TILT: Book Posters: Little Monsters Edition

I've been saving a few of these prints for a while now, since I took my (unintended) break. But now I'm back, with a shiny new Things I Love Thursday, little girls & monsters edition! Kind of sounds like Lady Gaga right? :)

(as always, if you are the owner of one of these lovely pics 

& do not want your art referenced, please contact me!)

Books Can Take You Anywhere by TheLittleFox --such a pretty little print, don't you think? Click on the link for the full pic, she looks like she's floating away to adventureland.

I <3 Books by Fishcakesoboy --from the description "Educated narwhals love a good novel, doncha know." Lol...love it!

Reading Aloud to a Monster by GenevieveSantos --do you think they're reading Where the Wild Things Are? I love how "life-like" the monster looks. I would name him George. Or Pablo.

Little Lady Godiva by TheArtfulBumblebee --she may be Lady Godiva, but she looks like Pippi Longstocking to me and I love it!! Maybe it's Pippi playing Lady? 

Review: "Saga Vol 1"

Saga: Vol 1 by Brian K Vaughan
4 out of 5 stars

Brian K Vaughan is another one of my favorite graphic novelists. (After Terry Moore and Neil Gaiman, of course.) He has done 2 of my favorite series: Y: The Last Man and Runaways, so when my dad said I needed to read Saga, I agreed readily. He left one important point out though when telling me about it and I'm not going to be mean like him, so I'll tell you right now: Volume 1 ends on a cliffhanger and Volume 2 is not due out until July. He claims he didn't know before he read it...sure. ;) So that said, I would highly recommend this series, but you might want to wait until you can at least have 2 volumes to read.

Many reviewers call this "Romeo & Juliet meet Star Wars" and I'd have to agree with them. The beginning of the story is set up as two star-crossed lovers trying to be together for the sake of their unborn child, but then it's revealed that they are from different worlds. Literally. And those two worlds just happen to be at war with each other. And the two lovers? Soldiers for their individual homes. So yeah, it gets complicated real fast. Not to mention all the supernatural beings: the main male, Marko, has ram horns; the main female, Alana, fairy wings; there's a bounty hunter with a giant cat who can detect lies; dudes with TV's for heads (I'm not sure what their deal is yet); ghost kids; and lots more.

In case you can't tell from the cover, this is not a graphic novel for kids or young teens. The first page is Alana giving birth, graphically. It's got a lot of sex (a sex planet for example) and violence, so if that's going to offend you, I'd skip this one for sure. Besides that, this is a great story with lots of twists and turns. The artwork is really great, too detailed in some spots, but that can't really be considered a complaint, can it? I honestly can't wait for the next volume to come out. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I Most Recommend

It feels good to be doing a Top Ten Tuesday again...I have obviously been in a blogging slump lately, but I feel like I'm moving out of it now. Hopefully. I think. Writing yesterday's review at the library over the weekend was lots of fun (except for the creeper who sat down at my table) and I'm beginning to feel that urge to write ALL THE REVIEWS!! :) Because, uh, I haven't stopped reading in this slump and I now have a huuuuge list of books to review. Heh. Anyway, on to the Top10! These are 10 books that I would absolutely recommend to almost anyone.

1. Harry Potter. I know, I'm so predictable. But seriously, I would recommend it to kids, adults, readers, non-readers, wizards, muggles, anyone.

(want more HP funs? check out my pinterest board!)

2. Anne of Green Gables --definitely the first one, if nothing else. Young girls with big imaginations will love this one.

3. The Thing About Jane Spring --I recommend this one all the time. It's a little-known book but is super cute and I think it would make a great movie. Jane is a no-nonsense lawyer who doesn't understand why she can't "get" a man. After a Doris Day movie marathon, she decides to do a complete overhaul of her life and it goes from there. This book is part of the reason I'm so excited to read Going Vintage, because they sound very similar.

4. Cannery Row --if you're going to read Steinbeck, skip Of Mice and Men and The Pearl...read this one instead. There's no puppies or women getting accidentally killed, no babies getting stung by scorpions, no one shooting their best friends in the back of the head for their own good. You still get the good part of Steinbeck with all the descriptions and feelings but none of the bad Steinbeck.

5. Anna & The French Kiss --one of the best contemporary, young adult, romances around right now. If you haven't read it, here's my non-spoilery review. (And have you been living under an Internet-less rock??) And if you have read it, how about checking out my favorite bits? :)

6. To Kill a Mockingbird --everyone should have/want to read this book. It's still one of the most important and relevant stories young people should hear.

