First Loves

San Diego ComiCon was this weekend. I was not there, but I watched my Twitter stream update every second with pictures and panel updates that made the geek girl in my just about cry with joy. (And, of course, a bit of pain was mixed in there as well. Come on! 10 year anniversary panel for Firefly? Why could I not be there?? Geek girl flail!!!)

But it got me thinking about what first got me into the things I love now. I first started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it was such an iconic show that practically everyone had seen. That was my entry drug to the Joss Whedon universe. I think what I love most about Joss and his work is his ability to create characters that feel real, put them in real life situations and then kill them off without mercy. BUT he does it all for the good of the show. It is something I've noticed other directors and writers shy away from, and I have since learned to love the fact that Joss does not. From Buffy, I turned to Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, and Dollhouse. 

You can also trace my Felicia Day love back to Joss. And, thanks to my exposure to Geek & Sundry, I am now in love with Eureka and Colin Ferguson...right before the series finale. I have perfect timing. 

And of course, all of that love got me thinking: what was the first book that really got me into reading? To start with, when I was in kindergarten I was  anti-reading. I gave my mother so much stress about that! Oddly enough, I remember nothing of that experience. However, I do have early childhood memories of asking my mother, after being told I could take a couple of books to bed, "Is a "couple" one or two books? Or is it two or more books?" I've always had problems with math...

But what I think of when I remember the book that made me love reading is something that happened when I was in 6th or 7th grade. By 4th grade, I was checking out books above my reading level and hiding them in my desk. And reading during class. Oops. By 6th grade, I was reading Gone with the Wind (a book of almost a thousand pages), when others were still reading chapter books that didn't go over 100 pages. But somewhere in there, I discovered a book called Beauty. 

I read it. 

I loved it. 

And promptly forgot about it. Until a year later, when I found it again and fell in love with the magic of it all over again. Beauty is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. I found it to be ten times more magical than the Disney movie. There was something about how blatant but mysterious the magic was, almost as if it could have happened exactly that way. 

It is the story of a father with three daughters who all move out of the city to a small village on the edge of an ancient wood. While her older sisters get married and start having babies, Beauty continues to find more pleasure in books and nature than she does in men. As it happens in every story, a dark and stormy night finds Beauty's father far from home, relying on the mysterious stranger in a dark castle. However, the stranger's help comes with a price--Beauty's father must come and live with him. Unattached to anyone except her father, Beauty volunteers to take her father's place. She finds herself treated like a princess and forced into beautiful gowns, which she tries to tear off her body. She struggles, at first, as she finds that living in a magical castle is more difficult than she ever imagined. Eventually, of course and as all the stories go, she learns to live at peace with herself and the Beast, even counting him a friend. It ends the way you hope it ends, full of magic and love. 

There are some complaints my friends have launched against this book, and to an extent, I agree with them. For instance, some say Beauty whines a lot and is selfish. Eh, sorta. Sure, to the whine. But I think she needs some of the selfishness to surface because without it she would be too perfect a protagonist. 

This book has another special place in my heart. It got my little sister into reading, too! My sister will never be the reader I am; she doesn't crave it or care for it quite the way I do. And that is totally fine. But we share a love for this book and I honestly love the book a little bit more for bringing us together in that way.

What about you? Can you pinpoint a book, movie, TV show or video game or a specific event that was your "entry drug" into something you absolutely love doing today?

An ode to Felicia Day...

I think the first time I saw Felicia Day was in Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, starring the ever wonderful Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. (And if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible, go do that right now! It's on Netflix...and YouTube...I think.) Dr. Horrible was Joss Whedon's response to the writer's strike way back when. He said, See? I don't need you! I have the internet and my friends and we make magic!
Well, he didn't say that exactly, but you get the point.
Since then, I've seen Felicia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse (Yes, I'm a Joss Whendon addict. Got a problem with that?).
Then, this spring/summer, Felicia started her own website company extravaganza called Geek & Sundry. It is the reason I finally got into The Guild (Felicia's web series about gaming) and the reason I now want to game, even though I'll suck. On G&S, you will also find Wil Wheaton's show TableTop, where he plays table top games (like Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, Gloom, Castle Panic, & tons of others...) with a bunch of his friends. I will suck at those games too, but I really want to play! If that is the point of the show, well done sir. Well done.

Ok, now that you know the cool geek stuff, the reason for this post was to tell you about an online comic Felicia recommended in the Fave Five segment of her show. It is called The Dreamer and it is about a 17 year old named Beatrice Whaley who lives a modern life...except in her dreams. When she falls asleep in our world, she wakes up in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. In fact, when we meet her, she is snogging the face off a handsome soldier named Alan Warren. It is such a well done piece, and honestly, I'm not sure what I did for the last week...except read the comic. It is updated only twice a week, but it is totally worth it.

This whole live-in-one-world-but-wake-up-in-another is not a new thing for me. Ted DekKer does it in his Circle Trilogy (which is really not a trilogy anymore, but whatever...). If the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey story line appeals to you, do check out DekKer's book "Black." You won't be sorry. 

