Er, but it kind of hasn’t worked out that way. I haven’t touched a book, but instead have been combing delicious for fanfic I’ve been meaning to read. Here is what I’ve read so far:

• A Precise and Accurate History of Monday, Eleven Years Later. Seriously, I ship Aziraphale/Crowley so hard. (Good Omens)
• The Dionaea House (original fiction, or maybe like House of Leaves fanfic?)
• Switch, which is basically epic Kirk/McCoy that I’m not even sure I like yet, but it’s hard to find good Kirk/McCoy fic, anyway so I’ll take what I can get? Seriously, this is like two fantasy novels tied together, it’s so long. (Star Trek XI)
• Transfigurations! I totally love this story, I read it a long time ago and re-read it today, and love Draco. (Harry Potter)
• Written in the Stars I’m not sure how I feel about this one (which generally sums up all my feelings about fic that takes the totally ill-advised epilogue to Deathly Hallows and runs with it), but well! I kind of can’t resist father-bonding, fff. I have daddy issues. (Harry Potter)

Well. At least it’s only five in the afternoon, right? XD I could grab a book later…maybe.

Today we are taking a trip down the lane of my life I was trying to separate from this site because the last thing I wanted was someone who thinks I am an okay if sometimes sarcastic douchebag book critic to stumble across erotic fanfiction that I have written (oftentimes badly) and block me on Twitter, or strike me from their hearts, or perhaps judge me based on my creative writing and allow it to discredit my critiques (this is, of course, in order of importance). I have arrived at this point because I had a dinner, in public, with Debi and her family in August, where we discussed how Chris read my porn and it was great!

I ALMOST DIED ON THE SPOT, GUYS. I am not kidding. I was as red as the shirt I was wearing because what, I thought I had successfully hidden my fanfic!, if by hidden we mean “just don’t talk about it!” I cackled to myself all the way home when her husband hit me up before we left and said, “hey, we want those links!” (Okay, it also endeared him to my heart forever!)

I was like, guys, what is this, a stickup? GIVE ME ALL YOUR EMBARRASSMENT RIGHT NOW? Okay, here, take it! *dies one thousand horrified deaths from acute embarrassment*

That’s right! I write fanfiction. I am airing all my secrets (but really not since this was a pretty open secret)! I will no longer dance around the topic! I will come out and say it: I write fanfiction and sometimes dudes have sex. Right up top, so you will know if you want to continue reading this entry.

Here are some resources:

• Fanlore’s fanfiction entry
• Wikipedia’s fanfiction entry

I am a member of The Organization of Transformative Works. I have been a member of fan culture a long time. I moderate a newsletter and co-moderate a gift exchange. One time I wrote makeout fic between a boy and a cactus-like creature; there is follow up fanart (also in color!).

I write stories about other people’s characters for fun (not profit). In fact, when I imagine trying to profit from fanfiction I die of laughter at the thought. If Debi didn’t read this journal, this would be the point at which I would claim to be a talentless hack and take myself down a peg, but since she does and might see this post, I can’t because I fear her wrath, but just realize the chance is there. We’re all readers here; we have imaginations. I don’t think what I’m doing is much different than what book bloggers do, in a way—I am interacting with the text, with bonus makeouts. This post does a great job of summing up all the points I would like to share, but this:

Fanfic is a dialogue going on within a community, and people read each story in the context of other stories.

That’s very true. WOULD YOU LIKE A RECENT EXAMPLE? I am going to guess yes! Ira wrote a 38,000 word monster (which I love), These Unending Alchemies of Honour (FFXII, Gabranth/Vaan, PG-13), and then I wrote this and Sev wrote this and then I possibly caved to pressure and wrote some gratuitous sexy times which I refuse to link, because I’m serious, it was gratuitous.

I’m not saying it’s wonderful, “I should be a published author!” writing (in fact, most all of my fic definitely ISN’T, hahaha what a joke), but it’s fun and I love doing it for a lot of reasons. I feel strange talking about fandom here, because I don’t cross the streams very often this direction. I am pretty open about the book community over there, but not open about my hobbies over here. Possibly it is the amount of dudes making out and how I perceive the heterosexism over here. WHO KNOWS.

I mean, it’s not always the classiest place to hang out¹, especially if you’re not a fan of sexy times. It’s getting harder and harder for me to act like I’m not a fanfic writer over here, especially because of all the YA books I’m reading (and pining for fanfiction for, Graceling, The Knife of Never Letting Go, I’m looking at you!). I probably wouldn’t be book blogging without fandom, because reading Harry/Draco fanfic back in 2001 made me read the Harry Potter series which got me back into reading after I had fallen away.

