Toe in the Water

September 30, 2002

laurielikesbooks Blog for September 2002

laurielikesbooks.blog-city.com — September 2002

A Bit of Reflection

I think there's a fair amount of conceit in keeping a blog, but doing it reminds me of the start of Laurie's News & Views, the original name for the At the Back Fence column. Back at the beginning, I was surprised that anyone would want to read my rantings and ravings, and loved responses to all the individual email links that went into those columns (this was long before our message boards or questions at the end of the column, btw). It was also a time when I'd get lots of email from authors who were willing to "speak" publically as part of the columns' audience.

Mrs. Giggles and I keep in touch fairly often; I thoroughly enjoy her "Soapbox" essays. There's a lot of funny stuff in them, stuff that sometimes I wish I could write myself but know I could never write now for AAR. Periodically I'll go back and read my early columns and notice how much my writing's changed between then and now. The columns used to be more biting and tongue-in-cheek than they are now. While I don't feel as though I've compromised content over the years, my role has changed. I'm hoping that keeping this blog will help me loosen up and get back more of that old bite.

It's tough, though, since blogging is so one-sided; I'm so used to the feedback we get at AAR via our message boards that I miss hearing from people who are reading my bloggings. And the fact that my musings here are so personal doesn't help; laying open my thoughts and fears here is as scary to me as the early days of LN&V when I didn't think there'd be enough readers to warrant the time and effort expended in writing the column.

There's also the whole "publisher" thing with which to contend; instead of simply representing myself, I know I represent an entity. I have a different function when I write things that are "official" at AAR than I used to when I was simply a columnist/reviewer at someone else's site. I still hear from authors, although not in the same way as I used to, because my role is less that of an individual to another individual. Instead it's more of an official role. Yes, I still hear some great gossip and learn things I can't share with anyone, but I know that sometimes information is passed along to me with an agenda attached.

That's not always the case, though, and there are people - authors and readers alike - who know I can be trusted, journalistically speaking, not to reveal sources and what can and cannot be shared with a wider audience. That's a good feeling. The biggest perk in my job has been the ability to talk to authors about their work. A perk I never expected is a psychological one - the confidence-building boost I get when authors I respect tell me I have to written something interesting, clever, funny, enlightening, and/or important. Opening an author's email about an article is like getting a present on a day that isn't my birthday. And, if after I put their comments through my "bullsh_t" meter and determine there's no agenda attached, I get a goofy grin on my face and a warm fuzzy feeling that last for hours...or until we piss someone off again.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

'A visitor' left this comment on 15 Oct 03

isn't a relief to spill out ur feelings?

pearl necklace [blah@blah.com]

Nora Roberts

Last week I talked about that moment in an author's backlist when she hits her stride; I think I'm narrowing things down for Nora Roberts, at least in my mind. I've read 30 of Roberts' books; the table below puts them together by series and date of p

Irish Thoroughbred	1981	C-	Irish #1
Reflections	1983	C+	Bannion #1
Second Nature	1985	B-	Celebrity Magazine #1
One Summer	1986	B-	Celebrity Magazine #2
Playing the Odds	1985	B+	MacGregor #1
Tempting Fate	1985	B-	MacGregor #2
All the Possibilities	1985	B-	MacGregor #3
One Man's Art	1985	B+	MacGregor #4
The MacGregor Brides	1997	B	MacGregor #6
The MacGregor Grooms	1998	B	MacGregor #8
Affaire Royale	1986	B-	Cordinia #1
Command Performance	1986	B-	Cordinia #2
The Playboy Prince	1987	C+	Cordinia #3
The Last Honest Woman	1988	C	O'Hurley #1
Gabriel's Angel	1989	B-
Captivated	1992	B	Donovan #1
Entranced	1992	C	Donovan #2
Charmed	1992	B	Donovan #3
Enchanted	1999	B	Donovan #4
Born in Fire	1994	A-	Born in #1
Born in Ice	1994	B+	Born in #2
Born in Shame	1995	C+	Born in #3
The Return of Rafe McKade	1995	B	McKade #1
The Pride of Jared McKade	1995	B+	McKade #2
Montana Sky	1996	B-
Sea Swept	1998	A-	Chesapeake Bay #1
Rising Tides	1998	B+	Chesapeake Bay #2
Inner Harbor	1999	B+	Chesapeake Bay #3
Jewels of the Sun	1999	A-	Gallagher #1
Chesapeake Blue (Nov release)	2002	A	Chesapeake Bay #4

A whopping 70% of the Nora Roberts books I've read earned B level grades from me. 17% earned C level grades and 13% - 4 of the 30 books - earned DIK status. My approval rating on her writing is phenomenal, particularly as I don't consider Roberts my favorite romance author. There are other authors whom I've granted more DIK's to, but in the case of Julie Garwood, there aren't even 30 books of hers to read, let alone grade. And Catherine Coulter, who has written five DIK's, has also earned many D's and F's from me.

On the other hand, there are some of Roberts' books I haven't read beyond the first few pages because I knew I wouldn't like them, which tends to skew the results. A few that come to mind are Irish Rose, The Heart of Devin McKade (sacrilegious, I know), and Dance of Dreams, which I started last night but know I won't finish. It's the sequel to 1983's Reflections, and the older man/younger woman, teacher/student, ballet company director/prima ballerina premise was just too creepy for me. When the two of them sat down to eat yogurt and bottled water, all I could think of was every ballet article I've ever read about the physical pain, the anorexia, the lack of living beyond the ballet. That was it for me; I closed the book and put it away, most likely forever.

Dance of Dreams ends the Nora reading glom I've been on for six weeks. It started with an advance reading copy of Chesapeake Blue, continued through the first three Cordinia books, then the Celebrity Magazine duo, Reflections, and the aborted Dance of Dreams. Oddly enough, I hadn't been able to read a Roberts romance through in more than two years. I remember having a discussion with Blythe and Claudia, who granted DIK status to the second and third books in the Gallagher trilogy and saying that if we'd switched the order of reviewing that series (had I read the second or third and one of them read the first), none of the books would have gotten DIK status. Although I loved the first book in that series, I picked up the second book and put it down about a third of the way through. I never even tried the third, even though my sense is that I might like it at some point in the future.

There are other groupings of Roberts books that I never even bought, including her Stars of Mithra and Three Sisters Island trilogies, not to mention all of her J.D. Robb books. I went through a lengthy Roberts "dry spell" between Jewels of the Sun and Chesapeake Blue, which I'd feared wouldn't be good since the rumors I'd heard made it sound as though she hadn't originally planned to write Seth's story and "did it for the fans" - I hadn't even picked up one of her books since last summer. Wow, did I do some quick catching up by reading seven of her books in just six weeks! I doubt I'll let such another lengthy period go by without reading her again.

But back to my original point: when did Roberts hit her stride as far as I'm concerned? I think it was in the mid-1980's, several years after she was first published. Her MacGregor series is key to her growth; I can see the beginning of certain character types that she and she alone seems to do in these books. I've heard many a reader complain that her trilogies or quartets feature Roberts Hero A, Roberts Hero B, and so on (for both heroes and heroines), but for the most part, this doesn't bother me as much as it does with other authors. One thing that surprised me when I went through my database was that I gave One Man's Art a higher grade than many of the other books in her MacGregor series. It was so different from the other books in the series, and not only because neither the hero nor heroine was a MacGregor. It had, if I remember correctly, less humor as well. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the grade after all, though...I seem to have a soft spot for Nora Roberts artists, whether they are glass artists or painters.

After not having been enthralled with a Roberts book in more than two years, I was quite honestly shocked to have loved Chesapeake Blue as much as I did. How could an author who's written 150+ books write a book that's fourth in a series and have it be so wonderful? I simply can't wrap my mind around that. I'll be talking more about the book in particular, but probably at AAR rather than in this blog.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

The Good, the Bad (and Kelly)

Yesterday was a mix of good and bad. I'll start with the bad, well... the disappointing. After several B grades, we gave Julia Justiss her first less than positive review. This is not well known, but I become silently invested in authors after we give them a positive review the first time around; after two good reviews I become a silent cheerleader. And when another good review comes in, my silent cheers grow even stronger. I've been cheering nearly as strongly for Julia Justiss as I had for Dee Henderson, who'd racked up six B and B+ grades before getting a C+ this spring. Justiss had gotten four B/B+'s for full-length historicals and a B+ for an anthology piece, and then yesterday we posted a C for her.

I realize how difficult it must be to satisfy a variety of different tastes after several books, but being the optimistic sort of person I am, I want to see winning streaks continue forever. I'd like to see both Justiss and Henderson start a new winning streak with their very next release so that we can continue to tout them both as buried treasures.

Okay...that was the bad...now for the good. We posted a DIK Review yesterday for Susan Grant, whose first book - Once a Pirate - I gave a great review to, and whose second book, The Star King, I also enjoyed (and reviewed). Her third book (The Star Prince) was not reviewed by me but received another good grade from Heidi Haglin. Sandy Coleman's review of her October release, Contact, hit my in-box late last week.

When I reached into my reviews folder yesterday and pulled Sandy's review out, I was so excited to see that it was a total rave - a DIK with absolutely no reservations - that I practically performed a little happy dance in my office. Just as I get disappointed when we post a so-so or negative review for an author I enjoy reading, I am thrilled when we post a terrific review for an author whose books I enjoy. And when the author is relatively new and I've been "with her" since the start, I'm all the happier because so many times my taste doesn't match our review staff. Where Susan Grant is concerned, I also consider her a role model for strong women given that she's spent most of her career breaking ground for other women in male-dominated fields (I have similar admiration for Merline Lovelace). I can't wait until October and I can get a copy of Contact myself.

