been reviewed by my favorite author. This is actually a lie because I couldn't find books that were reviewed by my favorite authors, but when I received SITW from a book club game, I saw on the back jacket that Riley Sager (Middle of the Night) said it was "thrilling and thought-provoking." Since I gave Riley's book MOTN four stars, I decided that SITW fit the challenge box. Ugh. I didn't find SITW either thrilling or thought-provoking. It was a slog, and pretty much on every page I wanted to scream at the MC: why are you doing this stupid thing?!? For a thriller, the plot and narration were very slow, repetitive, and tedious. Did I mention repetitive? It was yet another one of those British novels, narrated in present tense by an annoying woman in first person (at least it didn't keep breaking to other characters in first person like some stories do), and I am heartily tired of them.

Not only that, but there were massive plot/motivation holes throughout, and I had loads of unanswered questions at the end. I felt that was so unfair after I read the entire annoying novel. Geez, author, just tie things up already!

Hoppy Easter, my peeps!

The Life List

Hurrah! I finally found a movie I liked on Netflix. It's a 2025 romance called The Life List and stars Sofia Carson. I enjoyed the story, the acting, the romance, the humor, etc., and I highly recommend the movie to my readers. The premise is that Elizabeth is concerned about her daughter Alex, who seems to be just drifting through life without any goals. Unfortunately, Elizabeth is dying, so she won't have a chance to help Alex the way she would like to; instead, she found a "life list" Alex created when she was 13, and in her will Elizabeth conditions Alex's inheritance upon fulfilling her teenage dreams. Elizabeth enlisted the help of her lawyer to keep Alex focused, and each time Alex completes one of her goals, she receives another CD from him with Elizabeth giving Alex words of love and encouragement toward the next goal. It made me tear up a few times.

Do you remember any of your dreams/goals from when you were 13? I don't know if I even had any "big" goals at that age. Mine were undoubtedly immediate and superficial... welp, nothing really has changed much in that regard. LOL. I did enjoy writing fiction and poetry, but I don't think I imagined myself as a famous writer (good thing, eh?). I probably wanted to get straight A's in school, and most likely I was obsessed with solving puzzles and finishing needlework pictures. 

I was about to cancel my Hulu subscription (again) before the price jump to $9.99. It's rare that I find something on Hulu I want to watch, and the new bachelor season won't be coming up until the fall. But when I went to the Hulu website to cancel, they said what about if we only charge you the same $2.99 for another six months? I said OK. Of course, in November I will be hooked on the new Golden Bachelor season, so I'll probably be willing to pay $9.99 for a few months until it ends. After that, nah. Probably nah. The reason the next one is special is because they announced that the new Golden Oldie is the hilarious French guy from the last Golden Bachelorette, so I do have to watch. 

Recently I finished reading Five Broken Blades, a fantasy novel by Mai Corland, and gave it two stars. The first third was incredibly slow and tedious, though it did pick up toward the end. Why authors insist on writing chapters in first person present tense from different characters, I do not know. This would have been the perfect opportunity for third person narration so the reader would have had an easier time gliding from one POV to another. Corland made one character sound ignorant, so his bad grammar at least made it clear when it was his chapter, but the others blended together. Yes, she put their names at the beginning of the chapters, but the rest of the voices weren't distinct enough to keep straight. To be fair, fantasy isn't my favorite genre, but in fact the fantasy elements were pretty well done here. It was simply the lack of depth of the characters and their motivations that made the book kind of a drag to get through. Happily, it fit my 2025 Reading Challenge category of being part of a series ~ hopefully, our book club leader won't want to continue this series! 

I put Verity by Colleen Hoover on hold at my library. My in-person book club has chosen it for our June novel, and though I read it years ago (and gave it two stars), I am worried I won't remember enough of it to join in the discussion. I'm curious if my rating stays the same this round ~ also there's a brand new chapter included, so we shall see if that makes a difference. I'm definitely interested in seeing the movie next year with the great cast of Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

Fat Tuesday

Happy Mardi Gras to any readers who celebrate. I used to have New Orleans on my retirement bucket list, but now I think I’ll be lucky just to have a bucket after the F-team crashes the economy. What a fucking disaster. Anyway, even if I never get to visit NOLA, I hope that someday I can taste an authentic praline. Yeah, I had a vague plan to travel across the USA and back, maybe via train, after my 9-5 days were done, but that doesn’t seem likely now. It’s okay ~ I generally dislike travel; this just sounded interesting. If the F-team destroys Social Security as seems to be the current plan, I will be in trouble, like millions of other Americans. Maybe I will never retire in that case…

