Tag Archives: Patricia Briggs

October 7, 2012 · 3:17 PM

Phone Booths! (Telephone Boxes?)

Hello!

Did I complete my phone booths, you ask?  Oh, yes, I did, thus undoing some of the damage from that incredibly stupid thing I did.  Did I permanently damage my back hunching over my computer as I painstakingly added minute details?  Oh, yes…probably.  I’m going to give you the full series at the bottom of this post, including the ones I posted a while back, (it’ll look long, but they’re only pictures, so they go by quickly) but first, two things.

1. A quick segment on how advertisers use wording to make you think they’re offering you something special.

I’m sure you’ve all seen some cheese-based product or another that advertises:

Cheez-Its

Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese does it, too.  As do a number of other products.  I’m pretty sure many of you have also eaten these products, and questioned the veracity of these advertised statements.  I know I have.  But all I want to point out is that these products have “Cheese” in the name (usually).  At least in one form or another, right?  (I suppose “cheez” has been accepted into the English lexicon)  So why should they have to advertise to us that their cheese product is made with cheese?  Shouldn’t we be able to take that for granted?  It just bothers me that, not only do we not already expect cheese products to be made of cheese, but that they sell us this stuff by advertising that the products are made with “real cheese” as if this is an added bonus.  Am I making sense?  It’s like if you grabbed a loaf of bread and it advertised that it’s made with Real Flour!  Shouldn’t that be a given?  I was just about to type that this is “food for thought,” but…puns.  Um…this is just something to think about.  No metaphor there, but you get the message.  I’m only pointing it out to make you think a bit.

#2.  I’ve come across another book I couldn’t finish.

That’s not entirely true – I could finish it, but the sad truth is I really don’t want to.  It didn’t give me any reason to.  I found I honestly don’t care what happens to the characters.  The book is called Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater.  It’s a werewolf book.  I have a thing for werewolf books.  Way back when I was listing my favorite authors and why I love them, I never got around to Patricia Briggs.  She writes my favorite werewolf series.  She’s a great author, she covers really weighty topics in her books, and her main character – Mercedes Thompson – can turn into a coyote at will.  She’s the only non-werewolf in a pack of werewolves, which helps to drive the plot.  Oo, that’s an interesting word: Plot.  You know what I found I was missing in Shiver?  Plot.  That’s not to say there isn’t one – there is.  And it’s well established.  But toward the middle of the book, I felt I only got snippets of plot that were surrounded with too much Love Story (in my opinion), and it honestly bored me.  I got that these characters were in love.  At some point it just felt like I was being beaten over the head with it.  So I decided to stop reading.  Because 208 pages into the 390 page book…well, I’m still not quite sure what’s actually going to be happening.  Not in a mysterious way.  More in a…the plot is taking a backseat to the lovers’ story kind of way.  So…I’m not interested.  There’s very little action.  I like action.  Just my preference.  I’m sure some other people are way into this series (Yes, of course it’s a series), but for me, it’s not happening.  The book is going into the donation pile.

That’s it!  I know, I didn’t do any cartoons today.  Perhaps the phone booths will make up for it.

Word of the Day: Veracity (n) – conformity to truth or fact; accuracy.

#1 – On the Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#2 – Night Sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#3 – In the Forest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#4 – Parchment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

# 5 – Men at Work

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#6 – Crumpled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#7 – Long Distance Call

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#8 – Primary Colors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#9 – Out of Outline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#10 – Waterlogged

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#11 – Optical Illusion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#12 – Collective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#13 – Under the Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#14 – On the Beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#15 – Haunted

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May 30, 2012 · 7:00 PM

Fifty Shades of WTF

*DISCLAIMER* This blog post will contain mild spoilers and sexual content (written, not visual).  *END DISCLAIMER*

So a couple days ago, I heard about this trashy romance novel that was sweeping the nation called Fifty Shades of Grey.  It just suddenly popped up everywhere I went.  My relatives talked about it, one of my favorite comic strips, Girls With Slingshots, did a bit on it, etc.  Then yesterday, I was in Barnes & Noble buying books I actually care about – the next Sookie Stackhouse novel, the next Alpha and Omega novel by Patricia Briggs – when I see this book on the shelf.  My curiosity got to me.  I bought it.  I have not made it through the entire book.  I am only at chapter nine.  But here are some things I’ve observed about it.

1. It is uncomfortably close to Twilight in many ways.  Here is the list.  If you haven’t read Twilight, take my word for it that these things are contained within it:

  • The male love interest is described as an “Adonis.”
  • The main character, Anastasia, has a harebrained mother who has recently remarried.
  • Anastasia sees herself as awkward and ugly when apparently everyone else sees her as beautiful.
  • Anastasia has multiple male suitors (two so far) that are interested in her, attractive, and friendly, but she is not interested in them.  The only one who catches her eye is the perfectly handsome Christian Grey.
  • Anastasia blushes a lot, and her biggest flaw seems to be that she is clumsy.  Worse, it seems her klutziness is supposed to be endearing.  Why oh why is this a thing all of a sudden?  I get that the female is supposed to be all meek and need Mr. Sculpted McChiseledJaw to keep her safe, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.

50Shades

The list goes on.  Anastasia doesn’t believe she is worthy of Mr. Perfect-Ass WashboardAbs because he is so much better looking than she is.  She dreams about him every night after meeting him, yadda yadda.

Here are some other things.

2. Anastasia’s last name is Steele.  And the male love interest’s last name is not WashboardAbs, it’s Grey.  So we have Steele and Grey.  Steel Grey.  This is too perfectly constructed to have been an accident.  (Just like it was no accident that the main character of Twilight was named “Beautiful Swan.”) On top of that, Christian Grey has gray eyes, and his hair is supposedly “copper,” though to be fair, Edward’s was “bronze.”

3. The author, E L James, is English.  I knew this after reading the second sentence in the novel (“…damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill…”), and then I checked the About the Author to see if I was right.  I was.  I knew because she kept saying things like “My roommate is ill,” and “I must not do this,” and “I looked smart” (As in she was dressed well).  I have nothing against the English, but it took me until she mentioned driving from Oregon to Washington to realize that the narrator is, in fact, supposed to be American.  The problem is, no editor stopped Ms. James for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, but American people don’t talk like this.  We might need to change a few things.”  It takes me out of the book entirely every time she says an Englishism, and I’m afraid I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough.

4. I haven’t even gotten to the sex.  (Here’s where the spoiler comes in) Mr. Christian Grey tries to stay away from Bella, er, Anastasia as much as he can, but he just can’t because he is so in love with her clumsiness.  So he gives in and takes her back to his place and shows her his big, dark secret: He’s a vampire.  No just kidding.  It’s worse.  He’s really into kink.  He has an entire room dedicated to the most extreme forms of S&M.  He tells Anastasia that if she wants to be with him, she will have to be his Sub while he is the Dom.  And she’s like, “Well, you’re hot, and I really want to have sex with you, so okie dokie!”  Or rather, “Well, you’re a fine-looking fellow, and I must say I cannot resist you any further.”  Something like that.

So obviously I don’t really like this book so far.  This post was long, and I’m sorry.  I’ll probably give a full review of the book once I finish it.

Word of the Day: Sadomasochism (n) – interaction, especially sexual activity, in which one person enjoys inflicting physical or mental suffering on another person, who derives pleasure from experiencing pain.

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