And now for something off-topic: last night's finale of American Idol. The first thing I noticed is that the vast majority of songs "the kids" sang in their Brady-esque/Godspell fashion were old. When I mentioned this to my family, my daughter exclaimed, "That's because most new songs suck!" I'm so glad those words came out of her mouth instead of mine; had I said the same thing, she'd have argued with me for half an hour.

One great thing about my daughter is that if she likes you, you're automatically pretty or cute or handsome. She thinks Kelly's gorgeous, and didn't take too kindly to my husband and I disagreeing with her. She has a great voice, but as far as looks go, she's the girl-next-door with a big booty, and that's one reason I think she won.

Let me explain. My husband had been trying to prepare our daughter all week for the possibility that Justin might win because all the girls would vote for him. I strongly disagreed; he's definitely got charisma and charm and great hair, a great smile, and a twinkle in his eye, but I thought those same girls would vote for Kelly instead because she's not gorgeous (or slutty) like Britney, Jessica, Mandy, and Christina. Any girl or young woman could look at Kelly and think: "Wow, she's talented but she doesn't look like a model. She looks like me!"

Still, I wasn't sure Kelly would win and so I had also tried to prepare our daughter for that over the last few days. I told her that several of the finalists - including Tamyra and Ryan - would likely get record contracts and that they might be better off in the long run than the winner of American Idol. And after I having heard the first "single" they'll be releasing for Kelly, the also-rans might truly be better off. It doesn't matter how well you sing, a song has to be a good one for people to want to buy it. The song released by winner of the UK's version of the show was far better than the song Kelly will be releasing. I have no doubt she'll make it as a singer, but her success may actually be delayed as she runs around fulfilling her "American Idol" obligations. As I said in an earlier blogging, most people ask "Sam who?" when asked if they remember Sam Harris, the singing phenom from the first year of Star Search. I'm not sure if the same people who got caught up watching American Idol actually propel record sales. We'll keep up with her career and buy her CD's, of course, because we "know" her.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

A's and F's (and Dodd)

Just as yesterday was a mix of good and bad as far as AAR was concerned, so is today. Not more than five minutes ago I posted today's update, which included one very positive and one very negative review. Â I think some will be surprised by the posit

Whenever we post A's or F's, there's more of a chance of reader disagreement than for other grades. Often times I believe we're taken to task more for A's than F's, but either way we leave ourselves open to a barrage of disagreement. We get lots of negative feedback for F's in two situations: when the author is little known but has supportive friends and/or family or when the author is very well known and generally well-respected.

For instance, we've posted many, many F's for Cassie Edwards and Connie Mason - the two AAR "whipping boys" - but these reviews never generate much response other than the sort of "thanks for giving me a laugh w/your review" comments we've seen before. On the other hand, when we pan a book by an author who's written extremely well before - even when we've given her lots of good reviews in the past - postings Â which disagree with our review can go on for several days. Sometimes these lengthy threads degenerate into a good, old-fashioned flame war. So I always get stomach cramps when we post an F for a well-respected author, and today's F for the new Susan Wiggs already has my tummy tied up in knots.

On the other hand, I'm very, very pleased that we posted a B+ review for the new Christina Dodd today because I've been a fan of her writing in the past. While we took a lot of heat for our reviews for her last two books, none of that heat came from her. It may have come on her behalf, but I personally thought she was a class act throughout and respect her for that. Even when she joked about "which book she was going to steal from next" when promoting her book with Connie Brockway (Once Upon a Pillow), I personally thought she was making lemonade out of lemons. I know not all AAR staff agreed, but so be it. I still believe those reviews were excellent, but I also liked how she handled herself.

I picked up my copy of the Dodd yesterday and may read it beginning today. I hope it's as good as A Well Pleasured Lady or Rules of Surrender, my two Dodd favorites.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

God's Gifts

What follows is likely to be the most intimate blogging I'll ever make. If it makes you uncomfortable to read it, please accept my apologies before-hand, or skip it and check back in a couple of days for my next entry. While the nation's year of mour

While the nation's year of mourning began on September 11, 2001, our personal year of grief began on Monday, August 27th when I rushed our daughter to the hospital with meningitis and watched her nearly die before my eyes.

"Our gift to God is to make use of God's gifts to us."

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and we've just returned from a wonderful family service. In addition to the main services, there are three distinct services - for families with young children, older children, and teens. I'm not the only one who loves the services for families with older children because it keeps growing year after year not only as younger children grow old enough to attend, but with older children who feel the sense of community so strongly that they don't wish to move on to the teen service. After all, where else can you hear a Pete Seger parable as the sermon and sing along with a guitar-playing rabbi who riffs "Dueling Banjos?"

One of the best parts of the service is the blowing of the shofar, a ram's horn which heralds the New Year and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which will occur in 10 days. We've listened to the same young man blowing his shofar since he was no more than a boy, really. My favorite moment is the very last note blown on the shofar for it is incredibly long, and this year it was the longest ever. How wonderful that he came home for the weekend to celebrate another new year with us - he's now in college studying to become a rabbi. After he lengthened out that note to be extra, superbly long, I exclaimed its excellence, which his proud parents, sitting in the row ahead of us, overheard. When he returned to his seat, his mom leaned to him and whispered something, at which point he looked back at me and grinned. Then my daughter let me hug and kiss her...in public. Yay!

I'm not a very religious person, certainly less religious than my husband and his family. But there's something very special about this year's services; we have much to be thankful for. The first is that we can attend services at all because last year, with our daughter in the very initial stages of her recovery from meningitis, she and I didn't go - either for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. We are also thankful that she is finally and completely recovered...it took about 10 1/2 months for her life to return to normal.

But there's even more. She "graduated" from occupational therapy after six years. She still has minor physically-manifested neurological deficits, but she's developed enough coping mechanisms to handle just about anything. Yay! She also said goodbye to the behavioral therapeutic school she'd attended for 2 1/2 years and began fifth grade in a wonderful but very academically tough private middle school. While we weren't sure she was ready, she'd asked us this spring to give her the chance to show what she is capable of, did well on the private school entrance exam (a three hour SAT-like test), was accepted into the school, and started two weeks ago. This past week she was elected as class vice-president. Yay!

While we were in services this afternoon, one line in our prayerbook struck me: "Our gift to God is to make use of God's gifts to us." This is very nearly the same thing I've told my daughter over and over again for the past several years - that she needs to use the gifts God gave her. Whenever she's frustrated about the things she can't do or can't do well (her neurological issues have always been physical as opposed to intellectual), I remind her of all the great gifts she does have. This was particularly difficult over the past year; not only did her illness rob her of the ability to move easily, it also affected her cognitive abilities for many months. Thankfully, that too has passed, and not only do we have our wonderfully brilliant and creative girl back, we have a girl who has finally decided to be a "human being." Her determination to leave Â her old school, along with the skills she (finally) internalized after 2 1/2 years there, have transformed her: her sense of humor is less biting and actually funnier; her behavior is finally age-appropriate to a 10-year-old rather than being a mix of immature social skills along with the "attitude" of a rebellious teen; and while she'll always be unique, she fits in better with others around her. Yay!

Recovery and becoming a "human being" were particularly difficult given the states of all our emotional health this past year. Getting over September 11th is something that has affected us all (I don't really buy into this whole "those who don't live in NY or D.C. got over it months ago"), but as September 11 2002 draws nearer, it's time for those of us who've gotten stuck in our grief to rejoin the living.

And so I've set two goals for September 12th. The first is to put behind me my daughter's illness, her time in therapy, her old school, and the way I view her. She's in regular kid school now; I vow to treat her as I would a regular 10-year-old. She's earned it. Yay! Secondly, I must end my personal mini-nervous breakdown that I believe started last year on August 29th, 13 days before the World Trade Center collapsed in Manhattan, and got worse when the world as we knew up turned upside down on 9/11.

The world can be a place of immense suffering; the supreme irony is that much of the suffering comes from people of different faiths who believe their faith is better than the faith of others, who believe those of other faiths must be destroyed to make a more perfect world. How many times will there be death and destruction in the name of religion and God?

"Our gift to God is to make use of God's gifts to us."

Let's make use of the gifts God gave us. That's my goal for the new year. Shona Tova... Happy New Year!

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

My Favorite Bride

I just finished Christina Dodd's My Favorite Bride. AAR Reviewer Jane Jorgenson gave it a B+ last week, and her review made the book sound all the more inviting because of her remembrances of The Sound of Music, which was Dodd's inspiration for the b

I just finished Christina Dodd's My Favorite Bride. AAR Reviewer Jane Jorgenson gave it a B+ last week, and her review made the book sound all the more inviting because of her remembrances of The Sound of Music, which was Dodd's inspiration for the book.

I haven't actually read a book by Dodd in about 2 1/2 years, since Rules of Surrender, which I enjoyed. And, after the bad reviews we gave her Lost in Your Arms and In My Wildest Dreams, with the "scandal" associated with our reviews of these two books, I'd just about given up on her. In fact, in AAR's in-house style poll, my rating for her was 4J, for Always or Almost Always Like/Jumped the Shark.

How could I give an author a rating like that - isn't it illogical to say you always or almost always like her books but you think she's past her prime? I wonder...is it any more odd to give an author a rating of 4J than 0J, which means I've never read any books by an author but believe she's jumped the shark. That was my rating, after all, for Robin Schone.

