A Study In Emerald by Neil Gaiman

1 Star

 

My immediate reaction upon finishing this shorty . . .



When a German noble goes missing, it’s up to everyone’s favorite sleuth Sherlock Holmes Who to solve the case . . .



Left with a clue written in the victim’s blood . . .



No, wait. That’s not right. Oh yeah, it was Rache. The consulting detective and our narrator discover there might be more to this mystery than meets the eye . . .



And I didn’t get it. Why did everyone love this? I’m so dummmmmmmmbbbbbbbb (*insert sad face*).

The couple things I did like were the olde timey newspaper layout and the advertisements interspersed throughout . . .



But the story? I didn’t much care for it at all. Good news is, it not only has an eleventy trillion rating on Goodreads but it also won some smarty farty award, it’s free so errrrryone can read it (and read it right instead of wrong like me) HERE, and it’s Gaiman so I will gladly keep lapping up his Kool Aid even though this one was a fail for moi . . .

30 Days by Christine d'Abo

2 Stars

When I saw the premise of this book was a 30-day sex pact, I was like . . .



HA! NOT! It was more like gimmegimmegimmegimmegimme.

Now that I’m finished I’ll be the first to admit I read it wrong. I’ll ‘splain to you where to look for an actual review at this end of this mess, but until then enjoy the picture show.

30 Days started out with a bit of a sad . . .

“Seriously, fuck cancer.”

When Alyssa’s husband died he left her a letter to read whenever she decided she was ready. Fast forward a couple years and Alyssa finally decides it’s time to open the package. What does she find? A letter telling her it’s okay to move on and some “inspirational” cards to help aid in her getting her groove back.

Card 1 is simple enough – do the ditty to the little man in the boat, so Alyssa decides to give it a whirl. Which leads us to the meet/cute with new neighbor Harrison who hears Alyssa’s screams and assumes she’s being murdered. Oh, and he also looks something like this . . .



I would say “sploosh” or “boooiiiing” or something of the ilk here, but I’ll refrain . . . .



At first, Alyssa thinks Harrison is a bit of a douche, but then she smells him a couple of times . . . .



(Although it was more realistic than the usual “spring breezes and angel farts” that is the typical description of someone’s signature scent, that one still made me hardy-har-har). Anywho, Alyssa eventually comes to the conclusion that . . .



And presents Harrison with proposition that he should be the one to share her “thirty days of passion.” Harrison is nothing if not a cardboard cutout giver so he’s all . . .



But first, they have to make sure they have mass quantities of lube and plenty of . . . .



For his ginormo wang.

Which leads me to really with all the lube? The gals in these stories always seem to have plenty of grease in the gears if you know what I’m sayin’ so it seemed like overkill to me. But what do I know? I’m just a prudish old lady.

What really lost me with this story was the sex. I mean this was supposed to be ALLLLLLLL about sex (30 DIFFERENT WAYS – YIPPPPEEEEEEE!), but here is a Missionary Marge type leading lady all of a sudden having inner dialogue consisting of nothing but talk about . . .



Me no likey. And then they did stuff with a grapefruit that left me all . . .



PASS! (And also deleted from the Kindle before my husband could get any bright ideas.)

But like I said at the beginning, I read this one wrong. It happens. Lucky for all of you my friend Baba read it right and also writes way better reviews than I do. I’ve also come to a conclusion about Baba: Either (1) she IS my porny librarian even though she lives halfway across the world from me, or (2) my porny librarian orders whatever she likes. Either way it keeps me in free smut, so it’s awesome. Baba is one of my favorite users on Goodreads. Mainly because we both kind of have this type of reaction to jerkoffs . . .

Burrito by E. Lorn

5 Stars

 

“Any man willing to die for a cause is cause enough not to mess with.”

Let me begin by stating one thing right from the start:

*CLEARS THROAT*



The person I’m talking to should know it’s for her.

Like 97.8% of every “review” I post, this one is going to go off the rails immediately as I ramble. You’ve been warned.

Okay, so today’s rambling is the majesty of the food challenge. I’ve stated numerous times that I’m not a big television watcher (excluding the kryptonite which is the Housewhores of Every City in ‘Murica), but you give me a Man v. Food marathon (or my newest addictions, Food Paradise and the ones about deep frying ERRRRRRYTHING at the State Fair) and I will sit on the couch like a sloth until the last episode is finished.

When I saw Ed Lorn had written a shorty about a 30-pound burrito, I was on that shit like flies on a poo poo platter. I also knew exactly where his inspiration came from – Don Chignon’s in NYC where eating the “Grand Chignon” will not only earn you bragging rights, but also 10% of the business . . .



Lorn’s story puts a bit of a spin on things with the focus being life or death for little Wally if his gramps Hap can’t make this behemoth disappear before close of business. The rules are simple – nom nom nom, don’t puke and don’t even think about what wants to happen at your back door . . . .



