Almanac for August 19

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 19: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-19-B0B711PZ48

Artist Birthday: Veronica Roth

Bummer August 19

August 19, 1929: Aviator Marvel Crosson dies at the age of 29 in an airplane crash. She is competing in the Women’s Air Derby when her aircraft apparently has trouble over the Arizona desert. When her body is found, it appears that her parachute has been released, but not deployed, perhaps meaning that she attempted to jump from the plane while too low to the ground for the parachute to help her.

August 19, 1936: According to LitHub, “Federico García Lorca—the Spanish avant-garde poet, playwright, and ardent socialist—was shot and killed by Nationalist militia before being buried in an unmarked mass grave somewhere outside Granada, where he remains to this day.”

Lorca had predicted his manner of death in his 1929 poem “The Fable And Round of the Three Friends:”

“Then I realized I had been murdered.
They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches
…. but they did not find me.
They never found me?
No. They never found me.”

I Finally Saw the Divergent Series 'Insurgent' Film

Here there be spoilers.

The BF and I finally saw Insurgent, at the dollar theater, last night. I liked the movie more than I thought I would, and it reminded me of why I loved Veronica Roth's novel so much.

It starts out in the Amity compound. If I could choose to live in a fictional place - well, my first choice might be Howl's Moving Castle, but near the top of the list would be the Amity compound. I'd eat the bread. It wasn't really clear in the movie that the bread was spiked with feel-good chemicals, but it's obvious from the books. I don't even care, though. I'd happily put on the red clothes and push kids in swings all day, no worries.

But Tris, Four, and Caleb can't stay there, because the Jeanine-led Dauntless come looking for the Divergent. Jeanine is using Divergent people to unlock the box she found in the Prior home, which she believes will reinforce her power-hungry, evil schemes to control the city.

Creative Commons image by Andrea Raffin

It's so easy to hate Jeanine, but so hard to hate Kate Winslet. I have the same conflict with Ansel Elgort. How dare he be so attractive whilst Caleb commits his shocking and cowardly betrayal? Caleb's weasely reluctance to lift a finger to help his sister while she's being tortured and near-killed makes Tris's you-know-what in the third installment (which will be the fourth movie) all the more sad.

Creative Commons image by Mingle Media TV

Oh, my brave Tris. Shailene Woodley may not understand why it's important to be an outspoken feminist, but good goddesses, that gal can act. My brain knows she's the same actor who played Hazel Grace Lancaster, but my heart knows they're two completely, utterly different people - and that's a great tribute to Woodley's ability to inhabit a character and a fictional world. I'm not even going to pretend like I don't love her, because plainly I do. That fourth movie is going to shatter my heart like safety glass.

Creative Commons image by Georges Biard

Tris gets to be a bit sexy in her on-screen incarnation. The novel version of Insurgent would have you believe that Tris and Four's physical relationship is somewhat limited, because she fears emotional intimacy - understandable, given her personal traumas. The movie strongly implies that Tris and Four's bed-sharing isn't simply for comfort (he helps relieve her PTSD-induced nightmares). Maybe it's just because Woodley and Theo James have mad onscreen chemistry, but their relationship in the film seems very much hands-on.

Creative Commons image by Christopher William Adach from London, U.K.

Of course, I am grateful for every moment of screen time that Theo James is shirtless. Or talking. Like Jim Caviezel and Christian Bale before him, James is gifted with the Voice of Pure Sex. Side effect of a British actor speaking with an American accent? I don't know, but it works for me. I like his whole...everything. He's part Greek too, and you can tell his Mediterranean-ness by the fatness of his bottom lip, which I would very much like to bite.

The other actor whose performance is devastating in this movie is the lovely and talented Ms. Zoe Kravitz as Christina. Her face when Tris confesses she killed Will gave me heart pangs. I actually hope the third and fourth movies don't dwell on the budding relationship between Christina and Uriah, because we all know how that ends. But I do want a little epilogue with Christina and Four holding hands, in a friendship way, future relationship left up to the viewer's imagination. Personally I'm pro-Fourstina (it seems like a healthy part of the healing process), but it's okay if you're not.

Creative Commons image by Mingle Media TV

Other actors who play the faction leaders also give worthy performances, notably the lovely Olivia Spencer (Oscar-winning actress of The Help fame, presented her award by Oscar-winning Christian Bale) as Amity leader Johanna (I really liked the way they did her scars with makeup) and Daniel Dae Kim as Candor leader Jack Kang. Four's mom Evelyn, leader of the Factionless, was played by Naomi Watts. T. and I recently saw her in Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, a strange meta-fictional movie about actors performing a Raymond Carver short story ("What We Talk About When We Talk About Love") as a play. She's good, if a bit young-looking. It looks like Evelyn gave birth to Four when she was four. I wish their back story wasn't so bad.

The only thing I really didn't care for in this movie was the device that measures how divergent a person is, and what his or her or their faction is. I thought faction was a free choice? How can it be measured, even with a genetic scan? I mean, we do find out in Allegiant that the factions were part of a genetics experiment, but still...it seemed like a cheesy sci-fi movie thing.

I recall the book being an exciting page-turner with a cliffhanger ending (what's outside the fence?). The movie lived up to that. It was thrilling, twisty, and a tease for the next film. T. slow-clapped when Four shot Eric, and the other people in the theater laughed at that.

