An overdose of Shannon Hale

My mom has been organizing and cleaning out rooms in her house, which has resulted in bags and boxes and stacks of free books for me! Two of the books she gave me in the latest batch were Enna Burning and River Secrets, both by Shannon Hale. They had colorful and appealing covers, which is why I chose to read them. Both books are sequels to The Goose Girl, which my husband and I listened to 3 or 4 years ago on a road trip. When I "listen" to a book on a road trip, what I'm really doing is snoozing against the car door until the CD is done, which prompts me to wake up long enough to put in the next one. So after reading the second and third books of the Bayern series, I decided to read The Goose Girl for real. While I was on the library's website requesting that one, I was reminded that I had wanted to read Book of a Thousand Days and Austenland, also by Shannon Hale. I requested all three of the books, and they were ready for me this past week. So here I was, with 3 books to read, wondering how I would get through all 3 before the due date. Done, done and done! It helps to have a sick kid, the Disney Channel, and bad weather all converge into one week. When you're trapped inside for 8 days and you can't take another episode of the Imagination Movers (I'll have to blog about them another time), it's nice to have some easy lit to help you tune out the zany antics of Rich, Scott, Smitty and Dave (yes, I know their names).

Here's a quick review of each one:

The Goose Girl (and Enna Burning and River Secrets): Shannon Hale admits in an interview at the back of the books that her weakness as a writer is being slow to get into the story. Amen, sister. Goose Girl was especially slow at the beginning, partly because she was carefully setting up the background for a world she was planning on staying in for several books. One advantage to taking time building the story, however, is that she also builds the main character into someone you understand. Ani, Enna, and Razo, the main characters for each book, have histories to them that explain their actions and drive the story. This series explores the relationship between the characters and the basic elements of nature surrounding them. For Ani (also called Isi), it's animal speech and wind speech. For Enna, it's fire and the internal battle she faces between her desire to do what's right peacefully and the need to burn everything to the ground. For Razo, it is his attempt to figure out the intentions of a woman whose communication with water may be used for good or evil. The world Hale has created is detailed and interesting and easy to accept. My one complaint with her writing is her habit of reusing phrases a lot when describing feelings. I've read 5 of her books in the past 2 weeks, and she loves the use of "yawn in the chest." The 452nd time I read it I yelled aloud, "For crying in the mud, come up with a different phrase!!!" They are fun and wholesome books overall, though, and I'd recommend them for 10- to 16-year-old girls especially. (There's some romance, of course.)

Austenland: Eh. Great idea, bad execution. Not that I could do better. Here's the rundown: A thirty-two-year-old single woman who has had a number of failed relationships clings to the hope of a Colin Firth-esque Mr. Darcy romance. She is obsessed with the 5-hour Pride and Prejudice movie, hides her DVDs in the houseplants, and watches it time after wretched time to drown her sorrows after each boyfriend doesn't measure up to Mr. Darcy. Her rich Great-Aunt discovers her unhealthy obsession and tells her to snap out of it, dies, and leaves her a trip to a theme park--a Jane Austen theme park. They dress in the clothes, they lead lives of leisure, the men go on hunts and speak politely, and all modern technology is banned (except modern make-up, which is encouraged). Sounds fun, right? Well, we find our heroine trying to cast off her obsession with Mr. Darcy and find true love all at the same time. The idea behind the story is great. It's obvious Shannon Hale was among us college students who devoted every Saturday to either P&P and a pan of brownies or Anne of Green Gables and a tub of ice cream. I can relate to the character in many ways (a trail of bad dating experiences is related throughout the story), but I don't like the style she uses to tell the story. It's choppy and hard to follow (kind of like this post, I think, which is why I won't ever attempt a book), and a bit on the predictable side. There you have it.

Book of a Thousand Days: I loved this book. Loved it. It started out a little on the slow side (just like the other books), but the best part of this book was discovering the story page by page. The story is set in a land similar to Mongolia (yaks and mare's milk and the like), and is divided into several kingdoms. The book is set up as a personal journal, written by a lady's maid whose employer is locked in a tower on her first day of work. The Lady Saren has refused the hand of a powerful man and betrothed herself to a kinder man from another kingdom. Her father locks her in a tower and tells her she must stay there for 7 years, so she can consider her poor choice and make the right one. The maid swears an oath to the Lady, follows her to the tower, and slowly discovers her own strength and abilities, while attempting to find her Lady's. It's hard to explain. Just read it. I love the story, and the way Hale tells it. It's touching and sweet and romantic. It's about finding your strength in the face of adversity, and about finding beauty inside others. I'm making it sound cheesy, but really, it was just a nice story that I think most will enjoy.

Okay, this has turned into a much longer post than I was planning. Sorry. I have been reading a lot, and I figure it's either that or telling you all about Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. Now you have some new books to look up at the library. They're great for a snowy day (or week).