Remember how I said the other week that I had a feeling I would lose 5 pounds soon? Well, it happened, at least temporarily (but I hope to make it last), due to being sick. At first, I thought my tummy was having a reaction to over medication with NSAIDs, which I have experienced before, but it turned out to be one of those icky viruses that are going around. Very nasty. I felt terrible for 10 days and spent last weekend battling a fever sans any OTC meds. On Saturday I used a Target personal shopper to pick up soup and stuff and deliver it to my door. With a 101 fever, I couldn’t go out. As I have said, I like both Target and Amazon for their prices and convenience, and I have no intention of giving either one up, even though billionaires make me barf. 

Along with my tea and saltines and Alka Seltzer, I had to buy a pill cutter for Gatsby’s high blood pressure medication. He actually had a good report from the doc! Many of his issues were cleared up (or mostly) due to the supplement I give him twice a day, so we're continuing with this, but he has borderline HBP, and it's important to control that because of his kidney issues. Thus, we now have these tiny pills that I have to cut into quarters, which is difficult, but I imagine I will get the hang of it ~ I've only done one so far. He's also still a little underweight, but there's not much I can do about that: he has his favorite (KD) food available 24/7.

I read another Victoria Holt/Philippa Carr romance novel from the "Daughters of England" collection. This one was The Adulteress, and it was very enjoyable: great character development, fun twists, well-paced. I gave it four stars ~ its only flaw was the abrupt ending, which seems to be a relatively common thing in VH books. It fits my 2025 Reading Challenge category of having purple on the cover.

I also read the suspense novel You Me Her by Sue Watson, to which I awarded three stars. It was a fast read, yet tedious at the same time since I didn't really care about any of the characters. This was yet another book set in the UK and narrated by a neurotic woman in first person, present tense. Meh. It fit the Challenge category of an international bestseller. 

Finally, I read The Measure by Nikki Erlick, which was interesting. Not sure what genre it was, maybe speculative fiction. I didn't care for the writing style of introducing so many characters in a short time with backstory dumps, but I did admire Erlick's unique idea of every person getting their approximate death date, and her grand attempt to imagine how this knowledge would play out across the globe and particularly in American politics. Personally, I think it would have worked better on a smaller scale, such as within a particular community, but I appreciate the effort. It was different! Yay! I gave it three stars. It was a book club read, and it also fit my Challenge category of being a book club edition.

While I was sick I wasn't in the mood to watch much TV, but I do plan on viewing this week's episode of Bachelor 29 and also With Love, Meghan. The main reason I feel like watching Meghan is because I am so tired of her haters that I hope her show is a smashing success. There is literally no reason to hate this person who now has her own life in the US and no longer makes precious Catherine cry, but the haters appear after every article that mentions Meghan to carp and caw. It's Meghan Derangement Syndrome.

So that's it. I listened to the SOTU while writing this, and it was so boring. I didn't find it offensive, just dull, rambling, and repetitive.

The Return of the Bachelor

I have some new reviews for you, but I am super tired, so we'll see how far I get tonight before I pass out on my laptop. Let's get the TV show out of the way first. I can't believe The Bachelor is a "reality" show, as each season has a formula, and it's pretty much the same for either a bachelor or bachelorette. Early on, one of the contestants establishes herself as an aggressive minx, constantly "stealing" the bachelor away for extra one on one time (Devin played the male minx during Jenn bachelorette season). The minx will barge in on a group date or another girl's tête-à-tête with the bachelor at the mansion and demand a private convo with him. Several other contestants will act (or pretend to be) horrified by this obnoxious behavior and gossip about how uncool it is. Sometimes one of them will even cry. Someone will moan about she may not be able to continue if so and so doesn't rein it in or leave the show. One of them will decide to take a stand and confront the minx. It doesn't go well. OMG, now we have all this drama in the house! The bachelor gets wind of it and is very displeased ~ he sternly reminds them that this is about his journey for love and they all must respect the process blah blah blah.