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Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1 - 24 by John Howard Reid. $0.99 from Smashwords.com
Another essential book for a film buff's library, this one is packed with information and reviews. Some of the entries are quite extensive. JHR provides all the information you need, including complete cast and production staff. I find JHR's information invaluable. I like to read not only who acted in a movie, but who made it, both top-billed and lesser mortals. -- Ross Adams in DRESS CIRCLE mag.

Review: 'Four: A Divergent Collection' by Veronica Roth

Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I told myself I would take a hiatus from YA books after reading This Star Won't Go Out, but obviously my hiatus has already ended. So what if I'm occasionally reading the same book as my 10-year-old niece? Books like this one make me happy.

And sad.

Based on my personal enjoyment of this book, I'd give it five stars, but I think four stars are appropriate since it isn't going to mean nearly as much to someone who hasn't read the Divergent trilogy. I'd read the first story, "The Transfer," when it was available as an e-book for Nook. The first time I read it, it struck me as poignant and insightful. It was nice to read it again and be reminded of the small details that make up Four' character.

One thing that bothered me slightly: Roth describes both Amar and Zeke as "dark-skinned." Amar is Middle Eastern/North African and Zeke is La Raza. Surely they don't have the exact same skin tone. Is Roth trying to say that Tobias, her narrator, divides the whole world into "dark-skinned" and "light-skinned" people? That's not very Abnegation. Perhaps Roth just didn't realize she could use more rich and varied words to tell us what Zeke and Amar look like. Rookie mistake, maybe.

The other two stories that take place before Four meets Tris, "The Initiate" and "The Son," also struck me as being poignant, especially where they address Four's complicated relationship with his mother.

Then, in "The Traitor," Tris appears. Why did I imagine it wouldn't be painful to revisit Tris and Four's relationship? I kind of felt like my heart was caught in a vise as I read some of Four's first impressions - his first stirrings of love - towards his soul-mate. At the same time, spending some more time with FourTris is a wonderful gift from Ms. Roth. The third of the three "exclusive scenes" at the end is especially romantic, if you're into that kind of thing.

Which I totally am.

The copy I read was on loan from my local library, although I wish it could live in my house. When the Collector's Edition of Divergent comes out (October 21, 2014), I'm buying that for myself. I might even pre-order it. Heaven help me, I loved the Divergent series, and it's a world I'm not yet willing to leave.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

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Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.

#FridayReads: Books I'm Currently Reading Aug. 22, 2014

I'm having one of those "read 1,000 things at the same time" moments again, but what's new? I love books. I'm kind of obsessed with them, really.

My main book is Four: A Divergent Short Story Collection, which I picked up at the public library a few days ago. I loved the Divergent trilogy. Even though I already bought and read one of the e-book versions of "The Transfer," the first story in the collection, I haven't read all four stories yet.

I had intended to take a short hiatus from reading young adult books, but the opportunity to get this from the library weakened my resolve.

By the way, I said in my Divergent review that Tris and Caleb Prior are fraternal twins. Four makes it clear they're "Irish twins." In other words, they were born ten or eleven months apart. I missed that upon first reading.

I had been reading the final book in the All Souls Trilogy series, The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to finish more than a third of it before it had to go back to the library.

It's too wonderful. I don't want to gulp it down. I need to savor. I think I'll have to buy the e-book and read it in my Nook.

The book I'm currently reading in my Nook is Fated (Vampire Destiny #1) by Alexandra Anthony. It's a paranormal romance, and a pretty quick, easy read.

The vampire, Stefan Lifsten, is tall, blond, and Nordic, heavily reminiscent of Eric Northman in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries series. The heroine, Josephine, is a telepath who reads people's minds. She's very much like Harris's Sookie Stackhouse. It almost reads like True Blood fan fiction - and I'm not complaining. I'm liking it.

The last episode of True Blood is coming up this Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm dreading it at the same time.

The book I'm reading in my kitchen as I wait for coffee to brew and water to boil is Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott.

It's a paranormal murder mystery. Half the chapters are written from the point of view of a vampire/horror film actress who's sort of the sheriff of Hollywood the same way Eric is the sheriff of the Shreveport region. All of the victims (at least the first three) were her vampiric creations, her "children." The other half of the chapters are written from the POV of the mortal human detective who's investigating the crime. He doesn't know that vampires really exist.

I haven't read any of Michael Scott's other books, but he wrote the YA fantasy Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. And of course we all remember who Nicholas Flamel is...he created the Philosopher's Stone, the very thing that gave young Harry Potter so much trouble. Well, that's the folklore. He was an actual historical person, too.

Barbeau in a Creative Commons image by Leslie Gottlieb. 

Adrienne Barbeau, of course, is an actress as well as an author. Very beautiful lady.

The book I keep in my husband's van in case of reading time is HellFire by Kate Douglas. This is part of my PNR rotation. It's the second book in the DemonSlayers series. It's a silly-but-fun paranormal romance series with a hero from the lost continent of Lemuria. (That's an interesting subject we'll save for when I finish the book. I have a thing for discarded scientific theories.)