But back to Dodd... I loved this book. It may turn out to be a DIK for me (I haven't quite decided). Unfortunately, I doubt I'm on speaking terms with Christina Dodd at this point because of those two very widely read negative reviews we posted for her in recent years. The controversy over our review of In My Wildest Dreams was so enormous that there's really no way to get past it, which is unfortunate. Jen's review was brilliant...and so is this new book. Damn!

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

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What It's Like For Me

There...it's done. After two days of sitting in the chair in my study, I finished putting together tomorrow's issue of At the Back Fence. Featuring four interviews and a topic I'm no expert on, this one took lots of tweaking. Much of the second day w

She's required to do a lot of writing in her new school. She's a good writer, but new to the challenging requirements her school sets, and rewriting is something she doesn't think is necessary. Luckily enough, I always have a story to tell her, although I suspect she thinks I make them up...which I don't.

The first two years I worked for the City of Dallas, it was through a very difficult management training program specifically for people with master's degrees in public administration. The year I got into the program, three slots were filled from well over 100 applicants through a 5 hour interview/in-box "test"/essay process. My first rotation was with the Dallas Police Department. I worked for a captain in the Planning and Research Department. He was out of town when I finished a report for the Chief, and I turned my work in to the officer in charge that day - a female Sgt. She read my report and handed it back to me - full of red ink.

I was outraged, as only a young person with lots of educational arrogance could be. How dare this...this person, with only a college degree, say that my work, my writing, was unacceptable? After all, I was the one who could have written "sh_t" on a piece of paper and gotten an A! Needless to say, I mishandled the whole thing and am still embarrassed by my reaction when truly, her changes made my work better.

I learned a very important lesson that day, which is that editing is a very good thing, that a good piece of writing can only become a better piece of writing when honed over and over again by at least two sets of eyes. I don't know that my daughter has accepted this yet, but it's something everyone at AAR has, or they wouldn't last long.

Now, back to this new column, which wasn't really telling all of the story it needed to tell, which is why Blythe Barnhill, Andrea Pool, and Rachel Potter stepped in to help. While Rachel helped on some of the facts, Blythe and Andrea helped with last-minute segments, and I juggled paragraphs and re-wrote others to make room. It read differently, but it was better, much better.

It's always an exhaustive process, and I had thought it was getting more and more difficult lately, but then I thought back to the beginning. I started to write my column in March of 1996, 6 1/2 years ago. At that time, my daughter was four, and I can remember literally handing her off to my husband on a Friday night, saying: "I've got to write this weekend...see you two Sunday night." Then I would lock myself in my study, getting up from my desk only to eat and sleep. I'd emerge a couple of days later, a bit stinky, but satisfied.

In the beginning, when ATBF was Laurie's News & Views and there were no message boards, it was just me, my books, and email. The columns were shorter and they were different, often irreverant and tongue-in-cheek, and perhaps more fun. I still think there are moments of humor, but they are more serious now, and often more "important." I felt it very necessary, for example, to have the grouping of romance family tree columns written. And when Mary, Jen, and Rachel and I worked to put together the site-wide style poll and re-vamped If You Like... pages, we all believed we were creating something of significance.

Bringing Robin in as co-columnist, and then Anne, has been so wonderful. Collaborating and bouncing ideas off other people helps make the writing process less of a lonely one. It is, after all, rather isolating to live so often in your own head. And the way ideas come can be frustrating. The ideas for this new column, for instance, came in a variety of ways, and at different times, including 1 a.m. when I should have been asleep.

There's often a panic that sets in, usually right after a column goes online when I worry about what to write for the next column. This is another terrific reason for having collaborators. After I'd finished working with Mary, Jen, and Rachel, I told Anne and Robin I needed a breather and that they'd have to do the next column alone. Wouldn't you know...I'd have to stick my own two cents in anyway and wrote my own small segment?

I figure that the 145 columns already written probably amount to 2,000 pages of original material, and when I read on a message board or receive an email from someone new to AAR who has settled down to read the back issues, I'm always surprised because I don't think I could do that - there's just too much. I'm also surprised that there's still stuff to write about after 6 1/2 years and 2,000 pages. Or that reading a romance after having read so many hundreds of romances before can still make me laugh or cry.

Doing this column has always been a labor of love. It reminds me, though, of the drawing classes I took in college. I didn't enjoy the process, but I loved the final results. Drawing was difficult for me - I certainly had less talent than the art majors in the classes, but I did it anyway and created some nice charcoal drawings through two semester's time. Doing that with bad vision required total concentration and focus on my part. Now, I'm told I'm an intense person anyway , but this total effort wiped me out in a similar way I'm wiped out whenever I finish a column. I may grumble before and after, but the final result is always worth it.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

(Mostly) Anne Rice and (a Little) Calvin Trillin

While at the store yesterday, I noticed they've already begun decorating for Halloween, which for the last several years has meant a new book by Anne Rice is just around the corner. Indeed, according to Amazon, on October 29th, Blackwood Farm (part o

I first read Anne Rice in the late-80's, and have read every book she's written. Indeed, her backlist sits with the entire backlist of another author - Calvin Trillin - on a very large bookshelf in my den. Permit me to go off on a tangent about Trillin while he's on my mind. His Tepper Isn't Going Out, a witty take on parking, New York City and an out-of-control mayor, had the unfortunate distinction of being a pre-September 11 satire in a post-September 11th world. If you missed it and have a warped sense of humor, consider Tepper or any of Trillin's other funny books. This was his first novel; his previous humor books are collections of his essays. He's also a dedicated foodie and has written a book or two about eating, as well as two straight non-fiction books - one about his father, and the other about the life and suicide of a man with whom he attended Yale. In another entry I'll tackle Trillin again, but I'd like to get back to Anne Rice now.

I had never read a horror novel before reading Interview with the Vampire; after reading it I was hooked. The Queen of the Damned had just been released, which meant I read Interview, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen in a row, very quickly. I loved the first, thoroughly enjoyed the second, and found the third to be my favorite of the Vampire Chronicles series. My husband, needless to say, was surprised at this gorey turn of events, even more so when I relayed a favorite scene from Queen to him wherein Pandora quite literally picks up her victims, snaps their bones like twigs, and devours them from the inside out.

Of all Rice's books, there's only been one I've never read, even though I tried to get through it not once, but twice. That would be The Feast of All Saints, which Rice describes as: "an historical novel (that) traces the journey of the community of free people of color who were feared and ignored by whites in 1840's New Orleans." I can't say why this book never engaged me; it's not because I don't like her historical fiction because I adored Cry to Heaven, an historical novel about the Castrati in 18th century Italy.

I buy Rice's books in hardcover, even though it's been several years now since I've really enjoyed on of her books. I'm going to list her books and the grades I gave them. I did something similar several years ago at the bottom of my AAR Review of Pandora, but she's had several books released since then. I'll also list her B&D/S&M erotica titles, but without a grade; I'm not sure I know how to assess them because they are so totally bizarre. But, I have read them, even though finding them in Dallas in the late 1980's was no easy feat, particularly as they were published under a pen name.

Interview with the Vampire	1976	A	Vampire Chronicles #1
The Vampire Lestat	1985	B+	Vampire Chronicles #2
Queen of the Damned	1988	A+	Vampire Chronicles #3
Tale of the Body Thief	1992	F	Vampire Chronicles #4
Memnoch the Devil	1995	B	Vampire Chronicles #5
The Vampire Armand	1998	D	Vampire Chronicles #6
Blood and Gold	2001	D	Vampire Chronicles #7
The Witching Hour	1990	A	Mayfair Witches #1
Lasher	1993	B	Mayfair Witches #2
Taltos	1994	A	Mayfair Witches #3
Pandora	1998	B+	New Tales of the Vampires #1
Vittorio	1999	D	New Tales #2
Merrick	2000	C	New Tales #3 (related to Mayfair too)
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty	1983		Beauty #1
Beauty's Punishment	1984		Beauty #2
Beauty's Release	1985		Beauty #3
The Feast of All Saints	1979		(Never finished)
Cry to Heaven	1982	B
Exit to Eden	1985
Belinda	1986		(erotica)
The Mummy	1989	C
Violin	1997	F
Servant of the Bones	1996	B-

Some final random thoughts on Rice's books. I don't remember which of the first two Mayfair Witch books Catherine Coulter's The Hellion Bride reminds me of, but a scene in Coulter's book where the hero believes he's been drugged and had sex with the heroine in Jamaica is reminiscent of similar scene involving a Dutch (?) member of the Talamasca. If anyone knows the scene I'm talking about, please email me!

I'd like to see her get back to her Mayfair Witches series; Merrick didn't cut it for me. There's been far too much emphasis on Aaron and David and not enough on what made the first and third book in this series so interesting. I know a great many people hated the second in this series (Lasher), but I thought it was good in a gross way, if that makes sense.

Many readers, particularly those who love romance novels, seem to love The Mummy. Her writing has always had a lush romanticism, even at its most gruesome, but I'm afraid I could never get over an ancient Egyptian coming back to life as a blue-eyed hottie.

While I personally enjoyed the religious aspect of Memnoch, Rice didn't know when to stop and it seemed she went on an extended religious bender that was at its worst in Violin and Armand. What's worse is that her writing has become very self-indulgent; Violin, in fact, was an exercise in self-indulgence. I had thought that since Servant of the Bones and Pandora were pretty good, she'd gotten over it, but her four most recent books (Armand, Vittorio the Vampire, Merrick, and Blood and Gold) were disappointing. Marius' tale, in Blood and Gold (2001), was so much less than it should have been that I'm not even sure why I'll be buying Blackwood Farm when it's released...but I will.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

My YA Fiction Glom

Even though all of us are counseled to do "everything in moderation," it's never been my style. Doing things to an extreme is an hereditary trait in my family. So when I decided to read some Young Adult Fiction (which is a featured topic in our current At the Back Fence column), I didn't read one title. No, I've now read five YA books since Sunday afternoon. All have been good.

