Last Saturday I received a Amazon.co.uk package, which contains:
- Sex, Lies, and Online Dating - Rachel Gibson
- In the Groove - Pamela Britton [I honestly don't remember why I ordered a copy when I have zero interest in car racing. I had to ask Will what NASCAR stands for]
- The Manolo Matrix - Julie Kenner
- The Switch - Diane Whiteside
- Natural City - DVD / a Korean futuristic-set film
- Into the Mirror - DVD / a Hong Kong supernatural film, I think
- Lady Vengeance - DVD / the third and final of Chan-wook Park's 'Vengeance' trilogy [other two are Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Oldboy]
Hm, it's not a very inspiring list. To be honest, those DVDs excite me more than those books, which is somewhat a bit worrying.
Yesterday I tried to read Julianne MacLean's Victorian-era historical romance
Love According to Lily for the March TBR Challenge and almost ripped my eyeballs out. I'd not read a historical for a while, but I don't think I'd read anything as awful as this one in a while. I don't know whether I should do a 'review' on this one because it'd be like shooting at fish in a tea cup, for God's sake.
Love According to Lily is the first novel that makes me think that
I could write a historical romance and do it
better. I feel such a bitch for saying that, but that's how awful it is. Until this, I've never read a Julianne MacLean book, so I don't know if this is up to her standards, but if it is, I'd not touch another JMcL book with a barge pole.
I think I'm being bitter and twisted because I know I'll never get those hours spent on the book back. I should have known better, really. It's a Avon book. I've stopped buying Avon books after a successive row of disappointing reads.
I decided to give it another chance by buying
Love According to Lily, Rachel Gibson's
Sex, Lies and Online Dating, Stephanie Laurens's
What Price Love? and, I think, Julia Quinn's
When He Was Wicked because I was accused of being unfair to judge authors by their publishing house. I'm going to give these a try before I can say "Sod you, it
is their publishing house".
I am training myself to stop buying any more from TOR romance because those I read so far are generally badly edited, which makes me feel somewhat sorry for those authors.
Anyway, back to my point: should I submit
Love According to Lily as a TBR Challenge book? I feel it'd be a little too cruel, but ... I don't know. Is it a fair game?
BTW,
Sybil has
bullied talked romance author
J.R. Ward into becoming her guest blogger to talk about her latest
Brotherhood book
Lover Eternal and book series as well as to answer questions today.
Link of the Day: Nursery Rhymes: lyrics, origins and history
11 Comments:
Oh, go ahead. Use it as your TBR. You did READ it didn't you?
Apparently you missed my long-drawn-out rant that was the search for a Contemporary, and interim report on how vile my selection was, and then a concluding review where I did shoot fish in a teacup.
And you don't really have to review it by the strictest interpretation of the questions provided as a framework for TBR. They just asked if you liked it and if you would keep it. A simple "No" will suffice.
Besides--what if you spend the month looking for a Historical that you want to write about and you never find one? Better to get this one blogged-off and get your name up in pretty nights on Angie's blog.
3/06/2006 05:17:00 pm
Come Maili, join the dark side.
It's very cathartic to spew your hate of a book. Been there, done it, it's on the ol' blog. Course, no authors except Megan come by so I'm pretty safe.
Anyways, I love a good rant.
Oh, and I had no clue NASCAR stood for anything. I thought it was just a word. After reading Evanovich's Metro Girl book I have decided that NASCAR books are not for me. I'll take a bloodsucker, werewolf, shapeshifter before a normal man with too much love for a car.
Ooops, now I'm being a bitch.
Did you read the first Julie Kenner? I think it won for best Chick Lit over at AAR. I may just have to pick that one up to see what truly good chick-lit is like. If I don't like it then I'm off chick-lit for life.
CindyS
3/06/2006 05:57:00 pm
HEY there was no bullying. Honest. I don't think...
I am a very nice girl. Thank you very much! Sweetness and light is I.
3/06/2006 07:05:00 pm
What the heck, if you finished it use it.
I've read most of Julianne MacLean's books and the Lily book may be one of the better ones. It's a form of torture, I swear I'll never read another and then I see a good review, think I must be missing something and keep trying them.
