3 posts tagged “music”

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos

I usually try to avoid anything that has been picked by one of the big book clubs, it's my own personal version of snobbishness :) Had I known this was a Today Show book club selection, I probably would have skipped it. But then I would have missed a story that touched my heart. Margaret is an elderly woman tired of her lonely life and in need of a change. She takes in a boarder and sets in motion the creation of an ad hoc family. The story is a bit Dickensian in how everything falls perfectly into place at the end, but I enjoyed that. I wanted everything to fall into place and for the coincidences to play out. I even cried a little at the end. I'm a sap, and I'm totally ok with it. I don't know who recommended this to me, but I'm glad they did.

Fifteen Candles: 15 tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceañera Stories : An Anthology edited by Adriana Lopez

Short story collections usually make me happy, but for some reason this one just made me sad. I've read collections recently about jealously, the holidays, adolescent boys, and mix tapes.  I suspect that the lack of humor was issue with this collection. I know not all short stories are funny, but I went into this collection expecting humor and instead got bittersweet and melancholy. It's frustrating to not get what you're expecting. I also got mad at the collection when one of the final stories misidentified "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" as a Guns N' Roses song. Fact check, people, it is NOT hard. Gah. I was also reading Slash' autobiography at the time, so I was particularly offended :) Bad author, no biscuit!

Best Foot Forward by Joan Bauer

The edition that I read had much more interesting cover art. I am a total shoe whore, so lots of shoes, even ones with velcro closures are going o catch my eye faster than jeans and chucks, not that I don't love my chucks. Sorry, I got distracted. Ok, the book. I liked the story, a bit of a mystery combined with a story of friendship and second chances. Um, I just realized this is the sequel to a book that I haven't read. Don't you hate it when you unknowingly do that? Thank goodness it was well enough written that I didn't realize it until I went to Amazon to find the cover art. I liked this story and now I will go read the first book, Rules of the Road and I hope I like it just as much.

Slash by Slash with Anthony Bozza

I had a serious thing for Guns N' Roses way back about 7th grade. I remember going to the mall with my friends and being so excited to get a copy of Appetite for Destruction on cassette. When I got home my mother was disgusted and let me keep the tape but I had to throw out the liner notes. WTF mom? I asked her about the recently and I was shocked that she didn't try to justify is somehow. Go mom.
Anyway, the book. I was charmed. I liked the voice that came through, the writing style was enjoyable and flowed nicely, and it was just a great story. But it made me very sad that I recently lost most of my music and had no GNR to listen to. I went into this with pretty minimal expectations, and it blew me away.

Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn

Luckily this time I knew I was reading a sequel and spent the first fifty pages or so trying to remember what happened in the first book. This was an ok story, but not the best of the Star Wars novels. Perhaps because I really don't care about the characters or perhaps because the Sith are just passé. I read most of these novels out some (perhaps misguided) sense of loyalty to the Star Wars franchise and lately I've been disappointed. Perhaps I will learn this lesson and not read this books in the future. I'm just afraid that if I do, I'll miss out on a fantastic novel, such as The Cestus Deception. It's too bad I don't have my own personal book screener who knows exactly what I like and dislike. Actually, that would be fantastic. I'll have to work on it. Anyone want to volunteer? Book reviews you say? I stopped reading them when a major character death was ruined for me by a review of Star by Star. Who DOES that?

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich

This book was total fluff, and a very quick read, but it made me laugh. Even when her plots are full of holes and completely predictable, I still enjoy the Stephanie Plum series. Something to do with two guys names Ranger and Joe, though Lula is a close third. This book, billed as a "between-the-numbers" is really more of a novella, at 176 pages, but if you have two hours to kill and was a few laughs, go for it. It this latest installment, Grandma Mazur finds a bag of money, buys and RV and takes off for Atlantic City. Stephanie and Diesel track her down and try to figure out how to give the money back without getting anyone killed. Of course there are the usual hilarious hijinks, and Stephanie's car is never safe, but that's just part of the fun. But as fun as these books are, I really do hope that the series does have an end point though and that Stephanie must choose once and for all.

Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society, book 3) by Jayne Ann Krentz

I read the first two books in this series out of order, and I wish I'd read book 2 more recently because I didn't remember much about it. Luckily there was enough back story here that I was able to back-fill on my own. This was a fun story, and I'm curious to see where she takes this next. I love that she's writing this series with both historical and contemporary installments. I also liked that the suspense part of the romantic suspense was much more prominent than the romance part. Not that I don't like the romance, but when the mystery is sacrificed for the sake of the romance, I tend to get annoyed. I'm long past the point where will read a romance novel just for the romance, so it's great to have a fully flushed out plot to hold my attention.

What's your favorite radio station, past or present?

I completely loved a standards station that went off the air almost a year ago. I loved the morning show, I loved all the music, and I loved the afternoon drive dj as well. I was very very sad when their FCC license was not renewed. The morning show crew has done a listeners in exile type thing with a website and streaming audio, but I can't listen live at work, and I can't get it in the car, which is where most of my radio consumption occurs.

I'm convinced that I'm radio poison. First the above station goes away, then another station I liked disappeared on day with no warning, surprise format change. Then just when I thought I'd found an afternoon show I liked, the host had a disagreement with the station management and quit. Very distressing.

I've found a new morning show, but I'm still looking for an afternoon drive-time show I can tolerate, and a station where I like the entire play-list. I am a total channel surfer and I don't like it. I want a station I can turn on and not have to switch off five minutes later. Woe is me.

What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment?  What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly. 

A minute ago, it was Down in Mississippi and Up to No Good by Sugarland. No idea what album it's from, I have it on a summer mix cd that I got from a local radio station promotion. At the moment, nothing. Yes, I listen to country music, and I'm not ashamed!