Anyway, so in case in the future I meet people (Chris! Nymeth! Debi Round Two! Everyone Else When I Make It To BEA One Day!) I thought: I will just be upfront so these people know this about me and they can judge me and avoid me if they see the porn girl coming toward them on the convention floor. No awkward conversations necessary! No, really. I swear. I will not go cry in the bathroom after you’ve turned away from me and thankfully I will not know when you unsubscribe to my feed so I definitely won’t cry over that.

Definitely no crying here. >.>

To end this, I will share some things that other people wrote. Some are readable without the original source material, while some aren’t. I am probably revealing more in my recommendations that I have anywhere else. But…I am okay with that. I stuck to gen fic, because well…because. I have already put my kinks on display once in a previous paragraph. I believe I will skip it here.

• American Idol RPF – Fortunate Son (David Cook, David Archuleta)
• Star Trek XI – the fistbump is non-optional (even though I know how it ends, I CACKLE EVERY TIME)
• Larklight – The Alchemists Revenge (Larklight and Starcross are required reading for this, I believe!)
• Final Fantasy VII – A Study in BS (er…violence?)

And so ends the opening of Personal Anecdote Theater, starring me! Other than fandom, I am pretty boring, so there probably won’t be a second act! However, this was possibly epic enough for the next five forevers. Awesome \o/

Part I: Hey, so how about that FTC thing?
To be quite honest, internets, I’ve been considering it for awhile I have decided I don’t care. Really—don’t care! Whatever you say, FTC! Any organization who will let one of their represenatives muddle out into the thick of a new decision and ram his foot so far down his throat it basically becomes a reverse colonoscopy and then get annoyed with us for our confusion has pretty much lost my respect. I’m not making special arrangements, changing my format, changing how I link to authors or publisher websites, and my disclosures will likely be just as erratic as they’ve always been. I mean, people watched me get into an e-fight with an author over a review copy, if that doesn’t convince people I’m not scared to be honest, nothing will.

Also, my critiques are not commercial speech. Hahahaha, what a joke.

The fact I’m even dedicating more than one paragraph to this malarky pisses me off because of lack of forethought and a gross understanding of how blogging culture works for different types of media. It has only succeeded in spreading false information and stressing already stressed bloggers.

I really have nothing but contempt and don’t feel guilty at all. FTC, you have failed and you are banished from my heart.

Part II: Nerds Heart YA! 2010

I am doing this again because people keep making doe-eyes at me, and to be honest, I want to try to IMPROVE THE PROCESS, but first I thought I would have to set some limits. Scope, I discussed it last time: we need scope. The more I think about it the more I believe that the scope needs to be us. I’m not trying to be conceited, but we shouldn’t underestimate our power as book bloggers to take a book from obscurity and shove it into the limelight. Half the battle is letting people know it exists. To accomplish this, we of course need lots of different input from different blogger communities.

(Okay, whatever, I’m lying, I’m totally being conceited and am not ashamed.)

Obviously, 2009 is not yet over. It won’t be easy to tell what 2009 titles weren’t given their fair shake on the blogs until at least the end of February. As new releases pick up and titles from 2009 start to languish on reading lists, shunned for the new shiny 2010 books that everyone needs to have right now OMG, we’ll know better, but I thought: let’s make some lists! I have created a Google Doc for nominations that is public; if you would like editing privileges to add books, just leave a comment on this post (although you’ll need a google account to edit) and I’ll add your access!

Part III: Tales from the Lit-o-sphere

Snarky Titles Not Included wants your YA SF recs. I can never say no to a good rec list.

Common YA tropes, which is an interesting musing about the Romeo and Juilet effect on YA publishing. I’ll go one further and toss out love triangles, which have been instrumental in sending Twilight soaring through the bestseller lists, as well as The Hunger Games. Man, I really don’t like love triangles, I am a freak (and I still think Twilight should have been about Edward and Jacob’s doomed love. There’s how you could’ve subverted some genre, Meyer! Too bad (for me).

Lee Wind weighs in on the Lambda Literary Awards change. I’ve been waiting for his thoughts, actually, and they’re really interesting.

