Book Review: The Devil Wears Plaid

I'll admit, only my love for Teresa Medeiros stories enabled me to pick up this book. The title, The Devil Wears Plaid, makes me cringe. It's cheesy and unoriginal and, really, Medeiros could do so much better.

But, I'm a diehard fan, so I tried to ignore it the best I could and get into the story.

According to the book's blurb:

Emmaline Marlowe is about to wed the extremely powerful laird of the Hepburn clan to save her father from debtor’s prison when ruffian Jamie Sinclair bursts into the abbey on a magnificent black horse and abducts her in one strong swoop. Though he is Hepburn’s sworn enemy, Emma’s mysterious captor is everything her bridegroom is not—handsome, virile, dangerous . . . and a perilous temptation for her yearning heart. Jamie expects Emma to be some milksop English miss, not a fiery, defiant beauty whose irresistible charms will tempt him at every turn. But he cannot allow either one of them to forget he is her enemy and she his pawn in the deadly Highland feud between the clans. So why does he still want her so badly for himself? Stealing his enemy’s bride was simple, but can he claim her innocence without losing his heart?

Okay, the blurb made me cringe a little, too. And the first chapter made me cringe again. (Not a very promising start.) The first part was pretty good and a bit funny, but as soon as the male love interest entered, I ended up rolling my eyes every other sentence. Yes, it's a romance, but would a girl who thinks she's about to be killed, kidnapped, raped, maimed etc? really notice her potential kidnapper's brawny forearms to such detail? It made the whole scene (which would have been a good one) feel forced and the attraction more than contrived. It started to feel as if someone was beating me over the head and screaming, "This is romance novel! Get it? Get it?"

But I had faith in Ms. Medeiros, so I kept reading.

The story got better, if a bit predictable (but, let's face it, I don't go into historical romance without EXPECTING the predictable). As more of Jamie's (totally coincidence that I'm reading two books set in the Scotland of old with male MCs by the name of Jamie, I swear) motives are revealed, the story picks up speed and a little more depth and soon I became just another reader along for the ride.

The ending, and Emma, pleasantly surprised me and left me with the happy afterglow (um, yeah) of a good romance novel. It's an enjoyable fluff read, and definitely not one of Medeiros' best. Still, it gave me what it promised.

Rating (out of five stars): 3
Recommended read? For those looking for a story with entertainment value, but not necessarily one that delivers anything exceptional or thought-provoking.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

I'm pretty sure all my passion/enthusiasm for writing got sucked up by my fitness routine. My writing has flagged. My stories garner only my passing interest, but start talking to me about diet and exercise and OMG I could gab for HOURS.

Now, before you accuse me of buying into the New Year's Resolution Hype, I've been pretty health-conscious for  the past few months (pre-wedding, even). It drives my darling husband a bit crazy (he cannot, for the life of him, understand why I want to try to kill myself with P90X every night...and he's a Marine). But, thinking on it, I guess I've always been shy when it comes to talking about what I'm working on writing-wise. I have my moments when I've gotten super excited and can't SHUT UP but most of the time I'm pretty reserved. I'm still that little girl on the outskirts of the playground hoping someone notices me and wants to play, but too afraid to go ask someone myself.

Yeah, I know it's silly.

Also, I have several short stories out on submission and I'm afraid to blab about them because I don't know if I'd be breaking some obscure (or not so obscure) publishing rule. So, I'm zipping it.

But I guess I could tell you what stories I have out...maybe? Mmkay. Well, I have a zombie story on submission (craps, forgot to check on that one's status!), a sci-fi story out on submission and whole pile of rejections.

But the funny thing about those rejections? They don't sting so much for short stories. Not sure why. Maybe because they are more like my stepchildren. Sure, I care for them, coddle them, guide them through their teenage angst, but I'm more than willing to boot them out of the house when they come of age. My novels, however, are my babies. It breaks my heart to think of someone NOT loving them (as they obviously did NOT love FURY (another story for another time)). So, I'll admit I'm a bit timid  and not sure if I'm altogether ready for another novel submission. And I have realized that, if anything, you NEED to be SURE that your baby (novel) is ready to fly.

I need to distance myself from them a bit before I can throw them from the nest, I guess.

So I apologize if I'm coming across as lets than enthusiastic about writing. I'm still enthusiastic, I'm just being a bit more secretive about it.

That Song in My Head

Have you seen Disney's Princess and the Frog? If not, you should. It's not only super cute with excellent animation, but has an awesome storyline with the some of the more complex characters I've seen from Disney.

And now I introduce you to the song that's been stuck in my head this morning:





Dig a little deeper!

