I'm Ba-ack!

I'm back! I know you missed me, right? Seriously though, it's been almost a year since the last post. I know the last date says July 2011, but I didn't post that post until October, so that's when I'm going from--11 months ago.

There have been a few adventures since then: Gatlinburg, working, Long Island and the Hamptons, concerts, cleaning (EPIC amounts of cleaning and de-cluttering) and my favorite part: reading!

I'm going to try to do some major updating on what I've been reading lately and do some reviews of those books. Even though I'm an adult, my favorite things to read are YA novels, so the majority of what you'll be seeing are YA. With that being said, a preview of coming attractions is in order.

**I wish I could upload a picture of these covers, but I have them in ebook editions and with copyright laws...yeah, don't want to go to jail.


Upcoming reviews:
1. The Premonitions Series (Amy Bartol): Inescapable, Intuition, Indebted and soon, Incendiary.

2. The Elementals Series (Brigid Kemmerer): Storm, Spark (full novels) and Elemental (novella)

3. The Lux Series (Jennifer Armentrout): Obsidian, Onyx, Opal (soon!) and Shadows (novella)

4. The Significance Series (Shelly Crane): Significance, Accordance, Defiance, and Independence (soon)

My next posts will review these series in order, then I'll move on to other books that I have in paperback and hardback, so I can actually post pictures.

Until next time, read, think, and be merry!

Finally

I am no longer suffering under the tyranny of grad school. Say it with me: YAY! It is such a relief to finally be finished with "that side of the desk." I feel like I can breathe again. As a testament to how busy I've been since then, let me just say that I finished my graduate degree in April 2010 and I'm just now updating.

Poor Randy; he's so neglected.

Since then, I've been busy with lots of life-suck, good stuff and general stuff.

Lately though, my mind has been on marriage and weddings and being an adult. Ugh. Not so much fun--some days I think I'd rather go back to high school and being a kid again. At other times, I'm so glad I'm finally to the point where I can just do whatever the heck I want without worrying about anyone else. It is incredbly liberating. For the most part, I lean toward the "happy adult" side of the scales. The wedding stuff comes in just from the whole idea that when you become a full-fledged adult, you get married, watching so many of my friends get married and being in one of those weddings. I just don't really see myself as the "getting married type." I'm too picky! How in the world are you supposed to decide that you can live with and exist with this person for the rest of your life?! I honestly think I'd get sick of somebody under my feet all the time. Maybe I'm wrong, but at least at this point of my life, I'm happy being single. I in no way want to be tied down to someone. I'm getting going with independence and all that goes with that. It's pretty nice and I don't want to give that up any time soon.

Call me crazy, but I'd be perfectly happy doing my own thing without having to clear it with someone else; to do what I want, when I want; to pick up and leave; to be myself; to have time to myself, etc. I'll just be that old lady one day who is completely eccentric and tells everyone exactly what she thinks, no matter what.

On a completely different note, I've figured some things out about myself.
1. I like what I like and make no apologies for it.
2. Trust? Not so much.
3. Don't lie to me.
4. Don't take me for an idiot. I'm not.
5. I despise being put in the middle.
6. I am a feminist in a lot of ways.
7. I believe it letting people do what people do. (Todd Snider)
8. Judgmental, bigoted, obnoxious, mean and otherwise rude behavior really cheeses me off.
9. I have really eclectic taste in a lot of things.
10. I hate it when people refuse to listen to me, especially when you ask what I think or about my opinion.

I've had a really frustrating time of it the last few years, if you can't tell.

Signing off for now,
me

I'm still here.

Though I've been MIA since October, I am indeed, still here. Graduate school is doing its best to kick me when I'm down, hence the prolonged absence. I only have a little over a month left until I am finished with my graduate degree! Suffice to say, I am counting down the days.

I know I've said it before, but I am intending to change the focus of Randy the Blog. The change is coming, even though it may take a while. There will be book reviews, recipes, concert reviews, music reviews (forewarning: I am a music snob. I am very persnickety about what I like. If I don't love it, I HATE it.), movie reviews, general ramblings and hopefully, some pictures. It is my sincere hope that once I am out of school I will have more time to keep up with poor Randy.