While all this is going on, the dates continue at their rapid pace as the bachelor tries to find his true love among the women pre-selected for him. Same goes for the bachelorette seasons, at least the ones I have seen. The weird thing to me is that the bachelor doesn't seem to have very much chemistry with either the minx or her nemesis (compared to the others), yet he keeps giving them roses so they stay on the show. It's almost as if... [crazy conspiracy theory alert]... the whole thing is planned out in advance by the producers in order to create conflict out of nothing at all and ramp up the drama factor. I know, I know, that's pretty nuts of me to imagine. What can I say? I'm really tired and loopy. I still enjoy the show, somewhat, but my interest has waned, especially because most of the couples break up sooner or later. I was disappointed that Jenn chose Devin, as I had considered him a jerk the whole time, and then he brutally dumped her almost immediately after the finale, proving that I do in fact have good radar to flag a bad guy... just not in my own dating life.

None of this applies to the Golden Bachelor/ette as old people have their own set of problems, generally involving family and relocation issues. I was talking about geographical undesirability with one of my coworkers yesterday, reminiscing about how men in Los Angeles freaked out about the idea of dating someone forty miles away in Orange County. Some of you may remember I wrote a whole poem about it. I wonder if that guy ever found anyone within five miles of the West Side. You think I am joking? I am not! Five miles was his limit. He's still handsome, for an oldie ~ I look him up occasionally on his law firm's website. Not that I am interested in dating, of course!

Sometimes I use bold for emphasis, and sometimes I use italics. Which is better? Should I save italics for book and movie titles? I don't like to use a lot of bold though because I find it distracting. You know what else I hate? When writers/bloggers put words in "quotes" for no "reason." It drives me batty. 

I read Imaginary Strangers by Minka Kent for my two-word title reading challenge box, and I gave it only two stars. Ridiculous plot, unlikeable characters, present tense... just ugh. The main "conflict" was a woman being unable/unwilling to tell her very nice husband about her terrible past, so therefore when some shit starts going down she supposedly has to handle it by herself and lie to him constantly, but you know what? The entire story could have ended on page one if she had been honest with him. It would have been a much better book in that case, lol. I started and DNF'd two others: Dead Girls Don't Blog by Pamela Frost Davis and Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby. Dead Girls was boring AF right from the start; Requiem was written in vernacular (Black and Jewish, or what the author imagined them to be), but without speech indicators, which made it even harder to follow, and I gave up immediately. I actually saw the movie a while back, and it was OK. Anyway, I refuse to read books I hate or that require a lot of effort, and if that means I don't finish the challenge, so be it. I will still read 100-125 books this year, but I may not complete every challenge category. Whatever, who cares, amirite?

Must go crash... more tomorrow...

Hey, it's tomorrow! February 7. I have returned to finish my post at early dark thirty... and my search bar says it's National Wear Red Day. WTF is that? Oh, it's to raise awareness for women's heart health, just in case someone doesn't know that heart disease is still the No. 1 killer of American women, not breast cancer, which gets more attention, or trans migrants invading our bathrooms. Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of new moms too, so it's not just us old crones who need to be aware. I am aware... I just don't do anything about it. Well, that's not entirely true. I do watch what I eat and try to avoid stress (aka dating), but I know I do not get enough exercise. 

What was I talking about again? Oh, reviews. I actually read a book I liked a lot (cue trumpets) ~ The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth. This suspense novel satisfied the challenge request for three or more POVs. Here we had POVs from two sisters, Rachel and Tully, plus Heather (their father's younger girlfriend/wife), all nicely separated by chapter and in past tense. The characters were well developed and interesting, and the plot revealed a few twists I did not see coming. There is domestic violence depicted in this book, so that may be a trigger warning for some readers. I do have triggers myself, but they mostly involve bad writing and the Holocaust, two things I refuse to deal with in fiction. In fact, I have learned to avoid any book set between 1920-1960 for this reason. Anyway, if you can handle reading DV, I highly rec The Younger Wife. I gave it four stars, not five, because there were a few first-person interruptions from another character in present tense. We absolutely did not need these.

