Missives from Mexico

Hellooooo! After seventeen only somewhat grueling hours of travel, I arrived in Cancun, Mexico, where my life was ROUGH, let me tell you.

So rough.

I had a bit of a family emergency in the days before I arrived and ended up taking a quick 4-day trip to rural Illinois, where my grandmother was suffering from septicemia (/shudder). Thank goodness we're not living in a post-antibiotic world... yet.

My brother and I are genetically incapable of taking a normal picture, but Grandma is doing fine! 

ANYWAY. I got home at 11:30pm on Monday and left again for work at 9am on Tuesday, so there wasn't a lot of time for the languid "what shall I take to read?" decisions I had been anticipating. So instead of making a decision, I just threw all of the library books I'd checked out to "test" into my suitcase and figured I'd sort it out when I got here:

 

It's moments like this that make me grateful that international flights often allow one free checked bag. No carrying 25# of books across four time zones for this girl! But I did manage to do quite a bit of knitting and listening to the third James Herriott book during my layovers, as well as to start and finish the utterly delightful The River of No Return by the Bee Ridgway.

Like Raych, I was somewhat disdainful of the idea that I could thoroughly enjoy a time travel book that didn't involve the plague or the Blitz. But this book was wonderful.

So, Nick is a lordling fighting for Wellington in Spain, and in the heat of battle gets jumped forward to 2003, where he is picked up by The Guild, whose job it is to monitor people who jump from one time into another. He spends 10 years settling in to rural Vermont on the Guild's dime, then gets a summons from his Alderwoman, who has some revelations for him.

Then there's Julia, who grew up (in 1815) with her craggy grandfather, the Earl of Dorchester. But he passes away, leaving her in the hands of his successor, who is a total dick and also probably nuts.

The Captain is pretty sure this is a terrible idea.

There are funny bits and surprising bits and a few naughty bits and the cover is gorgeous. Some of the characters that you think are for comic relief aren't, and the other way 'round. Ridgway leads the reader by the nose from one revelation to the next, and there were moments where I said, "HAH!" out loud in the airport or on the beach, then looked around furtively to see if anyone noticed.

A few people noticed.

The story spins out gorgeously. And it deals with cultural changes that we avid readers of historical fiction aren't always exposed to; I found myself thinking more carefully about my own assumptions and prejudices, and how they may seem absurd 200 years from now.

Good books make you think, regardless of what genre they get filed under.

I jumped straight from this to a Georgette Heyer and I'm disappointed in the Heyer because there's no time travel. That's how delightful this was.

10 out of 11 Secret Cupolas on Top of the Mansion

(Since I know you're all curious, I read 5.5 of the 12 books I took with me. /brushes off shoulders)

The Divergent Series - Veronica Roth

Have we talked about these books before? I feel like I did, but it may have been in gchat and goodreads status updates.

I am so on top of things.

Lately it seems that a lot of books that I don't think are super-great are being turned into movies. There are lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is that teenagers aren't generally known for their nuanced taste but are known for disposable income and getting obsessed with seeing movies in the theater multiple times.

The Veronica Roth trilogy has been touted as the "next Hunger Games," among other things, which I suppose is better than being the next Twilight.

I've read all three of these series, and I am here to tell you in no uncertain terms that none of them stands up to some of the other, lesser-known YA authors available (thinking of you, Catherynne Valente and Rainbow Rowell). The first Hunger Games was interesting, but it lost me in book 2, aka The Hunger Games 2: In Case You Missed It The First Time, Now With Better Press! In the Divergent series, I liked book 2 better than book 1, but the third book spent approximately 400 pages talking about how segregating people based on genetics is not a good way to structure a society, which if you paid even the least bit of attention to the History of the 20th Century, you ALREADY KNOW.

The hashtag for Allegiant was full of sobbing and hand-wringing and OMG'ing, so being easily peer-pressured I slogged on to the end and while yes, there was a moment that made my eyes prickle and I was impressed a bit by The Choice Roth Made, it wasn't worth the whole 1500 pages to get there.

Most of what I got out of the series was that I'd like to zip-line off of the Sears Tower, please.

Let's not discuss Twilight. Or Bella.

4.5 of 11 Absurd Post-Apocalyptic Premises, plus one for avoiding the Love Triangle Trap.
Total: 5.5.

Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell

I read this entirely in one day during the Mini Readathon at the beginning of July (it was great, we'll do another one, hurrah for permission to read and eat all day!).  My justification for this being "mini" was that it is about teenagers, who are basically mini-humans in mind if not in body. And while, yes, that is technically true, oh lord.

