January 17, 2013

Gone Girl....

I am composing this post literally 3 minutes after finishing Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  It is 9:46 PM Wednesday night.

WHAT THE FUCK????
That’s the foremost thought I have in my head right now.
The second thought is that, Charnai, I love you, but I don’t think I want you to recommend books to me ANYMORE! Doggone psych major!
Now, why do I blame my wonderful cousin?  Because I had seen the book.  Had friends on Goodreads who read & rated the book. Book it was HER raving about the book over Thanksgiving that made me stop & pick it up from the library lease book section 7 days ago.
Now, after saying all of that, you may wonder if I liked the book. YES! But I am not really into suspense-filled, psychological mindf***s.  Movies? Maybe, but not really. I mean, I’m the chick who used to fast forward soap operas to get beyond the suspense-filled moments. So in written form, me no likey. Add to that the psychotic nature of the book. I should have hated it. But I didn’t (what is wrong with me?).
***SPOLIER ALERT***
The first 216 pages dragged like a waterlogged dead body on a super-saturated shore being pulled by a skinny survivor with a bum leg & bad shoulder. Does that sound messed up to you????? THAT’S  where the novel has placed me mentally!  The pace picks up once the psycho bitch is brought into the story & you come to learn that everything she had done has been an elaborate, psychotic ruse to get back at her husband for basically falling out of love with her & her parents for wanting her.  CRAZY! Everything she did she justified as being their just desserts & saw as her way of getting some attention.
Psycho bitch
The hubby, after realizing it’s all an act, has to put on a show because the world thinks she’s a cheating murderer, when in fact he’s being framed. And when psycho comes home…he stays. Forever. CRAZY!!

I don’t know where Gillian Flynn got the inspiration for this novel. I mean, I can guess the “runaway bride” fiasco from a few years ago but, but to have made this whole story up on her own….she is twisted.  And I have a pretty twisted imagination, that I thoroughly enjoy, so it says something that that’s my take on it..and its not a good thing.

I don’t want to give away the whole story, but the bitch (character, not author) is PSYCHO! That’s all I can say.  I was reading the book thinking “this is why I think & rethink & rethink before considering putting my trust in people. Because there are people this crazy in the world.” I mean, if I were the wronged party, I wouldn’t trust a single person I knew. Every single person he’s ever known – his twin sister, mother in law, father in law, attorney, neighbors- believes he’s a killer at some point in the story. There is no way I’d be able to continue relationships with those people after they learn that it was all a lie & a set-up.  After my name was cleared I’d leave the country! I mean, there would be NOTHING left at home, so why stay.  But noooo he stays & continues to be a victim of her lies & agrees to forfeit the truth for the sake of her new lies & new craziness.
The book is nucking futs.
I’m going back to my paranormal & sci-fi and scattered romance.  No more psychotic suspense novels.
After I finished writing this, I watched Animaniacs for 2 hours in hopes that I wouldn’t dream about this crazy book anymore.
CRAZY

January 11, 2013

Crochet for Christmas

Yes, this is a little late, but I've been getting used to being back at work after the holiday vacay.
Tis the season for crocheting!
For the past few years I have crocheted a gift for someone every year as a Christmas gift. Some years its been more than one person, other years, one was all I had time for. I have done a poor job of keeping track of what I crochet for folks. I have friends who do great jobs of keeping a picture diary/log of what they are doing, their progress and the finished product.
I really stink at doing that. LOL
Primarily because when I am crocheting for someone, its not for me , so I’m not thinking about keeping a log of it.  And in most cases, I don’t even remember what I made for whom a few months down the road.  I feel like that’s ok, because it wasn’t for me anyway.  But as I see the trend is to at least have a picture of the finished product to show people.  And I can understand that. After all, when you tell folks you can, and do, crochet they are more prone to believe you, or believe you are any good when you have something to show for it. Since the only things I manage to make for myself are hats and scarves, I guess the only way people will ever come to believe that I can do something else would be for me to have a picture of the finished product of what I make for other people.
So this year, I made my stepmother an octagonal afghan for Christmas.  I was going to upload a picture of it, but blogger isn't working properly to permit any new uploads today so I guess you'll see something next time, if I remember to take a picture before I give it away. Looks like the odds were not in my favor. LOL
Oh well, I tried.

UPDATE
I found a way around Blogger's issue! Here's the picture!!!

January 3, 2013

*** I FINALLY DID IT ***

I finally did it!!! The third time was the charm!
I read 36 books in 12 months!! And then I read one more!!! Making it a total of 37. YAY ME!!!
That has been my goal since 2010 and every year I almost make it. Well, that’s not completely true. The first year I missed the mark by 10 books I think, and the year after that I missed by 5, or something. But this year, I finally did it. And thanks to a good friend of mine who introduced me to Goodreads, I have a much easier way to keep track of my reads as the year goes on. I even have an easier way to share with you what I read.
Here’s the link to my Reads for 2012 book shelf on Goodreads.com.

2012-Reads Shelf
So, now that I’ve done that, what’s next? I want to continue with the goal to read 36 books in a year, however, I do a lot of borrowing books from the library and I order a lot of free books on my Kindle. Very few of the books I read this year were from my own book shelf. In fact, I think that out of 36, only 5 came from my shelf and one of those books were purchased within the last 2-3 years.
The reason why I initially set the goal of reading 36 books in a year was because I owned about 86 books that were sitting forlorn & untouched in my house. The goal of 36 books in a year was intended to help get me through the books I owned, but hadn’t read.  Well...new books keep coming out, or someone tells me about a series they liked, or I saw a book that looked interesting, or I heard about a book that some of the tweens & teenagers I know really enjoyed, or I saw a movie preview for an optioned book -- so I’d hit the library, or the discount book rack, or the free eBook sites and my own books would be pushed further and further on the back burner for the sake of reading a book here, finishing a series there…its really a vicious cycle. Fun, but vicious.
So here’s my next goal: to stay out of the library and read the books I presently own that reside on my bookcases in my house.
In reality, am I going to be able to stay out of the library?  Most likely NOT. I am an honest to goodness bookworm/geek/nerd... whatever, and proud of it. But I have GOT to get through these books.  Another reason why I haven’t been reading them is that I have a lot of romance novels and romance novels have not been sitting well with me for the last few years so when something sci-fi or adventure-like comes to my attention, I’m quick to go check it out for a change of pace. But after a few years of being in the adventure & sci-fi genre, I guess its time to put some romance novels back into the rotation.  Besides, I need to pay my favorite authors the respect they deserve & read them…so I can talk & blog about them.
So that’s the plan for 2013. Time will tell how far I get.

TTFN!