I have one of the NASCAR books on my TBR and have absolutely no interest in it.
I don't read Laurens any more and I'll be damned if I'm not going to finish the Quinn series--with only one to go.
And, I completely understand the aversion to TOR.
As for Sybil, I have a feeling it was more like nagged to death.
3/06/2006 07:27:00 pm
Let me know what you think of Into the Mirror. It's sounds scary.
3/06/2006 07:31:00 pm
I'm intrigued by Rachel Gibson's latest. I haven't read her in a long time, but I used to love them. Then I think I overdosed. LOL
Mybe it's time to go back.
3/07/2006 01:22:00 am
Okay, don't quote me on this, but I think NASCAR stand for National Association of Stock Car Racing. Not sure exactly how the letters fit and I may be missing a word or two in there, but essentially that's it. Hopefully, everyone knows what stock car means but, just in case, the short version is that they are cars that technically, and that's used lightly nowadays, could be legal on the street but have been supped up for racing. Within certain limits, anyway. As opposed to something like a Formula 1 auto that wouldn't be allowed on the road for safety reasons.
No, I'm not a fan of car racing in any form but having lived about 180 miles north of Nashville TN, which is a veritable hotbed of NASCAR, all my life, one tends to absorb certain things, i.e, that's where our local TV stations are. That's sort of like not being a fan of country music, either, but knowing far more about it than I want to think about on any given day. (VBG)
3/07/2006 01:38:00 pm
I didn't know that stock cars could technically be legal for street use. That would explain why my brother gets all excited when he sees a thunderbird or something on the track. I always figured the outer layer could look like a thunderbird but that everything underneath was something totally different.
Cindy
S
3/08/2006 08:41:00 am
Yes and no, CindyS. The whole point of stock car racing is that the cars are technically right off the street, but at the same time that doesn't mean that what's actually under the hood is the same as what would be under the hood of any other car of the same model & brand you might see driving down the road. If I understand correctly, teams are allowed to do certain things to the cars to make them go faster and perform better, and they can get very creative, but periodically the association will rein things back in to keep the cars under certain limits.
Most classic and well-known example of a stock car? The General Lee on Dukes of Hazzard. Now whether the cars actually used on the series to "be" the General were suped up to anywhere near racing standards, the idea was that it could be and was both used in racing and daily driving is true to origins of the sport , i.e. finding a beat-up old car at junkyard and fixing it up for racing on the weekends. Of course they also never entered the General in any high level races on the series either. Usually one-on-one unofficial challenges. Somehow I suspect that the more intense the competition, the less one might be able to pass the altered cars off on "real" roads and get away with it.
The "ideal" is that one would be able to, but the reality is probably a completely different thing altogether. (VBG)
3/08/2006 06:13:00 pm
Suisan - you're wicked. *laughing* OK, keep your eyes peeled for it.
CindyS - you're also wicked. :D I don't consider Julie Kenner's TGCode 'chick lit', but some people do. It's a matter of opinion, I suppose. :) If you're going to judge an entire genre by one book, you're dead to me.
Sybil - OK, you're no bully, but you're a talented nagger. Um, a talent NICE nagger.
Tara Marie - yet her book gets a few rave reviews at Amazon.co.uk Consider me an oddity, then. I agree with you on Sybil. :D
Jordan - Oh, we will watch Into the Mirror tonight. Looking foward to it! :>
Sasha - same here. If you want to give her books another try, start with The Trouble With Valentine's Day as it's somewhat different from her earlier books. I'd go as far as to say it's on the borderline of romantic women's fiction. Her books before TTWVD are, well, let's say, best left alone. :>
Bev BB - I think NASCAR stand for National Association of Stock Car Racing According to Will, you're almost correct. You left out one word: Auto. I had to google to make sure the smart aleck is right and he is. Thanks for the interesting info.
From what you describe, it's same as what we have over here. While it's generally known as stock car racing over here, it's also known as 'banger racing'. :D
3/08/2006 07:57:00 pm
hmph! you I nag... I admit freely I nag you... hmmm and jay.
::ponders:: I don't think I have ever nagged Tara. hmph
3/09/2006 10:52:00 am
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