First was Truth or Dairy, a 2000 release written by Catherine Clark (there's a sequel, released in 2001, entitled Wurst Case Scenario, but I've not read it). I picked up this book on Rachel Potter's recommendation, among others, while at the library with my daughter over the weekend. We'd gone so she could check out the two sequels to Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging.

Written in diary format like Snogging, Truth or Dairy, as you can discern from the title, is irreverent. Courtney Von Dragen Smith is about to be a high-school senior who decides to keep a diary after her college-bound boyfriend breaks up with her. Her plan is to go through her senior year boy-free. She's certainly got enough to keep her busy, what with her job at the Truth or Dairy cafÃ©, her friends, and her epileptic dog who keeps running away from home. What can she do about her ex-boyfriend's friends who keep hanging around, particularly Grant ("like-the-lake") Superior, who always seems to be in her face and is much cuter and nicer than he has any right to be? And how does this too-cool-for-school teen end up running for student body vice-president?

Courtney is very believable - she's incredibly self-absorbed, lacks a sense of humor about herself while being fully able to accept the ironies around her, and behaves with a credible amount of disgust and dismay when she discovers a relationship between two people very close to her. Even though she's sworn off boys, her dealings with Tom, the tomcatting student body president who has "hooked up" with every girl but her, are interesting. She doesn't want him, but why hasn't he hit on her? At times Courtney seems world-weary while at others she behaves childishly - in other words, she behaves like most teens do. What works best is that she sounds like a teenager, and has feelings teens really have.

In a diary entry Courtney alludes to previous sexual experience with the ex-boyfriend, so my recommendation is that actual teens as opposed to pre-teens read this one. On the other hand, kissing is about as hot and heavy as the action is in Truth or Dairy. There's a lot to recommend about this book; Courtney's younger brother turns out to be less bratty and more human than younger siblings tend to be portrayed in a lot of YA fiction. Courtney's mother, on the other hand, is a bit too wacky for my tastes, although the sub-plot involving her ends in a nice way. The sub-plot involving her grandparents allows the author to explore the grossness of "old people" having sex, and the book ends on an up beat. My grade for this one is a B-; it would have been higher had there been less focus on her job.

Next up were the three Angus books, the first of which my daughter has read so often the front and back covers have already disintegrated. She checked out books two and three while I checked out the first. I read all three in a 24-hour period. I can see why my daughter loved Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging and I'm sure she'll love On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God and Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas just as much. I kind of overdosed on them and wish the third had more of an ending than it actually did (I understand it ends as it does because there's a fourth book, only available at this time in the UK), but am glad I read them regardless.

Georgia Nicolson is 14-years-old and lives in suburban England. At the start of the series, her penny-pinching father is unemployed and yells at her for being on the phone. As do all of the characters in this series, he takes things to an extreme, with hilarious results. Her mother, who works in management, doesn't seem to be much of a mother as far as Georgia is concerned; she doesn't cook, and Georgia spends more time taking care of her three-year-old sister than her mom does. Many of the series' funniest moments are derived from Georgia's sister, who refuses to be potty-trained and leaves evidence of her poo-filled diapers in Georgia's room; other items end up in Georgia's bed because her little sister sleeps with her so often. And when she's awake, she often says things extremely embarrassing to her older sister.

Georgia owns an enormous cat named Angus (he's from Scotland) who is half-cat, half-beast, and who terrorizes the people and pets of their neighborhood. Although Georgia is not the prettiest of her friends (she obsesses over the enormity of her nose), she's somewhat of a boy magnet throughout the series; the boy she pays to teach her to kiss ends up dating her, the boy she dates to make her true love (aka the Sex God) jealous falls in love with her, and even though he's too old for her, the Sex God can't stay away. Whether that's because of the growth of her nunga-nungas or her personality is hard to say...maybe it's because she's so good at snogging?

I was intrigued when some of my AAR colleagues referred to Angus as "better than Bridget Jones's Diary." They were right. It's hard to describe what works best about this series of books without giving away moments I'd prefer you to discover and laugh about yourself, but there are many laugh-out-loud moments. The definitions of British words have a distinctly "Georgiaosity" to them, the names and descriptions she and her friends give to people they don't like, and the list she and her gal pals create (and eventually revise) for kissing, petting, and "the full monty" are all priceless. And one line from the third book is so good I have to share it with you here. Although Georgia would rather be home and near the Sex God, she's forced to take a vacation to Scotland with her family. They're in a remote area with absolutely nothing to do (the American equivalent of what my dad liked to call "East Bumf_ck," and Georgia begins riffing on the locals' speech patterns. When she sees the hideousity of their cabin, she says: "You can tak our lives, but you cannae tak our freedom!"

Georgia obsesses about snogging and other intimate things and one of her friends smokes. I wondered what my daughter thought about all the sexual obsessing, which is often funny, particularly when it has to do with her nunga-nungas. What my daughter thought was funny, though, was how ridiculously Georgia's parents are shown to be, and how funny are the antics of her little sister and cat. Of the three books, my favorite was the first, followed by the third, and then the second. Had the third had a conclusive ending, it would have been my favorite. All three are certainly B level reads, extremely creative and funny. As a parent, I cringed at Georgia's lasse faire attitude toward school, but when I lightened up I laughed at all the things she did that got her into trouble.

The final of the five YA books I read was written by Caroline Cooney, author of the three Janie books I mentioned in a previous blogging. Tune in Anytime, originally published in 1999, tells the story of Sophie Olivette's soap opera-ish 16th year. Shortly after Sophie's sister goes to college, she brings home her somewhat older roommate for a visit. Her father falls immediately in love with the young woman and determines to end his marriage to Sophie's mother and to sell their massive house out from under them (and move Sophy and her mom into a small apartment) so that he and the young woman can marry and travel. Her mother, a free spirit who for some reason refuses to accept the reality of the situation, will not fight for her community property rights, allows the young woman to live in her home, and spends all her time planning for a winter solstice ceremony at the "henge" belonging to the Larkman's (owners of the local gravel pit).

Sophy's father is presented as wholly unlikable throughout the book. Even though Sophy's mother comes off as a nut, his selfish attitude made me want to punch his lights out... really. Sophy's selfish sister, Marley, devises her own way to live through the dissolution of her family, leaving Sophy on her own. If not for the Larkman family's essentially "adopting" Sophy and her mother, and for the growing relationship between Ted Larkman and Sophy, this book would have been too depressing to read. Instead it was quirky, depressing, and sweet - all at the same time. And the ending is wonderful. While the other four YA books I've talked about in this blogging are irreverent, Tune in Anytime is serious stuff, but there are some lighter moments that balance the tone of the book.

I believe many women will relate to Sophy on some level. It brought back to me, for instance, the superiority I once felt over my mother for being "just a housewife." While this isn't the issue with Sophy's mom, Sophy's feelings about her mother's simply giving up are reminiscent of how I used to feel about having a mom who played tennis and shopped rather than doing charity or "important" work. And children of divorce will no doubt feel a kinship with Sophy. There's a strong symmetry at work in this book, and Cooney is able to turn black and white into shades of gray in an accessible way. I plan to go back to the library and check out some more of her books. I understand she's written a series of time-travel teen romances...wonder if they're any good?

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Anne Rice Question Answered!

Nancy Carrigan has answered the question I posed in my Anne Rice blogging about which scene in the first Mayfair Witch book is similar to a scene in Catherine Coulter's Hellion Bride. I've asked various people for years if they knew the scene I remem

Nancy Carrigan has answered the question I posed in my Anne Rice blogging about which scene in the first Mayfair Witch book is similar to a scene in Catherine Coulter's Hellion Bride. I've asked various people for years if they knew the scene I remembered, and she's the first to be on my wavelength. I'm extremely thankful she answered my question!

Nancy's answer only piqued my interest, though, so I did a bit of searching on Google and found a page that tells the whole story of that scene. Here's the link: http://witches.implicit.net/old/petyr.html. The site in general may be of interest to fans of this series. The main link is http://witches.implicit.net/mayfairs.html.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Just Don't Get It (Am Shaking My Head)

It's an odd feeling to realize that people I've never met in person actually hate me. It's a difficult thing to describe, but I tried to do just that last night when my husband and I went out for dinner. Let me explain. There are at least two authors out there who actively despise AAR. What do I mean by "actively?" They actually make public posts that take a kernal of a half-truth and spin it into a rumor that looks like a fact, only it's based upon a lie. And when their fans read these rumors, they believe them, then run with them.

The most recent lie-based rumor that came back to me is based on a statement I've made a couple of times in the past - namely that a publisher, based on an author request, threatened to stop sending books to AAR for review. In both instances when this has occurred, the publisher did not act on the author's request; as a result we continue to receive books for review from all the major publishers. (When I've made these public/semi-public statements, I've made sure I've followed them up with equally public/semi-public statements that the publishers did not act.) And yet, the latest rumor, which had its start in a post by a certain author (I've seen it - spies for AAR are everywhere ), is that because our reviews are so horrible, publishers won't send us books for review, and I must provide them to our review staff myself.