The Cybils nominations are only open for two more days. I’ve been watching the long lists take shape, and every time I check them the more books get added to my reading list. Damn you, Cybils! XD

Part IV: Around the Internet

I have signed up for NaNoWriMo for the first time. My page is here, and I will definitely not win, I’m just going to set expectations low right off the bat. I will be lucky to get 10,000 words, but I want to start on this manuscript that is totally not marketable at all right now because it lacks vampires, angels, fairies, and a heterosexual romance. It does have dorky astronomy stuff and possibly recreates a scene from Ghost (with Patrick Swayze), though. Harrr. I am writing a story about the myriad ways we destroy relationships and chances for relationships and how we can learn to rebuild—or not destroy at all.

Also, some boys make out a little. Sweet. \o/

KJ sent me the link to Why People Hate the Paperclip, which is an academic paper and hilarious. Guys, I love the internet.

The other night, the boy and I were hungry and I looked around the tubes for sandwich recipes. This is the most delicious sandwich in the history of the world., although I am sure some might disagree. Mmm, bacon. You know I’m not playing when I take time out to say, “LOOK AT THE FUCKING SANDWICH, GUYS!” Oh my gosh, I want it right now.

Earlier this year I read and reviewed Out of the Pocket, which I really enjoyed, since it didn’t propagate the ridiculous idea that being gay and an athlete means you have to be miserable and closeted. Also, guerilla dating, sdlkjlasjdd I laughed so hard (and I wonder if the author would mind if I totally borrowed that concept from him). I ended the review on a pretty sad note, but this post and the article it linked to made me happy, except, you know, sad, since our government is still pretty balls on this issue. Hahaha, why did I vote for Obama again?

This! Although I need to finish my education in the school of Holmes and Watson Are Totally In Love (because seriously, have you read these books? FFS, Doyle!).

I totally didn’t finish my review of The Ask and the Answer today. I have failed. :(

The boyfriend made plans to go visit his grandmother, who was visiting his parents. This is happy-fun-times and it rarely happens so I requested a Saturday and Sunday off so he could have my car, which I never do because on those days I get awesome hours. Well, of course things were going to go pear-shaped—it’s ME—and they immediately became not only a pear, but a piping hot pear cobbler, because Grandma decided not to come and H1N1 was cited and there went that trip! Yet I still retained my time off! I thought, “Well, maybe someone will want to trade with me.”

Then I found out the read-a-thon was the 24th, and boy, did I get excited! So excited that I will potentially throttle anyone who tries to take my days off away. >.>

I have read a bunch of resources about the best books to read and how to organize my time, and since it’s my first read-a-thon I decided to take it easy, since I will not be staying up the whole day—I am too cautious about my health since I’ve started working out, and that’ll likely be a workout day. I’ll still be around 10am – 12am, though, which is plenty of time for awesome amounts of reading and chatting and encouragement. :D

Here are the books I will be reading! Just covers for now, because some of them are at the library and I must go fetch them. :)

1. Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
2. How They Met and Other Stories by David Levithan
3. Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

4. Y: The Last Man – Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
5. Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott
6. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

I have decided to focus on some short story collections I have had on my reading list for quite awhile. I always hesitate to read collections because I am a completist and must comment on every single story in the collection like some kind of freak. With the nature of the read-a-thon and the fact that it’ll be start and stop as I go about my day, eating and working out and other activities, I can use the short stories as fillers. The other books are all short titles from my to-read shelf, and I am reading them so I can stop feeling bad that they’re still sitting there! I’ve read Unmanned before, but it was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten huge chunks of it. Tons of people have been asking me to read The Last Unicorn, too! They’ll finally get their wish.

I’m not setting any high expectations, though, for that path only leads to disaster! I’m just going to try to have a relaxing Saturday full of reading instead of a hectic Saturday full of popcorn, screaming kids, angry mothers, personal pan pizzas, and the soda machine running out of ice during the lunch rush. :D

Man, I really don’t like papers.

I’ve been futzing around with two manuscript ideas, but they’re realistic fiction—and I’m not going to lie, my grasp on teenagers ends at the band geeks. They’re totally awesome, but not quite representative. There are other things I am unsure of, like writing plausible high school scenarios, being careful to create characters with privilege who might not see it but also not letting it stand as a valid way of thinking. I don’t want to write books that are safe spaces necessarily, but I do want to write responsibly as I know how.

Anyway, I’ve created a list of dream research books that I want like burning but which are out of my grasp because I don’t have a good inter-library loan system—there’s the university, but you have to be a student (which is a good reason for me to attempt to go back, har!). Internet, living in the rural South is hard.

1. Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School by C. J. Pascoe: This book has been on my radar for about a year now. The problem with me wanting all these books to read for research purposes is that I’m not really in a place to drop tons of dollars on nonfiction materials (or fiction materials, let’s be honest, I am poor broke). Oh, useful inter-library loan system! How I took you for granted when I was in school. This book I wanted specifically because I wonder what the other side was like—I remember my side, but I believe the framing is different because of how gender operates and that boys torture girls differently than other boys for having a sexuality that doesn’t conform to the hetero-normative.

2. Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words by Barbara Wallraff: I just wanted it for the cover. I am easy. Sob. I forgot where I heard about this one, though. I think it might have been on one of my podcasts? Maybe A Way With Words (which is awesome and everyone should listen to it).

3. Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power by Shira Tarrant: Surprise, surprise, I don’t know a lot of feminist men. In my offline life, I only know one that actively cares about feminism, and I’m in a long term relationship with him so he better care. XD This perspective is new to me, so I was happy to see this book existed. Must acquire!

Also, as usual I’ve added fiction to my list which is becoming so unwieldy that I’m quite sure I will eventually have more books on my to-read list than I can possibly ever consume and still you know, function as a member of society. I like reading a lot, but uh, not enough to become a jobless hermit who never leaves her home. I was considering my master list of coveted books the other day and realized that suddenly my library was bursting with some of the titles I have pined for, and I looked at the pile of books in my closest, realized I had only managed to read 39 books this year and went, “I’m screwed.”

4. The Line by Teri Hall: Haaa, I totally want this book because it sounds like totally sweet SF/F (from the short summaries I’ve seen around from people talking about it). The cover makes me think dystopia, but I am often wrong when I make guesses like that. Well, it’s fine, I only have to wait until March of next year, ffffff.

5. King of the Screwups by K.L. Going: I think I will blame this one on Kelly, since I had heard for this book before but her review which sold me when she discussed the main character like this:

I love it when a main character breaks out of tired old stereotypes.

Lucky for me, my library seems to love this author, so this book won’t be coveted for very long. Thanks for the book rec (as well as turning me on to a new author), Kelly! :D

6. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld: Come on, is this not on everyone’s radar by now? After the trailer, I was pretty much sold, where before when I heard about the trailer I was kind of skeptical about the whole “Darwinist” thing. I’ll reserve judgment there until I read the book, but misrepresentations of Darwin are an excellent way to make me breathe fire. Anyway, my library will totally get this. They have a Big Literary Crush on Westerfeld.

My to-read list is never going to recover.

37. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones 9/1
38. Shards of Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold 9/25

Yeah, so I am suffering from reading!fail. That’s fine, because I have been keeping quotas for things, and also making myself stick to a schedule as of late—once I get the hang of it, I’ll be back on track. I’m planning to read Larklight, Starcross and Mothstorm by Philip Reeve next, because I owe Mem some awesome Jack/Myrtle hijinks and realized 700 words in I couldn’t do it without a reread. Curse you and your awesome prose, Reeve! *shakes fist*

Meanwhile, has anyone been following the Lambda Literary Awards controversy, where they clarified their guidelines?

As such, it should be noted that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the LGBT content, the gender orientation/identity of the author, and the literary merit of the work.

Above this, it says:

As to what defines LGBT? That is not up to anyone at Lambda Literary Foundation to decide. The writers and publishers are the ones who will be doing the self-identifying. Sexuality today is fluid and we welcome and cherish this freedom. We take the nomination of any book at face value: if the book is nominated as LGBT, then the author is self-identifying as part of our LGBT family of writers, and that is all that is required. There are many permutations of LGBT and they’re all welcome as that LGBT term we’ve all adopted makes clear.

Besides all the straight privilege being flung around (and trust me, my friends, there is tons), there’s been some really thoughtful posts made about this topic. I especially liked some of the comments at this post for the different perspective, and this essay really resonated with me:

I think sometimes, often even, that the future of the gay rights movement largely includes our letting the boundaries blur. We don’t get to be the big gay exclusionary fortress of secret coolness anymore, or whatever the fuck it is we were telling ourselves we were doing while we were just trying to stay alive.

Gay is more things than it used to be. And maybe, one day, in my lifetime even, it’ll be a word that doesn’t even matter, doesn’t even mean anything, except to people who remember, and people who are old-fashioned, and people who see loss even in the advance of the best progress imaginable.

