30 Guys in 30 Days, Micol Ostow

Today is Monday/Monday string beans/All you hungry children/Come & eat it up!

Today is also the first day in 5 years of teaching that it actually snowed at school! Completely bizarre and beyond freezing. And hopefully it will never happen again. Snow on the ground made for some exceptionally giddy and intractable babies today. Which leads to a cranky teacher by the time the bell rings.

It is also another day of my new life as someone who works out. Which all leads me to a familiar place in my life: the bathtub at the end of the day with a Simon Romantic Comedy.

I liked this one a lot. The writing really stood out from others I've read in this series. It was engaging and funny without being overly silly or unrealistic.

And in an odd way I wish that I had read this book back in college for flirting inspiration. College girls (& boys, I guess) don't realize that they will probably never be in another situation in life with so many potential romantic partners. Therefore they should seize the day and put themselves out there more.

I couldn't take Claudia's challenge now even if I wanted to seeing as I rarely see a guy within my age range on anything remotely approaching a daily basis. Which really isn't a poor, pitiful spinster statement its just a fact.

The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

Nora and I watched the hilarious Shakespeare Retold version of Taming of the Shrew last night. Now I can't stop wanting to tell people to "swivel". Moaning Myrtle and Seth Starkadder are amazing in this! Having never read the play, I decided to read it today.

Then, of course, I had to see what Harold Bloom had to say about it:

"Petruchio gets to swagger, and Kate will rule him and the household, perpetually acting her role as the reformed shrew.

The swaggering Petruchio provokes a double reaction in her: outwardly furious, inwardly smitten.

Roaring on the outside, Petruchio is something else within, as Kate gets to see, understand, and control, with his final approval.

From this moment on [IV.v. 1-22], Kate firmly rules while endlessly protesting her obedience to the delighted Petruchio, a marvelous Shakespearean reversal of Petruchio's earlier strategy of proclaiming Kate's mildness even as she raged on."

I agree with Bloom's description of one of my favorite moments in the play:

"There is no more charming scene of married love in all Shakespeare than this little vignette on a street in Padua:

KATHERINA.

Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO.
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHERINA.
What! in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO.
What! art thou ashamed of me?

KATHERINA.
No, sir; God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.

KATHERINA.
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late."

Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I feel like I had been waiting for months and months to get my hands on this book. The authors have a great blog and did an amazing job promoting this book. I knew I wanted to read it almost as soon as I heard about it and was so frustrated to have to wait for so long. That is one of my few minor complaints with this book. I wish I hadn't heard anything about it until there was about a week until its release date. For me, I got really (overly) excited about the book which led to me being irritated that I couldn't read it right away which led to my ridiculously high expectations that no book could possibly fulfill.

I did really enjoy reading Beautiful Creatures but it was not without some bumps along the way for me. It is a long read which I normally love but somehow in this one it felt a little "Breaking Dawn/Harry Potter 7/Where is your editor?" to me. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book but there were just some stretches of the narrative that got a little sluggish and wordy in my opinion. Another sign was that I was able to put this one down for days at a time which is definitely out of character for me when reading something I adore.

My only other issue was with Lena, the romantic lead, Lena was a touch too precious for my taste what with the writing on her hands, her special necklace-o-found-objects, & her poetry. Pause for Wodehouse to better explain my feelings:

"I don't want to wrong anybody, so I won't go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry, but her conversation, to my mind, was of a nature calculated to excite the liveliest of suspicions. Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly asks you out of a blue sky if you don't sometimes feel that the stars are God's daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit." (Right Ho, Jeeves)

I did like the suspenseful and romantic storyline with all of its nods to Southern atmosphere (loved the DAR, the Civil War flashbacks, and the descriptions of the food). I also liked the many literary references and of course all the magic. Macon Ravenwood was definitely my favorite character followed by Marian the librarian (whose name makes me want to break into song) which is sort of frustrating since they are minor characters and I would have liked to see more of them. The scene when Macon reveals himself to the town in the school board meeting was one of my favorites.

