Things that Aren't Creepy: An Ode to Wyatt Everett

Hey, you know what isn't creepy? Writing an entire blog post about books you think your BFF's boyfriend might like. Well, that might be creepy, in a universe where your BFF's boyfriend ISN'T Wyatt Everett. But in this universe, the best universe on earth, that person IS Wyatt Everett. So this blog post is 100% normal, just like me.

I wanted to write a blog post recommending books that would be great specifically for The Wyatt(that's my BFF's really adorable nickname for him, "The Wyatt," they are disgustingly romantic.) But first, I thought I would tell you all a little more about him.


Here he is!
Oh no...wait...that's...that's like K-Fed mixed with a pop culture white trash reference or something...that's not right..that's not...the picture..hold on, one second...

Thaaat's him. On the left. There we go. The Wyatt, everyone.
Things I know Wyatt Likes

-My roommate
-Japan
-Japanese culture
-This one Korean dish that I think has the word "duck" in the title.
-The color green
-Residence Evil
-Cats
-Comic Con

Also, let me introduce you to "Muffin," Wyatt's adorable cat:



Muffin is the most busted, angry cat in the world. Imagine if Lindsay Lohan were 300 pounds with bloodshot eyes and a drooling problem. That's Muffin. And we love him so much.

Anyway, this is all to say that I think Wyatt would really like:


It has almost all of his likes, except for Duck Korean Food and my Roommate. I mean, there's video game stuff and Japanese culture and the color green and even a character that reminds me of Muffin(it's the antagonist.) Anyway, he doesn't read this blog, but will someone pass this along? Thanks.

Quickies

I read 6 books last week(Oh, what's that? A genius? No..no, I'm just a quick reader-Oh, stop it. No..I mean, I'm advanced sure..oh, you flatter me. What's that? No..they're like, fantasy science fiction books...some of them are young adult...what? NO THEY ARE STILL REAL BOOKS, WHAT ARE YOU-I AM A GENIUS, A GENIUS!)

4 book reviews, in 30 words or less.

Total Oblivion, More or Less, By Alan Deniro-A fantastical apocalypse story set in current day America- yet somehow believable, beautiful, seamless, devastating, lovely-READ.

Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami-A brutal Japanese novel telling the story of 42 middle schoolers enrolled in a government program where they are forced to kill eachother-not for the weak stomached, but READ

Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead-Oh...a vampire school...that's..okay, and well, there are some characters..and plots..and..this book is like novacaine for the mind. Don't read.

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman-Not awesome literature, but I didn't hate it. I kind of really liked it. Could be a prose. Made me tear up. The best kind of cheese factory. READ, MAYBE IF YOU'RE INTO THIS KIND OF THING

Listen, sometimes even geniuses have a hard time counting to 30.

House of Gawky Awkwardness

The Hawaiian bookstore I used to buy this gem didn't have the first one in the series- MARKED, so I had to get the second, BETRAYED, and that's exactly how I felt after reading it today. BETRAYED, that I had missed out on the first book of the series.




Betrayed, House of Night Series, Book 2, by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

If Harry Potter were set in the U.S., and about only Teenagers, and had a female protagonist, and were in first person, and had a billion cuss words, and the characters used illegal substances, and if the protagonist kind of sucked, like was morally flawed in a way that, okay, if the protagonist was a female Cedric Diggory, bland and hot and sort of good but kind of whatever, and if they weren't wizards but were vampires, and if the headmaster was not an awesome Dumbledore character but was a hot crazy vampire lady, and if it had nothing at all in common with Harry Potter except that it desperately wanted to, it would be the House of Night Series.

This book is a teenager. It's gawky and awkward and cusses ALL THE TIME to try and show bravado and act super cool and fit in with all the other adult books. It tries its best to infuse feminist messages to impress its teachers(and succeeds for the most part) but then tries to seem hip by using homophobic and racist slang and acting like it can because its doing it ironically, but teenagers don't get irony, they get pregnant.

Characters


Oh goodie, first person narrative. And it's a 17 year old teenager! um...yaaaaayyy.....You know it's a teenager because she uses words like "totally," and "skank ho." I know that's what I look for in a strong female protagonist. A hip teen who TOTALLY knows where the skank ho's are at. Anyway, her name is Zoe Redbird, and she's a fledgling, which means a vampire in training. She goes to vampire school. She's really gorgeous, and not only the most powerful fledgling, EVER, also, she's more powerful than adult vampires. She's the most powerfullest ever and also the most beautifullest. Want to guess if tons of guys love her? I guess I'll leave that for plot synopsis.



Villain: Neferet, headmistress.



Her harem, or boyfriends, Loren(a professor)(ew), Erik(vampire)(Shakespearean actor)("hottie"), and Heath(human)(boring)(tasty)(literally.)