The LLA folks can do what they want. It’s their award; more power to them, but I’m pretty much not down with the decision. I liked that this award brought me GLBT stories, to look over the entire field of submissions of people writing GLBT stories and say, “This!” I won’t have that full resource anymore, although I recognize that I’m lucky enough to have it at all. If the LLA folks think it’ll be better to limit things, well, all I can do is accept it and give the new order a shot and make my decision then—and only time will tell.

I’m not angry—just disappointed. Not because I can’t submit to this award (I could if I was an author) or think cisgendered heterosexuals deserve to be eligible, but because I feel the edges that we’ve been smudging to tell these stories across our different perspectives and experiences has been smoothed out, recreated, whether for good or bad (we won’t know which one for awhile) and now it will be harder for some stories to find a reader’s heart, to live and thrive in regardless of whether the author kisses boys or girls or anyone at all.

I’ll miss that, but I’m sure another award will step in to fill the void LLA is leaving behind (not a “straights-only” award like I’ve seen thrown around, for fuck’s sake, internets!), because gosh, not every award is going to be everything for everyone. I can see both sides of it; it was a tough decision. However, it makes me wonder: who are awards for? The author? The industry? The readers? Everyone? It’s an interesting question, but not one I know the answer to. The LLA seems to have found theirs; we’ll see how things play out as people adapt to the change, although I’m hoping for the best—the last thing I want is to lose LLA as a resource completely.

I guess I’m on the “be thankful we live in a world that allows the LLA to thrive at all” side of this issue. Man, maybe it’s just where I live (mmm, who loves Arkansas! Show of hands!), but this whole debate is blowing my mind; I couldn’t imagine I would be reading this stuff six years ago. Really. Wow.

I feel like someone was using the author’s work in other creative fields to promote this book, giving readers a really skewed perception of what the book might contain. I went in expecting, well Christian fantasy, although now I’m not sure what that would even be, because when I think Christian fantasy I think, I dunno, of Constantine (the comic, not the emperor, and I think most Christians might explode). I expected something dark and blatant and this book really wasn’t. Rather than religion and faith being active in this work, it informed instead, which means there are Christian undertones, symbolism, re-framing of stories, so I can’t even begin to comment on this aspect and how it might really impact the story as it’s told. Really.

I have forgotten all Sunday School lessons I ever had and suck at Christian symbolism and allegory. I am serious, there was some subtle spiritual hijinks going down in this novel. I wish I had seen them and not understood, but that would have been too easy! No, no, instead of just didn’t see them at all! I am going to own my bias and my expectation and say: I am Christian mythology dumb unless it is explicit.

I mean, this is why I was miserable in all my British literature courses, especially the pre-1800s, because man, you have to know all this stuff, about God and Jesus and—I never got it. Everyone else did, and these are the conversations I would have, three minutes before the end of class:

RENAY: But I don’t get it.
CLASS: *evil glares*
PROFESSOR: The poem is about his love of God.
RENAY: I get that, but why is he talking about flies?
PROFESSOR: The fly is the symbol of his love.
RENAY: But the fly gets SQUASHED.
PROFESSOR: God’s love is powerful; this is his attempt to show how no love is greater than God himself.
RENAY: Why the hell is God going around squashing people’s flies?!
PROFESSOR: It’s a metaphor.
RENAY: I don’t get it.
CLASS: *FUMING*
PROFESSOR: You don’t understand metaphor?!
RENAY: No, I don’t understand why God is such a cockface in all these poems.
PROFESSOR: …………class dismissed.

Basically, you shouldn’t go into an English literature program in the Deep South if you’re an atheist, because that’s pretty much how all my class periods went and guys, I am not kidding, I knew nothing that everyone else knew rote from the womb—maybe the parents piped it in? There was no way to get through these courses without knowing these things. Perhaps it is a little more clear why I ran, screaming from university into the abusive arms of $dayjob, selling popcorn to irate mothers, dirty construction workers, and apathetic mall employees.