Speaking of music, I had one of my classical music cd's with me in the car the other day, with the windows down and the volume cranked up. You should have seen the odd looks I was getting from people next to me when I was stopped at red lights. I guess it is pretty funny/odd/unexpected to see someone completely rocking out to the "William Tell Overture," "Summer" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, "Water Music" from Handel, or "The Torreador's Song" from Carmen, but there I was, conducting my own imaginary orchestra, but hey, that's just me. I'm a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Yes, I got that phrase from somewhere, but I can't remember where. So, if you are the genius that came up with that phrase, I credit you and esteem you. I am not trying to commandeer your genius.

On to the books. I haven't had nearly as much time to read lately as I am accustomed to having. This is physically painful to me. Seriously. However, I have been able to read a few really good books that I must share:
1. The Vampire Diaries Series (including books 1 and 2 of The Vampire Diaries: The Return) (L.J. Smith)
2. Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)
3. An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)
4. Witness (Karen Hesse)
5. Interred With Their Bones (Jennifer Caldwell, I think)

I'm still working on The Last Precinct (Patricia Cornwell). It's a lot more dense than the above YA fiction. With the amount of brain strain I've had from school, I've been more prone to read non-grisly murder mysteries. I had to ditch The Dandelion Killer. The writing was not to my taste and I lost patience with it by the time I was 100 pages in. I was being indulgent to wait that long before throwing it into the recesses of my closet where things have a tendency to disappear, never to be heard from again. This is impressive as my closet is less than 9 square feet of space. Alas, I digress.

So what is my taste? It's complicated to explain. Can I describe it with a list (with possible annotations)? Let's see...
1. Writing that doesn't "sound" forced. It should read with the words flowing effortlessly within the mind. Make me kick your words around in my head, make me think, make me savor the words. Paint a picture, show without telling, be poetic.
2. Voice. Let your characters have a unique personality. Give the book a tone, a mood. Give the book an element of individuality. (Like I said, it's hard to explain.)
3. Snark. Need I say more? I'm a fan of sarcasm, cynicism, satire, all that good stuff.
4. Cleverness and wit. It goes along with snark and all of that, but I really admire writing that is clever and characters with razor sharp wit.
5. Don't go too far beyond the realms of possibility. Yes, I am a fan of science fiction and fantasy, but you need some aspect of realism to ground a text. Don't leave me completely within a created world or atmosphere with no frame of reference, no possibility for personal connections to the text.
6. Feeling. Make me connect with a book. I want to feel something when I read--make me cry, laugh, scream, cower in the corner with fear, wonder about the ideas presented, smile...shake me to my core.
7. A profound lack of sap. I HATE SAP. Saccharine sweetness, cutesy constructs and rot your teeth tropes really grate on my nerves. "Life's not a song, life isn't bliss. Life is just this. It's living" (Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More With Feeling"). Crappy sap is not realistic. It's contrived; it's fake; it's an abomination.
**branching off a bit...
8. Characters I can relate to. Don't give me a weak protagonist. If the person I'm supposed to be cheering for is a spineless lump of humanoid cells, I'm not going to care. I'll be cheering for the antagonist to wipe the floor with their sorry hide. Likewise, avoid stereotypes, archetypes and stock characters. Give me someone who is flawed yet likeable. My favorite character from Romeo and Juliet? Mercutio the Mouth. There's someone with personality. Forget fickle Romeo or the sobbing sad sack Juliet.
9. The Unexpected. If I know what's going to happen by the first page or even the first chapter, what's to entice me to read further? I probably will read further, in the hope of a shock in there somewhere. Maybe I'm a masochist.
10. Development. Give me some conflict, some inner turmoil for the characters, work up to changes in the plot and characters. Please, please, do NOT rush through this important part of the book/text/whatever. Show me how the characters get to be the way the are, show me how their relationships change, how the plot thickens or the problems change.

Maybe I have seriously high expectations... This is not even an exhaustive list of things that I look for in quality reading material (this list is also applicable to movies).