We average 60+ reviews a month. After doing the math, I determined that if this rumor were true, I'd be spending something like $360/month to buy books solely for the purpose of having our review staff trash them. Am I really taking more than $4,000 a year off the money tree in my back yard simply because I want to diss romance authors? Does this compute, Will Robinson?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on the author; a sentence or so later in her post, she said that she (only) knows of X number of publishers who have written AAR off their distribution lists. Gee, last time I looked, the only publisher that doesn't send us their books has never sent us their books, and that would be Harlequin/Silhouette, which produces roughly 75 books a month and, to my knowledge, only sends copies for review purposes to Romantic Times. And, Harlequinn's single title imprint - MIRA - does send us copies for review.

What's weird about this entire episode is that the author involved in this latest go-round has received several good to excellent reviews from AAR. Whether or not her fans actually have been to AAR to see our horrendously mean-spirited efforts remains unknown. At least one of them does not appear to have ever visited our site because her contribution to the thread is that we've "finally" given the author a grade she deserves (a B) in regards to our most recent review of this author's work. Hmmm... I guess she never saw the other good reviews, namely the two A's and five B's.

There's an overriding irony about this particular author, but if included it, I'd be naming names, something I've vowed never to do in this blog. I was honest up front in saying I reserved the right to whine here, but will never to divulge an author's name when I'm picking on her (which is also why I've removed other identifying facts from this blogging). Still, if you figure it out and want to email me about it, I'd love to hear from you.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Lottery Tickets, Neuroses, & My Tombstone

I have authority issues, which means that if I'm driving within a street's distance of a police car, my heart starts to pound. I've probably never removed a tag off a mattress or pillow and am proud of the fact that I never had detention in high sch

I have authority issues, which means that if I'm driving within a street's distance of a police car, my heart starts to pound. I've probably never removed a tag off a mattress or pillow

and am proud of the fact that I never had detention in high school.

Part of this authority thing is that I'm neurotic about "doing the right thing." I've been known to say "excuse me" after burping...even when I'm alone in the room. Sometimes this "doing right" goes too far and I become self-righteous - why else would I gleefully fantasize about having the following epitaph on my tombstone: "She never bought a lottery ticket"? So when I read "ADVANCE COPY - NOT FOR SALE" on a book I've been sent to review, I don't trade or resell the book even if I never care to read it again.

When I first started to review, ARC's (advance review copies) were far more limited than they are today. ARC's were available to reviewers and those responsible for ordering books in bookstores/libraries. That has apparently changed in the last year or so, which unfortunately mucks up one part of my job.

Let me explain. AAR has five message boards, and upon occasion, there will be a post on our Reviews Message Board disagreeing with a negative review we've posted even though the book hasn't been released to the general public and won't be released to the general public for a month or two. When this has occurred in the past, it's been a rather reliable red flag that the poster is not simply "Jane Doe," but is somehow connected to the author - either a fellow author, a family member, or a "very special" fan. How else, I've been able to surmise, would that person have been able to read the book when it's not even on sale?

But there's been a change - two actually - and both make my job more difficult in terms of monitoring our message boards for fraudulent content. The first is that many people do trade or sell their ARC's even though it's the wrong thing to do. And, publishers have realized what movie makers discovered after the release of The Blair Witch Project; when buzz bubbles up organically, it can do more for a product than thousands spent in an advertising campaign. What better way to build buzz than to send out advance copies to "regular" readers, who can then spread the word?

Which means that it's more difficult now to judge questionable postings made on books a month or two prior to their release dates. This cuts two ways, though - what to do when a publisher sends out advance copies for a book and a reader doesn't like it? And that's what happened today.

There's a highly anticipated romantic suspense novel being released at the end of November. Last night a reader who'd read an advance copy posted about the book...but the posting was very unflattering. What to do?

The purpose of our message boards is to provide a place for people to talk about books in an informed manner. How informed can a discussion be if a book isn't going to be available for the vast majority of readers for two more months? So I made the decision to remove the thread, and then was reminded - not only by AAR staff but by my own words in another thread earlier this week - that the only reason for deleting a thread is if it violates our posting policies. Unless a post is abusive, libelous, obscene, or indecent, contains advertising, or flames, it cannot and should not be deleted.

And so, even though I believe it does no good to start a thread on a book that most people will not be able to read for two months, I reposted the original message. Was I right or wrong when I first deleted it? Was I right or wrong when I reposted it? I honestly don't know, and my ingrained "right thing" meter didn't help at all. Damn...next thing you know, I'll be buying a lottery ticket.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

BBCA Fun

I've recently become addicted to the BBCA, which I'd only watched previously for Monarch of the Glen. But now there's a whole world of BBCA programming I enjoy, particularly Changing Rooms and So Graham Norton. Imagine my surpise today when I started surfing around for tidbits on Graham Norton and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (definitely the most intriguing designer on Changing Rooms), and discovered that the latter goes by the acronym LLB!

Changing Rooms is so much better than the American version (Trading Spaces) both in terms of concept and execution. The neighbors actually contribute much more in terms of ideas in the British show, and I like many of the final results - with the exception of most of the rooms designed by Oliver Heath, whom I believe is one granola bar short. Yesterday I watched two pretty terrific rooms that neither couple liked, which was a surprise. In general at least one couple likes the results. While I originally didn't care for LLB's designs, the more I watch, the more I like, chintz suit aside. I believe the best all-round designer has been Graham Wynne; the designer I've often disagreed with - aside from Oliver Heath - is Anna Ryder Richardson. I generally approve of the other designers. If you haven't seen this show, you should watch - it's better than Christopher Lowell and Lynette Jennings.

As for So Graham Norton, this show would never appear on a U.S. broadcast network because it is absolutely raunchy and bizarre. But the host is so tongue-in-cheek, mischevious, and out-and-out gay about it all that I end up screaming in laughter every time I tune in. Even my husband laughs out loud, particularly during the hysterical audience participation segments that start each show. You would not believe what he gets people to confess to about themselves; just last night a young man admitted he used to play a game as a teen wherein he'd...ah, take matters into his own hands, and call for his mother to come up to his room. He'd "win" if he finished transacting business before she came in. The audience and the host broke up, and the man's mother, sitting right next to him in the audience, cracked up as well. She apparently never knew this was going on quite literally under her nose.

What makes the show work is that there's a surprising lack of self-consciousness in the audience, the host...even the guests, whom Norton includes in some hilarious games and discussions. The guests vary from stars of 1980's American TV shows to popular English entertainers, and it's all in good, clean...make that good (only), fun.

Right before writing this blogging, I went to the BBCA's site for this show and played all the video clips; if you have RealPlayer, you can too. I haven't had this much fun since reading the entires in this year's Purple Prose Parody Contest.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

'Laurie Gold' left this comment on 18 Jul 03

David - Wow! You commented about two minutes after I transferred the month of August from blogspot to blog-city. How in the heck did you find it?

TTFN, LLB

'David S' left this comment on 17 Jul 03

You know what is funny about this is that in Britain So Graham Norton isn't even a BBC show but Channel 4.
I guess the BBC is probably better than most Public Service Broadcasters seeing as it is totally loaded, thanks to the good old British license fee.

Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

TV and Me

After my husband and I watched the season-opener for E.R., I realized how little "regular" television we watch and wonder how different we are from other families with cable or satellite. As he waited for the familiar "Tell me again...why do we watch this show?" I thought to myself that we spend a whole lot of time watching things other than broadcast television. His "default" channel would be the Food Network, while I have a whole list of channels I turn to, including:

Home and Garden (more for the home than the garden)
E! (yes, I admit it I'm hooked on sickening Anne Nicole!)
Comedy Central (Jon Stewart rules! Cartman farts!)
BBCA
MTV (until recently I've been a The Real World junkie even as I believe Ozzy's return can't live up to his family's first season; VH1's One Hit Wonders, hosted by the ubiquitous William Shatner is my new music channels' fave)
A&E (and whatever channel is now running Law & Order re-runs; I'd include The Hallmark Channel, now running Northern Exposure, but their censoring of the show really turned me off)
The History Channel
History International
Biography (but not for celebrity biographies)
The Discovery Channel
TV Land
Nickelodeon (if they had all Cosby, all the time, I'd never tune out)
The Disney Channel
HBO
Showtime
CNN
MSNBC
SciFi (did I ever tell you about the 12 6-hour tapes I made of the original Twilight Zone?)

That said, there are very few "sit down and watch" shows for me. I'm generally reading, writing, or otherwise puttering while the T.V.'s on. Given the ability of the modern American to "multi-task," I'm sure I'm not unique in being otherwise occupied while watching television.

Other than Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens, Bernie Mac, The West Wing, Law and Order, Survivor (I think this will be the last season I watch), and E.R. (because my husband loves it), we don't regularly watch any prime time broadcast television anymore. To be sure, we enjoy The Simpsons, King of the Hill (I never watched until my daughter discovered these last two), Nightline, The David Letterman Show (the latter two rapidly being replaced by So Graham Norton on the BBCA), Conan O'Brien, and Saturday Night Live, but those are before or after prime time. (Those of you who grew up w/SNL, as I did, might want to look into Tom Shale's Live From New York; I ordered my copy today).

Just the other day my daughter wandered into our bedroom and joined me to watch Anne of Green Gables on some obscure satellite channel. While we watched she told me which scenes actually came from later books and which scenes weren't true to the books at all. Later that night, my husband and I watched HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, featuring perhaps the only human being more neurotic than Garry Shandling as Larry Sanders (I'm thrilled that his first season is now out on DVD - and it's true that this show never jumped the shark). When I recently read that the dialogue on Curb Your Enthusiasm is improvised, the show went up yet another notch in my estimation. And before going to bed, I tuned in to a late-night showing of the the Food Network's Good Eats. BTW, I am not our family's cook, but I still love watching cooking shows - while I can talk a good game about technique, it's lucky that my husband loves to cook or we'd go hungry in our house.