Ladies, you know how sometimes you're like, "WHY am I sobbing at this? What is going ON? How do I FEEL SO MUCH RIGHT NOW?!?" and then two days later your least favorite aunt comes to visit and you're like, "oh. Maybe I won't die alone and pathetic and be eaten by wild dogs after all. Bring me the chocolate and ibuprofen, feline companion!" 

No.

Those first few days of feeeeeeels are not the ideal time to read Eleanor & Park, people, because Eleanor & Park is a book about... 

Ok, here's the thing. I got into a Twitter discussion with Rainbow Rowell last night about the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, and I said that the Ramona books are ABOUT Ramona, but Judy Blume's books are ABOUT growing up, and that is why Ramona sticks with us ladies of a certain age: because she is a real kid with a real range of kid problems. She's also the reason I can't look at a crop of Shirley Temple curls without wanting to boing them.

Which brings me back to Eleanor & Park, and what this book is ABOUT. The title characters are complete, which I really liked and which is surprisingly rare for most books - I was going to say YA books, but let's be honest: characterization is not currently in style in fiction, is it? 

But Eleanor and Park are not only well-defined and realized, they're also genuine teenagers. They do stupid shit, they think stupid things, they get stuff wrong, they're just trying to survive being teens, which is - as you may remember - HARD ENOUGH. But wrapped in all of this is Eleanor's family, which is broke and broken in a way that made me uncomfortable because I grew up poor and broken but not the same kind, so I empathized but also felt weird about my empathy because the shit that happened to me when I was a kid is nothing compared to what she is going through. Empathy is an odd thing.

So, Tika, what is this book about? You got all excitable about telling us and then went off on a tangent.

Well, my dear reader, first of all you cannot be surprised that such a thing would happen. And secondly, Eleanor & Park is a book about growing up and first love and whimsy and the awkwardness of being a teenager and parenting and preconceived notions and a definite hint of pride and prejudice (the emotions, not the book). It made my heart sore, and soar, and I had to stop a few times to ugly cry - sometimes for Eleanor and sometimes for Park.

It's a book teachers of high school students should read to remind them of what it's like to be the beings they're trying to connect to, and that's about the highest praise I can think of.

10.5 of 11 Mix Tapes from the Radio

Harry Potter HFriday - Part the ENDENING

Alice pointed out that since we've been doing this for six months, we've nearly all found one another on gchat, Facebook, Instagram, and other corners of the internet that are not our book bloggy homes, so the end of the readalong isn't as sad as it could be.

[Side bar: seriously, Chrome? after six months you still don't believe "readalong" is a word? Don't make me come over there. (this is funny because my office is within walking distance of Google so I could. And I just might.)]

I'm saving all most of the GIFs I didn't use for the FUTURE when they will come in handy especially when I read a YA book that's not as good as HP (so any of them) and my reaction is largely

And then we can all be like, "remember when we did that readalong and it proved how clever we all are? That was a fun half-year."

I feel like bullet points are especially appropriate in this, our final group post (for now). In the last six months, I have:

• discovered that JK Rowling is crap at math, but super-duper excellent at characterization and the Long Game. 
• discussed and calculated at length the number of students at Hogwarts and whether Hogwarts is the only or just the best wizarding school in England (signs point to only, according to a line in HP7). 
• perused the Ravenclaw gear at Pottermore and wished for more subtle stuff, only to decide later that what my life is truly missing is a Ravenclaw couch throw - which is decidedly UNSUBTLE
• Spent an INORDINATE amount of time looking at Daniel Radcliffe's quite pretty self: 

I can't tell if I'm uncomfortable or just impressed.

Artists wear black and take monochromatic portraits. And do Equus.

So, this whole thing has been HUGELY entertaining, I'm so glad we took this trip together, and I'd like to suggest another Mini Readathon in July - maybe Saturday the 20th or 27th? 

I came across this image about halfway through the readalong (seriously, Chrome, keep up!) and it chokes me up every. single. time. Thanks for reminding me how it feels to be a part of a fandom, you guys. 

Harry Potter HFriday - Part the Battle then Battle Some More

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: that epilogue is pretty awful, what with the side-eyes between Harry and Draco and the everyone-having-a-zillion-kids. I read it once (and once will dooooo), so I’m ignoring it this time around.

That's right, JK, I said NO.

When Amycus spits at McGonagall and Harry is like, ::whips off cloak:: “you shouldn’t have done that!” and McGonagall is all, “Harry! Don’t be so gallant!” and then he’s like, “He SPIT at you!” NICE JOB, HARRY. Because like hell you spit at McGonagall and get away with it. Like. hell.

Exactly.