Okay, the cover model with the long blond hair looks exactly like Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. As I'm reading the book, though, I'm imagining the tall, white-blond hero as Lee Pace in the Hobbit movies. I'm imagining Rutina Wesley - True Blood's Tara Thornton - in the role of the heroine, Ginny. (That's Ginny as in Virginia, not like Harry Potter's Ginny. Mrs. Potter's nickname comes from Ginevra, the Italian equivalent of Jennifer or Guinevere.)

I love me some Kate Douglas. She had me hooked from the first time I picked up Wolf Tales.

Now, the serious book I'm reading is my latest Amazon Vine pick. It's called Religio Duplex: How the Enlightenment Reinvented Egyptian Religion by Jan Assmann, translated from German by Robert Savage. (I don't know what Assmann means in the German language, but it's unfortunately giggle-worthy in English. I can't help but think of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer mistakenly receives the "ASS MAN" vanity license plates.) This scholarly work describes the history of a thought, from a Greek interpretation of the Egyptian religion during antiquity to the re-emergence of this interpretation during the European Enlightenment era of the 1600s and 1700s. Assmann is an Egyptologist, and he's also a scholar of European history, so this is right up his alley. I'll write a detailed review as soon as I finish this dense academic work. I'm about halfway through.

What are you reading?

#YABookReview: 'Panic' by Lauren Oliver

I received an advance reader's edition of Panic at no cost through the Amazon Vine program. I received no other compensation for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.

Panic is a contemporary young adult novel with a realistic plot and characters. It takes place in the small town of Carp, New York. The high school seniors in Carp play a game over the summer called Panic; the winner takes a pot of somewhere around $50,000. To many in the economically depressed town, the money represents the only chance they'll ever have to live better lives than their parents. 

The novel is written in the third person, but chapters are divided into Heather and Dodge chapters, depending on which of the two main characters they follow. Heather Nill lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic, drug-addicted mother and her younger sister Lily. She has no plans for her life beyond high school. She dreams of leaving Carp, but she can't stand the thought of leaving Lily behind. And yes, Heather is aware that her last name literally means "nothing."

Dodge Mason comes from a similar background. He never knew his father, a Dominican roofer. His lighter-complexioned half sister Dayna played Panic when she was a senior, and in the final round she was in a car accident and lost the use of her legs. Their mom can't afford the most advanced medical treatment for her, so chances are she'll never walk again.

Dayna had been competing against Luke Hanahran when she was injured. When it's Dodge's turn to compete, Luke's brother Ray is also a contestant in Panic. Dodge intends to get revenge for Dayna - that's his main motivation for playing the game.

Along with Dodge and Heather, Heather's best friend Natalie (Nat) Velez is a competitor. Nat doesn't have a very strong stomach for dangerous activities, but she wants to win the money to further her dream of being an actress in L.A.

Panic is kept secret from the town's adults, with ever-changing rules, locations, and judges. None of the players know who the judges are.

I've been wanting to read the first book in Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, which is also called Delirium, for quite a while now. After reading Panic, I'm not so sure I want to read it anymore. I just haven't fallen in love with Oliver's writing the way I have, say, Veronica Roth's. I thought Panic was interesting, but not great. There are moments of mild suspense when the characters seem to be in great danger, but very few consequences actually happen to the four main characters. The suspense is kind of a tease.

I hoped this would be more of a "what if real kids had their own version of The Hunger Games" kind of thing, but it was even more realistic than even that - which I didn't love. I knew going into this reading that it wasn't any kind of dystopian or fantasy novel, but it turns out I simply like the speculative genres of young adult books more than the more realistic kind.

This is the second stand-alone Lauren Oliver book I've read. The first was her middle grade fantasy novel The Spindlers. I thought that was just okay, too.

But if you like realistic YA fiction about what kind of trouble bored kids with very little to lose could get into, you may very well enjoy this book.

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Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.

The Best Books I Read in 2013

To catch up on previous years:

The Best Books I Read in 2012
The Best Books I Read in 2011
The Best Books I Read in 2010
The Best Books I Read in 2009

If you want to, you can even go to Goodreads and see all the books I read in 2013. Now my favorite reads from 2013, in very particular order:

10. Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris. I didn't want the Sookie Stackhouse series to end - at least not before Sookie and Bill reconciled and Bill made her his vampire bride - but since it had to, I'm glad Harris did it her way.

Full review here (contains spoilers). This was a book I checked out from my local library.

9. Finding Esta by Shah Wharton. I was pleasantly surprised by this fresh take on contemporary vampire mythology, the debut novel by a talented writer from the U.K.

Full review here (contains minor spoilers). This is an e-book I downloaded from Smashwords on a day when the author gave it away as a free promotion.

8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  I didn't give this one a full review, but the weekend I checked it out from my local library, I could hardly put it down until I was finished. It's nonfiction, the story of a woman who changed medical history without knowing she did so. Henrietta Lacks was a poor, uneducated tobacco farmer who was pregnant with her son when doctors discovered she had a cervical tumor. After she gave birth, doctors treated her cancer with radiation and, without her knowledge or consent, took a sample of her cancerous cells and kept them alive in the laboratory. This was the first time human cells were ever able to be made "immortal," or grown perpetually in the lab. These cells made a wide variety of medical research possible, and companies profited from that research while the Lacks family was too poor to even afford health insurance. Sadly, Henrietta died an awful, painful death when her cancer rapidly came back despite the radiation treatment - which, in all honesty, was fairly horrific itself - while her children were all still small.