Book Review: Positively

I was positive I was going to love Positively by Courtney Shiemel (har har) but, sadly, it wasn't love. I'm not sure it was even like. If anything, it was a very gentle form of tolerance.

According to the book's blurb:

Since the day Emerson Pressman and her mother were diagnosed as HIV positive, nothing has been the same. When her mother dies of AIDS, Emmy has to go live with the father and stepmother she barely knows, and she feels more alone than ever. Now she has to take pills by herself, and there is no one left who understands what it's like to be afraid every time she has a cold. But when her father decides to send her to Camp Positive, a camp for HIV-positive children, Emmy begins to realize that she's not alone after all, and that sometimes, opening up to other people can make all the difference in the world.


Sounds great, right? I thought so, too. And when Lydia Sharp gave it such a great review, I knew it HAD to be good. And therein lied the problem: I hyped myself up over it so much, that it was doomed to disappoint me.


Am I saying that Positively is a bad book? Absolutely not! It's a very good book and a very interesting tale. I've never known anyone with AIDS, so I enjoyed the personal glimpse into Emmy's life, I enjoyed learning what it was like to be her. I did not, however, enjoy her personality.


I think it's because I've read too many of them lately: the girl whom no one understands feeling sorry for herself. Granted, Emmy has a lot more reason to feel sorry for herself, and a heck of a lot better reason to feel different from everyone else, but it got to the point where I just wanted to shake her and tell her to wake up. Which makes me think that maybe this book wasn't written for me because A) I'm a bit too jaded B) The MC was too young for me to connect with (though I greatly appreciated how much she described stuff as "stupid" (I recall doing the same thing when I was a tween)) and C) Her time moping seemed too long and her "growth" period too short. I wanted more growing/understanding, less time whining.


I had a hard time connecting to any of the characters, to be honest. I liked Whitney, I guess, and I was honestly sad (spoiler alert) when she got sick and had to leave camp. But, other than that, I just felt like I was watching everything from a distance. Emmy wouldn't let any of her family/friends in, and at times I felt she wouldn't let the reader in either. 


However, the writing was excellent, stark and poetic. Overall, a worthwhile read. 


Rating (out of five stars): 3.5
Recommended: Yes. Especially if you're like me and have never had any personal experience with HIV/AIDS.

Book Review: OUTLANDER, My Thoughts So Far

So, I started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Usually I save my thoughts on a book until after I read the entire thing, but this book is A) extremely long and B) thought provoking so I thought I would share my provoked thoughts, as it were.

Outlander is labeled a historical romance. Well, I'm on page 200-something and its not really sending me romantic vibes. If anything, I feel like I'm involved in a very interesting history lesson about Scotland 1945 and Scotland 1743. Since I love history and Scotland, this doesn't bother me too much, but I'm also an avid romance reader and was looking forward to some good mushiness, so I'm a bit disappointed by the lack thereof. (And no, it's not just because we get the curtain drawn over the sex scenes either.) But at the same time that I'm disappointed, I'm also a bit relieved that it doesn't follow the same constraints as some of the more recent romances I've read (sexual tension from page one, obvious ending from page one and a half). This could be because A) the MC is already married to a likable (if somewhat dull, in my opinion) man B) she's not really looking for romance C) she's OLDER than the "love interest" (I use that term loosely) in 1743. So, it's pretty unconventional. And even when she marries the handsome, scarred and very sweet Jamie, it's not so much about lust, attraction or even affection as it is about keeping Claire (the MC) safe.

And maybe I'm just too used to reading YA and its overwrought emotions, but I would like to see a bit more into Claire's head (and that's really odd considering the story is told from first person POV). She has SEX with her 1743-husband, for goodness sake, therefore CHEATING on her 1945-husband, and merely thinks, "I don't want to bring another man's memory into a marriage bed..." even if she's already married to the other man? Really? And the other thing: she hasn't given up on the possibility of getting back to her own time, so it's not like she's resigned herself to a life in 1743. But she doesn't feel the slightest bit guilty or disgusted at herself? And maybe I could excuse her actions if she'd been blinded by lust and had been wanting Jamie since she met him, but she mostly thinks of him as a "nice kid" and even tries to play matchmaker between him and another girl. So, I'm just having a hard time buying into this whole scenario. I get that Jamie and Claire are friends and that friendship is continuing to grow, but not all friends marry and then have sex with each other (especially when one is already married (though, to Jamie's credit, he doesn't know that)). So, it's just weird to me and I'm having a hard time buying into the little romance that Ms. Gabaldon is building here. If you're going to be unfaithful to your husband (Claire had been married to Frank for 8 years, separated by the war for most of that time, and still never screwed around, so she shouldn't be too twisted up about being away from him for a month, in my opinion), you'd better have some emotional benefit. Not just "Oh, he's going to keep me safe...that makes me horny."