There are so many gorgeous parallels in this part of the book. Like when, Ron freaks out about needing to get past the Whomping Willow and Hermione is all, “Are you a wizard or what?" Turnabout: it's fair play, Weasley. And in Snape's memories where he's on the train with Lily, and James says, "I think if I were in Slytherin, I'd go home, wouldn't you?" Which, we've heard someone say something like that before... ::glares at Draco:: So basically Snape is Harry's foil, not Voldemort, who is just a regular ol' fashioned enemy, and James is Draco's foil. Ouch my brain.

At some point JK gives in to herself and actually lets someone talk about what a long game someone has been playing (I ran out of paper flags before this point so no quote for you!), and to that I say, well played indeed, Lady Jo. 

I don't really have a transition here, so now we come to all the SADS that hit me right in my solar plexus:

OMG

Snape telling Harry to look at him while he dies... because of Lily's eyes... those eyes that never saw him, never knew he longed to hold her close, to live at last, in Lilllllyyyyyy's eeeeeyes...

There are fresh tearstains next to the 2007 ones at the part where Percy comes back and Fred is the one to forgive him - but MORE this time because I knew what was coming and that made it WORSE (tbh I cried every time Fred showed up in this book), and then they’re joking – Percy! Joking! – and then… the world blows apart. Don’t try to tell me JK didn’t mean that figuratively as well as literally; she definitely did because she will kill what we love.

The line about the three homeless boys who made Hogwarts their home hurts a bit, doesn't it?

And Bellatrix’s laugh is like Sirius’s because they are cousins and sometimes families have weird little things in common including the way they die. 

Let’s talk about mothers in these books, SHALL WE?

That’s pretty much it, really. The mothers are all BAMFs.

AND SO WE COME TO THE END.  I am clinging to next week as the Last Week because I'm not ready yet.

11 out of 11 Blibbering Humdingers*


*I really hope someone else is going to cover Luna and the Malfoy's family structure, because they DESERVE IT.

Harry Potter HFriday -Part the Penultimate

And we’re back after the excitement that SOME of us enjoyed at BEA, and the excitement that the REST of us shared in the privacy of our own homes, far away from the City that Smells Like the Subway. And despite two whole weeks between posts, I still couldn’t bring myself to read this week’s chapters until last night because every time I cracked this book open and saw Xenophilius's name, it made me want to 

I KNOW he just loves his daughter. SIGH.

And then I cried - before I even started reading whoamIevenanymore - because despite all of our declarations about how fun this readalong would be and how much we were looking forward to the nostalgia of yesteryear and getting our veritable Hogwarts letters in January, it turns out this readalong is really all about crying ahead of time now that we are older and wiser and know what’s going to happen.

But before we get into that, let’s take a moment to make fun of Megs, who chastised us last week for moaning about how the camping, it is so long, and yet it only lasted a little while! Well, it DID, in last week’s chapters. But then they camp some more, for LO!, these MANY MONTHS, because Ron comes back around New Years and then suddenly it is MARCH. There is a point at which “camping” becomes “just living in the woods,” and you have crossed that point, Miss Jo. These kids have been out in the elements since school started in September!

That is a long-ass time to be sleeping in a tent, you guys.

Then Dobby shows up in the cellar and I started sniffling a little even though he kind of makes me crazy in the entire rest of the series. And then stupid BELLATRIX and her desire for Lord Voldemort’s wand, if you know what I’m saying – which I know you do because we’re all dirty birds over here – with her stupid knife and at this point I’ve forgotten whose actual wand is whose, but apparently Harry has a pocketful of them (and his homies do too).

Laid back.

Harry digs the grave himself and it's very contemplative and at one moment he thinks, "am I meant to know but not to seek?" and that is some mythic hero shit right there. And then he carves the letters into Dobby's headstone (it goes over where his head goes, get it??) and I think, oh, that's where those little wrinkly stains on this page came from. They are the ghosts of tears from 2007.

They bungle the stealing-from-Gringott's thing beautifully, don't they? And the apparate to Hogsmeade like idiots. It's almost like they're teenagers. Then there's Aberforth, at whom we have been sniggering this whole time and he turns out to have a secret pain and UGH that is just the worst way to make me feel guilty, JK.

The whose-wand-is-whose thing is always a little weird to me – I mean, if your wand is made of birch and mine is black walnut, then obviously I’m not going to mistake yours for mine. But would I mistake yours for someone else’s light-colored wand? Probably, because who pays that much attention to someone else's wand? And speaking of wands, I’m pretty sure I’d study wandlore if I were a witch. It’s so hazy and mysterious and somehow scholarly but also it would appeal to my inner Goth, who EXISTS, dammit! I was cool in the 90’s!