This book is an investigation into the woman behind the cells (known in medical literature as HeLa cells, after Henrietta), her legacy, and how medical science as a business and as a pure science can improve its ethics and treatment of human beings. I chose this because it was the book of the year at the college from which I graduated.

7. In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler. This one is also nonfiction, and again it deals with cancer, although this is a memoir written by a survivor. It's infuriating, difficult, and inspiring.

I didn't write a full review of this one, but you can read a blog post on it here. This is a post about Ensler's spirituality in her memoir. I got this book free from the Amazon.com Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

6. Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. This is the sequel to See's Shanghai Girls, a work of historical fiction set in 20th-century China and then in the United States, exploring the world of two immigrant sisters, Pearl and May. Shanghai Girls is a beloved book in my family, read first by my grandmother, then by my mother, then by me. At the end of the first book, Pearl's daughter Joy impulsively moves to China. Dreams of Joy relates the story of what happens to her there, and what happens to Pearl as she goes to (she assumes) rescue Joy. I never wrote a full review; I don't know what to say except it was very good, and also very hard in places.

I purchased a used hardcover of this book at a library book sale.

5. Lover at Last by J.R. Ward. I'm hopelessly addicted to Ward's paranormal romance series with the warrior-vampires. I love all the couples, but I was SO ready for this, the only book in the series to focus on a male-male couple. They're Blay and Qhuinn, and their partnership gives me a lot of feels. I've wanted them to be together since Blay first expressed feelings for his friend, but Qhuinn was being such a jerk about it. All that angst is resolved now, though, and Team Qhuay is officially a thing.

Full review here (includes spoilers). This is a book I checked out from the public library. 

4. The Divergent Trilogy (I'm kind of cheating here, but I'm going to count them all as one book) by Veronica Roth. For those of you fresh to this young adult/dystopian series, I'm not going to spoil anything here. Let's just say that if you liked the Hunger Games trilogy, you're going to be equally enthusiastic about young Beatrice "Tris" Prior and her cohort.

Divergent review here (spoilers)

Insurgent review here (no real spoilers, just a basic plot outline) 

Spoiler-free Allegiant discussion post

Allegiant review (spoilers)

I bought a paperback Divergent at Barnes and Noble, checked out Insurgent from the local library, and bought Allegiant as an e-book for my Nook. 

3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Hazel Grace Lancaster is just a normal teen with cancer, a young woman who's already outlived her life expectancy thanks to a "miracle drug." She doesn't love the cancer support group, but she does fall in love there, with Augustus Waters, a brilliant, witty, kind young man who lost a leg to bone cancer that's now in remission. This is an important literary novel disguised as YA fiction, and I cannot wait to see the movie.

I never wrote a full review of this novel, mostly because it gives me so many feelings, I become an inarticulate sniffling mass. I paid full retail for this hardcover at a store that was not a bookstore, because I had a gift card. After I read it, my grandma read it. She liked it, too, and she's not one to read YA books normally. 

2. Hemingway's Girl by Erika Robuck. Historical fiction set in Key West in the 1930s, with a Cuban-American protagonist who's kind of in a love triangle with Ernest Hemingway? It's perfection.

I didn't write a formal review of this book on this blog, but I did discuss the first half of it here. I received this one through the Amazon.com Vine program in exchange for a review.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Without realizing it, I checked an abridged version out of the library. I wish I'd read the unabridged version, because after 800 pages, I still wanted more of this classic. The story is compelling and the characterization is interesting. It's everything you could ask for from a dead Frenchman.

Full review here (contains spoilers). I read this as a library book, and then subsequently purchased a used paperback of the unabridged version at a library book sale. 

The Hanukkah Hotness, Night Seven: Tony Goldwyn

Tony Goldwyn is the grandson of Samuel Goldwyn of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) fame, but the family named itself after the studio, not the other way around. I read this story in Bill Bryson's Made in America (a book you will find fascinating if you're any kind of amateur or professional etymologist).

Bryson writes, "Some understandable confusion exists concerning Samuel Goldwyn and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Though his name accounts for the middle initial in MGM, Goldwyn was never part of the company. In 1924, he sold out to the Metro studios and Louis B. Mayer, and was astonished to discover that they took his name with them. But then that was no more than Goldwyn himself had done. The Goldwyn Picture Company was not in fact named for Goldwyn, but rather he for it. His real name was Schmuel [also sometimes spelled Szmuel] Gelbfisz, though for his first thirty years in America he had called himself - perhaps a little unwisely - Samuel Goldfish. Goldwyn was a portmanteau of the names of the studio's two founders: Samuel Goldfish and Edgar Selwyn. It wasn't until 1918, tired of being the butt of endless fishbowl jokes, that he named himself after his corporation. After the MGM takeover, he had to go to court to win permission to continue making movies under the Goldwyn name."

public domain image

Apparently, he won. I can proudly say that the Gelbfisz family came from Warsaw. Poland, the same place as my ancestors, the Templin family. My grandmother's grandmother was named Antonia Templin.