Ballroompalooza

The Bachelor is so two weeks ago. Now it's what I consider the best time of year: Ballroom time! And what better way to celebrate Ballroom Time than by kicking it off by watching "Strictly Ballroom"!!! ("Pam Short's broken both her legs, and I want to dance with you.") If you've never seen this movie, and you like quirky and silly, you MUST see it. I insist. It's directed by Baz Lurman (is that spelled right?), which means it's packed with brightly colored costumes and funny makeup and dance numbers. Kind of appropriate for a movie about ballroom dancing, right? I have enjoyed this movie since I saw it clear back in the early 90s, and I will continue to enjoy it until Tim and I can enter the "over 50s" dance round. (Tim doesn't know this yet.) The plot is simple: Plain-looking, mousy beginner Fran approaches dashing, flashy open-amateur Scott and asks if he wants to dance with her. This goes against ballroom etiquette and propriety, and on top of that, they want to make up NEW STEPS!!! Oh, it's shocking alright. Does that get you hooked? It should.

Following a very necessary viewing of Strictly Ballroom, a healthy dose of "Dancing With the Stars" is in order. Yes, it's that time again! I love that they have 3 seasons a year! This season is as starless as usual (Jewel was the biggest star there, and dropped out due to injury, to be replaced by a Playboy bunny). Some of the super stars involved this season are Jewel's husband (I don't remember his name, but he's a rodeo star), Belinda Carlisle, Steve-O from the show Jackass (I only know who he is because he and his buddies did a photo shoot with ANTM), and Denise Richards. Nancy O'Dell was one of the stars, but at the last minute got injured and was replaced with...drum roll please...Melissa, the girl that got dumped on the Bachelor! Awesome. I feel bad for her, because when they introduced the other celebs, it was, "the actor" or "the rodeo star" or "the Grammy winning rapper", and with her it was, "Let's show a clip of Jason dumping her!" And now she's famous for getting dumped on TV. I just hope this show goes better for her so she can be introduced at the next reality show she's in as "the winner of Dancing with the Stars!" She only had 2 days to learn the waltz, and I thought she was great. It helps that she used to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Back to the show. The reason I believe it's important to watch Strictly Ballroom first is so you can compare Len Goodman to Barry Fife, and Edyta to Tina Sparkle. Bruno Tonioli is a creature that can't be compared to anyone. Unless you can think of a really annoying Italian that feels a need to come up with really bad alliterative phrases to describe the dancing. Yikes.

Some of you are probably thinking, why watch ballroom dance? I watch for the completely ridiculous costumes, the live band (yes, Harold Wheeler's band is awesome--how many bands have you heard pull off the Star Wars theme and Sir Mix-a-Lot in the same night?), and the sparkly shoes. And the secret hope that somehow I will become famous and get to be on the show. Did you see how much weight Marie Osmond lost?

The Biggest Loser (and I'm not talking about the show about losing weight)

Alright, you knew it was coming. The Bachelor just wrapped up this week, and I need to give my 2 cents about the outcome. In keeping with the Lord of the Rings references (since they were in New Zealand, after all), I'd like to compare how things turned out with that part at the end of Return of the King. You know, where Sam has just carried Frodo up the mountain, Frodo is so loveable and pathetic, and you are so glad he has finally made it to Mount Doom where he can toss the ring in and save the day.

It came down to Jason choosing between Melissa and Molly. At our house we were cheering for Melissa. She was cute, nice, genuine, sweet, and Jason's little boy seemed to like her right away. And 3-year-olds are pretty intuitive about people. Molly seemed a little fake and shallow, and Ty was afraid of her at first. So Jason rejected Molly and proposed to Melissa. Hooray! Frodo makes it to Mount Doom and all seems right. Then in the After the Rose ceremony, Jason comes out and says, "I am going to dump Melissa and see if things will work out with Molly." At the last minute, Frodo puts the ring on to claim power for himself. Suddenly he looks a little demented and possessed, and his appeal goes down the toilet. You think, NO! After everything you just went through? How could you?

Here's my theory about Jason. He spent the whole season talking about Molly's eyes and how whenever he saw them, he was hooked. Molly's eyes are the One Ring. They have possessed him and, not being fortunate enough to have a deranged creature bite his finger off and land in the lava with the ring, Jason has now succumbed to Molly's hypnosis and Melissa is gone. I see Melissa as Sam, but in a totally different way romantically, of course, since there's none of that going on in LOTR. She didn't hypnotize Jason, she won him over by being awesome. She kept him from being possessed by Molly's eyes. She was cheerful and helpful and nice, just like Sam.

Since this is a match-making show that is ridiculous in every way (really, basing a decision like marriage on limited time with girls that are being handed drinks every 5 minutes and that have cameras on them ALL the time is not reality), I don't really think you can make a judgement call about whether or not what Jason did was right or wrong. It's TV, and there's a producer calling the shots and manipulating different situations. But isn't it fun to talk about it? I love TV!

By the way, for those of you who care, Jillian is the next Bachelorette. I'm looking forward to her Canadian accent.