Plot Synopsis



Last year Zoe found out she was the most powerful vampire ever, and it was like, soooo embaaaarrassing, she just wants to be a normal girl going to school to become a vampire! But oh well, now she has to take over the elite club at school, the Dark Daughters. Her hot hot boyfriend Erik is out of town at a vampire acting competition(YUP), so I guess she HAS to fall in love with Loren, a professor at school, a vampire poet Laurette(YUP), who is so dreamy. Oh..but then there's Heath, who is a human thus BOOOORINNG, but he lets her bite him, and his blood is like, totally delicious. Also, damn damn, shit, damn damn ass. Anyway DAMNIT, fledglings keep dying because the transformation into vampires kills them some times, and that's too bad. Also, plot points in the form of humans keep disappearing and dying, and it looks like vampires are doing it. Damn. So Zoe and her harem deal with their emotions, and Zoe deals with how hard it is to be so amazing, except she can't stop eating Heath, which is totally against the rules(BECAUSE SHE COULD REALLY HURT OR KILL HIM), what's an extremely weak protagonist to do? Well it turns out it's all Neferet's fault-she's bringing the dead fledglings back to life somehow and they are feeding on humans. Zoe saves Heath from this, using her amazing powers, and later whispers mean things into Neferets ear about how she knows Neferet is total a skank ho and soon everyone else will, too. But we don't know how, why, or what, or anything about anything. That's when this book ends.



.....So....What have we wrapped up?



Almost nothing, that's why you have to buy the second book!



That's...that's some sort of genius thinking..



The best kind!



Writing Quality

Look I should really preface this by admitting that I am terrified of teenagers. They make me so nervous. When I meet one in real life I don't know how to talk to it, so(true story) I will awkwardly say things like, "So, do you...take classes?" What? Like, it's not a Jane Austen novel where the girls are all , Shall I take sewing lessons, then? Or a bit of piano? It's public high school they HAVE to go.."do you take classes"..I'm so weird, so they just respond by staring at me with those tired, dead eyes and I'm like WHY ARE YOU SO TIRED? Didn't you just sleep for 14 hours? WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY? Terrifying, so sulky. I don't know. So I don't engage many teenagers because I am afraid of them, and as a result I'm not sure how the hip kids talk nowadays.

However, I highly doubt that teens still use the same verbiage they did in the late 90's. Do 16 year olds really describe cute boys as "totally yummy?" "Damn, he's totally yummy." Did people EVER describe other people, in all seriousness, as "skank ho's"? It just seems so weirdly obvious, so cliche teenager. Like I said, I'm no expert on how they talk, but I'd believe this book more if the teens spoke in deep raspy demonic undertones and said things like, "He was yummy....TO CONSUME."

I'm exaggerating, but teenagers do make me uncomfortable, and the ones in this story make me even more uncomfortable because the writing style is just so unbelievable. It's not teenagers talking, it's an adult trying to talk like a cool teenager. It's Dad putting on an Ed Hardy T-Shirt and asking where the hip bars are at, you know? Yeah, it's bad writing.

Feminism

I gotta admit, I ate it up. There was some really good stuff in here. Stuff most of us are well acquainted with already(religion is often used as an excuse for misogyny, history is written by men-think about it, etc.) It even subtly touches on the issue of females sharing power. It's dumbed down and snuck in there, which is slightly insulting, but it's there. They worship a goddess and are all about girl power, and because of that if I ever have a daughter I would rather her read this than Twilight. This is cotton candy-Twilight is garbage. Not that I'm a feminist scholar or anything-I learned almost everything I know about it from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hillary Clinton biographies.

Book Rating

On the crappy book scale-9. It's BAD, okay, this is NOT literature, this makes Harry Potter look like War and Peace, this book is NOT for people who love reading GOOD books-but if the reason you read is to escape life for a while and jump into the skin of a beautiful Mary Sue who is good at everything and gets everything she wants, I won't judge you(too much) if you pick up these books. (That's..a lie. I'm sorry. I will judge you. I can't help it, it's what I do.)

The Challenge

Even though I know my readership is like, 2.4 people, on a good day, (now you are wondering which one of you I consider only to be 40% person!), I have been reprimanded for never updating this thing. The reason is: all the books I'm reading are soooo good! But, I'm going to Hawaii for a week with my mother, so I will be doing what everyone does in Hawaii on Spring Break. Read.

My challenge for you people, my favorite friends, is: look online, on amazon, or go to a B&N convenient to you, and pick out a book you would like me to read and review. Post the title and author here. Extra points if you find one that specifically does not meet my guidelines and tell me why.

I'm a little terrified about what books you will find, but even more terrified that no one will read this and respond, and then I'll just look like a jerk.

I need your recommendations by Monday night-Tuesday morning at the latest! So don't delay. I'll suffer through it-for you. Remember, I do this so you don't have to.


