Two days and six phone calls later, the AndAnything conglomerate (including ReadWriteTweet, Deciduus, and various others) is officially hosted on a new server with much (much) better speeds and email management. Am very pleased. Between that, redesigning andany twice in four days, digging up some favorite quotes, and creating a new home for the poemtree project, there’s been much general busyness.

But while andany is finally sorted out, my book drama just gets worse. Not in writing. Reading.

The perfect story

After anything good, an amazing book, a heart-stopping game, an incredible movie, there’s almost always a lull in the normal, everyday enjoyment of fiction. Because how could anything be as perfect as that story? How could anything else make one feel so intense?

At the same time though, I’m dying for another story–a new world of people to be passionate about. So I pick up another book.

Bookworld anomalies

In this case, the perfect story was WAKE by Lisa McMann. Loved it almost as much as the Abhorsen series–what I consider the ultimate in YA fantasy. While I didn’t like the second book, FADE, as well, it was still great to revisit that world. And then…

I tried to read something else. A lot of something elses.

Sex, lies, and the mom from hell

First I tried KENDRA by Coe Booth. Well written, strong voice. Interesting. Plus all the subtle foreshadowing of a sledgehammer. There’s only so many times a first person narrator can protest that she’s a “good girl” before you just know she’s going to get herself into serious trouble.
That she did.

At fourteen, her first set of sexual experiences are, uh, non-traditional. At first I was angry at her classmate for taking advantage of her. On the second round though, when Kendra ignores the pain because his “hands felt good on her,” I start to skim. I had a bad feeling she was going to end up with this total user guy.
She does.

However, even he isn’t half as bad as Kendra’s mom, who has my vote for Parental Fiend From Hell, and whom almost everyone else in enamored with. I gave up skimming.

With Death for a narrator, pink’s an excellent choice

Next up was THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. Everyone tells me it’s amazing. I have no idea if it is or not, because when I opened my (used) copy I discovered…

The highlights and margin notes of doom. Example:
Highlighted quote–The injury of words. Yes, the brutality of words.
Margin note–Words can really be so powerful!

What, really? I had no idea.

Standardized punctuation: a good thing

About this time I remembered BORN CONFUSED by Tanuja Desai Hidier. I was officially hooked in the voice, the story, the pacing–until I hit my first page of dialogue.

No quotation marks. None.
All dialogue was signified by dashes.

According to Wikipedia’s Quotation mark, non-English usage, “This style is particularly common in French, Swedish and Greek.” My copy of BORN CONFUSED wasn’t printed in France, Sweden, or Greece. It was printed in New York by Scholastic.

Just the thought of digging through 500 pages of dashed dialogue gives me a headache. I’ll look for the audio edition.

Two pups & a gas stayshun

So I moved on to a story my best friend recommended, THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness. I was intrigued. The narrator was amazing, and Ness does a great job of showing the reader what’s going on while keeping the narrator clueless. Not an easy feat.

Then the odd spelling kicked in. Stayshun for station, Attenshun for attention, etc. It seemed to come and go at random. There’d be pages of normal grammar, then a flood of bad spelling – as if the author kept forgetting to keep the language impaired.

Two things caused me to skim: the sudden and endless use of “yer” for “your,” and Viola’s (lead girl character/love interest) decision to talk. I found her immensely irritating when she was silent. When she deigned to open her mouth, I simply couldn’t deal with spending a substantial amount of time with her–no matter how much I liked the narrator.

Skimming turned out to be a wise choice. The story was dark anyway, but the ending was hopeless. As in, no hope left. Sure it’s the first book in a series, but…wow.

Also, I wikipediaed the second book. It’s darker and even more hopeless. However, it may end on a happier note. I don’t know. I got bored with the endless misery and clicked elsewhere.

A spark in the mire

Then it hit me, READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi. I’ve been meaning to read this since college. So far it’s excellent, but…

There are no punctuation marks for dialogue at all.
No quotation marks, dashes, or even paragraph breaks. It’s written well enough for me to keep up with who’s speaking most of the time…but still. I miss quotation marks. Desperately.

This will be a book I read in bits and pieces.

Blood, teeth, & furry critters

Because I’m discovering a real love within myself for proper punctuation and spelling, and since by this time I’m wanting something happy, hopeful and fun (not that READING LOLITA isn’t hopeful, it is), I picked up BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE by Annette Curtis Klause.

It met my requirements – great grammar, happy ending. Only one problem, I hate the narrator. Not as much as Viola from KNIFE, but enough to start skimming around page 23.

Why am I bothering? she asked herself as she went through the side door. Because I’m a pirate of the night and I want to see who’s trespassing in my territory, she answered.

Oh yeah. From page 22.

Never give up, never say die

Perhaps now’s a good time to reread something I like, or even lay off reading for a while to watch more Being Erica, or better yet, write. Still, THE BLUE GIRL beckons to me, as does HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED (which I bought for the title alone).

I could buy the latest Celia Rees, or reread PIRATES! And I hear the new Jasper Fforde is good too…

All in the past

If you missed the last andany design in the two seconds it was up, here you go:

It occurred to me that inverting the colors (red background, white text area with black text) would be much easier to read.

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Metainfo

1. Loving the layout here.

2. Gah! Reading drama is never ever fun! Especially when you’ve read the Perfect Book recently – all the other faults afterwards totally seem so much worse.

3. I read a book without quotation marks on dialogue recently, and it is SO confusing.

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