Really? That's what all this fuss is about?? Sparkly bear-sucking vampires? Seriously? I'm stunned. I mean, it wasn't a BAD read. But Harry Potter it ain't, folks. I'd put that in all caps if it weren't super-abnoxious to do so. But it bears (no pun intended) repeating: Harry Potter it ain't.
I've read JK Rowling, and you, Stephanie Meyer, are no JK Rowling.
I'm kind of bummed, to be honest. Some of my favorite students are loyal Twilighters. But, freak though she is, I'll take Anne Rice and her Lestat (et al) over Meyer and her Cullens any day.
What impresses me most, though, is that these voracious teens kept reading. Some of TWILIGHT is seriously, swamp-slogging slow.
I zoomed through the book in an effort to finish it before the movie came out, and I would have made it had there not been these scenes that totally stalled out. (Another scene in bio class? Another scene in the lunch room? Oh Lordy, who ever thought teen drama could be so undramatic!?) But with the current reviews of the movie, I don't think I'll bother. First of all, the book didn't grab me. Secondly, have you seen the lead actor's eyebrows? Not what I'd call hot stuff-- I give him twenty more years before he starts to look like Robin Williams. And apparently the actress who plays Bella is even more sullen than the actual character of Bella, who is already intolerably sullen.
Will I read the other two books? Probably, in due time. I have a hard time putting down books in a series. And I have to give credit to any book that gets kids (or keeps kids) reading. But I understood Harry Potter. I adored Harry Potter. I will defend Harry Potter and the quality of Rowling's work to the end. The HP series was about so much more than just a teen wizard. I admire the Meyer story and I admire the effect she's had on teens. But I don't admire her work, thus far. TWILIGHT, however, doesn't seem much more than just a Harlequin Romance for teens.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
CATEGORY FIVE by TJ MacGregor
I can't tell you how frustrating it has been to take SO long to read a book. This speaks only to my current health/stress and not at all to the quality of Category Five.
This book was published in 2005, before Hurricane Katrina, and it is so prescient that at times it made this Katrina survivor's knees get weak. I am also a closet conspiracy theorist, or at least a woman who is more than willing to give her ear to conspiracy theorists, and this book fed my concerns about FEMA, about our country's natural disaster response, and about our level of preparedness for disasters both man-made and natural.
I picked up this book for a number of reasons. I met MacGregor in 2002 and thought she was the bees' knees. I found it at a used book store for a couple of bucks. And when I read the back cover, I realized that it addressed a Cat5 hurricane in a marginally pre-Katrina world.
I didn't realize when I bought it that it was the 4th book in a series featuring Mira Morales, a psychic on Tango Key in Florida. But, though I normally hate picking up book so late in a series, MacGregor did enough to fill me in that I felt very comfortable with all of the characers and all of the situations. In fact, MacGregor has a book called Black Water that I feel like I could skip seeing that the central conflictof that book comes up repeatedly in this one.
All of the characters in this book are so well-drawn, from the series staples of Mira and Shepard and Annie and Nadine, to the newcomers of Tia and Crystal and Franklin. I feel safe hearing the story through the minds of any of these characters and MacGregor does an excellent job balancing the narration between these folks.
More than anything else, this book made me want to spend some time really looking into what happened during Hurricane Andrew in S. Florida. And I appreciate this call to arms. Katrina, I think, has been analyzed to death, but was Andrew so scrutinized?
This book was published in 2005, before Hurricane Katrina, and it is so prescient that at times it made this Katrina survivor's knees get weak. I am also a closet conspiracy theorist, or at least a woman who is more than willing to give her ear to conspiracy theorists, and this book fed my concerns about FEMA, about our country's natural disaster response, and about our level of preparedness for disasters both man-made and natural.
I picked up this book for a number of reasons. I met MacGregor in 2002 and thought she was the bees' knees. I found it at a used book store for a couple of bucks. And when I read the back cover, I realized that it addressed a Cat5 hurricane in a marginally pre-Katrina world.
I didn't realize when I bought it that it was the 4th book in a series featuring Mira Morales, a psychic on Tango Key in Florida. But, though I normally hate picking up book so late in a series, MacGregor did enough to fill me in that I felt very comfortable with all of the characers and all of the situations. In fact, MacGregor has a book called Black Water that I feel like I could skip seeing that the central conflictof that book comes up repeatedly in this one.
All of the characters in this book are so well-drawn, from the series staples of Mira and Shepard and Annie and Nadine, to the newcomers of Tia and Crystal and Franklin. I feel safe hearing the story through the minds of any of these characters and MacGregor does an excellent job balancing the narration between these folks.
More than anything else, this book made me want to spend some time really looking into what happened during Hurricane Andrew in S. Florida. And I appreciate this call to arms. Katrina, I think, has been analyzed to death, but was Andrew so scrutinized?
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