7. The Book Thief --along the same lines as TKAM, this book has such an incredible message. The BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words...She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.

8. The Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley or any books you read as a young child/early teen. :) There's such comfort in knowing a book or series by heart and knowing it will always be there for you. Another one for me would be The Hunky-Dory Dairy. Or maybe Christopher Pike, with his teenage sex and murder books and cheesy, neon, 80s-tastic covers lol.

9. Morganville Vampires --this is one of my favorite supernatural series. Vampires? In Texas? Yes, please! :) And I just realized I am 3 books behind yikes! 

10.Strangers in Paradise --This is truly my favorite graphic novel series and you are missing out if you haven't read it. Terry Moore has a knack for getting into your heart and twisting it all up. He is a master storyteller of relationships, love, hate, women, revenge, deceit, and so much more. Katchoo and Francine will be some of your most loved characters after this. I highly, highly recommend this one and encourage you to take advantage of the new omnibus set he is releasing in July. You can preorder it on his site and if I had an extra $100, I would order it in a heartbeat. 

Review: "Twelfth Night" Classic a Month #3.2013

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
3 out of 5 stars

This is another classic that I was kind of iffy about. I picked it because of Just One Day (and the movie She's the Man, but sshh, let's ignore that!) and I wanted to branch out and try a play again. Well, let me just say this first: Shakespeare is hard to read. The dude likes to make up his own words and phrases and sometimes they work... "If music be the food of love, play on, 
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die."

And sometimes...they don't. "Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. So, not only do you have to deal with his made-up words, but you also have to read the old English style and figure out if he is actually being dirty when he says "I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off." Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is lol. Pervert. Luckily, I knew the basic story so it wasn't too hard. But I totally get why kids complain so much about reading Shakespeare. This play is meant to be one of his great comedies and yeah, I giggled a little, but I don't think you can just read a Shakespeare play thru once and expect to get it. I think you really need to immerse yourself, reading it several times, watching plays or adaptations, etc...

So what is this play actually about? Well, I guess it's about love but also about trickery and deceit. Viola is a young woman who has just lost her brother in a shipwreck (but not really, he's alive and thinks he lost HER) and decides to dress up as a man to work for this Duke Orsino guy. Why, I have no idea. Orsino is in love with this chick Olivia, who also lost her brother to a shipwreck, but she wants nothing to do with him. Orsino sends Viola (as a man) to try and get on Olivia's good side in his favor. Olivia starts to fall in love with Viola as a man, Viola as a woman starts to fall in love with Orsino, and it's all just super confusing. Then Viola's brother, Sebastian, shows up and somehow ends up married to Olivia, and everything blows up in the end. But, somehow, everyone is happy.

Then there's this annoying dude, Malvolio, that works for Olivia. Olivia's maid and other people in waiting decide to play a trick on Malvolio and make him think Olivia is in love with him. They make him wear these hideous yellow stockings and smile like a lunatic all the time around her and she eventually has him committed, because she has no idea what is going on and thinks he's become unhinged. He is, obviously, super pissed, and vows revenge on everyone. And that's how the play ends. Weird right?

There's also this odd part between the clown/fool and a Sir Toby where they are singing and it seriously reminded me of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I don't know why, but the wording and writing style was so similar, I actually looked it up to see if Freddie Prince was influenced by Shakespeare. (He wasn't.) Check it out:

Sir Toby: (singing) Shall I bid him go?
Clown: What an if you do?
Sir Toby: Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
Clown: O, no, no, no, you dare not.

I'm not crazy right? That totally sounds similar? And let's end on a great quote that I was totally unaware originated with Shakespeare: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

Review: "Wuthering Heights" Classic a Month #2.2013

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3 out of 5 stars

This is really more like 2.5 stars, but I gave it an extra half a star because it is a classic. But honestly, I disliked this book, very much. I just...I don't know, I think I read a different book than those who have professed *absolute love* for it. I was expecting this epic romance, especially after Lennie claimed it as her favorite book ever that she had read 23 times. But this is not a story of romance and love. It's a story of revenge and hate. I think if I had gone in knowing this, I would have liked it better. But, as I did not, I felt duped. So, in case you haven't read it and are looking for "true love" and happy, lightheartedness...this ain't it, keep on moving. Romeo & Juliet is more lighthearted than this. ;)


First of all, it's confusing as crap. The beginning of the book is actually the end of the story and the dude talking, Lockwood, is not even part of the story. He just happens along and is interested, so he gets the housekeeper, Nelly, to spill everything she knows. Not that it was hard to do, Nelly is a big old gossip. To make it interesting, let's pretend she's Dorota from Gossip Girl (please no spoilers though, as I am horribly behind lol), but not as willing to be nice and helpful.

