This is what I wrote upon finishing the book last month: “My emotions have been played like a cheap fiddle at a hoedown AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE. I like, am alllllmost tempted to give this five stars, but I’m gonna sit on that impulse for now (see cheap fiddle hoedown comment above.) So for now, 4.5 stars. Also shut up, YOU’RE CRYING.” I’ve cooled off since then, and I’d probably need to re-read before I can form definite opinions about specific details (mostly because […]
Like Some Guy at a Party Got All Jazzed About Mythology and Just Had to Tell You About It
“Hey, is there a female version of wingman? Wingwoman sounds awkward. I’m coining a new phrase: Titcaptain. Tell your friends.” This is it, that book that became a sensation because of Tumblr. And that is in fact where I first found out about it too, only to be so intrigued by the hilarious chapter titles (ie, “Ganesh is the Very Definition of an Unplanned Pregnancy”) that I had to read it. Essentially, Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes is a collection of a few myths from various […]
“…once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.”
From Goodreads: “Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and […]
A Who-Done-It Modeled on Greek Tragedy
I was expecting another courtroom drama, which Turow is famous for, but instead got a complicated who-dun-it which meshed power struggles and politics with family feuds and Greek mythol0gy. As Turow himself admits in his concluding notes, inspiration for the story came from the Gemini myth of Castor and Pollux, twins who shared in each other’s fates and spent half their time in Hades and half on Mount Olympus with the Greek Gods. Knowing that myth before reading the book gives added dimensions to Turow’s […]
The Dumbest Kiss
This book. Don’t read it. It was a Vaginal Fantasy pick, but an awful one. The plot was uninteresting, the pacing jarring, the writing juvenile and uninspired, and the characters flat and insipid. Here’s the rub: Lucien is one of the Lords of the Underworld, punished for opening Pandora’s Box by having the demon of Death coupled to his soul. He and Death are one; they cannot be separated. He has to perform Reaper-like tasks and escort souls to their final resting places (these are boringly […]
Breaking Down the Doors of Death
If you like a good cliff-hanger, then Rick Riordan is the author for you. In fact, the dedication of The House of Hades reads, “To my wonderful readers: Sorry about that last cliff-hanger. Well, no, not really. HAHAHAHA. But seriously, I love you guys.” The House of Hades, the fourth book in The Heroes of Olympus series, picks up right where the third book, The Mark of Athena, leaves us hanging, with Percy and Annabeth stuck in Tartarus trying to get to the Doors of […]