My warning: I am going to discuss this book as a fantasy that perhaps has Christian undertones, not from my perspective as a Jesus fangirl (don’t ask, it’s a long story) but someone who can leave the rest of it behind because it doesn’t tell me why. This is not a Christian fantasy, it is just a fantasy, written by a dude who likes Jesus, and I am afraid the book which is not a bad book, might be judged on these merits and passed over by secular readers who, if they want religion hijinks can pick up some Guy Gavriel Kay and blow their minds. I might even point them out but I might be wrong, wrong, so wrong. There is the disclaimer that there are going to be things I completely miss because some things you have to sit around and study to know, and I am a bad history student and clearly a bad literature student for shunning the canon that is informed by Christianity (oh, western canon!). I am sorry to all the authors I shunned. Still, though, people marketing this book and this series! WOULD YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN YOURSELVES. I am so confused.

The Expanse.

The final front—okay, no, no, I’m sorry, I’ll stop.

When the Proclamation of Colors is announced, all color is removed from the populace in order to make House Abascar the best, most important House in The Expanse, to regain their honor and importance. After the proclamation is set and a promise of lifting it given, the queen who pushed for the Proclamation vanishes into the wilderness.

The colors never return.

Twenty years later, a young orphan is found by the criminals known as Gatherers that have been thrown outside House Abascar for petty crime. The Gatherers take Auralia from the footprint of a monster and raise her as their own, not knowing that she will grow up with the forbidden talent for weaving colors for her makeshift family out of nature and will set in motion a dramatic rebirth for House Abascar.

I wanted to read this novel because of the interesting idea of color. We take color for granted, the warm and the cool, bright in our eyes like the shade of the sun or a clear sky, or muted like roiling fog. The very concept that it could be taken away and people ordered to live a monochrome life intrigued me.

More than a novel about a vast political plot as I have become used to fantasy being as of late, this is a fantasy driven by people: the frustrated Prince of Abascar, the ruin of the king, a sad drunk who lost his queen and has driven the most honest people away from him, as well as the captain of the guard, Ark-robin, who I wanted to kick in the face. The ale boy, who is never named and searching and hopeful for his future and identity, and Stricia, Ark-robin’s daughter, more concerned with power (which eventually makes her crazy! HA HA). Throughout this story and between these characters, Auralia weaves her gift and her story and her power between them, moving and shifting an entire house with her colors.

Even though Auralia starts out the novel as a clearly magical orphan, I liked her as she grew up. I enjoyed how she thumbed her nose at people and culture and tradition, how she struggled with what her colors meant, her selfishness and her desire for everyone to have what was so clearly there for the taking. I doubt this novel would have worked for me if I hadn’t liked her and how she interacted with the characters she meets. She changes Abascar as the Rites of Privilege approach the Gatherers, the yearly ceremony where the Gatherers can give gifts to the king and his court for admittance back into the walls of the House, and orphans that have turned sixteen and can see if they are worthy enough to seek the same.

There are times in the story the prose gets so wrapped up in being majestic that it trips over itself, turns people and dies. It’s very lyrical and readable most of the time, and now that I’ve used the word lyrical in this review, excuse me, I have to go stab out my eyes, but I really have no other way to say that it didn’t wow me but it didn’t make me want to commit literary homicide, either. I settled, I’m cool with it.

My problem with some of the characters is that I never felt much for them besides Auralia. They’re nonentities at best or repulsive at worst. I swear, if I had to read about Ark-Robin bitching that his kid came out with a vagina instead of a penis one more time I was going to throw the book across the room. Thank the stars there was a hot mess going down in the book that rendered any more commentary of that nature out of place. So: just a warning to people who think there are rewarding parental relationships in this book! Not so much. In fact, most of the people who help each other and hold one another up are not related at all, so excellent, one of my buttons! Thank you, Overstreet, for hitting my family of choice kink so thoroughly. Awesome.

The lack of emotion from these others characters really got to me, although looking back, the one character who did seem like she felt conflicted and torn and hopeful was Auralia as she struggled to understand her colors and make others understand them as well. Perhaps this is commentary by the author, that House Abascar lost its colors through caring too much about status and appearances instead of people, so therefore they have lost a bit of the spirit—their humanity.

The sections about the Keeper really touched me. I am pretty curious to find someone who knows Christian symbolism to ask their opinion. It was interesting: a larger than life figure, a magical figure that we dream about as children but write off as adults as nothing but the childhood fantastic—and it feels like a recent event, as if they have turned away from The Keeper, and thus their House is…not cursed, but hollow.

Wow, I wonder where that train of thought leads. Not to Jesus, for I feel like Auralia is on the Christ journey, the girl who breaks into House Abascar’s defenses and changes it forever.