Second, everyone has three different names...there are 2 Catherine's, several Linton's & Earnshaw's (first and last name), and I don't know what else. Maybe they only had about 5 choices for names back then, but it was super confusing. And then there's the characters themselves. Aside from Nelly/Dorota, there was maybe one other character that I didn't despise. I can't even say I liked them, I just didn't despise them as much as the rest. I understand that it was Bronte's intent to make truly unlikeable people and let me just say, she succeeded. They were selfish, spoiled, cruel, vindictive...I could go on, but why bother? And that's just the 2 main characters, the love interests, Heathcliff & Catherine. Yikes. 

What about the story, you ask? Well, try to keep up, because I'm going to run thru this fast and furious. Heh. Heathcliff (I'd call him Chuck, but as there is only one Heathcliff, that wouldn't make much sense...but this whole review won't make sense, so I'll go for it), the "hero" of the story, is a little orphan ruffian that Catherine #1's (let's call her Blair just for funsies) father brought home when she was little. There are theories that Chuck is actually Blair's half-brother, which ew. Blair & Chuck grew up together, starting out as brother & sister types, but it grew into an obsessive, consuming type of love. That love was stifled though when Blair started growing up and into her "society" role more while Chuck grew more into a heathen. He did try at one point to be better for her though..."Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good." But it was no use, Blair's heart was still with him, but her mind had moved on to bigger and better and she married her neighbor, Edgar Linton. (Nate) 

It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

Chuck freaks and runs off and then comes back a few years later, wealthy, handsome, and bent on revenge. He wants everyone to suffer like he did or he'll die trying. Over-dramatic much? "Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

Are you totally confused yet? ;) It gets better/worse. Nate has a sister, Isabella, who for some stupid reason, falls in love with Chuck (before finding out his true nature) and marries him. Blair & Nate have a daughter, Catherine #2 or um....Serena? Sure, why not. Then Chuck & Isabella have a son, Dan. (I can't even remember his real name at this point.) Blair dies shortly after childbirth, Isabella runs away from Nate before their son is born and dies when Dan is 10 or so. Oh wait, I forgot about Blair's brother, um, crap I can't remember his name either, let's call him Eric. Eric had a kid somehow too, named Hareton. (actual name...I'm running out of GG names, so let's just stick with that) I'm not really sure when or how Hareton came about, to be honest. Eric is even meaner and more violent than Chuck, if that's possible. 

(awesome comic strip from Hark, A Vagrant...

and be sure to check out the others!)

So, we've got Nate & Serena (which is kind of awkward now that I think about it, but oh well) living at Thrushcross Grange and Chuck, Eric, Hareton, & this old crotchety guy named Joseph, that speaks gibberish half the time (seriously, I skipped over most of his speeches), living at Wuthering Heights. Eric dies at some point and thanks to a serious gambling problem, leaves his entire estate to Chuck. Dan is supposed to move in with Nate & Serena after his mother dies, but after Chuck finds out about him, forces Dan to live with him and his merry men. Dan spends one day with Serena, but it's enough to make the two fall in love. Psshhh...they're like 10 & 12 or something. Dan is a weakling, so he doesn't do well with Chuck. Serena is just as much of a spoiled brat as her mother, gets her way with everything, plus Dorota is getting on in years (like 45), so she can't keep up. Serena runs into Dan again one day a few years later and decides that she loves him (I know they've all been sequestered in the country for years, but falling for the first guy you see? Kind of weird.). She also meets Hareton (who is maybe 5 years older?) and teases him mercilessly about his poor upbringing and inability to read. And she doesn't care that he's technically her cousin. (Important point for later)

