Wash: Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction. Zoe: We live in a space ship, dear. Wash: So?

'Objects In Space'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


lisah - Oct 02, 2006 4:46:46 am PDT #1289 of 28235
Punishingly Intricate

And as for contemporary books about how high school/the teen years suck ASS, well, I would say that BTVS ruined me for any further fiction about high school sucking. I set the bar pretty high.

I'm enjoying King Dork pretty well so far. But I'm only 100 or so pages in.


DawnK - Oct 02, 2006 6:08:58 am PDT #1290 of 28235
giraffe mode

King Dork

I enjoyed it. Not my favorite of all time but very enjoyable.


Atropa - Oct 02, 2006 11:57:47 am PDT #1291 of 28235
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

I have an odd couple of questions: has anyone read the Cirque du Freak YA series? It looks like the sort of YA vampire novel thing I enjoy, and I picked up the first book at Half Price Books … only to discover that each chapter header has a large illustration of a tarantula. And the bit of the introduction I skimmed was all about how the main character luuuurves spiders, and his happiest birthday was when his parents gave him a pet tarantula.

So, my big question is how spider-riffic is this book and/or series? I am mostly okay with short written things about spiders, but lots of description about how they move, or look, or lots of scenes with them will make me very uncomfortable. (I mean, I adore Caitlin R. Kiernan’s writing, but I don’t have any plans to re-read Silk or A Murder of Angels anytime soon, thanks to all the spider scenes.)

Anyone?


Amy - Oct 02, 2006 11:58:59 am PDT #1292 of 28235
Because books.

Jilli, Jake has read all of them and adores them. He's not home until dinner, but I'll ask him how spider-riffic the books are.


Atropa - Oct 02, 2006 12:01:09 pm PDT #1293 of 28235
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

Oh, thank you AmyLiz! That would be a big help.


Amy - Oct 02, 2006 1:42:41 pm PDT #1294 of 28235
Because books.

Jilli, according to Jake the spider figures kind of prominently in the first few books because the boy can communicate with it. He said the author makes the spider seem "kind of superior" but there's no "icky" stuff. (Remember, this is fifteen-year-old-speak.) He does say the spider is given a personality, but I don't know if that makes it better or worse. He does describe the spider from time to time, as well, and for whatever reason his descriptions made Jake picture it really big.

Hope that helps. I could page through the first book tonight if you want, since I seem to be up for doing anything that is not writing the book that's due very, very soon.


Atropa - Oct 02, 2006 1:49:22 pm PDT #1295 of 28235
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

I could page through the first book tonight if you want, since I seem to be up for doing anything that is not writing the book that's due very, very soon.

Hee! Who am I to tell you not to procrastinate?

I suspect, from Jake's description, that I should just give this series a miss. Talking to the spider? Giving it a personality? I think that would probably involve holding the spider and whatnot, and just typing that made me break out in goosebumps.


Amy - Oct 02, 2006 1:52:16 pm PDT #1296 of 28235
Because books.

Yeah, I'm willing to bet he holds it, too.

If he can dig it out of the pit of despair his bedroom, I'll look through it tonight. I've been half meaning to read the books anyway.


Steph L. - Oct 04, 2006 11:49:05 am PDT #1297 of 28235
I look more rad than Lutheranism

Back on high-school/YA books -- I just finished Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. The plot is more or less lifted straight out of the movie "Before Sunrise" -- boy and girl meet, boy and girl click, boy and girl spend the entire evening, night, and next morning together. But it's really good. It's just a wee bit pretentious, and it tries a little too hard (though mostly at the beginning), but on the whole it's really good. It's got some sharp writing and endearing characters. Go read it.


Kate P. - Oct 04, 2006 2:43:26 pm PDT #1298 of 28235
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love

I loved Nick & Norah too, Steph!

Currently reading: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. It's marketed as YA (at least, we have it in the YA section at my library) but I don't quite know why. I mean, it's appropriate for YA, but there's nothing about it that obviously marks it as such, to me. It's about a 19-year-old cab driver in a suburb of Sydney who, in the opening scene, helps to foil a bank robbery. Shortly afterwards, someone starts sending him playing cards in the mail with cryptic messages, mostly people's names and addresses, and he has to figure out what he's supposed to do with those names. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm really digging it now. And I have NO idea how it's going to end.