But this is not just a tale of good vs. burrito. No, it also includes Hap's backstory and how a run-in with another challenge fave of mine, THE GHOST PEPPER, went from easy breezy lemon squeezy, to juuuuuuuuuust a bit of a problem . . .



To . . . .


(St. Elmo’s Fire! Get it? Haaaaaaaaaa! I kill me.)

Right when ol’ Hap was thinking . . . .



He found himself left with several miles of missing colon and no way to earn the money so desperately needed except to tackle the toddler-sized burrito. Can he do it? Will his innards become outards? You’ll have to read the story to find out.

An advanced copy of Burrito was provided to me in exchange for an honest review. Yes, Ed Lorn is my friend, but we both wear big gal panties and I’m not scurrred to give him honest reviews. My favorite story by him is the one he hates the most and his fave falls into the “meh” pile for me (and then there’s the corn porn – there’s not enough brain bleach in the world to make me forget about that corn porn). My expectations were so flippin’ high for this one I thought for sure I’d hate it. Imagine my delight when it exceeded my expectations. Every star there is to star.

Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman

1 Star

 

PLEASE NOTE THIS WAS MY 75TH BOOK OF THE YEAR AND ONLY MY THIRD 1 STAR. I ALSO ATTEMPTED TO DNF, BUT SADLY MY OCD WOULD NOT LET ME SO THIS IS GOING TO BE HORRIBLY RANTY AND EVEN EXTRA GIFFY THAN NORMAL. OH AND I TALK ABOUT FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WITHOUT EXPLAINING WHAT MOVIE THEY CAME FROM AND DON’T BOTHER PUTTING MOVIE TITLES IN ITALICS BECAUSE I’M LAZY. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE A REAL BITCHFIT AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR POP CULTURE, YOU SHOULD RUN AWAY. FAR FAR AWAY.
“When you grow up, your heart dies.”

Are you a 40-something (or nearly 40-something) who is interested in having everything you ever loved about your childhood ruined? If so, boy is this the book for you . . .



This is a case of everyone is entitled to their opinion – but I’m entitled to disagree with dang near EVERYTHING being opined on. It doesn’t help that the author pulls a Donald Drumpf several times and argues one side only to later argue the other. In order to avoid this review being 47,000 pages, I’m going to stick to the subject that made my eye twitch the most. It appears the author is one of the so-called “modern day feminists.” Dear people like this: Please start a GoFundMe on my behalf so I can purchase a penis because I don’t want to have any sort of affiliation with people like you. It started pretty quickly when Heartburn was declared to be one of the “funniest novels ever written” and When Harry Met Sally was awarded “most quotable film of the 1980s.” Really? There’s one quote . . .



(Unless you live in my house where I do a pretty horrible Billy Crystal impersonation and ask if anyone would “like to partake in a piece of pecan piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie” every time we have one. But still, two quotes does not a “most quotable” movie make.)

We also learn that we were all supposed to fall in love with Blane (Blane???? That’s not a name!) when everyone I knew was cheering for the underdog . . .



I mean, seriously, not only was Andrew McCarthy a horrible actor and not particularly attractive, he was also such a smarmy little bastage that it took starring in a movie with a DEAD GUY to give him a redemption arc . . .



We then find out that . . .

“It wasn’t – and it still isn’t – easy being a female movie fan.”

Things just went downhill from there . . .

“Teenage girl audiences just weren’t even in the equation until Twilight came around.”



Scratch that idea of the GoFundMe page for me and start one on behalf of the author instead because apparently she lives in a cave somewhere with no connection to the rest of the world. For every Revenant or Batman v. Superman that is released there are a dozen D.U.F.F.s (holllllllla, Erica). You know why? Because not only do teenage girls (and old bags like me) flock to the theaters in droves to see movies like those, but they cost ZERO dollars to make and movie studios are in the business of making money. Leonardo Dicaprio will probably put some butts in chairs, but he also gets paid eleventy million dollars per film. Same goes with superhero movies. They cost a gajillion dollars and take a lot of time to produce – but they make so much on a global level that it’s all worth it. But a teenage rom-com? Who gives a fart if that puppy only brings in a hundred mill (including DVD sales). They paid the actors about $12 to star in it, production cost was fifty cents and the whole thing was wrapped in six weeks. (Yes, I’m exaggerating, but on the grand scheme of things teeny-bopper romcoms are a goldmine and that’s why so many of them get released each year.)

Which leads us to the ruining of one of my favorites: Sixteen Candles. Why can’t we just enjoy a movie? I don’t want to hear how Sixteen Candles is a depiction of “rape culture.” Hell, I don’t even care about watching Sam and Jake have their first kiss while sitting criss-cross-applesauce on top of the kitchen table. What I really want to see is Sam’s sister high as a kite at her wedding and hear Long Duck Dong talk about no more yanky his wanky. And yessssssss I realize that that’s “racist” – but you know what? Blazing Saddles is the most racist effing movie in the history of ever but it’s also still hilarious.