So, we've got Dan & Serena in love sort of, Nate trying to keep the two apart but obviously not succeeding, Chuck trying to keep the two together (revenge reasons), and Dorota screwing everything up as much as possible. Nate gets sick and dies, Serena & Dan get married (although Serena has realized what a miserable sap Dan is), forced pretty much by Chuck, they all move into Wuthering Heights, everyone is miserable. There's lots of abuse: physical, emotional, animal. It's awful and makes you miserable too. Maybe that was Bronte's whole point? Dan dies, because he's a weakling, Serena is left all alone with Chuck & Joseph (who is still mumbling) & Hareton, who she starts to see some promise in. Unfortunately, Hareton hates her after all her abuse over the years. Nelly convinces him to give her a chance, the two start to fall for each other (COUSINS! Remember??!), Chuck is super pissed, but can't stop it, so embraces it sort of. Actually, I don't really know what happens, but he kind of goes crazy, literally, towards the end and then he dies. Serena & Hareton are the only ones left (except for old Joseph & Nelly, who I totally think hooked up) so they decide to get married. Seems logical. And that's it. 

xoxo, you know you love me.

And a name glossary, in case you got totally confused :) Plus, an awesome family tree by RachelKiwi that I could have used at the beginning of the book!

Heathcliff--Chuck

Catherine 1 Earnshaw--Blair

Nelly--Dorota

Edgar Linton--Nate

Isabella Linton--same

Hareton Earnshaw--same

Hindley Earnshaw--Eric

Catherine 2 Linton--Serena

Linton Heathcliff--Dan

Joseph--same

Lockwood--same

Review: "California Girls! The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #5"

California Girls! The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #5 by Ann M Martin
3 out of 5 stars

Time for another super far-fetched Super Special! As you can tell from the cover, the girls are going to sunny California. This cover isn't too bad actually. All the girls are represented well, except maybe Mallory. She looks a little too old for me. Although that could have been on purpose. You know how she wants to grow up so fast. Kids these days. Okay, so how are the girls able to go to California? We all know Kristy is mega-bucks rich now, but Mallory's dad was unemployed for a month or so, so we know they don't have extra money for a fancy vacation. Well...are you ready for this?....the girls won the lottery. Yes, really. Claudia liked to play the lottery each week because she was that way. (Her dad bought her tickets.) And when the lotto reached $23million, the rest of the BSC figured "hey, why not?" They pooled their money and got 7 tickets and agreed to split any winnings. If they won the big one, it'd be $3mil each and they "could be women of leisure all [their] lives." Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble Dawn, that's not enough to be leisurely on.

Anyway, they don't win the big lotto but they do get 5 out of the 6 numbers and end up winning $10,000 or $1,428.57 each...which turns out to be enough for them all to go to California and visit Dawn's dad on their 2 week vacation. K, first of all...they are staying with Dawn's dad and he's most likely feeding them all for the 2 weeks. Airplane tickets are what? $300 each? Probably less. Why do they need that much extra money? Mallory's dad just got a new job in the last book, shouldn't she be giving her parents some of that money? And Mary Anne's tight-wad dad isn't making her put most of that in a savings bond or something? Totally unrealistic. And second...the lotto is called the "Jack-o'-Lottery Jackpot". That gives the illusion that this is around Halloween, right? What 2 weeks are they off? Thanksgiving? It's still warm enough in Cali to go swimming and stuff, so I have no idea. Major plot hole there. But, whatev, let's go with it.

So they head to Cali and fun in the sun, but first, we get a truly horrifying What Claudia is Wearing at the last BSC meeting before their trip. ...she was wearing a red shirt with Mexican hats and cactus plants printed on it, and blue-and-white-striped pants held up by polka-dotted suspenders. On her head was what looked like an engineer's cap (it matched her pants), and dangling from her ears were miniature cowboy boots, which she'd made herself.

(links here)

Not a whole lot happens in this special, honestly, so I'm just going to break it down by character and hit the main points.

Let's start with Dawn, since it's her family they're visiting. She's super excited to see her dad & Jeff, but not so much Carol, the girlfriend/foreshadowed-soon-to-be-stepmom. Carol is helping out the first week, driving all the girls around and stuff because Dawn's dad has to work, and it totally makes Dawn mad because Carol is way too old to be acting all friendly with the girls. Carol's age? 32. My age? Take a guess lol. Carol is all laid back and pretty much lets the girls do what they want and that pisses Dawn off for some reason. She finally gets over it after Carol acts like a grown-up with Stacey and tells her dad that it's cool if he wants to marry her. She also calls Cali "home" and talks about how much she misses it.