June kicked my butt

Guys. How is it almost July already? What is up with this year? 
I have no remorse for the following: I hardly read at all this month. 
I mean seriously. 
Like I said last post, I am loving A Wizard of Earthsea. Really. But...Ok you know how there are those books that are so great and well loved that you are just too intimidated to actually read them? Like Lord of the Rings. I feel like there is a special energy you need to read those books. I love them and have read them before, but when I go to re-read them, I am filled with this sense of "epic-ness" and I just don't have enough mental space to read "deep literature."  All in my head and I'm a little crazy? Maybe. Probably. Ok, yes. 
Anyway, that is how I look at WoE. I can tell from the first few chapters that it is going to be amazing. Really. But...I feel I can't dedicate the proper amount of time to it right now. And because of that, I haven't really read much of it. 
Also, my baby sister got married this month. So, yeah. I am using that as an excuse. 

In addition to the WoE, I have the following books checked out of the library and I am really excited to get to them:

• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
• I am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits
• The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner

may reviews

So as I said last post, I hit James Dashner's Maze Runner series hard this month. (As a help to those who might be interested, I think it is a mix between Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender's Game. I approve of Hunger Games & Ender's Game, so go read those. You can skip Lord of the Flies. I wish I had.)  But I did have time to squeeze in two other books. 

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. 
I picked this one up on a whim. I was perusing the DVD collection at the library and saw a movie called "The Other Woman." Right on the cover it says that it is based on the book "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" so like any good English major, I check to see if the book is in. Why see the movie if the book is utter rubbish? 
I did have trouble starting the book. Emilia, the main character, was a little bratty to me at the beginning. In hindsight, it was only because you didn't know her motivation. As the book progressed, you find out more about her life, the choices she made that turned her into a sudden step-mom having to pick up William, the most precocious 5 year old ever, at his very elite daycare, and why she hates it so much.


Heat Rises by Richard Castle
This next book I'm not too proud of, but I read it during May so you get to hear about it. I love ABC's Castle. Love it. So when they started publishing "Richard Castle" novels, I had to check it out. And, because I'm such a sucker for Castle and Nathan Fillion, I picked up book three of the Nikki Heat series. I read book one a year or so ago and wasn't thrilled then; book three doesn't disappoint. Heat Rises is a book that I call a 'guilty indulgence.' There is nothing about the forced cop lingo and the vague attempts at being clever that could ever be mistaken as a guilty pleasure. The characters in the book mirror their TV show counterparts, and even the plot to a certain extent mirrors series three of the show. The only good thing I have to say about this book is that Nathan Fillion's picture is on the back of it. 


I am still working on the Wizard of Earthsea and loving it. A little sad I didn't get into this a little bit sooner!

Tribute to Maze Runner

I was perfectly content to live in a post-Hunger Game world. Well, as content as you can be when your heart is ripped out of your chest, stomped on and returned to you in a pile. I had gotten my friends addicted to the series, so at least I had a few people to commiserate with after the series ended. And then of course the film came out, prolonging the true end of the series. I am a bit of a minority, but I loved the film. I thought it was done well, even with bits of the story twisted up and tweaked. It had me on the edge of me seat during key moments, like the tribute parade and the entrance to the arena--even though I KNEW how things would end! Lovely. 
So there I was, minding my own business, when my friend says, "Oh, have you read 'The Maze Runner'?"

I guess that was his payback to me for getting him addicted to The Hunger Games. 
 
I proceed to loose about 3 weeks in this series. When I finally finished book 2, The Scorch Trials, I put 2 copies of The Death Cure on hold at the library. I needed to find out what happened next, and right now!


I've asked my friend to type up a little blurb about the books for ya'll so that is in the works. I really had time to only read one other book this month. More on that a little later. The last two months of reviews will be up shortly. 


I've picked up "The Wizards of Earthsea" finally, so I'm currently working on that. 
After Hunger Games & the Maze Runner books (which will soon have a prequel! So excited!), I have no idea what I'm going to read next!

a review or two: water for elephants

I read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen sometime last year when I was working & living in Gettysburg. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times-- it pays to work in libraries and I will always need to work in one. You get first pick of new books, first pick of returned books, the opportunities to browse bookshelves when you are re-shelving and, the pièce de résistance, no fines! Seriously, it's the best. 
Anyway, I found it in the library, finally made time to read it and loved it. I told all my friends about it and eagerly awaited her next novel. It took me ages to finally see the movie. But it was totally worth the wait! I was hesitant, I must admit, to see Rob Pattinson play the lead. I was not thrilled with his role in Twilight and I had little hope for him. However, I am glad to admit that I was dead wrong. 
With the time that had passed between my original reading and viewing of the film, I can't say how close the two were. I was pleased with the film and ,based on what I remember, was quite close to the book.  
As always, I recommend reading the book first. However, seeing the movie will not ruin the beauty of the story. And maybe it will renew your faith in Robert Pattinson, too!

Imitation/Flattery etc.

My dear friend Rachel started a book review blog too! Hop over there to check out her thoughts and ramblings about books & such. 

 Much Ado About Stuff

PS. She updates her blog more often than I do. For now, anyway :)