And seriously you’re going to talk about Jake being “rapey” but then have zero problems with Peter Venkman being a bit of a creepy stalker? You can’t get it both ways. Ghostbusters is most definitely NOT the “depiction of how a man should be.” Uhhhhh, have you even watched the film? Bill Murray is a disgusting manbearpig, but every woman in their right mind still fell in love with him.

Oh, and not only does she argue that Venkman’s brand of misogyny is A-Okay while pretty much every other character in the history of ever is not, but she then dismisses the idea that Ernie Hudson’s character was thrown in as a “token black guy.” HE TOTALLY WAS! While the Hudson race issue is glossed over, a huge deal is made about the fact that Axel Foley and Lisa could not kiss because it was still considered taboo, which was the case at the time, but I’m pretty sure it was less of a stance on interracial relations and more because it was a BUDDY COP movie and not a romance – a formula which has been repeated/will be repeated for eternity. I mean seriously, Rush Hour and Ride Along and on and on and on. The one that messed a good thing up was Lethal Weapon 2 and the inclusion of the stupid ass dead girlfriend storyline.

Going back to the discussion about seriously effed up rape - dare I forget the movie Big where Tom Hanks plays a 13 year old boy who then has SEX with a grown woman. If you’re going to take issue with Sixteen Candles, how in the hell can you give a pass to this?

Even Mr. Mom comes under attack when the author says the movie’s message is “that the swapping of traditional gender roles will probably destroy the marriage and almost certainly the house.” That’s when this happened . . .



Christ on a cracker!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mr. Mom was a film that showed that there is no such thing as “just being a mom” – it’s a fulltime job and a hard one at that, as Michael Keaton clearly demonstrates . . . .



Once again, both sides of the coin are discussed when Baby Boom is used as an example of how women can have it all? Really? ‘Cause to me that film seems to show that you can have it all, but only if you change the definition of what makes up the “all” that you want.

Things spiral right down the toilet from there with discussions of how “it is impossible to imagine a young woman playing the romantic lead in a movie today without perfectly blow-dried hair, a size 0 body, and body-clinging clothing.” Yeah . . . .



And how we should long for the good ol’ days of “Melanie Griffith’s gorgeously curvaceous and pale body in Working Girl” . . .



Alrighty then.

We also find out that “women are deliberately excluded from movies.” They sure are . . . .



And that when they are included, it’s only to be as sex objects, which NEVER happens to guys . . .



I could go on and on (and on and on and on), but my heart rate is kind of off the charts and my eye hasn’t stopped twitching since I started writing this, so I’m going to leave it with the one statement that truly made the book jump the shark – that the whole lesson to be learned from Die Hard is that “FEMINISM RUINS EVERYTHING” . This is why we can't have nice things . . .



ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley!

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

4 Stars

 

 

“Is this some kind of religion?”

“It may be.”


If you are a fan of America’s pastime, there’s a good chance you believe the same. My Sunday “church” is the Little League fields of flyover country and I couldn’t think of a better book to read on opening weekend . . . .



Unless you’ve been living in a box (♫♪♫living in a cardboard box♫♪♫) you have probably heard of Shoeless Joe, at least in its movie format Field of Dreams. In case you haven’t, this is the story of Ray, an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice one day telling him . . . .

“If you build it, he will come.”



Ray immediately knows what he needs to build and the “he” who will be coming. When he hears the voice a second . . .

“Ease his pain”

And then a third time . . . .

“Go the distance.”

He has an awareness of the next steps he needs to take as well in order to . . .

“Fulfill the dream.”

This is the quintessential story about the love of the game. . . .

.

It’s a story about faith and family and finding inner peace and it might just make you believe that a little cornfield in Iowa might really be heaven . . . .



The film version is near perfection. I’m knocking off 1 Star here for the scene that was not included in the book, which was the one that made my robot heart melt and rain fall out of my face . . .



Highly recommended to anyone who believes that:

“I suppose that wouldn’t be a bad epitaph for me: ‘He was a fan of the game.’”

Now PLAY BALL!

Oh and to my beloved boys in blue . . .

 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

2 Stars

 

So it appears Kelly read this back in high school and since she is a total effing idiot, she 2-Starred the sumbitch. I say HELL NAH to that because we all know who the real brains behind these reviews is – DUH - ME, MITCHELL, THE BOAR.

I’m not going to waste much time on this - mainly because I’m only a head and I’m using a contraption sort of like this in order to reach the keyboard . . .


(By the way - thanks, dumbshit, for leaving the ‘puter on for me today.)

I’ll simply leave it with the following . . . .

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Pigs rule. Humans drool.



Mitchell out!