Kristy and Mary Anne both get baby-sitting jobs while on vacation (it's a requirement that at least one BSCer baby-sit during a Super Special), although Kristy's was dullsville. The BSC met the We<3Kids Club and Kristy was shocked and a little bit scandalized to see how lackadaisical the club was run. They meet "whenever" and take jobs if they want them and they don't have club positions. Kristy, who feels she "had sort of invented baby-sitting clubs," is horrified and agrees to take a job for two little boys who are terrors, thinking she can show them a thing or two about baby-sitting. Well, she doesn't. The boys aren't terrors really, just kind of rambunctious and excited. I mean, Kristy takes them with their group to Universal Studios...what kid wouldn't get over-excited about that? She doesn't really learn anything or have any big adventures.

Mary Anne's job is much more interesting. She baby-sits for Stephie, a little girl around 7-8 years, who lives just with her dad and has asthma. Mary Anne immediately freaks, but the We<3Kids girls tell her it's okay, Stephie knows how to use her "inhalator", and she hardly ever has attacks. Once Mary Anne meets Stephie, she calms down some and really starts to bond with her. Both girls are shy, grew up only with their dads, moms died early, dad treats them way younger. Of course, Stephie ends up having an attack with Mary Anne, but MA takes care of it like a pro. Maybe she should have been a trauma nurse instead of a librarian lol. MA & Stephie decide to be pen pals when MA goes back home.

Moving on, Claudia falls in love...again. Seriously, her parents need to have a talk with her. She meets a guy on the beach, he's super smart and makes her feel inferior, so obviously she pretends to be something she's not. She even goes so far as to borrow a Laura Ashley dress from Dawn, that makes her "look like a 9 year old. Or maybe a grandmother." Lol...Their dates are kind of disasters, Claud finally realizes she should be herself, the guy still likes her, they have better dates, they realize Claudia is only there for 2 weeks so they have to "break up", Claud is devastated. Bah.

Jessi meets up with Derek Masters again, gets a crowd scene bit on his tv show (shouldn't she have to get parent's permission for that?), thinks she wants to be an actor, realizes she still wants to be a dancer (again), and argues with Mallory a lot. Why? Because Mallory decides to do an extreme makeover after getting it in her head that all the beautiful people are blondes with 2 pounds of makeup on. There are some BIG holes in this plot and I shall number them hence:

1. Mallory is 11 years old. Her parents do not allow her to wear makeup. But she figures she's in California, so what they don't know won't hurt. Forget about what she's going to do with all the makeup when she goes home.
2. Mallory gets a makeover at a department store and buys all the products used. When she's done, she has $6.28 left over in her spending money. WHAT???? Do you remember how much money they got in the lotto? $1,400. So she spent at least $500 on makeup??
3. She also wants to dye her hair blonde and uses a wash-out dye. Which turns her dark red hair a "perfect" blonde. No. Did a guy write this? And when she realizes what a huge mistake she made and what big trouble she will be in, she dyes it back red, with no noticeable damage to her hair. Ugh. I totally don't blame Jessi for getting annoyed with her...especially after Mal has to borrow money from her for the rest of the trip.

And finally, we have Stacey, who has the "big moment" on this trip. She falls in LUV with surfing on a trip to the beach and starts hanging out with some older surfers. They're at least 16, because they're driving, but Miss Sophisticated New Yorker obviously fits right in. She pushes it a little with the surfing, but nothing bad happens, except for a little dizziness (another hint for her big diabetes setback, but when??). Then, Stacey and her new friends are in a bad car accident on the freeway, because the driver was speeding and acting like an idiot. Or a 16 year old boy, either way. Everyone is okay, but they have to go to the hospital, Carol and Dawn come rescue her, and Carol insists on telling Dawn's dad. (One of the reasons Dawn starts respecting Carol towards the end.) He lectures her and makes her call her parents. They take it pretty well. I'm surprised her mom didn't fly out to get her or something.

And that's the end of this Super Special. Like I said, kind of dull, but now I get to start working on my next Baby-Sitters Club All Grown Up!! :) And I'm thinking maybe another BSC giveaway? What do y'all think? Also, I want these videos again lol...I used to have a couple. But who's Marci? Why wouldn't they have used Cokie Mason, since she's an established character already?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, I have been incredibly lazy lately with the blogging. I am going to try to get back on track this long weekend. Until then, happy Valentine's Day to all my lovely bookish friends! Share the nerd love with this adorable card by MeowKapowShop. :) (Also, check out the rest of their shop. It's pretty awesome!)