Monday, May 31, 2010

Books Read: May 2010

May 15: Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

The latest in the series from which True Blood derives its inspiration. The series tends to divide into books where momentous things happen, and books where characters are largely reacting to previous momentous events. This book seems to fall into the latter category, but was still solid. I think the continuing storyline of the impact of Katrina on Louisiana's vampire hierarchy was a shot in the arm for the series that continues to deliver for Harris. (It seems like their runs will only overlap for a couple of weeks, but I'm really intrigued to see how True Blood and Treme play back-to-back. At the very least, it will be accent-tastic.) I also like that Harris revisited the concept of having a famous dead person appear as a vampire (this time with a less litigious estate than that of "Bubba").

May 18: Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Her work may be branded with the condescending "chick-lit" label, but I really enjoy Giffin's work. Her characters always feel like adults, whereas other books lumped together under that umbrella can often come across as adults acting like teenagers. Heart of the Matter was heavier and darker than Giffin's previous books, but it never shied away from the resultant complexity. I feel like I'm going to be musing on this one for a while.

May 19: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Someday I'll have to tally all the books I end up reading either in anticipation of seeing a film adaptation or after seeing a film adaptation. This falls in the former category - I'm interested to see how the book's very interior narrative will translate to the screen, particularly in the way that its guiding concept informs the story's progression.

May 20: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

No matter how deeply I recognize, at least on an intellectual level, the pull of a popular young-adult book, somehow I still seem to find myself in circumstances where I'm totally drawn into a book and find myself finishing it at some ungodly hour of the morning. Collins takes a fascinating concept - an authoritarian government demands tribute from its citizens in the form of teenagers who fight to the death in a televised competition - and milks it brilliantly for all its tension and drama. Believe the hype.

May 24: What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

Another film-inspired choice...about which I apparently don't have much to say.

May 25: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Again, another late night. What can I say, they're addictive. A solid middle book to a trilogy - it made me look forward to the last installment coming out later this summer, and drew upon the world Collins established in The Hunger Games without being too repetitive.

May 28: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

The most recent Newbery winner (sometime I'll devote a full post to how I was Newbery-obsessed as a kid) and a very good one, at that. I liked the way that Stead drew upon A Wrinkle in Time not only to frame the narrative of When You Reach Me, but also to evoke a sense of the way a particular book can impact you when you're young. A worthy addition to the pantheon.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Maybe I'm Crazy

...but I'm pretty sure this song deserves a one-off character and storyline on Glee to truly capitalize on its super-creepy weirdness.



I honestly can't decide whether this is more disturbing sung to a rat or a human being.

P.S. If Ryan Murphy is going to keep recycling Popular storylines with the whole Kurt's dad/Finn's mom thing, can we also have Colfer and Monteith do the riff on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Please?