While most of our TV watching is of the "flipping" variety, there are certain shows we try never to miss, including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Queer as Folk (another show I'm not exactly sure why we watch, but we do), The Chris Isaak Show, and Arli$$, the latter because my husband is the only human being on planet Earth to actually love it, something I've seen confirmed in any number of magazine articles.

Now back to where I started - the season opener for E.R.. I could have gone my whole life without seeing Dr. Romano's arm being sliced off by the blade of a helicopter. Really and truly. I find that show so incredibly depressing week after week that I only force myself to watch it because my husband watches it religiously. And so, at some point each Thursday between 9 and 10 p.m., I turn to my husband and ask, "Tell me again...why do we watch this show?"

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

August 31, 2002

laurielikesbooks Blog for August 2002

laurielikesbooks.blog-city.com — August 2002

The Start of Something New

Today Meg Cabot sent my daughter All-American Girl and Nicola and the Viscount. Both are YA novels/romances, and I plan to read both after having thoroughly enjoyed Princess in Love, which AAR Reviewer Rachel Potter granted Desert Isle Keeper status.

Today Meg Cabot sent my daughter All-American Girl and Nicola and the Viscount. Both are YA novels/romances, and I plan to read both after having thoroughly enjoyed Princess in Love, which AAR Reviewer Rachel Potter granted Desert Isle Keeper status.The great thing about Meg Cabot's contemporary voice is that it's so strong you can "hear" the first person narrative in your head, as though Mia, the heroine of her Princess series, is speaking out loud.

I seem to be on quite a YA glom; not long ago I read Caroline Cooney's Janie series of books because my daughter read the first one for a book report. The Face on the Milk Carton was quite good, although I was surprised to have read such mature themes in a book for 10 year olds.Â My grade for it was a B+. The second book in the series, also good, is Whatever Happened to Janie, which I also graded B+. I didn't enjoy the third book, The Voice on the Radio, nearly so well; it only earned a C from me. That said, however, the final book in the series, What Janie Found, was very good (another B+!), and perhaps the most disturbing of the series. My daughter read the first two books in the series before going to camp; she could easily skip the third, but I told her I'd like her to be a bit older before reading the fourth.

I find that there are many YA books that I enjoy; they're not only enjoyable in and of themselves, but are a good way to talk about things w/preadolescent (and hopefully adolescent!) kids.

That's all for now...I'm off to read Nicola and the Viscount.

Oh - one more thing, any of you looking for a great anthology novella can't go wrong with Donna Simpson'sÂ Love Lessons from the anthology My Dashing Groom, which was published by Zebra in June.Â Shannon Donnelly has a good story in the anthology as well, Border Bride, even if the hero and heroine are riding horses 100 miles a day on English country roads during the Regency. Simpson is an extremely talented Regency Romance author, and Donnelly is also pretty good.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

The Learning Curve

Figuring out this blog business, like everything else I've learned to do online, is probably best not learned after midnight, but as usual, this is when I'm awake... awake with worry. Traditionally, one of our lowest months of the year in terms of un

Figuring out this blog business, like everything else I've learned to do online, is probably best not learned after midnight, but as usual, this is when I'm awake... awake with worry. Traditionally, one of our lowest months of the year in terms of unique visitors, is September. August has not been a low month in the past, and yet, this month our numbers have cratered and I don't know why. Yes, it's summer, people are on vacation and/or getting their kids ready to go back to school, but if we're having a crappy month this month and we have a crappy month in September, I'll be having cramps until October...definitely not a good thing.

All I can do is continue to do the work... to final-edit reviews and post them, to continue our contests and polls, to continue to write At the Back Fence with Robin and Anne, and hope this year's slump is simply a month earlier than it used to be.

Okay, it really is time for bed now, so I'm signing off. Tomorrow while my daughter is in jazz class, I'll get back to Nicola and the Viscount.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

DIK's and Favorites

Posting my old TRR Reviews to AAR has been a very interesting experience. Now that I've done all but the C's (and did start posting them a couple of days ago), I've noticed that many of the B's - originally posted at TRR as 4 heart reviews - have none to little negative criticism at all. I particularly noticed that on the first several I wrote, and on those books written by authors I favored. Being able to go back and add a + or a - by looking at my personal database really brought this home, particularly where B-'s are concerned.

What's funny is that at AAR, I made sure that all reviews that aren't DIK's include some sort of criticism, because after all, the books aren't perfect or they would be DIK's. I'm not sure when I made that decision in my mind; it must have been close to the end of my time w/TRR.

I talked to Robin about this and she said she was "fascinated" reading my old reviews, precisely for the reasons I mentioned above, and because she said it was interesting to see my style develop. In a way, not reviewing online anymore is probably a very good thing for me beyond the entire "separation of duties" things that required my stopping in the first place. It's tough trying to maintain any type of "working relationship" with authors in general given some of the bad reviews we've posted and some of the commentary I've written. At times I wonder whether we'll continue to get authors willing to be interviewed by us, but I know lots of authors "get" us and realize we do more for reading than other venues that seem afraid to show that sometimes the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. I really respect those authors who have gotten both good and bad reviews from us yet are still able to maintain their professional dignity and accept that someone has the right not only to dislike a book, but to say they disliked it. erhaps even more intriguing are those authors who almost always get bad reviews yet continue to send us their books.

I hope to finish uploading the remainder of my old TRR Reviews in the next few weeks, and then will work them into the AAR Reviews Archive.

One last thing - I really hope we can finish out our last round of polling for Favorite Books for Favorite Authors on an up note by having lots of people vote. Fewer people participated in the last round, but I hope we can get more ballots this time; I think we are finally finishing it just as people have petered our on it. Voting ends at midnight, September 10th.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Stupido!

Sometimes being a moron is a good thing! I was just updating my spreadsheet for AAR's hits, unique visitors, and traffic to various pages I keep track of when I noticed my formula for cumulative unique visitors in a month had gone awry and had picked

Sometimes being a moron is a good thing! I was just updating my spreadsheet for AAR's hits, unique visitors, and traffic to various pages I keep track of when I noticed my formula for cumulative unique visitors in a month had gone awry and had picked up one wrong column. Instead of tracking cumulatively the unique visitors we have throughout the month, the formula was actually tracking the cumulative traffic only to our home page. Not everyone who visits AAR goes to the home page, so when I fixed the formula, instead of being literally one week behind, we were actually on target. The formula had gotten messed up around 10 days ago, and if you read an earlier blog entry, you'd know I was getting very, very concerned about the drop-off in traffic. Whew! Glad to know there was no drop-off in traffic; I'd much rather have been a dufus.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

A Variety of Musings

Friday mornings are always busy because that's the day we announce our weekly Trivia Contest winner. Last week we had no entrant with all the correct answers and so extended the contest for another week. For some reason, the Cassie Edwards questions I came up with must have been extra tough. Several people entered but only two got all the answers correct. The new contest will be regarding Bertrice Small - I hope the question about how many RITA awards she's won from RWA isn't out of line, but she does have several Romantic Times awards to fall back on.

Speaking of Bertrice Small, I'm glad AAR Reviewer Heidi Haglin likes some of her books. I've discovered that Heidi really enjoys books in the "old romance" style, those books with "saga" written all over them, those books featuring unique prose stylings. Our complement of reviewers is better with Heidi, and with newer reviewers like Sandy and Megan, who have "upper end" tastes; hey, we'll do anything to save the traditional Regency Romance.

Now on to something entirely different. Our family has become hooked on American Idol. When we flew to California earlier this month to visit my family, our plane left at the ungodly hour of 7 in the morning, which means we had to be at the airport by 5:30, which also means the Admiral's Club was closed and we had to sit with the great unwashed, although at 5:30 in the morning we were part of the great unwashed.

We had just sat down and I started to read the Entertainment Weekly that had arrived at the house the day before when a young woman boldly proclaimed, "Do you see Kelly on the cover? She's my best friend, and here next to me is her mom!" I let her read the magazine article since it was not yet for sale and she showed me the pictures she was taking to share with producers of the show. My husband, daughter, and I met Kelly's mom, cousin, and two best friends and saw pictures of her growing up, singing at school, singing at Six Flags, perhaps even singing at the Ramada Inn. We left the airport with an almost intimate knowledge of Kelly.

Though we'd been "Kelly fans" for a few weeks already, this meeting cemented things. It's Kelly all the way. People who I've told this story are invariably impressed for some reason, and now it's not enough that we watch the show...we now have to vote for "our Kelly." We voted for Kelly again this week but were shocked when Tamyra lost. The expressions on the judges' faces mirrored our own. I had liked Justin for a few weeks but soon discovered if you close your eyes while he sings, he somehow doesn't sound as good. It seems certain now that Kelly will win, but the rumors we've heard about computer programs dialing in millions of votes has sullied my American Idol experience.

Even so, it's hard to imagine the winner will really become a long-term star. Sam Harris may sing the best rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but he's hardly a household name, and I'm pretty sure O-Town is no more than a memory. I think the best that can come of all this is that producers "discover" Tamyra and Kelly.

