Shannon > Recent Status Updates

New shiny book wins!

Hmm. Finish one of the books I'm already in the middle of or start something new and shiny? Hmm. Decisions, decisions ...

OH CRAP oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap OH CRAP!

Wow, that was genuinely scary.

There's a stillness on her face that has to be deliberate. She's always so still, but I get the feeling that her mind is sort of like a shark, twisting and swimming, and all I've ever seen is a glimpse of a dorsal fin.

I've seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth, the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can't forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.

A thousand arguments pile up in my throat, but I clench my teeth on them. We're not children, neither of us. We don't believe in fairy tales. And if we did, who would we be? Not Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty. I slice murder victims' heads off and Anna stretches skin until it rips, she snaps bones like green branches into smaller and smaller pieces. We'd be the fricking dragon and the wicked fairy.

Anna's eyes soften, and the stubborn tears begin to recede. The way she stands, the way she breathes, I know she wants to come closer. New knowledge fills up the air between us and neither of us wants to breathe it in. I can't believe this. I've never been the type.

Anna is pissed off and trying very hard not to cry. As we look at each other, something inside me is trying to click, trying to fall into place. I feel it in my mind and in my chest, like a puzzle piece you know has to go somewhere so you keep trying to push it in from all different angles. And then, just like that, it fits. So perfect and complete that you can't imagine how it was without it there, even seconds ago.

"It's shitty I guess. They're my friends. But ... everything I want to talk about I can't say to them. It feels so separate, like I've touched something that's taken the color out of me. Or maybe I'm in color and thy're black and white." She turns to me. "We're in on the secret, aren't we, Cas? And it's taking us out of the world."
"That's usually the way it works," I say softly.

Oh shit. Anna doesn't fuck around.

Over the course of my life I've been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren't any less haunted than the others. They're just better liars.

Quite appropriate bookmark, if I do say so myself:

Ooh, the text color is maroon throughout the whole book. Take that, ebook readers :p

Talking ... talking ... and more talking ... can somebody please DO something?!?

She bit her tongue rather than point out that she was skinny and old. "Your castle is full of women who are ten times more beautiful than I."
"I'll bet you're more beautiful than the plump and powdery Victoria. And she was the most beautiful girl on the market this spring; everyone has told me so."
"In the midst of lamenting over how poor Victoria has lost her looks," she pointed out.

You know what's old? ⇧

Ashline moved across the country and has been going to a boarding school for two months. She's the new kid, bitchy, and a sophomore, and she already has a best friend, a boyfriend, and a whole group of friends who like her. At her last school she wasn't even popular. I hope her super power turns out to be the ability to force people to like her, otherwise it's incredibly unbelievable that anyone would.

Ash's best guess was that Raggedy Ray had caught on to their shenanigans the moment they'd first entered Bent Horseshoe but welcomed the fresh younger blood in his bar, since the regulars seemed to recycle the same discussions on retirement, saltwater fishing, and weather patterns.

Yes, because that's what every bartender wants: to risk losing their liquor license to chat up some plucky teenagers.

Oh, the friend didn't bring booze, he's taking them to a bar. 16-year-olds and fake IDs - does that even work? I mean, really?

Ash pictured Bobby Jones hog-tied and lying in the middle of the road, his mouth gagged and his face pressed down into the dirt. She thought about how fast the truck would need to be going in order to flatten that utterly handsome yet vile mouth of his. She visualized the wetness spreading across his crotch as he pissed himself in sheer terror, listened to the muffled screams leak out through the cloth gag.

o_O

Awesome. Now, instead of disciplining Ashline, the RA for her floor offers to replace the broken clock and keep the incident between them, and she's got another friend out getting booze for them, because you know, boys suck.

Ashline just threw an alarm clock at a guy she was kissing because he makes some inappropriate remarks about her and her family while he's leaving because she won't let him feel her up, (gosh, chemistry test tomorrow, like, for real!) If she was a guy, none of this shit would be tolerated, especially not enjoying "the look of terror on his face as he covered his head and shrank back." She's a sociopath.

Hmm. I think I actually like the new Recommendations page. Now to see if it actually recommends me relevant titles ...

Oh no, what's going on here now? New icons? New graphics? Get off my lawn!

Oh. Ha! Good one, priest. Good one.

For thirteen years, popular lore had it, Father Chains had never set foot beyond the steps of his temple. As a measure of his devotion to Perelandro, Father of Mercies, Lord of the Overlooked, he had chained himself to the walls of his inner sanctuary with iron manacles that had neither locks nor keys, and had paid a physiker to pluck out his eyes while a crowd watched.

Now THAT'S devotion. Crazy, yes, but devoted.

"Oh. You have a magic boy. Why didn't you say so?" The priest scratched his forehead beneath the white silk blindfold that covered his eyes. "Magnificent. I'll plant him in the fucking ground and grow a vine to an enchanted land beyond the clouds."

11 on my currently reading shelf again? Oh well ...

This really feels like it's written by someone who was either bullied, always felt alone, or never belonged, and they wanted a story where they could live out their darkest fantasies while being a "hero." Also, seeing as the author is male, I believe he made his characters female so he could get away with the violence. Make Ashline a guy and have him beat up both his girlfriend and her lover = jail time and no book.