I was not cool in the 90's.

Harry Potter HFriday - Post the And We're Walking

I know we've been going back and forth and back again about JK's terrible math skills, but I think we can take a moment to note that THIS is the section where all the backwards math goes to hell. If JK hadn't put James and Lily's DOB in the book, or STRONGLY IMPLIED that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in England (p.210), everything would have been

Hello, sweetie...

And we'd have all been able to discuss without throwing up our hands and calling JK a maths idiot. BUT NO, she had to be clever. At least we can all bask in the knowledge that there are Potternerds out there who put us all to shame - or rather, did the math so we don't have to. Bless them for allowing us to maintain our polite fiction of normalcy.

SO in this section Ron gets pissed (that's angry, not drunk, British and Australian friends - although that might have helped?) and leaves

And then... follows them? With the magic of the deus ex machina Deluminator? REASONS! And then Harry and Hermione camp for an INTERMINABLE length of time, which is like my own personal hell and 100% of the reason I never finished the LOTR books. Well, that and the really poor editing.

Bullet points! Or rather, quotes and discussion because I took too. many. lit. classes.

"He did it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because he hated the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon: As the door began to swing closed, he slipped into the courtroom behind her." 

This is who Harry is on the inside, why he's a Gryffindor, and why he's The Boy Who Lived. Of course, that all happens when he's not being THIS DOUCHEBAG:

"But it seemed that to Dumbledore, the fact that their families lay side by side in the same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he wanted Harry to do." 

UGH HARRY. Why do you have to be so seventeen? (p.s. - props to my Mac for recognizing Dumbledore as a real word. Life imitating art, etc. etc.)

"The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years' worth of magical graffitti, all said similar things."

And that, friends, is when Tika broke down and ugly-cried so hard she scared her cat out of the bedroom.

"He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Gridelwald than he ever shared with me."

This ship is in the bag.
I'M NOT SORRY.

Ron is back! Saving Harry from his own stupidity, which was a nice touch.

"She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half raised his arms." 

AGGGH JUST KIIIISSSSSSSS! But no. JK has learned restraint, to everyone's RAGING DISMAY.

*grumble*

Also, you guys? The HP 7+8 gifs? THE SADDEST. Do not want.

Harry Potter HFriday - Post the It's All Downhill from Here

FIRST, has anyone mentioned yet that Saint Hedwig is the patron saint of orphans? Someone had to have, but I missed it, so I flailed a little a lot when I read it JUST TODAY.

*weeeeeeeeeep*

NEXT:

Rest in peace, Old Battleaxe. You earned it. 

I'mma just be over here in my chair.

I am starting to get seriously upset that this readalong is ending. I love how we all let one another drift in and out (ahem: me, mostly) and don't worry, how Alice managed to pick the exact right amount of chapters so we can do this reading and other recreational reading on the side, and how we argue and discuss and roll our eyes at each other every once in awhile but have also forged what I, at least, consider to be some pretty badass friendships.

I never actually watched this show, but the GIFs are pretty good.

Also, Australian Kayleigh, I'm going to need you to get me a koala to live outside my house, please. Thanks.

SPEAKING OF FRIENDS, which we were, Dudley brought Harry tea and was trying to make him feel betterrrrr! And it's totes not Harry's fault that he misread Dudley's extremely subtle hints (I say, as an Extremely Subtle Hint Leaver myself...), but maybe there's hope for Dear Diddykins after all.

"Harry had spent the morning completely emptying out his school trunk for the first time since he had packed it six years ago." 

This has to be a boy thing. I mean, it could also be a Plot Point Thing for the Purpose of Reminding Us What Has Come Before [as if anyone would just pick up book 7 out of the blue - there's not even a book flap blurb! (which I liked a lot, nice job JK)] but I have six brothers and I am here to tell you: boys are disgusting.

"I've also modified my parents' memories so that they're convinced they're called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life's ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done." 

DAMN, girl. That is badass and so sad. I don't know that I'd have the cojones to do that if it were my parents.

Ron on the Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches:

"You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either."

Keep telling yourself that, Roonil Wazlib.

Hey, did you notice that Arthur's patronus is a weasel? Because I did ::coughTHISTIMEcough::

Will Hagrid's gift of a bag no one but the put-inner (soon to be named the De-outer) can take things out of come in handy further down the Plot Road?

Luna's dad believes one should wear sun-colored robes to a wedding for luck. How charming is that? I might make my life imitate art at more weddings if I didn't look like a corpse in yellow.