It's Friday! Tomorrow I have a games with friends event at Stonefire Grill, and Sunday is my book club potluck lunch and discussion. In between, I will be reading my next Victoria Holt novel: Voices from a Haunted Room. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

A Thousand Butterflies

If I were writing this post on my old WP blog, I would spend time searching for the perfect butterfly pic to accompany it. Then I would check constantly to see how many views and comments it had; while at the same time I'd feel compelled to comment "great post" on other blogs whether I liked the post or not, just to be a good sport. Now, I don't have to do any of that... I just write the post. Do I miss the other stuff? To be honest, sometimes I do, but mostly not. It was stressful, time-consuming, and often terribly tedious. It felt like work rather than a hobby. There was something about feeling "seen" though that brought me pleasure, even if most readers were merely skimming my words. I guess that's why I don't keep all my poetry in a secret diary as opposed to plopping it on Amazon KDP (new book coming soon) ~ I still enjoy the fantasy of somehow ending up popular. I don't have anything new to say, but perhaps I occasionally stumble upon a unique way of expressing the same old. Or so I like to believe...

I would like to share with you a stanza from one of my favorite songs "Andante, Andante" (the Mamma Mia - Here We Go Again version) as follows: 

There's a shimmer in your eyes / Like the feeling of a thousand butterflies / Please don't talk, go on, play / Andante, andante, and watch me float away

In my opinion, this is one of the most romantic songs of all time, but not necessarily the way ABBA sings it, which is a bit too smooth and unemotional. I developed a new appreciation for their songs while watching the Mamma Mia movies and listening to the passion that Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, and the rest of the cast infused into the songs. But that's not what I came here to tell you about tonight. I wanted to mention that a book I recently finished (Middle of the Night by Riley Sager) contained the "thousand butterflies" phrase to describe a man falling in love, and I was just uh no. Nope. Sorry, that is Donna (Lily James) singing to Sam (Jeremy Irvine), and I am not having it in a book, especially from the male POV.

The butterflies were at the beginning of MOTN, and I somehow managed to continue on to the end. I awarded the book four stars, which may seem surprising because I did not like the way the story was structured, which was all in present tense, including the backstory sections, and most had first person narration by the protagonist while the rest was randomly divvied up between other characters in third. Ugh! But you know what? This was an excellent story. I ended up disregarding most of the annoys because the story itself was super interesting with an absolute surprise (to me) ending. There were loads of twists along the way as well. 

As I mentioned last time, I saw the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and I thought it was excellent. All the friends I saw it with enjoyed it as well. I was amazed that the actors sung the songs, no dubbing. Maybe it wasn't that hard for Timothée Chalamet to sound like Bob, but Monica Barbaro was a damn good Joan Baez. Here's the thing though: while Dylan's lyrics are clearly superior to most other (all?) songwriters, they are not literature. This isn't a criticism ~ why should lyrics be compared to literature at all? We don't say, welp, this book is so musical I could sing it. That's nonsensical (though of course a line or two might inspire a songwriter or a poet or an artist). Why can't great lyrics just be great lyrics? A couple friends of mine became ex-friends over the issue of Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, and that's sad. Social media strikes again.

Bob Dylan himself wrote: "Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare's plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page." (Quote via Wikipedia.)

So, there you go. Reading the lyrics to "Andante, Andante" on the page is not going to evoke anywhere near the same heartbreaking emotional response as watching and hearing Lily James in Mamma Mia. Reading Bob Dylan's lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone" is going to feel flat compared to listening to him belt out that song. You feel his anger and his loneliness coming at you in crashing waves through his voice. I get it though. We want the Bob Dylans of the world to be recognized for their transcendence of a genre, not lumped in with other greats. He really was/is something else. I put Leonard Cohen in that category too. They are amazing talents. Just mind-blowing.

Persnickety Peeves

I read a lot of genre fiction, especially romance and mystery/thriller. A lot. Consequently, I have become very picky and will now reject books based upon what some might consider to be trivial factors. Whatever. While I don’t consider genre fiction to be some sort of “red-headed stepchild” to literary fiction ~ both can be excellent or terrible ~ most writing of any kind is merely mediocre, and I don’t want to waste my time on it. Or if I have to, for a book club discussion, you can bet that I will bitch about it! Following is an open-ended list of peeves that I never want to read again:

- any story that involves twins or god forbid triplets

- a twist that involves babies being switched at birth (or shortly thereafter)

- multiple POV narration in first person present tense 

- the woman who ignored red flags and is now trapped in a horrible abusive situation because she agreed to move to an isolated house in the countryside 

- anything about WW2 or WW1 or heck even any war whatsoever because I read fiction to escape reality not to become depressed over the fact that everything is as awful as it ever was 