The second issue I have is with Stricia, Ark-Robin’s daughter who is promised to Cal-raven. Okay, straight up: it’s a fantasy novel using fantasy tropes so out come the tropes that make me want to chew on glass. She serves one purpose and it’s pathetic and it cheated her entire role in the novel. Man! She could’ve been a really interesting character. After finishing the novel, I understood more about what parallels Overstreet was drawing between the missing queen and Auralia re: Cal-raven, but it felt forced, and well, sort of stupid. Har har, the silly girl is going to get jealous! Yeah, that’s right! Girls do crazy things when they’re jealous! Give me a break. I am probably the only one that will have a problem with this because I felt it was the only thing Overstreet didn’t really connect well, and relied on tired female stereotypes to get it done (hint: I hate stereotypes used as shortcuts! DAMN YOU, writing shorthand!). It’s fantasy! Monarchy! Fathers still own their kids in this world (and bitch if they don’t have the right plumbing), so why am I surprised that most female roles generally leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, with what positive plot-impacting female characters there were (read: not enough).

Auralia, however, makes it worth it.

This is a series, and Auralia’s Colors is the first, called The Red Strand. I’m not sure this has much crossover appeal—I think the prose is readable but not very emotionally available, but the fact that Auralia is so young and flouting norms, I couldn’t resist—someone who likes YA fantasy might want to give it a shot, at the least, even though Auralia’s point of view isn’t the majority of the book.

In the end, Auralia is only the catalyst in this book, the beauty she wields exposing the greed and the lust and pride in a kingdom struck joyless by useless desires as the cause. It’s hard to say much more than that without spoiling the book, so I’ll leave it there. Interesting concept, okay execution, and weak characters in a book that was driven by them. Do with the knowledge as you will!

I still don’t think this is Christian Fantasy, though. Piggybacking at best! >>

The second book is this series, The Blue Strand Cyndere’s Midnight is out now.

Fan-made, proving that fans are awesome. :D

Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

(The way to my heart: lots of words! *~Controversial Opinions~* Yes!)

So with no further ado, here’s Sarah answering the slew of questions I tossed at her. Be sure to visit her blog and read all her opinion pieces, gosh, HEARTS FOREVER. :D

First off, an introduction! Can you share a little bit about the person behind the text?

I’ve been an avid reader since childhood. I also love writing and hope to become a published author some day. I grew up in Ireland but I currently live in Switzerland with my family. Switzerland is a dangerous place to be as it has great coffee and chocolate — my two addictions!

What inspired you to start reviewing books? Did you have a goal in mind, or was it just for personal pleasure?

I started keeping track of the books I read a few years ago. Over time, my notes on each book grew more copious. These weren’t reviews in the formal sense, but the experience made the transition to writing proper reviews that bit easier.

I’d toyed with the idea of starting my own blog for at least a year before finally taking the plunge. I had a couple of reasons for doing so. Firstly, my computer skills needed improvement. I’d worked in an educational environment for years and wasn’t required to know much more than Microsoft Office and how to do research on the internet. I thought getting to grips with WordPress would teach me a few new skills and provide a useful introduction to HTML, CSS, etc.

The second reason was to help my writing. I’m the Queen of the First Three Chapters and The Detailed Synopsis. I suffer from chronic over-editing disorder and find it incredibly difficult to progress with a story beyond a certain point. The constant re-reading and re-writing inevitably gave me a crisis of confidence whereby I would decide that whatever story I was working on at the time was utter drivel and abandoned it to start a new one.

My rule when I began blogging was that I had to write a certain number of words within a fixed time and was only allowed a brief grammar/spell check before posting. This has proved incredibly useful training. I admit that I cringe sometimes when I re-read older posts and notice I’ve used the same word three times, or over-used filler words such as “so” and “really”. Overall, though, I think it’s the method which works best for me.

Finally, the actual catalyst for starting my blog came after I handed in my notice at work and was about to become a stay-at-home mother. I needed some sort of focus beyond my children and the household and wanted something that would require me to use my brain.

What were some of the first book blogs you read? How did you find them? Did they inspire you to take up the hobby?

The first blog I ever visited was Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I’d seen them mentioned on the messageboards at All About Romance and I wanted to see what was causing all the controversy. For the longest time, SBTB was the only blog I visited. Then I discovered Dear Author, Avid Book Reader, KristieJ, Karen Scott and a slew of others, some of which no longer exist.