"Vot," he said, draining his goblet and getting to his feet again, "is the point of being an international Quidditch player if all the good-looking girls are taken?"

Oh Viktor, you are a gentleman. I've met a fair number of internationally famous people, and not one of them cared if the women they hit on were taken. My hat is off to you, sir.

Lastly before we move on to the genre-required endless walking portion of the program:

"Harry felt sickened by what he had seen, by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort."

Harry Potter HFriday - Post the FOR SOBBING OUT LOUD

I MISSED YOU GUYS! I am going to be seriously adrift in Blogland when these Harry Potter shenanigans are over. The frustrating thing about having missed the last 2 weeks is that I actually completed my reading BOTH TIMES and just wasn’t able to write up the post due to the plague (week 1, super shitty!) and a father/daughter weekend in Seattle (week 2, loads of fun!).

SO. Let’s just say I approached this week’s reading with a big ol’backlog of things to talk about, most of which I am going to assume someone in this group covered at some point. But here are my bullet points:

• Dumbledore telling off the Dursleys and Dudley’s confusion
• “Let us not deprive Molly any longer of the chance to deplore how thin you are.” Dumbledore knows what mothers like best.
• Snape. UGH you are being such an ASSHOLE. I have sympathy for you, I really do, but seriously man, you are the only one of the Mauraders generation who had even a CHANCE at a normal adult life, so try not being such a gigantic douche-canoe, would you?
• Ginny, you are amazing and I want to kiss you on the mouth.
• I think we can all take a moment to appreciate Madam Pince’s reaction to writing in books. Or at least I can, because why would you do that when there is a wide world of post-its out there?
• And another moment for this, which I noted as “might be a perfect paragraph”:

She left. At once Lavender and Parvati put their heads together to discuss this new development, with everything they had ever heard about McLaggen, and all they had ever guessed about Hermione. Ron looked strangely blank and said nothing. Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge. (314)

JK, you may not have a good handle on the romantic relationships in your stories, but damn girl, you sure know how to describe people.

• McGonagall sets Seamus lines: I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick.

You tell'em, Dame Smith!

One last thing for catchup: Ron’s love potion from Romilda Vane was so incredibly fantastic, and then he’s safe, and then he’s in Terrible Danger and how good is JK at foreshadowing and how guilty did I feel for laughing at Ron a moment before?! Most of my notes in this section amount to “aaauuuughhhh this is so good!”

******

OKAY. It happened, that Thing we have all been dreading, for we shall Dumble no more.

 And this whole book I have been approaching the end much like this:

Why is it in a saucepan? Why is there a towel on its head? Why do I suddenly want a kitten?

BUT FIRST, I have jumped on Alice and Rainbow's bandwagon and may supplement my lack of Harry Potter when June rolls around by reading Harry/Draco fic. 

“I need to see what Draco Malfoy is doing inside you…”

Now KISS.

But onward we must trudge, heavy our hearts and heavy our eyelids for staying up way too late to read children's' books:

Back at the beginning Harry was all, “why won’t something attack me?” and Dumbledore is like, “because you’re with ME and I am the baddest ass in these here parts.” (that last may have been just in my imagination, yes?) And then when Harry is taking Dumbledore out of the cave, Dumbles is all, “I am not worried, Harry. I am with you.”

He's going to talk to some food about this.

I’mma segue here a little and assume you are all Firefly fans because you are cool like that. Do you remember when you saw Serenity for the first time? I DO. I went to opening night and stood in line and won a t-shirt that has since disappeared (dammit). And at That Moment We All Remember, the whole theater stopped breathing. But we didn’t get time to cry because there was SLAYING KILLIN’ to be done by River Tam, Intergalactic Badass.

The second time I went to see Serenity, a very unexpected thing happened. When the crew got to Miranda, I started to sob. Great, heaving, trying-to-be-quiet-and-failing sobs. My friends who didn’t know what was coming were extremely uncomfortable, but I wept on undeterred. Because I knew what was coming. Megs and I got choked up over it this afternoon, in fact; it was one of the most devastating things I have ever experienced for a fictional character.

I haven’t read HBP since just before I started book 7, and I was racing through so I could crack open that orange behemoth. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I was firmly in the “Snape is evil” camp – I had a bookmark and everything (remember those?).

But this time through… this time, I just wept at the inevitability of it all, from the moment Dumbledore said, “I am with you.”

No exaggeration was used in the creation of this image.

So hey, how about that Fleur, huh? I’m pretty sure that “”Our Great-Auntie Muriel has a very beautiful tiara” anagrams into, “sorry I was mean and dismissive of you; welcome to the family.”

She is quite good looking enough for both of them.