Back to romance to end this entry...I'm about half through Jayne Ann Krentz' The Wedding Night, one of those MIRA reprints of an earlier series title. This one was originally written in 1991 but has an earlier feel. Krentz really seems to like writing artistic heroines who are perceived to be naive and unschooled in any and all knowledge of business because this is how the heroine in this book is seen, and the heroine in the last book I read by her - The Ties that Bind - is seen (I read that one last week). That heroine really was a flake about business; I haven't read enough of this one to know if Angie is as well. The Ties that Bind was published in the mid-80's; it's surprising The Wedding Night wasn't written years earlier as well. We won't even get into the similarities of so many of her series romance heroes....

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Weird, huh?

I find such a sense of well-being in catching up on my book database, which is what I did tonight for a half hour or so, inputting about 8 books. For some reason, gathering up a pile of books I've read, entering their grades, status (keep if B- or gr

I find such a sense of well-being in catching up on my book database, which is what I did tonight for a half hour or so, inputting about 8 books.

For some reason, gathering up a pile of books I've read, entering their grades, status (keep if B- or greater/trade if C+ or lower), and the year read before putting the book in its place either in my library or the "trade" box really gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I think it may in some way remind of me finishing tasks on my "to-do" lists when I had a real job. I don't know that that's the case, but it's a plausible explanation. Either way, I realize I'm totally anal about the whole thing and don't care a whit. What is even more puzzling is that I am totally anal and obsessive about caring for my books when mail could be piled up in the kitchen for weeks and paperwork unsorted for just as long. I think I need some sort of 12-step program: Hello, my name is Laurie, and I'm a nut.

I also got three AAR Bookbags processed and ready to mail out tomorrow. I still haven't decided whether the decision to do bookbags was a good one. We're "in the black," but they're a lot of trouble and not as many people have ordered them as I would have liked. One good thing about them, though, is that I try to be conscientious about mailing them out fairly soon after I receive payment for them, which means I tend to process other mail sooner than I would ordinarily. I'm sure the bill collectors appreciate that.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

American Gods and Grand Avenue

I want to talk about two of the books I read this summer, both of which I came to with high expectations. In both cases I was disappointed, albeit at different levels. The biggest disappointment was Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which AAR Reviewer Heidi Haglin granted DIK status. I consider myself a fairly quick reader - although not as quick as I used to be for some unknown reason - but this book took an inordinately long time for me to get through - close to a week. At close to 600 pages, it's a lengthy book, but one I didn't find was a page turner until I'd finished about 2/3. In other words, much of the first 400 pages wasn't nearly as gripping as I'd hoped.

Once at this point, however, I couldn't put the book down. All the twists and turns in plotting, characters who turned out to be other than who I thought they were, death, torture, irony, and a literary Spanish Prisoner con made the last two hundred pages quite interesting, but having to literally slog through 400 previous pages was something I hadn't counted on with Gaiman, whom I've read before.

He can surely write explosively and with a variety of prose styles, but I think the whole "run-down" aspect of the "gods" is what my real issue with the book turned out to be. I knew the gods were on the down and out going in to the book, but I expected more famous gods than the ones I read about. In the end, that was my real problem with American Gods.

The other book that proved somewhat disappointing was Joy Fielding's Grand Avenue. I realize it would be foolish to expect any other book by this author to live up to her achievement in The First Time, which I granted DIK status a couple of years ago, but Grand Avenue was too much in that traditional "four women friends" mode that too much women's fiction relies on these days.

Since reading The First Time, I read several of Fielding's earlier suspense novels. A couple were pretty good, but some were just okay, which meant I didn't go into Grand Avenue with overly high expectations. Grand Avenue, newly out in paperback (the hardcover was published last year) is women's fiction with ominous undertones. It was an easy, quick read - I managed the more than 500 page book in an airport and airplane ride between Los Angeles and Dallas - but it did not leave me satisfied. I didn't mind that many of the lead characters were morally ambiguous at times because that can make them seem like real people, but there was too much creepy behavior going around to make most of them realistic. And other than showing how early promise can turn into personal horror, I don't know what message the author had in mind. On the other hand, since Fielding is adept at writing psychologically based thrillers, the creepy undertones were something many other women's fiction authors couldn't manage.

It's tough to read books by authors who are capable of writing great books because in the back of my mind, even though I try to push it out, other books are judged by impossible standards. In Gaiman's case, I'd read good books by him before and in Fielding's case, some okay, some good, and one so good it was sublime. As a reading junkie, I'm always looking for the next "fix," the next great book. Luckily enough, in between reading these two books, I read one such book...but I'm not ready to talk about it yet, although I did mention it briefly on one of our message boards earlier this summer. Stay tuned.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Bizarre Online Behavior

What the hell is wrong with people? A situation has unfolded over the last week at AAR that is so bizarre it warrants further discussion, but I don't think doing so on AAR itself is appropriate. It does, however, make for perfect blog fodder.

About a week ago a man started a thread on our Reviews Message Board entitled "your reveiws are just juvinile." Forgetting the spelling errors, which caused many readers to take him to task, his post was really about our grading system and that since we're no longer in grade school, why the grades?

Many readers did respond, and then late, late Friday night the gentleman came back and responded to each and every post. It was redundant and rather odd considering that many of his responses included text that made him sound more like a pirate at Disney World than the husband of an author, which is who he turned out to be - "ARR Arrr Arr Arr."

When I read his post about being the husband of an author, I posted that I'd prefer the thread to be ended for one and all and for him to email me privately if he had further comments to make. I won't bore you with more of the details, but I did explain our grading system, talked a bit about the grades his wife had received, and mentioned that it really wasn't kosher for him not to let us know his relationship to the author for a full week.

He did email me privately; I haven't responded as yet because I'm not sure what to say, but nobody else heeded my request to end the discussion. No, we had some people who said they won't buy the author's books any more, some people who refused to believe it was the author's husband at all and just some loon out to embarrass her, a reader asking me to delete the entire thread to prevent the author from further embarrassment because of her husband, and a post from someone who thought it was sweet that a husband would do this for his wife.

We also heard from another author with the same publisher who has only received good reviews at AAR but likes to pop in occasionally when there are negative threads about an author even though she swears up, down, and sideways that she'll never darken our door again - she finds us so morally reprehensible that she removed a link to us from her site. Even though to this point there was only one post by an AAR person - mine - this author seemed to feel AAR staffers were attacking not only the author but her husband.

Can I say that, in my view, some of the posts had an orchestrated quality about them? If the author herself had written me to request I delete the thread, I would have done so in a moment, but to do so without her request would be censoring the board, which I don't like to do. Here's what I think happened based on his email to me and my observations thereafter:

The author's husband was culling the Internet looking for mentions of his wife to add to the web site he's built for her (and here's a word to the wise on that: building a web site that requires users to have a "passport" to visit and that don't even show up on a Google search because they're buried in MSN is probably not the best way to promote an author) and discovered our reviews. Two were positive and several were not. As any husband might be insulted by a slight to their wife, he posted about it, but wasn't totally honest in doing so (okay, so most husbands would be insulted but would probably not do what he did - I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt - "ARR Arrr Arr Arr"). He came back a week later and responded to each and every response to his original post, and shortly thereafter, word got back to some in the writing community - and/or the author herself - that the author's husband was making her look bad.

The smart (and brave) move at this point would have been for the author to contact me and ask me to delete the thread, which I had already told staff I'd do yesterday if she contacted me. But instead of doing that, the decision was made - either with or without the author's knowledge - to "circle the wagons" behind the author, which is why I believe that other author and some of her fans posted.

I've now made another request that people just leave it alone. In that request I also wrote that I would never not buy a book based on anyone's behavior unless it affected me personally and that I would probably read another book by the author if it sounded good. What I didn't say "officially" at AAR was that it was bad enough for her husband to have done this, but that the damage control has been as "juvinile" as our grading system is purported to be. This whole thing could have gone away yesterday if the author had simply emailed me and requested it. Instead, many readers who may never have read her in the past will have a sour taste in their mouth whenever they encounter one of her books at the bookstore.

I haven't "named names" in this entry because I try not to humiliate authors when there's been a mis-step like this, and though I realize it won't be hard for anyone to find the thread(s) in question at this point, in a few weeks the thread(s) will be archived and deleted from the message board and stored only on my computer.

The moral of this story from my perspective is this: women, watch your husbands! And secondly, the fastest route from Point A to Point B is a direct line; circling the wagons never seems to work.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Teach Your Children Well

Many of us who write at AAR read YA books on occasion. My daughter is one of the coolest kids she knows since Meg Cabot "knows" her personally and sends her signed copies of every YA book she writes (she's almost finished with All-American Girl; you can look forward to her thoughts on the book when we post our "official" AAR Review of it). She's about to start reading Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, which I'll admit I bought her even though I wasn't sure it would be "appropriate reading" (an on-going struggle since she was eight and ready to move from the children's section of the library to the YA section). So, when a couple of AAR's staff mentioned they loved the Rennison book (even compared it with Bridget Jones's Diary), I asked whether they thought it would okay for my daughter (now 10) to read it. Mary Novak gave me her view of the book, and mentioned that my concern over my daughter's reading has come up more than once. Since I'd not had a problem with her reading the Princess Diaries books, she thought I wouldn't have a problem with Snogging.

Reading Mary's post about my concern over my daughter's reading yesterday cracked me up because on Saturday a very funny thing happened in our house. As a parent I'm pretty strict about things I consider age-appropriate - no leather mini-skirts for first graders, no tummy-baring mini t-shirts for jazz class for 10 year olds, PG-13 movies usually okay but not always and "don't talk to me about R-rated movies until you're at least 13," which was the age I was when I saw my first R-rated movie - The Godfather. But even though I'm strict, I'm not conservative; I just have a sense that kids need to be kids and not miniature teenagers before it's time. As a result, she's allowed to pick any book from the library to read, and for the most part, most magazines are okay too...as long as I peruse articles in magazines like Cosmo Girl first.