Funnily enough, I can’t really say those blogs inspired me to take up the hobby. My true inspiration came from Twitter, of all places. When I opened a Twitter account, it was on the assumption that it would be an extension of Facebook, so purely for family and real life friends. Then I discovered a few bloggers and fellow romance readers and started following them. Had I started tweeting with the express intention of connecting with authors, readers and bloggers, I would have done so under a pseudonym. By the time it occurred to me that tweeting under my real name might not be such a great idea in terms of privacy, I already had around 70 followers and it seemed stupid to change it. I’ve discovered so many interesting “smaller” blogs through Twitter and this gave me the confidence to start my own.

Flashback! Do you remember the first book you read as a child, or the first book that opened up reading to you; the one that made you go, “I have to have more!”?

My mother and grandmother read to me from the time I was a baby. I could already read when I started school and always had two books on the go: one which would be read aloud to me, and one which I read myself. I can’t remember the name of the very first book I read without assistance. I know the cover was blue and the story featured a little girl and her stuffed rabbit.

We all have books we really, really wish we could get our hands on, but aren’t published yet. What are a few of yours?

Oh, boy, do you want a list?! I could take up a lot of space with all the books I’m looking forward to in 2009 and 2010. A few highly-anticipated ones include J.R. Ward’s Covet (October 2010), Victoria Dahl’s Lead Me On (January 2010), Julie James’ Something About You (March 2010), Melissa Marr’s Skin Starved (April 2010) and Jo Goodman’s next Western.

Has blogging about books changed your perspective about literature and reading? Has it opened up different genres for you that you might not have tried otherwise?

I don’t think it’s changed my perspective on literature and reading per se. What it has most definitely achieved is that I read far fewer duds than I used to. I purchase books almost exclusively on the basis of recommendations. This considerably lessens the likelihood of buying an absolute stinker. I’ve also ventured into new territory and tried genres which I had previously regarded with skepticism, such as Urban Fantasy and Fantasy.

Out of all the experiences you’ve had blogging so far, which has been the best? Which has been the most frustrating?

The best blogging experience so far has most definitely been connecting with people who have similar reading tastes to mine, and discovering new-to-me blogs. There are so many quality “smaller” blogs out there which I’d never heard of. Most of these I found through people leaving comments on my blog, and people linking to me.

The most frustrating experience was when I wrote an opinion piece which I felt was misunderstood and started a bit of controversy. On the plus side, it taught me a valuable lesson: state your opinions clearly and directly and be prepared to stand by them as not everyone will agree with you. In hindsight, the language I used in the post was ambiguous. I’m shy by nature and border on the overly polite. I was trying to cushion my feelings of outrage with respectful language and this undoubtedly led to some of the confusion. Direct speech is much better. I’ve found I’ve become more forthcoming in expressing my opinions since I started blogging — for better or for worse!

If you could give all new bloggers some advice, what would it be? What advice have you found most beneficial to your blogging experience?

Remain true to yourself. Yes, you hope to gain an audience, but authenticity is what really counts. Blog about what interests you and hopefully people will like it. The moment you start to take yourself or your stats too seriously is the moment when blogging becomes a chore.

Another piece of advice which was given to me when I started my blog is that if you find yourself writing a 2000-word essay in response to someone else’s piece, save it for your own blog. I use this advice judiciously. If I feel I have something fresh to add to the topic, I write my own piece on it. I always link to the post which inspired me, and I usually comment on it as well.

What’s a comfort read for you? A book you’ve read before and return to, or just the type you know you’ll love: either works!

Georgette Heyer’s Regencies are perennial comfort reads.

Has book blogging altered how you write? Made you a better writer who is more confident by the nature of showing reviews out to fend for themselves, or perhaps the opposite?

As mentioned above, blogging has helped me curb the tendency to over-edit. This doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of my writing but it most certainly increases the quantity. I have about 20 minutes per day to write something for my blog. If I used that time to polish one paragraph, I’d never manage 5-6 posts per week. Funnily enough, I find my most popular pieces are often the ones which just flow and take the least time to write.

Send us out with some recs: think about all the books you’ve read this year; which do you think will go on to make your 2009 Best Of list?

Here are a few 2009 releases which I enjoyed:

• Fade to Black by Leslie Parrish – Romantic Suspense
• Never Love a Lawman by Jo Goodman – Western
• Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James – Contemporary Romance
• Start Me Up by Victoria Dahl – Contemporary Romance
• A Duke of Her Own by Eloisa James – Historical Romance