- any setting other than contemporary or the 1800s or possibly the future if it isn’t clichéd and/or doesn’t involve a dystopian society which can only be fixed by a band of rebel teenagers 

- teenagers in general 

- snarky first person narration by a woman who whines about her job/family/friends/lover or lack of same

- science fiction or fantasy worlds with strange names I can’t easily pronounce 

- ordinary men who can suddenly outwit cops, the FBI, the CIA, and/or trained assassins 

- any story that uses Jewish stereotypes or obviously outright antisemitism even if the writer has a Jewish name (especially then)

- protagonists who are writers

- hater daters or grumpy x sunshine

- fake dating/sham marriage 

- awkward meet cutes where someone trips, falls, and/or spills a drink or food on the other person 

- the stressed out media star who has to don a disguise and go into hiding to chill out

- plots that hinge on misinterpreted snippets of overheard conversations 

- vampires, witches, and shifters, oh my!

There will be more…

Contemporary Romance Novels Suck

Since no one is reading this blog, I don’t feel bad about being Debbie Downersauce. With my old WP blog, I felt obligated to be cheerful at least sometimes when really every day could have been a Monday peeve. Here it's all peeves all the time, at least so far, and I have many more floating around in my brainpan. Today’s moan is about romance novels, and not the old-timey ones affectionately known as “bodice rippers,” but contemporary romance novels (CRNs). Actually, the bodice rippers are the best kind of romance novels because the plots are somewhat believable, and they're set so far outside of our lives now that we don't sit there going nope, nope, that would never happen. I mean, why wouldn’t a handsome duke fall in love with his daughter’s fetching governess? No convoluted situation is needed to throw the protagonists together because obviously the governess has to live in the fabulous castle on the lush country estate, as well as accompany dukey to his fashionable London townhouse during "the season."

The first problem I have with CRNs is that they are invariably written in first-person POV. Instead of being able to delightfully immerse oneself in the world of fancy dances and lacy corsets and high tea, the reader is given this diary type format. Instead of a narrator walking us down the cobblestones with the princess or her maid, we're stuck inside some chick's head where she's obsessing about her mother, her weight, her ex, her boss, her bestie, yada. It's too much like real life! Also, when the writer utilizes third-person narration, she can switch to another character (but no head-hops please ~ stay in one head per scene), and we can get a glimpse of what the duke is thinking or peek into the window of his nasty cousin who's plotting to murder him for the title, or any other character's POV. With the first-person CRNs, the only way to switch to another character is to narrate them in first person too, which is really awkward and can be confusing for the reader, yet it's very prevalent in the garbage novels all over Amazon.

You get what you pay for. Yeah yeah. 

Another issue I have with CRNs, though it doesn't have to be this way, is that the protag/ heroine is always graceless and awkward, and at some point she invariably crashes into the hero, usually spilling a beverage all over one or both of them. It's so tiresome. Do they all have to be such clumsy dorks? Gah, it reminds me too much of myself and my balance issues.

I'm also tired of the tropes: the billionaire, the boss, the fake date, the hate date, the brother's best friend, yada.

Also, sex scenes. In first-person POV, they are so cringey to read, while in third person they seem to slide by more smoothly. I don't know why. At least the first person ones are less explicit, usually, but even so I prefer to skim them in third. I do skim them all now because after so many decades of reading sex scenes, they are just boring even when the writer tries to add in some BDSM or whatever. Yawn. And when the narration is third person, we might get a sex scene from the POV of the hero, which is sometimes more interesting, but no one wants to read that in first, especially if the writer tries to be "accurate." Ish. Give me the imaginary man's viewpoint please.

I guess I like my romance novels to be in the fantasy realm but not in the fantasy genre with unicorns and dragons and magic, if that makes any sense. Welp, the great thing about having no readers is I don't have to make sense to anyone else, hah. I like to be taken outside myself, outside my own world, when I'm reading a book. I don't want the story/characters/setting to be true to life, except it can't be too crazy or I won't be able to immerse in it. I have a lot of reading needs, apparently, which is one of the reasons I began writing my own books, but that is a lot of fucking work. So, I'll just continue to grab cheap or free reads off Amazon and complain about them.

Lately, I've mostly been reading mysteries anyway, which are often annoyingly written in first-person, present tense, but sometimes I still want to read romance.