Meandering Along

   I’m going crazy. No, let me rephrase that. I went crazy a long time ago. (I joined LRRH. I was only semi-crazy before I discovered that place.) I’ve been college hunting, reading, writing, babysitting, and the usual. Nothing should be going on until at least Wednesday. No, wait. I have a softball game tonight. Drat. Okay, I’ve only got this afternoon where I’m not busy. Anyway, since I sort of have a day off I decided to drop in and write something. (I wasn’t planning to get anything written until at least Friday or Saturday.)

   I’ve been reading a lot. It’s amazing how much reading one can do while cooking, riding in the car, or during the kids’ naptime. So, let’s see here. First up is Dragon Flight. I wanted to enjoy it. I really did, but I didn’t that much. (I was pretty generous in giving it four stars on GoodReads.) The beginning was, frankly, boring. The plot wasn’t too interesting, nor was it terribly hard to guess what was going to happen next. Once I was one hundred pages or so into the book, I was able to read without wanting to put it down every few pages. Then there was the romance. (Or lack thereof.) You’d think with the way that Dragon Slippers ended there would be more. There wasn’t. A few times Creel bemoans the fact that it would never work between her and Luka. Or she mentions how foolish it was to fall in love with a prince. Was I supposed to doubt that it wasn’t going to work out for them or something? I don’t know. They didn’t strike me as being in love. More like friends. Even when Luka kisses her. She doesn’t spend much time on it before she moves on to another train of thought. (If I was in love with some guy and he kissed me, I’d spend quite a bit of time thinking about. But I’m also not in mortal danger which Creel apparently was. Ah, well. She’s still a girl.) But I guess the romance was better like this rather having Creel go, “Ooooh, Luka a love you sooo. Your eyes are so pretty, and even your breath smells wonderful.” Then I would’ve hated this book instead of simply liking it. Oh, and Luka’s proposal at the end was so random. Like, completely random. You’d have to read it to know what I’m talking about. Thing is, he still didn’t sound like he was in love with her. *sighs* I am not a fan of unconvincing romance.

   Okay, um, what else did I read? I reread Coraline Neil Gaiman. I really enjoyed this book the first time around. Not so much the second time. It was okay. I probably won’t read it again for a long, long, long time. The writing seemed awkward to me, and the story was odd. I usually like odd, but the whole just didn’t make much sense to me. The cat rocks though.

   I’m not a huge fan of the Once Upon a Time series. The books are pretty short, so there’s not a whole lot room for development. I’ve enjoyed some of these books (Golden) and I’ve despised others (Midnight Pearls). I decided to reread the only of these that I own. The Storyteller’s Daughter. It was better than most Once Upon Time stories. But it wasn’t exactly amazing either. The villains were horribly drawn and cliché, but I must admit that the hopeless romantic in me loved the main idea of the plot. I thought the main couple was adorable together. Other than that, I was really just bothered by that fact that at least three of the names sound almost the same.

   And I’ve decided to reread the Prydain Chronicles. Ah! They’re such fun.

   Lastly, I reread No Shame, No Fear by Ann Turnbull. I read this book when it first came out in 2006 and I read its sequel, Forged in the Fire, when it first came out in 2007. Well, I couldn’t really remember much about them except that they were pretty much romances. Being in the mood for a historical romance, I thought “Why not?” I was in shock part of the time while I was reading No Shame, No Fear. It was a lot more sensual than I remembered. Really it was a lot of kissing and somewhat sexual thoughts occasionally. (Think Twilight only a lot less cheesy.) It wasn’t anything that particularly bothered me other than the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure that a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century would let her sort of Quaker boyfriend slide his hands up her shirt. At least when I get around to rereading Forged in the Fire I’ll be ready. Come to think of it, I think I might remember there being a shocking scene in there too…

Anyway…

My new musical love. Well, he isn’t half so wonderful as Josh Groban, but he is pretty spectacular, and his name is Michael Buble, and these are my two favorite songs of his.