There are some really bad movies out there that I love - they're not in They Stole Hitler's Brain territory, but I've seen them over and over on UHF stations. Last week I bought used copies of two of these movies, both rated PG-13, on E-Bay. One was She, a 1985 movie I actually once mentioned in an ATBF column. The other was 1987's Cherry 2000, starring Melanie Griffith. The movies arrived late last week and since we were having a "mom-designated sloth day" Saturday, I let my daughter choose one of these two movies to watch, letting her know up front they were very weird and so bad they were good. She chose Cherry 2000.

Having never actually seen Cherry 2000 in all its un-cut glory, I was unprepared for a few scenes that I'd never seen before (it was even more violent than I'd remembered), and when my husband wandered in - and believe me, he thinks my tastes in movies and books are extremely odd at times, and who could blame him? - he was just in time to hear this bon mot come rolling off the tongue of a character in the movie: "Sh_t in a hat."

I couldn't help myself and burst out laughing...and so did my daughter. My husband smiled, but gave me one of his "I can't believe I married a kook" looks. We continued to watch the movie, and when it was over and our daughter had left the room, he looked at me again with the devil in his eyes and said, "If we get a call from the new school about her telling someone to "sh_t in a hat," it's your fault.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

When Authors Hit Their Stride

I think it's interesting to look at a writer's backlist and see when they really hit their stride. I read a Linda Howard reissue earlier this week of Tears of the Renegade, first published in April 1985. Her first two books - An Independent Wife and

I think it's interesting to look at a writer's backlist and see when they really hit their stride. I read a Linda Howard reissue earlier this week of Tears of the Renegade, first published in April 1985. Her first two books - An Independent Wife and All That Glitters, both published in 1982 - are books she's gone on record as saying are regressive and not recommended reading. We have bad reviews for both those books, so I've never read them, but I have read her 1984 release - Come Lie With Me - and her two 1985 releases - Sarah's Child and now, Tears of the Renegade.

Of all her books that I've read, Come Lie With Me is the weakest. I don't think it relates to the storyline itself of a physical therapist hired to help a man walk again after an accident; I think it's because Howards' heroes can't be helpless for that long (at least physically). Yes, the hero in White Lies is also in horrendous shape initially, but it doesn't take long for the alpha-to-the-max hero to assert himself.

As for Sarah's Child and Tears of the Renegade, it took me a long time to sort out my feelings on the former; people seem to love it or hate it based on the hero's behavior. Whenever I have a strong visceral reaction to a book, as I did with Sarah, it tends to bump my grade up, and I had to sort out in my mind how much of a bastard Rome Matthews was to Sarah Harper. Though in real life I'd have no patience w/Rome, I must say that part of my emotional response to the book came out of Rome's being a prick. As a result, the book ended up being a B- for me, not the DIK my friend (and bookstore owner) Delores thought it was, nor the D AAR Reviewer Marianne Stillings thought it was, but a B-, which is a qualified recommendation from me.

Tears of the Renegade didn't fare as well; I gave it the same C+ I gave Come Lie With Me. I think had I not known who the author was, I'd have thought it was Elizabeth Lowell rather than Linda Howard. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it did have the same over-blown qualities I've seen in some of Lowell's series releases. Both write a particular kind of hero in their series books, but Lowell's remain bastards for longer than Howards' do, and Howards' heroes aren't always the same kind of bastard, if that makes sense (she's even written some that aren't bastards, but they're still so masculine you can practically see testosterone venting from their bodies, and therefore "cocksure" in the truest sense of the word).

For instance, the hero in Almost Forever, the sequel to Sarah's Child, begins a relationship with a woman in order to get business information from her and when she discovers the truth after they've become intimate, it takes considerable effort on his part to win her back. Max Conroy is no Rome Matthews; he doesn't treat Claire Westbrook with overt cruelty, but he does lie to her...and use her for his company's benefit. Her devastation is no less complete in her mind than what readers feel about what Rome does to Sarah, but to be honest, there's really no comparison. My grade for Almost Forever is a B; it would actually have been higher but for one thing that bothered the hell out of me - the book was published in 1986 when women had already been liberated past the secretarial pool, yet much is made of Claire's "career" as a secretary.

After 1985, Howard's series titles hit their stride; I've read none so far that I graded lower than a B-. Her heroes seem to suck all the air out of the room with their want of the heroines, something I find unique to Howard. Her heroines often have a quiet dignity that becomes poignant near the end of the book; this is something both Howard and Lowell manage quite well, even if their heroines lose weight and become fragile (why can't a heroine ever go on an eating binge when she's devastated rather than losing her appetite?). Of all the authors who have come to the end of their series careers, it's Howard I'll miss the most.

Some readers might say that the hero in Tears is no more of a prick than the hero in Duncan's Bride, who also needed to be hit upside the head fairly late in the story before he realized he was wrong in his treatment of the heroine. Still, for me the former is "Lowell-like" while the latter is not and I think that has to do with the heroines in both books. The heroine in Duncan's Bride fights back, and though I find the mail-order bride scenario unbelievable in contemporary settings, Duncan comes thisclose to DIK status for me. Maddie learns to give as good as she gets from Reese Duncan, and each time she asserts herself, the book gets more intense, sexier, and better. Duncan's Bride, btw, was published in 1990. It's my favorite by Linda Howard.

You can see development of other authors as you look at their backlists. I've said before that some romance authors really peak with their first book and it's downhill from there. I think that's because so many are expected to crank out one or two (or more) books per year; authors of non-genre fiction don't seem to have to do that, and because of the time, their books often get better. That said, while some romance authors really only had one or two good books in them, others clearly get better over time, as their talent develops.

Julie Garwood comes to mind first, although since I read her backlist backwards, it's hard to say. But Julia Quinn has definitely gotten better, and I say this even though I gave her first book - Splendid, published in 1995, DIK status. By 1999, and How to Marry a Marquis, along with her anthology contribution to Scottish Brides she'd clearly hit her stride. And then there's Nora Roberts. Her first book - Irish Thoroughbred is such a stereotype-filled book that it's hard to believe she wrote it...and yet, it was her first book, published in 1981. Its sequel, Irish Rose, was written many years later, in 1988, and yet I can't say I liked it much better. I really can't say that because I wasn't able to finish it.

On the other hand, I'm currently reading a reissue of Second Nature, first published in 1986, and last month read three of our four Cordinia books, the first of which was originally published in 1986 as well. She'd clearly hit her stride by then; while none is a favorite book, two of the three Cordinia books I've finished so far were in the B range for me. I'm not finished with Second Nature yet, but it's good (the hero, who is a famous horror novelist had an earlier career - and female pseudonym - as a romance novelist!) and it's in a two-in-one volume with One Summer, which I'll probably read next.

Stay tuned.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

Why I Love Simon

I think it must be true that I'm a mean, mean person. I was listening to the Kidd Kraddick in the Morning show (a local but nationally syndicated radio show) with my daughter this morning on the way to school. Kidd and Kelly Rasberry were doing the post-show re-cap of last night's American Idol. I woke up to hear an interview with Nikki McKibbin's mom, who called in from the airport (both Nikki and Kelly are "local gals"), which was fine - but did you see the expression on her mom's face last night when they announced Nikki had been given the boot? Pissed off doesn't even begin to describe it!

But then they started ragging on Simon and how rude he was last night when he:

Actually answered the question put to him about who he thought would be voted off while Randy and Paula gave the "nice" answer that didn't answer the question at all; and
Told Kelly how phenomenal she was last night while he was giving Nikki some final words, which included him - very nicely, I thought - telling her that she finishing 3rd out of 10,000 is something she should be extremely proud about.

So again I must ask...what the hell is wrong with people? Simon Cowell is the only honest person on American Idol, even if what he's doing is for show. I had no interest in hearing Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul be diplomatic during the interminable hour it took to announce the finalists last night. Randy, Randy, Randy - what a name dropper! And Paula Abdul has no credibility whatsoever. She would probably tell Anna Nicole Smith how great it is that she's taught her dog that cute stuffed-bear humping trick - and, btw, is Anna Nicole's lawyer a total creep or what? I had no idea that reading Henry Miller's sex scenes on the way to the dentist was the preferred method for keeping your mind off the pain. But I digress....

Do people really prefer "nice" over honesty? Maybe it's true that Simon doesn't have to be as brutal as he is, but I think it's more interesting than the pablum served up by Paula Abdul. Would America really be watching American Idol if the judges were Paula, Randy, and the Dunk Man?

I like to think that AAR is the online romance novel world's equivalent to Simon, although we're not nearly as sardonic or harsh in our assessments. Can you imagine what would happen if we included in a review: "Author X - you have no business being published in the same month as Madeline Hunter or J.D. Robb. You are a talentless hack and your publisher should be sued for humilating you in this manner."? I'm going to try and remember Simon the next time we're told how mean we are. I wonder...does he go up to women on the street and tell them they have ugly babies?

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Comments

'A visitor' left this comment on 11 Nov 04

Well I love louis Walsh, hes just great, meeting would put electric in me. love you Louis. love Bridget.xxx God Bless the Irish.

Bridget [sarah@smith.me.uk]

'A visitor' left this comment on 25 Nov 03

i love simon rawing 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thr

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