Love,
Christina

Book Review: RATED NC-17-ish

Okay, so I have this dog, Pico, he's a chihuahua, he's an "apple head" "blue" chihuahua, which is to say, he has a normal looking head that is NOT an apple, and he is black with white spots. So those are just fancy names someone once came up with in a laboratory-anyway, he's tiny, and annoying and yappy but we love him because he's actually a 100 year old vampire, not really, we love him because he's just so cute and cuddly and bloopy, I don't know. So anyway I was taking him out for a number two on Christmas day and we're all minding our own business when all of a sudden this round object the size of a normal persons fist falls straight out of the sky and lands right in front of him. And Pico is JAZZED about this thing, whatever it is, he's freaking out and licking it and prancing and barking and like, having a field day with this thing, and as i get closer I realize that it is an old, moldy role, the kind you bake in the oven-and I'm like WHAT, is going on, this dropped from the SKY? And Pico is like WHATEVER MANNA FROM HEAVEN IT IS ORDAINED FROM THE LORD THAT I MIGHT HAVE THIS PRESENT ON THIS DAY, CHRISTMAS DAY, and I'm looosing my mind that it's raining old moldy christmas roles, but I take it away from him because i really don't feel like cleaning up puppy barf later, and Pico is like, nooo I hate youuuuuu and I'm wandering around staring at the sky when I hear this skuttle skuttle on our roof and find this ENORMOUS crow up there, just staring a hole through both me and Pico and I realize that this crow dropped the role in the yard while flying over.

IT WAS FATTENING UP MY DOG FOR EATING, seriously. How long has this been going on? I asked myself. What an evil, evil, dog eating bird-it must be the apple head that attracts him. But, meeeeaaaanwhile, little does this bird know that Pico actually is the stinkiest dog that ever lived, literally whooooo it knocks you off your feet, I can't imagine he tastes good, and after he eats people food it's WORSE somehow, like you can't imagine that it could ever get worse, but it does, plus he'd be all barfy and disgusting-SO if this bird had succeeded in eating Pico, it would have given him the worst tummy ache.

So, this is all to say, we create our own destinies. Sometimes we reap what we sow. Sometimes, we are asking for it.

Tempest Rising, By Nicole Peeler





























I knew what this was going to be, you guys. I must admit it. The cover was a cartoon sexy lady. But she was Hello Kitty sexy, it was cute, and weird, and I just had to read the back cover. And the back cover told me this was going to be a total Mary Sue situation, but somehow, for some reason, I was like.. ohhh I know this is going to be just like eating a stinky, barfy, chihuahua, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Plot Synopsis

The main character is "Jane True" (rhymes with something very fitting, you figure it out.) She's gorgeous, and funny, and smart, and athletic, but everyone in her small town hates her, and her life is so hard. (It was at this point-the first couple pages-that I started predicting at which point a sexy male fairy/vampire/etc would swoop in and save her from her sad, sad life..)(Note from future Christina to past Christina:Page 32.)

She's awesome and perfect in every single way, except, she loves swimming in this horrific whirlpool current thingy out in the ocean-naked. Every morning. So, she's a little weird. Her mom was weird too. And her mom left when she was a baby. (Because her mom didn't love Jane, and became a mom too young, couldn't handle the responsibility, and was suffering from depression.) (Oh just, kidding, it's because her mom is actually a SEAL.)

Okay, so our Mary Sue is part seal. Alright...

Anyway, it comes to pass that she finds out there is a supernatural community, and she's a part of it, and what's more, she's a key witness in a murder investigation, and to investigate her, there is Ryu, Sexy Vampire Extraordinaire. (PAGE 32, BITCHES. I WIN PRIZE NOW)

This is the part of the book where it just devolves into sex scenes. It's like, softcore romance novels if that makes any sense. You know the definition of soft core? Apply it. So you get a lot-A LOT of description about certain events, but not others.

Anyway so inbetween doing it, they have to go to the Supernatural Capital of the Whatever, which is in Canada(That's right Sara, Canada, the most important country in the UNIVERSE) And figure some stuff out, whatever, I guess I'm not in the mood to ruin the ending today. The end.

Writing Quality

Not bad, actually. Funny at times, the description was so much better than Wild Magic, and I did enjoy reading it in that reaallly guilty way where I wanted to hide the book inside of an Ayn Rand novel or something whenever I read it in public.
So, 48 stars! (43 of which will burn out and die before they ever reach our atmosphere so actually 5 stars out of 10 crappy ones hoooray good jobbb)

I should probably make a disclaimer about this

I realize that so many of my reviews mention the icky, ickyness of the sex in a lot of these books and I just want to clear something up. The reason I bring it up is because I feel that so few authors know how to treat sex in their writing. And my policy is-it's FINE to fade to black if you can't do it right. I DONT need details, really-unless it's important to the plot, but oh MAN if the details are important to the plot I DONT want to read your book. Also, you can write good sex scenes-Neil Gaiman has, Chuck Palinwhateverimnotahugefan has, and bajillions of other famous authors that I don't feel like remembering have. It's just that-ESPECIALLY with fantasy, when you have all these weird supernatural creatures to also deal with-and their anatomy and kinks-shudder-these fantasy books often have ick factor 12. This book did not have an ick factor, it was just like, word porn for ladies, but for me that kind of writing just really devalues the literature as a whole. It makes the book seem like "chick lit" though I know that's a really degrading term and I shouldn't use it, whatever, it's the only one that I can think of that will get my point across.


Overall Rating

I'll give it a good ole' 9 stars. If you liked Twilight, you'll like this book. And if you like eating stinky puppies, you'll love my next review.