Maybe I'm missing something. After all, Gabaldon is a subtle author. Maybe I missed all those lustful glances, attributing them to concern or something, and should have seen this easy slide into adultery coming like a runaway horse. But...it's really bugging me that Claire is so...secretive about what she really feels. She's all action, not a lot of introspection, and in a situation like this, I'm going to need some introspection or else she's going to come across as a wishy-washy adulteress (times two, now).

I'm still reading. I haven't given up hope. Everyone raves about this book, and not usually for the historical factor...so I'll keep at it and maybe at the end I'll rave, too. Crossing fingers.

Charlie Brown Teacher-Speak

I'm not sure what to say anymore, and each time I try to gather my thoughts, they flit away like little sparks of light that mock me for trying to catch them in the first place. So I apologize if this blog post sounds like the Charlie Brown's teacher: wanhnwanh wanh wanh wahnwahn.

I want to tell you guys a lot of things. Like about my New Year's resolutions and how I made them but they don't really amount to much.

How I keep riding the roller-coaster of "Believe in Yourself/Give Up."

How I'm on Week 4 of P90X and am somewhere between really, really loving it and despairing that it will never be over with.

How I'm really sick and tired of reading YA and am reconsidering trying to WRITE it.

How sometimes I really, really hate other writers who are better than me. And yet, how I am also really, really happy for their success.

I want to tell you how happy I am in my marriage and grateful that I am with someone who loves me so much, and whom I love.

I want to tell you about all my personal issues, but I won't. Hopefully EVER.

I want to talk to you about my writing with passion again, but anymore it's like I'm scared to.

I want to write poetry, but I can't. It all comes out wahnwahn wahn wahn wahnwahn.

How I want to run until I throw up, and then run some more in the hopes that it will make me feel like I'm going SOMEWHERE.

But I can't elaborate. Every time I try, it ends up muddled and confused.

How more often than not, I feel like a YA character and that really ticks me off.

It's all Charlie Brown teacher-speak, though! Gah! Frustrating!

(BONUS) Book Review: Matched

(All right, I goofed. This was supposed to be for the Wednesday after next, but well, I'm frozen and un-caffeinated, so here you go. Happy Unbirthday!)


Matched by Ally Condie is getting a reputation for being either one of those books you either love or love to hate. Which is why I found it weird that I only ended up "in like" with the book.

According to the book's blurb:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Maybe it's my post-Twilight caution distancing me. After all, Matched was a really, really good read. There was emotion. There was tension. There was a love story that was actually believable. But there was also the fact that I wanted MORE to happen. More physical action, that is. I also wanted MORE of a revelation on Cassia's part because when she realizes (SPOILER ALERT) that the Society has been using her in an experiment, she still fails to wonder (at least enough to satisfy me) why she was more interested in Ky than Xander. Which left me a bit disappointed. Not enough to jerk me away from the story or completely ruin the Ky-Cassia love story, but enough to make me take a step back.

Ms. Condie, however, can write. Her prose is fresh, unadorned, and direct, and puts me eerily in mind of the Society she is depicting. She crafted a page-turner, making this book a hard one to put down...but (maybe it's my busy lifestyle) I didn't find it too difficult to leave down once it got there. I don't think this is Ms. Condie's fault. It's probably mine because I'm just a little fed-up with the love triangle thing in YA. Maybe I'm putting too much judgement on something that A) obviously works and B) is every teenage girl's fantasy (okay, every FEMALE's fantasy to some extent), but I would like a different wrench for the plot if you know what I'm talking about. It's not that I HATE them, it's just that they are so abundant nowadays that they all read the same. (So, whoever can direct me to a love triangle-free story...I will love you to the ends of the earth.)

Despite the love-triangle dilemma, I liked all the characters. Xander was well-rounded and interesting in spite of just being "the match." Ky reminded me a little too much of a guy I knew in high school, which is pretty cool because rarely do characters remind  me of actual PEOPLE, and even Cassia surpassed the pretty-girl-caught-in-the-middle stereotype by a long mile.

I loved Ms. Condie's incorporation of poetry ("Do Not Go Gentle" by Dylan Thomas is one of my favorite poems) and the arc of the story. But it still just felt like the first act. It ended with me wanting more. And, bloodthirsty wench that I am, I wanted a physical fight.

I'll hold my breath for Crossed, which I hope gives me a battle.

Rating (out of five stars): 4.5 stars
Recommended: Yep!