At one time, I knew Tony Gelbfisz/Goldfish/Goldwyn primarily as the villain in the Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore romance Ghost. Now he's playing the U.S. president on Scandal...



...but perhaps (since I don't watch that show) I'd like him even better as Andrew Prior in the film version of Veronica Roth's Divergent.



I'm sorry, Tris Prior, but your dad is a complete DILF.

This is what Tony Goldwyn looks like dressed casually.



This is what he looks like dressed formally.



This is what he looks like with no shirt on.



He's not technically a Jewish Disney prince, but he did provide the voice of Tarzan in the Disney cartoon.



Having a happy Hanukkah so far? Good. There's one more night to go.

Worst. Episode. Ever. ~ in which I am emotionally traumatized by #PersonOfInterest ***SPOILERS***

***SPOILERS***

First, a bit of business: Kelly Walker's $50 giveaway entry form is at this post.

Second, a serious note: November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a solemn event for remembering human lives lost to anti-transgender violent. The victims of such violence are almost always trans*women, often people of color, and often sex workers. It's an opportunity to devote ourselves anew to respecting all transgendered people - but especially our trans* sisters - and to continue fighting misogyny, hurtful gender stereotypes, racism, prejudice against sex workers, and all the places where these deadly attitudes intersect. Today we remember that all human lives have value, and that the most vulnerable members of our society need our support.

You don't have to love sex work, but you do have to respect sex workers as your fellow human beings.

***SPOILERS START HERE***

Now on to a more "lighthearted" subject, which is nonetheless ripping my heart in two. Fictional characters are bastards. They have a tendency to die at the most inconvenient times, such as when one gets extremely attached to them. I'm extremely attached to Jocelyn (Joss) Carter on Person of Interest, and here in the middle of Season 3, the writers have killed her off.

Public Domain Image

I probably should be angry, as angry as all those Veronica Roth fans who returned their copies of Allegiant to the bookstore because they were so chagrined by that thing that happens at the end. (Go here if you want the spoiler-y book review.) Maybe I haven't gotten to the anger stage yet; I'm still processing the grief.

Yes, I'm grieving over a TV character. Her death is so sudden, so horrendous, such a betrayal of the loyal audience. It felt like a cheap ratings stunt, a shocker ending designed to get a gasp out of the viewer. Let me tell you a thing about Joss Carter: she was a complete badass. She was a strong, stable police detective, a Gulf War II veteran and former military interrogator, competent and honest in her job. She was a single mom, divorced from a fellow vet - a good man who was loyal to their son and dealing with his PTSD issues. She was a good partner to Lionel Fusco, a good mom, and still not some perfect Mary Sue it was impossible to like.

She was realistically strong, not cartoonishly so. (I can admit it: Sam Shaw is a bit cartoonish at times.) She was everything you wanted a female character on network TV to be.

Joss is played by Taraji P. Henson, an African-American woman. How many successful network TV shows feature an African-American woman as one of four principle characters? Not as many as we would like. We could not afford to lose Taraji from network TV. She's an amazing actor, gifted in both lighthearted comedic scenes and heavy drama. She was a staple of this show, its anchor. She was the moral center, even more so than Harold Finch. This literally will be a different show from here on out.

Creative Commons Image

I don't think I'll like it nearly as much. The other badass women - Root, Zoe Morgan and Shaw - are little comfort. They aren't Joss.

The worst part, though? The kiss. Yep, in the last hours of Joss's life, she finally learned John Reese's real feelings about her. They showed each other their scars; we learned she almost died from a landmine explosion and again when she gave birth to Taylor. My heart leapt; I had visions of John and Joss kissing each other's scars as they slowly undressed one another. He confessed to her that she saved his life; he was going to kill himself before the day they met, when she showed concern for him.

Then he touched her face, very tenderly. Then he leaned in (he's very tall) and kissed her. Joss's beautiful face was even more so afterward. You could see the love reflected in her beautiful eyes. Taraji has such beautiful eyes. CaReese was going to happen! They loved each other, I know it! I was in such a state of bliss - though still worried they were going to kill my beloved Lionel.

Then (Erin typed through her tears) that motherfucker Patrick Simmons shot her in the street, and she died in John's arms, calling for Taylor. Horrible Cloud Atlas flashbacks. The Frobisher-Sixsmith feels all over again.

I loved FourTris, but they weren't my One True Pairing. CaReese was my OTP. She deserved so much better than this. She deserved all the happiness. How is one supposed to take it when half of one's OTP is dead?

Excuse me for crossing fandoms, but I feel like I've been attacked by a dementor. I feel like I'll never be cheerful again. My brain wants to play me a jukebox worth of sad songs, and my infinite sadness playlist wouldn't let me sleep last night. Professor Lupin, can you bring me some chocolate, stat?

No, you can't. J.K. Rowling killed you. Fictional characters are bastards, dying at such inconvenient times. Person of Interest, go to the corner and think about what you've done.

If anything happens to Abbie Mills on Sleepy Hollow, TV, I swear to all the gods...

Pinterest: My Most Popular Pins

Oh How Pinteresting! Wednesday at The Vintage Apple is no more (not that we blame busy women who aren't writers by professional for not having time to blog - not in any way). It's still fun to have a (semi-) Wordless Wednesday post every now and then, so I thought I'd show off some of my most popular Pinterest pins:

#1: Taraji P. Henson



She's gorgeous. It's no wonder this one's been repinned 107 times.

