Gord’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2017)

Gord’s comments from the Vampires, Weres and Fae! group.

I'm kind of suffering through that right now as well. I went from not knowing what to listen to last week to having three audiobooks downloaded at the same time right now. I'm so glad I am finishing Deep Storm today because that means I get to start Legends & Lattes tomorrow on the way to work. I'm just a wee bit excited for that one honestly.

Alright, four more days of intense and insane work and then I should be able to get back to a slightly more regular work. These next four days are going to be rough though.

Time for that weekly update and I've read things this week.

A Walk in the Dark -3 Stars
As I mentioned last week I was having a hard time getting into this one. At some point the story picked up enough for me to actually power through this book. I'll be honest I don't remember how this book ended up on my list but I think I picked it up with the expectations of something more horror based. This isn't a horror novel, it's more of those young YA/middle grade survival stories and it was alright, I guess. It's been a week since I read this and it's almost faded from my memory. Kids go into the woods on a school activity, storm comes up, kids get into difficult situation, face inner demons, grow as people. There really wasn't a whole lot about this novel that was bad per se but at the same time there just wasn't anything that stuck out for me as being really good either. If I didn't have to write this up I'd probably have already forgotten this book. A couple negatives I'd say about the ending though that kind of bugged me a bit. There was a certain "villain" kind of character that just kind of vanished from the story. It was implied that he might have been scared away by our MC's but there is also a very real chance that our MC's might have killed the character. The author tries to downplay that aspect but no, there is a very real chance that the kids left a body out there in the woods. There is also a romance in the story that just kind of pops up out of no where and feels really out of place. Overall this was a very solid "meh" that is going to easily be forgotten.

The Edge of Summer -3 Stars
Last week I got a little gushy over a romance novel that just worked for me. This is another romance novel but there will be no gushing over this one. Probably some ranting, definitely some complaining as this was just not the kind of romance that I enjoyed. Where to even start with this painful train wreck of a story? Basically this is a summer romance where our FMC travels to Cape Cod for an internship at a Marine Conservation group. While there she stumbles across MMC who is course hot and hunky. What follows is a summer of misunderstandings and poor communication. Oh and our FMC comes with a semi trailer of baggage after the death of her best friend the year before. Most of my issues with this book involve the FMC. I really did not like her at all. She just grated against me so many times. Yes, there were times where I empathized with her but more often then not I wanted to reach through the page and either throttle her or slap her upside the head. An early example, she goes out to a party during the week, gets drunk, sleeps in, and ends up being late for work. Of course she gets punished and has some mundane task to get done. She gets the work done and decides that the best course of action is to simply leave work early. Are you kidding me? You screwed up, you came in late, your boss is upset, you know your boss is upset, and you decide to just peace out early because you feel like it? Are you an idiot? I'm not saying you have to kiss your bosses butt but put in an effort to show that you are indeed remorseful for your actions as you imply.

Then there is the romance. The MMC is, well, he is borderline perfect. He is a hot hunky lifeguard, he can cook, he can can fix his truck, he can plumb. Honestly it would probably be easier to come up with a list of things he can't do. Most of my problems though with this romance though comes from the FMC. The MMC clearly states he is not in a place to date someone but our FMC gets it into her head that he has to be madly in love with her because their knuckles touched for 0.0000000000005ths of a second. Or the time she gets insanely jealous because the MMC is talking to an ex. This is after she is told by people not to worry about it by various people. That there is nothing going on there and there was indeed nothing going on there, ever. She sees them talking though and decides to storm off in a huff and not talk to the MMC for a few days. That is a mature response of course. Instead of, oh I don't know, talking to the MMC and finding out what is going on. This entire romance is just plagued with miscommunication or no communication at all. It's just maddening.

This part is a bit of a spoiler but I want to address something about that truckload of baggage.
(view spoiler)[
Basically our FMC ends up hooking up with this basketball ball player that her best friend has had a crush on forever. The two friends have been outcasts since elementary school, it's how they became friends, but now the FMC is hanging out with the cool kids who are, of course, toxic as hell. This leads to the two friends drifting apart. What really happened is the FMC dropped her bestie to hang out with the popular kids because she was insecure. Now her bestie drowns in an event that is not really clearly explained. It happened after an argument on the beach where some nasty words were exchanged. The FMC's bestie storms into the ocean, fully clothed, for a "swim". Now it's possible it was an accident, a rip tide or something but what I'm reading between the lines is that it was a suicide. This is explained towards the end of the novel so I've already got a pretty low opinion of the FMC and that might be tainting my image of her but I can't help but wonder if that is what happened. Just a thought. (hide spoiler)]

