Shannon > Recent Status Updates

"I don't know many rules to live by," he'd said. "But here's one. It's simple. Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles—drug or tattoo—and... no inessential penises, either."
"Inessential penises?" Karou had repeated. "Is there any such thing as an essential one?"

I really like this and there are some super funny parts, but I wish it moved more quickly. There really isn't much of a story yet and I'm more than halfway done. I like the art and the characters though so I'm going to keep going and hope it gets better.

Talk of Karou's art, the school she's in, and the nude models are reminding me of the classes I took. One day in my life drawing class it dawned on me that I was in the same room with another naked woman for the first time in my adult life. And yes, you really can't leave certain parts blank, no matter how much you want to. We had a model that looked like a homeless Santa. Fun times, lol.

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.

It did not end well.

I should probably stop requesting ARCs since I haven't reviewed a single one I've been sent yet ... but they keep approving me! Which really makes it hard to resist : \

Reading with April!

This sounds promising ... let's see if it delivers!

That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself stories as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories.

Hooray. So we've got a 25-year-old virgin who has never had an orgasm (even manually) and so of course the guy can give her three within the course of a few minutes, all with mostly only inserting his fingers. WHY DO WOMEN STILL WRITE SHIT LIKE THIS?

My enjoyment of this has slowly degraded, unlike the heroine's ability to orgasm.

This rat character is kind of annoying. Is she the only one we're going to meet?

This feels like a cross between Breadcrumbs, Coraline, and Alice in Wonderland, and I don't mind that one bit.

The rat dropped her voice again. "I've always been a fan of pink. Very rare, of course... very hard to come by... extremely valuable... the troglods would give up their houses for a half-dozen pinks..."
"But—" Liza was going to point out that in her world people used real money, not just worthless slips of paper, but it occurred to her that she wasn't actually certain of the difference, and so she said nothing.

She thought if she were to break her neck and die, and then Patrick—the fake one—were to crumble to dust when the spindlers overtook him, their parents would be extremely sorry and regret that they had accused Liza of making up stories. The idea was somewhat pleasing, and helped her focus on something other than the fear, and the scratching sounds of so many tiny nails, which were growing louder by the second.

Then Mrs. Elston's face seemed to collapse, like a balloon deflating. She said in a tired voice, "Liza. We've talked about your stories before, haven't we?"
Liza was not fooled by the quietness. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Y-yes."
"And what have we said?" The tiredness was even worse, Liza thought, than anger. The tiredness seemed to say, I have nearly had enough of you.

: (

"Spider people who live underground. They're the ones who've got Patrick."
For a moment Mrs. Elston did not say anything. She drew her mouth into a thin white line, and this reminded Liza of many things, none of them pleasant: of ruled notepaper, on which she was expected to write boring things at school; of rulers and long marches through endless hallways, and walls everywhere she looked.

"Why aren't you in bed?"
She was standing in the doorway of the den, and there was a small, dark crease between her eyebrows, like a tiny exclamation point. There was often an exclamation point between her eyebrows, and Liza liked to imagine invisible words written before it: Liza, please! Just give me a second! You're driving me crazy! All these words were implied by that little black crease.

And yet only yesterday Patrick had run up to her, laughing, cupping a tiny rose-colored newt in his muddy palms, and asked her whether they could keep it together, as a pet. And in that second her hatred for the spindlers was so intense she had to grip tightly to the porcelain sink.

:'( I have a really great relationship with my younger brother and I have a feeling this book is going to get to me.

[The spindlers] had dropped down from the ceiling on their glistening webs of shadowed darkness and dropped their silken threads in his ear, and extracted his soul slowly, like a fisherman coaxing a trout from the water on a taut nylon fishing line. In its place they deposited their eggs; then they withdrew to their shadowed, dark corners and their underground lairs with his soul bound closely in silver thread.

"Stop bothering your sister."
Here's what the real Patrick would have done: He would have stuck out his tongue, or thrown his napkin at Liza in retaliation, or he would have said, "It's her face that's the bother."
But this impostor did none of those things. The impostor just stared quietly at Liza and smiled. His teeth looked very white.

Across the table, the fake-Patrick began rearranging the cereal letters on the outside of his bowl. He spelled out three words: I H-A-T-E Y-O-U. Then he folded his hands and stared at her with that strangely vacant look, as though the black part of his eyes had eaten up all the color.

One night when Liza went to bed, Patrick was her chubby, stubby, candy-grubbing and pancake-loving younger brother, who irritated her and amused her both, and the next morning, when she woke up, he was not.

"Just know it won't happen again."
He drew nearer, eyes raking over her. "Ah, lass, the way you moaned my name has me thinking it will happen sooner than ya think." He was so close that the vibrations of his brogue rolled off his tongue and pricked her skin.
"You wish, Pookah."
He backed away, a cocky grin sliding across his face, "That I do, human. That I do."

Feels like a 3.5 to me but I can't decide whether I want to round up or down. It had it's issues but it was entertaining and I haven't read a GOOD vampire book in a long time. Review to come? We'll see ...

Lol. Lake "Eerie." Sounds about right! Grosse Ile should've been my first guess, though I was still thinking about fudge ...

Hmm. Now that they're heading toward Chicago, I wonder if Eden will turn out to be Mackinac Island ... and if there'll be fudge! Mmm ... fudge. Funny thing, I got some last week at the SD County Fair!

I liked this. Reminded me of Gantz. It's a bit twisted and gory, which of course I always enjoy, but it also had some parts that were a bit confusing. And pretty much all of the characters besides the two on the cover are dickheads. Curious to see how things progress though!

I'm getting close to 200 friends and I think I need to cull the herd again. So many of you never talk to me! Sad face.

Ah! I read too far, but I couldn't help it. This book is just too awesome.