#2: Sagrada Familia



It's true: on my trip to Spain in 1995, my tour group and I visited La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the last stop on our tour that started in Madrid. It was closed - infamously, the architect Gaudi died before his masterwork was completed, and it's almost constantly under construction - and I never got to see the inside.

A photo I took of the outside of Sagrada Familia in 1995

Now I can see it, vicariously, through Pinterest. So can lots of other people. It's been repinned 98 times.

#3: The Divergent Trilogy



Allegiant only came out on October 22 (barring a few leaked copies), but this image of all three hardcovers in Veronica Roth's Divergent Series has already been repinned 84 times.

I'm not surprised that one of my most popular pins has to do with a book series, but I am surprised that it got repinned so many times so quickly.

#4: Joseph Gordon-Levitt reading



You may have seen this image before on my "Hanukkah Hotness" post about JGL. Lots of people have seen it on Pinterest; it's been repinned 78 times.

#5: Taraji again



This one's been repinned 55 times - to a lot of "hair inspiration" boards.

#6: New Moon movie poster



The movie poster for the second movie in the Twilight series has been repinned 53 times. Incidentally, Andrea at Reading Lark book review blog recently reread and reviewed New Moon. You can read her review of the first novel, Twilight, here.

#7: Leaf chair



This clever yet practical piece of design has been repinned 50 times.

#8: You guys just can't get enough Taraji P. Henson



Not that I blame you. This sexy black-and-white pose came from Kala's TheDorkMistress Tumblr blog.

#9: George Clooney reads



Repinned 30 times, this pin first made its appearance in this Blue Monday post.

What are your most popular pins? Do any of them really surprise you?

#BookReview 'Allegiant' by Veronica Roth (Spoilers)

Happy Halloween! You can find my Divergent review here and my Insurgent review here. If you haven't read Allegiant yet, do not proceed, or you will be spoiled.

Perhaps you would rather go to Publishers Weekly and read about how Allegiant sold 455,000 copies when it was released on October 22nd. It also mentions that the Divergent movie is set for release on March 21, 2014. That article contains no spoilers.

This review contains all the spoilers. I finished reading Allegiant on Tuesday, October 29th. It took me a week to read it, partly because I was finishing Fangirl and partly because I didn't want this series to end. Now I'm sad because it's over.

And because Tris is dead. Happy-ever-after for Tris and Four? Nope. Her noble self-sacrifice saved the city of Chicago, but doomed this YA couple to a sad and painful ending. So now you know why this is my Halloween post: it's about death.

Now that you've been warned of spoilers, I'm going to address some of the points I mentioned on Book Club Friday:

- As many tears as when I read the ending of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, and the young lovers Will and Lyra can never be together? No, not as many. I only cried three times, and they were the squeal-y, The Fault in Our Stars tears that made my throat hurt.

What Tris did was very loving, but I'm so sad for Tobias (whose torment is described in agonizing detail).

- I'm still not crazy about Caleb, although Tris loved and forgave him, which made it a little bit better.

- Christina: this poor woman has lost so many good friends. First it was Will, who - let's face it - was probably the first person she ever fell in love with. Then, just as she's starting to get friendly with Uriah, he gets critically injured, never wakes up from his coma, and dies. Then she loses Tris.

Can we all just accept this headcanon right now: that at some point in the future, Tobias and Christina become more than just friends? I think I could be more okay with Tris' death if I knew Tobias would, eventually, love again. And only good things should happen to Christina from now on (she's suffered enough), and Tobias is pretty much a perfect boyfriend (a little angry at times, but under very understandable circumstances...) - so, can they please get together?

- I'm still not happy that Tori Wu is dead. I watched the first two seasons of Nikita, and Maggie Q is basically a flawless goddess and the living embodiment of Dauntless. When I see her playing Tori in the movie, I'm just going to get all choked up again because now we know that Tori will die and her brother will be sad.

Maggie Q - Creative Commons license

Don't get me wrong - I loved this book. I loved this entire series. It's so action-packed, and Tris and Four were just so sweet together (while it lasted), and I loved the character development. I'm not one of those people who are upset with Veronica Roth because the series didn't end exactly how they wanted it to, with Tris and Four getting married and having kids like Katniss and Peeta did. I think Veronica Roth did right by her own characters - not that my opinion is what counts. Sometimes Cath kills Baz, and sometimes she lets him and Simon live happily ever after.

But the sadness, though.

But I'm still really glad I read it. It was a hell of a journey.

P.S. Goodreads is counting Allegiant as the 60th book I've read this year, which completes my book challenge for 2013. It's kind of a cheat, a little bit, because some of those "books" are short stories, and I counted Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter as "read" even though I never finished it. (After the first third, I'd had enough. It just wasn't the book for me. No judgment on its quality, only on my reaction to it.)

2013 Reading Challenge

Erin has
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What did you think of Allegiant?

#FridayReads Currently Reading: Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Spoiler Free)

I finished The Lost Sun earlier this week, and I'm about 80% done with Fangirl. I'll probably have Fangirl finished tomorrow. In the meantime, Veronica Roth's third book in the Divergent Series came out on Tuesday the 22nd, and I could not resist the temptation to download the Allegiant e-book to my Nook.