The Moth Keeper -4 Stars
I snagged this on a whim and man this book is adorable. It's from the author of the Tea Dragon series of comics which is also adorable. This is about a fantasy world where one tribe lives during the day and one lives during the night. The tribe that lives in the night follow the moon god and within the tribe there is the role of the Moth Keeper. A lonely role where an individual is responsible for these moths that are gifts from the moon god. This solitary role is key to the tribes survival and we follow our MC who is a young girl who just entered the role. This is a tale of self discovery and change that is simple but adorable. After finishing this book I immediately requested everything that that library had from this author I hadn't read yet.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection, Volume 6 -5 Stars
This volume blew my mind. I've been a casual fan of the turtles since I was a kid when I loved watching the 80's cartoon. I remember all three of the movies that came out in the 90's. Outside of that I've dabbled in some of the various other iterations of the turtles. That 80's cartoon is more or less my basis for my turtle knowledge but I was aware that other iterations could be a bit darker. There were events in this comic that I just never expected followed by twists that I could have never predicted followed by hints and setup for the next big story line. I was just shocked at the end of the main story in this one and was left wanting more and wanting it now.

The Boxer, Vol. 1 -5 Stars
The Boxer, Vol. 2 -5 Stars
I was not prepared for how much I enjoyed this manhwa at all. This was a random snag from the library and I devoured both volumes in one evening. The crazy thing about this is after two volumes I still know nothing about the MC. We know his name, maybe, and that he had a troubled upbringing, again maybe. I will tell you this about the MC though, he unsettles me a lot. I can't really explain it but there is something just unsettling about this character. After two volumes he has only spoken maybe a handful of times. I've never seen him express any emotion at all. He always has this neutral dead look to him at all times. I'm just hooked into this story and want more. That's where there is a problem. This is a newer release and currently there is only three volumes out. My library has the third volume on order so it will be a wait for that one and the fourth volume comes out in October. After that, I've got no idea. I suppose I could track down the webtoon version of the story but I like physical books.

Now for what is next.

Deep Storm
This is my current audiobook and I have some mixed feelings about this book. This is a techno thriller and so far it's alright. There is a lot of techno babble in this book. It comes in either science related babble or medical related babble. The one odd thing I've noticed so far is the MC. This is book one in the Jeremy Logan series which to me would indicate that the MC is Jeremy Logan. So far Jeremy Logan has shown up once and that was in chapter thirteen. I'm now currently on thirty three and have not seen him since. I'm not sure he is ever going to show up again either which is rather odd.

Connections in Death
This is the non-audiobook that I'm currently working on and of course I am loving it. Shocking I know.

Frightmares
This is the other novel I have to tackle this week so I can get it back to the library.

I'm not the biggest fan of those new covers but those are a 1000 times better then the old ones. The old covers actually turned me away from reading these a few times before I was finally convinced to read them. Those covers just screamed trashy romance to me.

My thoughts on these

Alone in public
I am borderline a hermit at times and I love nothing more than being alone with my interests. From experience I can go about a week totally alone with no interaction at all before I start getting a little squirrelly. When that happens something as simple as going grocery shopping where I have a simple basic chat with the cashier helps. I've dabbled at going to coffee shops alone and that wasn't bad. I've gone to a restaurant a couple times alone and it just feels weird. It's just one of those things that just doesn't feel right to me. Why? No clue honestly but it just feels weird. Like I'm out of place or taking up space for others.

Workplace
Work is such a mixed back for me as an introvert. There are times where I can walk into a meeting and talk easily and knowledgeably with no issues. Dealing with other people at work, again usually no problems. Have me call a customer to provide technical help and I sound like an idiot stumbling over my words. The worst is when I call some place expecting to talk to a receptionist and it ends up being the person I actually need to speak with. My brain just shorts out for a second or two as I scramble to remember my spiel. I think the days that are the hardest are the days where I'm just wore out. I'm done with people, I'm done with the noise, I'm just done with everything. In my mind I'm trying to be polite and helpful when approached in this mindset but apparently that doesn't make it externally and I'm perceived as the living embodiment of the boogeyman.

I'm listening to Deep Storm currently and this book loves it techno/medical babble. The characters are all like "her white cell count is 13,000 and her platelet count is 10,000, and this, and that". I'm just kind of sitting there nodding my head going "yup, that means something, no idea what, but it sounds real important".