I love that Marian quoted Robert Herrick's beautiful "Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the presence at White-hall" and I especially love that Lena's cousin Ridley uses Jessica Rabbit's line about being drawn bad... which makes me wonder if the teen girl target audience of this book has ever seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And that makes me feel old because I can remember when that was a risque movie among my set of friends!

I am definitely excited to read the upcoming volumes that are planned in this series and am hopeful that the writing will get better and better because the ideas and the themes are totally up my alley. And I will totally go see the movie version that is being made.

This book made me realize that I prefer reading books that I know nothing about. Going into a book with no expectations or preconceived ideas makes for a much more powerful experience. I mean how could I not feel a little let down by a book that promoted its lovers like this:

I liked Ethan and Lena but they are no Romeo & Juliet, they're not even Edward & Bella. And I was really hoping they would be.

More on Romeo & Juliet

from Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom

"Chaucer's ironic yet amiable religion of love... is the essential context for Romeo & Juliet

love dies or else lovers die

the virtual identity of the torments of love and jealousy is a Shakespearean invention later to be refined by Hawthorne & Proust

the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death

Romeo and Juliet is unmatched, in Shakespeare and in the world's literature, as a vision of uncompromising mutual love that perishes of its own idealism and intensity

[Juliet's] sublimity is the play and guarantees the tragedy of this tragedy

The permanent popularity, now of mythic intensity, of Romeo and Juliet is more than justified, since the play is the largest and most persuasive celebration of romantic love in Western literature."

Deadly Little Lies, Laurie Faria Stolarz

Finally an impulse buy that didn't enrage me after reading it! Clearly, I have a serious problem when it comes to buying books that I am 99.9% sure will be exceedingly insubstantial & ridiculous. I bought this book based purely on the pretty cover (which is the reason I bought the previous book in the series). Whoever is designing these covers is hopefully making at least some money from them because the cover art is the only thing attracting me. That and the fact that I will pretty much buy & attempt to read anything when I am in the right sort of mood (read: overwhelmed by my life).

I wasn't too impressed with the first book but I actually really enjoyed this one. I was slightly shocked by how much I liked it. Hopefully the next book will have the same designer giving me pretty art & the fancy kind of smooth paper for the dust jacket. And I really hope Laurie Stolarz continues to write in this style- that way I can forget about the first book. My only request would be for more Ben & Camellia quality time in the next one. I didn't like them being apart for so long and then having just a taste of reconciliation on the last few pages.

Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare

"a sea nourished with loving tears" (Act I, Sc. I)

Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays but I hadn't read it in a very long time. And I am not feeling awake/intelligent enough at the moment to do more than record a few favorite (& familiar) lines:

"Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!" (Act 1, Sc.1, 181-186)

"O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O, you,
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death." (Act 5, Sc. 3, 109-115)

And what kind of teenage girl circa 1996 would I be if I didn't mention the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version. I have so many memories of repeated viewings at sleepovers. Although our main focus of discussion was how to achieve Claire Danes' braided updo from the party scene rather than the actual play.

Oh the hair, the music, the ridiculous expressions on Paul Rudd's face... what's not to love?




Having not watched the Zeffirelli version in a long time I am struck by how much Romeo looks like Zac Efron which is slightly distracting, even the hair is Efronesque. Regardless, I do love this movie.



And finally some lovely Angel Corella & Alessandra Ferri.

Shadowland, Alyson Noel

I don't have much to say about this book. It reminds me a little bit of The Vampire Diaries series which in my particular case is not a compliment. I was only able to soldier on reading this tedious story because I am a stickler for closure and I thought this was the 3rd book in a trilogy. So to be irritated throughout the entire thing only to have an ending that leaves the main characters in a situation almost identical to the one they were in on the first page followed by a full page letting me know I can purchase the next volume in the series next summer.... Yeah, I was more than annoyed. But now I have crossed over to an irritated place that will not waste my money on the next book in a weak moment. I will patiently wait for someone on wikipedia to let me know what finally happens to Ever & Damen. Meh, indeed.

And I am loving all the negative Amazon reviews that sum up my feelings quite nicely.