OK. This is the book that jmfausti sent me because she hated it so much. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. She actually likes me. I think. Well, I mentioned I was going to check it out, so she sent me hers.

Finally, I’ve managed to get through it. Here’s what I think:

These guys are supposed to be adult, professional men, right? Well, they appear never to have graduated from the high school locker room. Dumb jokes and puns and bathroom humor abound. Ok, so the doctor guy answers the questions, but there’s always some goofy little twist.

I thought it was just my female sensibilities being offended, but Michael said he thought it was kind of stupid, too. Now, I realize I married an above par male, but he can probably recognize regular male humor from complete crap.

But maybe, just maybe, having read this book, Michael will quit putting q-tips in his ears.

Gotta say, I looove the cover art on this book. The words inside didn’t suck either. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but the characters definitely seemed real and nobody got cancer. There’s always someone in this type of book that gets cancer. I hate that.

It’s about a book club. A group of women that each love literature. At the first meeting of the year, the one of them that is totally with it announces her divorce. She won’t talk about what happened so they spend the rest of the year guessing. And taking action to improve their own lives.

I liked that they read literature. I like that they read more than one book each time. I love my own book group. I would never have the time and focus to be in such a deep group, but it’s nice to dream. I didn’t like that they thought they were all intellectual in their discussion, but really, it was pretty run of the mill. They sounded a lot like my book group, but just heavier material.

Sara at work read this book and “gave” (checked it out to) Judi to read. They then put it on my pile of checkouts. Well, I finally got around to it.

SAHM, for those of you not in the know, stands for Stay At Home Mom. This book is a modern epistolary novel in that it consists entirely of emails from women around the country who belong to a loop group mediated by one of the most annoyingly self-righteous uber-mothers on the planet.

Anyway, this sub-group forms of women who are truly there for each other even though they’ve never met. The group is a Christian group and the women are trying to live by Christian standards, and help each other through their ups and downs.

It was lots of fun to read. I don’t typically go in for “women’s stories” as they are often trite and syrupy, but this one reminded me a lot of The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble in tone if not in content.

Thanks, guys, for making me read it. Good job.

February’s large book is finished! It was much easier to read than Bleak House.

This book is somewhat of an anomaly in that it takes place in the future and the past. In 2055, Oxford University sends a historian back in time to 1320. But they screw it up and she ends up in 1348. Right when the plague hit Oxford. Future Oxford is hit with a virus of plague proportions right afterward, so it is weeks before they know what’s gone wrong.

It was a neat parallel story of Mr. Dunworthy in future Oxford trying to get Kivrin back from whenever she was, and Kivrin in 1348 meeting people and growing to love them, and then watching the Bubonic Plague take over.

I really liked this book, but I definitely couldn’t read it while eating.

The best thing I can say about this book is that it taught me something about myself. I don’t like books where people don’t behave rationally for the situation they’re in. I spent the first 200 pages of this book being really angry with the main character for acting so crazy.

Let me ‘splain. No. Is too long. Let me sum up.

Paul’s wife fell out of the apple tree in the back yard. Why was she in the apple tree? Why did she cook a steak to feed the dog? Why did she rearrange all the books on the bookshelves? Aha. The dog is a witness. Paul decides to teach the dog to talk so she can tell him what she saw. That is stupid enough, but then he quits his college professor job to devote all his time to this. Now, from what I can tell, he didn’t really do very much. There were piles of “research books” lying around. And he certainly wasn’t cleaning up after himself. But he made this big deal about listing the books that had been rearranged. It took him, like, 6 months to list the books on about 5 shelves.

I won’t give away any more of the plot. I will say that I didn’t think his lovely wife was really all that great. She was histrionic. She threw massive temper tantrums and was a huge drama queen. She whined about feeling she should not have children because who knew what she would do them in a rage? Hmmm. She managed to keep a dog alive. Oh well. I would not have been able to live with this self-obsessed, childish woman.

At about page 200, Paul seemed to snap out of it a little bit. Admittedly, he had to have some help to do it. There is hope for him, yet.

Lorelei the dog is my favorite character. She’s sane.

Loved it. I forced myself not to read it so it wouldn’t be over too soon. Luckily, it’s my own copy so I can read it over and over again.

This woman is my hero. She did what I always wanted to do, but was too young. Then, when I was old enough, the hair metal scene in L.A. was over. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have done it exactly like she did. You know, I probably wouldn’t have had the junkie boyfriendand the pill addiction. But I definitely wanted to live in Hollywood and be surrounded by hunky hair gods.

Oh, right. She did have a goal. She wanted to write for a metal magazine. I would have settled for the day job and the Sunset strip at night.

Coincidences: Besides our love of Rock n Roll… She has worked in juvenile facilities, so have I. Her best friend in L.A. was from Bixby, Oklahoma. I live 2 miles from Bixby. She’s a big lit nerd. I’m a big lit nerd. I’m telling you, I love this woman.

Oh, and she talks about Motley Crue.

Being YA fiction, this is not my usual fare, but with a title like Heavy Metal and You, how could I pass it up? Basically, it’s a boy meets girl story, where the boy finds himself, but the boy in this case is into heavy metal. He references all sorts of bands I listened to in high school. It was great.

It’s written by a guy who will be 21 this year (grrr). I don’t know how he knows all these bands that were popular when I was in high school, but he appears to know of which he speaks. Maybe there is some underground Heavy Metal movement where they still listen to vintage music. Yeah, that’s it. Or maybe, there just isn’t enough new heavy metal music, so they are forced to listen to out-of-date metal. I thnk I’d like to ask him these questions.

Oh, and he mentions Motley Crue. Not necessarily in a good way, but it’s there.