Divergent review here
Insurgent review here

The Goodreads synopsis reads as follows:

What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.

But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.

The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent.

I'm only halfway done reading Allegiant at this point, and I do not wish to read any spoilers nor to give anyone else any major spoilers. I think I can safely say these things about the first half:

- I honestly need someone to pay me to do nothing but read novels all day, everyday, because finishing Allegiant is all I really want to do.

- At the exact same time, I don't want this series to end. I'm nervous and excited for the end at the same time. This is like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows all over again. I anticipate tears. Hopefully not as many tears as when I read the ending of the His Dark Materials trilogy (if you'd seen me, you honestly would have thought someone died in real life).

- I take back every good thing I ever thought about Caleb when I read Divergent.

- Christina. Even though I never really pictured her as a light-skinned woman as I was reading, I cannot wait to see Zoe Kravitz playing her on film. I love Christina and I love Zoe Kravitz. That's all I'm saying for now.

- Tori Wu. Oh my goddess, Tori.

- This is a minor spoiler, but I'll go ahead and say it: Tris doubts whether her mother and father ever truly loved each other, but finds evidence they were really in love. This makes me so happy. And I really think I'm going to love Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn playing Natalie and Andrew in the movie.

Natalie turns out to be an even bigger badass than Tris even thought in Insurgent. That has Ashley Judd written all over it.

If you read it, tell me what you think - but only if you can do it without spoilers. I still haven't forgiven Pinterest for spoiling that one particular character death in Mockingjay for me.

'This Star Won't Go Out' Teaser

On Thursday, Publishers Weekly sent me an e-mail with the subject line "John Green and Esther Earl: Lives Connected by Words." It's a teaser for the book This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Work of Esther Grace Earl, with additional writing by Esther's parents Lori and Wayne Earl and an introduction by John Green.

Esther, diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was only 12, passed away from the disease at the age of 16 in 2010. She's the real-life inspiration for Hazel Grace in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.

The title is a play on Esther's name, which is the Persian word for "star." She was named after the Biblical Queen Esther.

The e-mail took me to a page of Scribd (the website for uploading and reading e-books, many of them free) with a sample of the book to download. I can't share the link because the link won't work for anyone else's computer. The sample is only 11 pages long. It contains:

- Childhood photos of Esther from 2000 and 2003, showing her bright blue eyes

- Lori and Wayne's introduction, writing about who Esther was as an individual and some of her diary-keeping habits. They write, "She loved words, felt their power and believed in the magic of story."

-A photo of Esther reading a Judy Blume book in 2009, and another of her using a laptop inside Boston's Children's Hospital after she became ill

-Esther's drawing of colorful flowers on a black stalk, underneath a blue sun

-A facsimile of a note written in Esther's own handwriting, to her parents on their anniversary. It reads, in part:

"Parents, I love you two. So much. I am so lucky to have such amazing people raising me. Because...really, I wouldn't be who I am today if not for the love and care of you two. Please realize that you  are amazing. I thank God that He blessed us with two such loving people.

"Cancer is hard. I wouldn't have made it this far if it weren't for my family. Thank you, very much, for being here for me. It makes it seem less hard."

I'm very excited for this book. I want to get to know this young aspiring writer who lost her life too soon. I want to read her words and understand her life from her point of view. I never made a blog post with my review of TFIOS, and part of that was because I was so shocked by how good the book was, I couldn't articulate anything other than, "This is really, really, really good and you should just read it right now." That Esther Grace inspired the goodness is the very reason I want to read her very own words. I want my life to be connected to hers by words.

It might break my heart - TFIOS sure did. I cried, and then I dropped the book, and then I called it a stupid book because it made me cry and drop it. But when that happens, you know a piece of literature has seeped into your heart because it deserved to. Heartbreak or no, I must read TSWGO. Esther Grace Earl didn't have a long life on earth, so now she'll live in readers' hearts.

This Star Won't Go Out is available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble and Amazon now, and will officially be published on January 28, 2014.

Another book release I am eagerly awaiting:

...and, of course, Allegiant by Veronica Roth (October 22, 2013). The same actress, Shailene Woodley, will play both Hazel Grace and Tris Prior at the movies. If you follow John Green on Tumblr, you'll see he is currently fangirling over the filming of his book. 

P.S. You can add John Green and his brother/fellow writer Hank Green to the list of cool people from Indiana. 

'Insurgent' by Veronica Roth

My book story: About two months ago, I had a 15% off coupon for Barnes and Noble. I used it to buy the paperback of Divergent. You can read my review of Divergent here. 

I read it. I loved it. I decided to set my copy free and sell it to Powell’s Books. It makes me happy to think that everybody wins: Barnes + Noble made a sale, I got to read the story, and now Powell’s will earn a small profit, and another person gets to enjoy the book without paying the full price.

Did you know you can sell gently used paperbacks to Powell’s even if you don’t live in Seattle, and they pay the shipping?

I went to the post office on August 1st to mail Divergent and a couple of other books to Seattle. The post office is a block from the library, which happened to have a copy of Insurgent waiting for me. Nice synchronicity there.