I noticed as I was reading through this post...I've been quite alliterative in my writing this time. How oddly obnoxious.

On a vastly different note, here's some music you should check out:
Gary Allan: Get Off on the Pain
Eric Church: Carolina
Cross Canadian Ragweed: Happiness and All the Other Things
Miranda Lambert: Revolution
Eli Young Band: Jet Black and Jealous
Scott Wiggins Band: Burn
The entire catalog of music from these artists is required listening as is that of:
Randy Rogers Band
Micky and the Motorcars
Reckless Kelly
Jack Ingram

"My first love is an angry, painful song" ("Wicked Twisted Road," Reckless Kelly)

My first foray into blogging in a while has gone on for far too long, so for now, I bid you adieu, dear readers.

au revoir!

There aren't words

There really aren't words, but yet, here I am typing away. I just finished reading one of the greatest books ever written. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is beyond description. I started reading this book when it arrived from Amazon, October 12. I finished it this evening. I could have read it more quickly, and I certainly wanted to, but alas I was prevented from doing so by factors beyond my control. But that's neither here nor there.

This book has taken up a permanent residence in my mind and in my heart. I've been reading aloud my favorite parts to anyone who will listen--mostly my indulgent family, who've long since realized how crazy obsessive I am about books and such, and very kindly listen to their little rambler. There has been no shortage of these favorite moments. I laughed out loud several times as I read, enjoying the odd humor in such a grim setting. It works. It was so easy to picture every event in my head, sometimes even when I didn't want to. I won't say any more than that...

I never thought I would ever sympathize with Death as a character. I mean really, it's Death. Reading The Book Thief, I sympathized with Death. I wanted to console him, to thank him for his brutal honesty, and I did pity him for his eternal task. In fact, I think a little bit of Death died in this book. As a character, he sometimes tells information too soon for my taste, but for the purposes of the story, I understand why this was done. Another small thing about Death? He's a poet.

The entirety of The Book Thief is tragic, beautiful and poetic in its language and content. Zusak says so much with very few words, each word and phrase carefully chosen and constructed so as to give the most force. Case in point: instead of saying: "what Mama said," Zusak writes "the contents of Mama's voice" which tells me that not only is Mama's voice significant to the listener, but also that her words are so heavy and full of meaning that her voice carries the words and contains them. These words are not simply said, they are DELIVERED. This is just one instance of many supremely constructed phrases and asides within the novel. One must really take their time when reading so as to really understand and appreciate what is being said. This is mastery of craftsmanship and it deserves to be savored.

Finally, I want to offer the book my apology. I could not give it all that it deserves. I freely admit that this book made me cry often. They were not the ladylike tears that are beautiful in their sorrow, sliding gracefully down the face. Oh, no. These tears were big, sloppy, heavy tears and wracking sobs that shook me, making me close the book and push it away because I couldn't read any further. These tears were noisy. And yet, I had to come back, I had to finish. The book was like a drug--it demanded that my addiction be satisfied. I apologize though, because I couldn't give the book all the tears that it needed. I ran out of tears before I ran out of the need to cry.

So I sit here at my computer, red-eyed, head achy, and emotionally spent, offering my useless words to talk about a book that deserves more than I, or any one person (prove me wrong, please) could give it. Please, everyone, read this book. Take your time, love the characters, make the book a part of you.

p.s. I won't talk about the other characters in the novel, because I don't want to spoil them for you with my take on them. Besides, you need to meet them for yourself. I feel guilty enough talking about Death.

p.s.s. Even though there aren't words, I had to say something.

More books for the book list....more will follow....

1. Hood (umm, don't remember the author)
2. Scarlet (See above: same unremembered author)
3. Tuck (again, same unremembered author)
4. The Vampire Diaries (L.J. Smith)
5. The Outlaws of Sherwood (umm, don't remember this author either)

*** I'm on a Robin Hood kick... And oh, by the way, the third season of this fabulously under-appreciated show premieres this Saturday, September 12 at 9 pm on BBC America. Watch it people. Good stuff.

WE ARE ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!