I thought the mosquitos were crazy the last couple weeks but that news article just proves it. This time last year the city caught 600 mosquitos in their traps. This year at the same time they caught 42,000. It's been a late season explosion of mosquitos due to all the rain we've had the last while. They are so bad in the morning on the walk to work. I can sort of hack the ones on my arms but the ones that fly into my face are the worst.

Man I would love a couple days off work to just unwind. I've been hauling ass since I got back from vacation last month and it's just starting to feel that the grind will never end. I finish one thing and I still have 20 things to do. I'm tired physically and mentally at this point and just want some down time. Some time where I'm not trying to figure out how to fit two weeks of work into one. Some time where I can just relax.

Unfortunately that time won't be soon. Next weekend is a long weekend but the grind will probably continue until November at this point.

It's 54 here and raining once again.

It's insidious, I'll be stuck on some mundane task and that song just creeps out of the back of my head and before long I'm singing it. Then it's just stuck in my head for days until it fades away until another day.

11 books! I have so much catching up to do.

Sarah just came back and I think it was mentioned but not in detail. It should be an easy enough one to find. I just got to keep it in mind.

I warn you now, do not listen to this song. I've had it stuck in my head now for two days. That's not counting the years it has been bouncing around in the back of my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz6OG...

I finally found dark chocolate! Now I just need a toilet stall which I'm sure I've found a few times but just never recorded it.

Congrats!

That's pretty awesome!

It is starting to look and feel like fall now. I leave about 5:30 in the morning and it's dark when I leave. It gets light as the walk goes along but still. Then the last few days have had either single or close to single digits in the morning. This morning it's about 10c/50f which is nice. It's a bit cool after a summer of high temps but it's nice.

This was a bit of interesting week of reading full of all sorts of emotions.

The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax -5 Stars
Man this book was just a blast to read. This was just a nonstop blast of action from beginning to end. Full of spies, double agents, gypsies, and secrets. There is a communist defector who has made it to Turkey where they had sought refuge at the British consulate. While there they disappeared and now ever spy agency on the planet wants to make contact with this defector. What they don't realize is that this defector is actually an American spy. The solution, send in the agent no one suspects, Mrs. Pollifax. I just love that this little old lady is this agent of utter chaos. As soon as she gets on the scene everything goes pear shaped and kicks off a country wide chase. This series is just so much fun.

The Bookshop on the Corner -5 Stars
I had picked this up to help with a particular challenge I was stuck on. It wasn't necessarily a book that I would ever read but it didn't sound entirely outputting for me either. Basically I had no expectations going into this book outside of "read it and get that challenge moving again". I... I.... I uhhhhh... I really, really liked this book. I was charmed rather early on and in the most unexpected way. This book had an author's prologue of sorts which is not something I normally bother myself with but I was walking already and didn't feel like messing with my phone at the moment. In this prologue the author speaks of their love of reading and man did I relate to this hard. Not all of it but you felt the author's love for reading and it was relatable. We are then introduced to the MC, Nina, who is a librarian in her late 20's facing a challenging time in her life. The library she is working at is closing and getting merged into this new, high tech, multimedia center thing and it's just not working for her. She is that stereotypical mousey, introverted librarian and man did I relate to her a lot. Her love of reading is so relatable but it was more than just that. It's hard to explain but I think we all as readers, as adult readers especially, have to put down the book and deal with real life. That will sometimes lead us away from the book for a time but in doing so we are forced to deal with the real world and it can be scary at times. I don't know if it makes sense but I connected with her in a way. So our MC, with the encouragement of friends, ends up buying this van with the dream of changing it into a bookmobile. In the process she ends up having to move to Scotland and this is where we are introduced to the romance in this novel. Now I normally hate, no, loathe love triangles but this one worked for me. Part of it was that it didn't feel like a full blown love triangle. It wasn't like both men were dating her at the same time and she was all indecisive about which hot man she was more attracted to. It was rather romantic in a way and she tried to make it work with one man, that didn't work (no spoilers), and then, after some time, realized that there just might be something with this other man in her life. Listen, I'm not normally into romance novels, just not my jam really, but every once in a while one will come along, sneak past all me defenses, and land a direct hit on that weird soft squishy part of me. That was this book. Yes, it was cliched but it was also romantic and I liked it. Between the books, the characters, the location, the romance this just worked for me and I loved every minute of it.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands -3 Stars
I headed into this book with a lot of trepidation but a bit of curiosity of well. See this book is about the oil sands here in Alberta and in particular that area during the massive boom of the mid 2000's. This was when I entered the work force as a civilian for the first time and while I wasn't working up there I was still in the industry. It was a time, a very busy and wild time. I was worried about how the book would portray things and it did a pretty good job of it I think. I was worried that this book would paint things with great big strokes of generality and it kind of did but it also tempered itself by the end. This book was about what it was like for a young woman to work in a male dominated industry in a remote location. Lets cut to the chase here, it isn't pretty and there isn't a lot this book has to say that I have seen or heard before. To be perfectly honest, I've heard much, much worse. Some first hand, some second hand. I won't get into details but it made me reflect on a lot of things. How things were back then, how things are now, and just how complicated things are. It's super easy, and done so often, where that brush comes out and we get broad statements like "all men are evil", or "capitalism is evil", or "the oil sands are evil" and those statements are a massive oversimplification of a very complicated situation. Like so many things in life really. This was one of those books that just crawled inside my head and set up camp for several days. Even now, nearly a week later, just thinking of it gives me pause.

Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 24 -3 Stars
Yup, it's official, the magic of this series has worn off for me. There is still a sweet story somewhere in there but it's just buried under so much pointless fluff and a never ending barrage of shallow characters that it just gets lost. We might get one chapter of something sweet and then we get 20+ chapters exploring that event from the POV of every character possible. Then we get another 20-30 chapters of just filler. Then if we are lucky maybe something story related. This is just starting to feel like the author is milking things as long as possible.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 1—Phantom Blood, Vol. 1 -4 Stars
Yup, it's time, it's time to dive into this franchise. For those not in the anime/manga sphere this franchise is a giant meme. It's everywhere, it's meme'd to death and back again. It's one of those things that you can't really escape in the anime/manga fandom. Even if you have never watched/read this franchise you have heard the name of Jojo. It should conjure up images of super buff men and just some weird and random things. Basically the franchise is broken down in to different parts and each part focuses on a different member of the Joestar family and their story. This part, Phantom Blood, takes it back to the very beginning of all the madness. This is where we meet Jonathan Joestar (see, JoJo) and the infamous Dio. We also get to see the start of one of the long running jokes in this series with the character Robert E.O. Speedwagon. Yes, REO Speedwagon. There are so, so, so many references in this franchise to popular things from the 80's and earlier. This is where it all began. The rivalry between the Joestar's and Dio, the magic, the weirdness, everything. It also means that in the beginning things are a bit slow as it has to set things up before everything got weird. Still, this was fun and I am looking forward to my time in this franchise.

Now, what is next. Honestly, things are shaping up to be a bit of a rough week.

The Edge of Summer
This is my current audiobook and it's another romance. Unlike Bookshop on the Corner I am not feeling this one at all. There is a bit to much drama, a bit to much "our knuckles touched for 0.00000005 milliseconds so that must mean true love", a bit to much "Does he like me? I can't like him but I want to like him, blah, blah, blah, blah" stuff going on for me.

A Walk in the Dark
I'm trying to get started on this one as I need to get it back to the library this week. I'm having a bit of a hard time getting into it though.

I do have a tendency to overthink things so it's a possibility. The movie wasn't bad it just wasn't my favorite of the three so far.

I finished John Wick 3 this morning because I have to return it today and there are issues. As a mindless action movie it wasn't bad but the magic of the first couple of movies has started to wear off. The first movie was a simple revenge story and it was glorious. The second movie was the consequences to the events of the first and it gave it a taste of this broader world of assassins. This movie gave us more of that broader world and while I'm still kind of intrigued it's a bit more tempered now. This movie went from feeling badass and dangerous to just kind of feeling goofy, especially by the end. The opening sequence in New York was great. Things kind of started coming apart in Casablanca though. Seeing Halle Berry was cool and the idea of two well trained dogs was an interesting idea but the fight scenes just felt off. Maybe it was because they were using animals and had to take extra safety precautions but it just felt more staged and that I could start to glimpse behind the scenes a bit. Basically there were moments where I could tell that things were set up in a certain way for the dogs. Then we get back to New York and this is where my problems really start. Up to this point the ninjas in this movie were kind of cool. This return scene sank all of it and ninjas basically became my running issue with the rest of the movie. That whole "ninja magic" vanishing into thing air thing was just goofy feeling in this movie. Then having the ninjas all being giant fans of John Wick and essentially fangirling over him between and during fights just felt, again, goofy. Especially that head ninja. It just felt all sorts of wrong and out of place. Then we get to the ending and I won't spoil anything but I essentially felt like the last two hours were kind of pointless. It felt like the story really hadn't moved forward from where we were at the end of the second movie and that is not a good feeling. I'm still going to watch the fourth because I'm invested at this point but I'm a little less excited for it then I was before.