On August 1st I was celebrating Lughnasa, so while on my walk to the library I went to the coffee shop for the traditional feast of blueberries and grains (and also a coffee smoothie). 

Now I'm finished with the book. Today it goes back to the library. 

My book review:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to go ahead and give this book 5 stars because, taking it on its own terms, I don't see how it could get any better. My two favorite things about Divergent were how Tris Prior is a strong heroine who grows and continuously becomes stronger and braver, and the way Veronica Roth's writing keeps the reader on the edge of her seat throughout that thrill ride of a novel. This sequel has those characteristics, except now Tris is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, so the "woman versus herself" conflict intensifies - and the stakes have been raised to the tenth power.

People Tris thought were dead turn out to be alive, people who Tris thought were allies turn out to be traitors, and certain snakes in the grass turn out to have surprising advantages. It's another heart-pounding installation in an adrenaline rush trilogy, and the jaw-dropper of an ending doesn't exactly let the reader relax and kick back until the release of Allegiant.

Allegiant comes out on October 22.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

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Like 'Divergent,' Dauntless For The Very First Time (Book Review)

I made it through the Choosing Ceremony
Somehow I made it through
Didn't know how Dauntless I was
Until I found Four...

Okay, enough of that nonsense. I finished reading Divergent, the first book in a trilogy by Veronica Roth (and soon to be a movie), on Friday night. I first caught bits and pieces of "Tris and Four" talk from my book-loving friends on Tumblr. Then several bloggers who routinely link up with Blonde...Undercover Blonde's Book Club Friday read and reviewed it, and I knew I had to read this book. They claimed it was for people who liked the Hunger Games trilogy, and I definitely did.

In the world of Divergent, which takes place in Chicago some time in the near future, society has been split into five factions, or groups of people who arrange themselves according to the values they consider most important. Beatrice (later nicknamed Tris) Prior is born into Abnegation, which values selflessness. The other factions are Amity (peace), Candor (truthfulness), Dauntless (bravery) and Erudite (knowledge). At the beginning of the book, Beatrice is 15 years old. When she turns 16, she'll have to choose the faction she'll stay in for the rest of her life. Society places pressure on young people to stay in the faction into which they were born, but Beatrice senses she doesn't entirely belong in Abnegation.

(Yes, this is an example of the Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday trope, and yes, we also saw it in Beautiful Creatures.)

Before her Choosing Ceremony, Beatrice takes a series of tests that could help her decide which faction she has an aptitude for. She gets an unusual result - Beatrice is Divergent, with no clear aptitude for any one faction, but strong characteristics of three different ones. Being Divergent is dangerous, and she must conceal this from everyone, although no one will tell her exactly why. (She'll later find out that people have been murdered just for being Divergent.)

As much to her surprise as to anyone else's, Beatrice chooses to become Dauntless. The Dauntless initiation is the most dangerous and physically demanding of any of the factions, so much so that there are fewer openings in Dauntless than there are candidates. The first thing they have to do is jump onto the trains that still run through downtown Chicago, and some of the candidates don't make it. They become Factionless; the Factionless do all the menial tasks in society and are perpetually on the edge of starvation, relying on charity from Abnegation.

Thus, Beatrice becomes Tris. You certainly can't put her into the category of weak YA heroines. Every day, Tris gains a little physical and mental strength - and believe me, by Chapter 35 she needs every bit of it. Even though Tris manages to survive her initiation and join the ranks of Dauntless (as the #1 non-Dauntless-born candidate, no less - her Divergent status is a huge advantage when it comes to controlling her fears), another faction has a secret plan to use the brave souls of Dauntless - the closest thing society has to an army - to attack another faction.

This novel can be summed up in one hyphenated word: action-packed. The factions are supposed to work for the good of everyone by having people specialize in what they do best, but in reality, danger lurks around every corner of Tris's world.

Readers who are tired of YA novels with female heroines where the main focus of the story is a romantic relationship will find Divergent refreshing. There is a romance, but it's not the main focus. That said, the hero - nicknamed Four; to give away his given name would be too much of a spoiler - Tris's 18-year-old trainer, is totally yummy. (I love him with Tris, although I think if I were in this world, I would have a crush on Tris's fraternal twin, Caleb, who joins Erudite.)

What happens from Chapter 35 onward makes me very sad, and very eager to read Insurgent. I'm also sad when Tris says that Lake Michigan has dried up into a marshland. The whole image of downtown Chicago being a shadow of what it once was is a bit depressing to contemplate.

If I had to choose a faction, I think I'd pick Amity. Which would you choose?

Other Notes: I went to the discount bookstore today, after an anniversary breakfast with Tit Elingtin. (We've been married 11 years today.) I bought three books in Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series: Branded by Fire (#6), Blaze of Memory (#7) and Play of Passion (#9). Unfortunately, I forgot I already had Play of Passion, so now I have an extra copy. I still need Caressed by Ice (#3) and Bonds of Justice (#8). Anybody want to trade #3 for #9? Let me know.

P.S. I have finally seen The Hobbit. Finally, I watched a movie AFTER reading the book. It was nice to see Frodo, Elrond and Galadriel again, but it needed much, much more Thranduil. I like Lee Pace because he is Garrett from Breaking Dawn Pt. 2, although it is hard to recognize him in elf form.

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Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.