I'm a Nerd

So, my previous post warrants a little explanation. I am a nerd. I have watched all three Lord of the Rings movies several times, and my husband and I actually enjoy watching the special features as much as the actual movies. As my fellow nerds know, the entire trilogy was made in New Zealand. Weta Workshop was in charge of the special effects, the costuming, the weapons, and sound mixing. This company is based in Wellington, New Zealand. I happen to know the names of the guys in charge of all the departments (they get a lot of interviews in the special features), and could probably tell you about every detail that went into filming and producing each movie. See? I'm a nerd. Sometimes I forget that there are people that haven't spend hours and hours watching and discussing Richard Taylor's explanations of the process that went into making the Orc costumes. This is why my head was ready to explode when I watched the Bachelor, and they were standing on the actual site Edoras used to be built, and they flew over the Misty Mountains, and they didn't even bring up Middle Earth. Not in a single moment of any of the three dates. I am such a geek.

But I found something out last night. There are much MUCH bigger geeks out there. We watched a documentary called "Ringers: Lord of the Fans." It followed the popularity of the books and movies, starting in the '50s and ending up at the movie premiere of Return of the King. It was a little creepy, to be honest. Here are some things I learned about the history of the books/movies:

1. The hippie movement in the '60s used the books as a guide to life. (Think long-bottom leaf and hobbits' love of mushrooms.) There was an illegal publishing of the series that had psychedelic pictures on the covers. Tim and I plan to ask the parents about that scene.

2. Led Zepplin's music is full of Lord of the Rings references. They started out playing at a club called Middle Earth. Same with David Bowie.

3. The term "ringers" refers to people that are willing to sell their house to fly to Wellington to be at the "Return of the King" premiere. There was a tour of them that went out to see the movie and tour "Middle Earth" on a big bus. Really. A lady sold her house because she felt she needed to be there.

4. There are a large number of people that are willing to sleep on the pavement for a week to see a movie that will also be showing later on. They call it "fun."

5. A lot of people described the books as "bringing meaning into their life." or "filling a void," or "answering questions they felt needed to be answered." I guess they haven't read the Book of Mormon.

I could go on about the other disturbing facts I learned about many of the super fans that are out there (a lot of which were wearing hobbit and elf costumes while being interviewed, although some were also dressed as Klingons and pirates), but I think you get the picture. I may be able to win at the Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit game (which we own), but I don't own a hobbit costume and I have a life outside Middle Earth. But if I go to New Zealand someday, I will still be excited when I see the landmarks that show up in the movies.

My Head Almost Exploded

I watch the Bachelor, as we have already established from previous posts. So, this week was the week they go some place ridiculously expensive and do super amazing dates. This year they went to New Zealand. An entire week in New Zealand and there were NO LORD OF THE RINGS REFERENCES!!! What??? So my conclusion is that, either the girls didn't want to come across as geeky, or none of them are worthy of a trip to New Zealand.

Best Dates Ever

I feel like, since I wrote a huge long thing about how crappy my dating life has been, I should at least mention my best dates. Because, even though I did blow up the fountain at prom and get left at the top of the mountain with one ski, I have had some fun dates. The problem with good dates is that there's not much of a story behind it. So this will probably be brief. That would be a first, wouldn't it?

#5. Best Prom Ever: So, junior year, prom was a disaster, but my good friend Keith took me to Prom my senior year. Here are some things that were fun about the date: 1) Keith had already seen the worst of me (tear-stained with bad hair the night of the Preference date gone bad), and still wanted to take me to Prom, so I didn't have to try to impress him. 2) Keith helped me get over the fountain experience by taking me to the exact spot the fountain had been the previous year (no fountain this time), and we danced right on the spot and laughed about it. 3) Nothing went wrong. 4) I got to hang out with my good friend all day and wear a fancy dress without anything going wrong. It was my favorite date in high school.

#4. Bon Jovi, the first time: It wasn't so much the guy I was with (it wasn't at all the guy I was with) that made it so much fun. It was that I got to spend the evening with Bon Jovi, and I finally had an excuse to wear leather pants.

#3. U2: Who wouldn't want to spend a night with Bono? And Tim? I managed to buy 2 tickets to U2, and, after much deliberation, asked Tim to go with me. It was our first date, and I am super glad I took him. Things sure did work out! And he bought dinner and paid for parking, so that was nice. Plus, we can both remember what we did on our first date. And who doesn't like U2?

#2. Romantic surprise: Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple was very modest. We ate Quiznos at the park down the street from our apartment. The next year, we had more money, and Tim surprised me by making reservations at the Roof in Salt Lake, and didn't tell me what was going on until we got halfway to Salt Lake and I started to get nervous. The food was excellent, of course, but part of the fun was that he did something totally surprising and romantic.

#1. Our first date as parents: After our first baby was born, we felt doomed to be stuck at home every night for the next 12 years, until we felt comfortable leaving the oldest at home in charge. So when my mom offered to watch our newborn for an hour so we could get out, it was as good as flying on a private jet to Italy to eat pizza. We were in Vicksburg, though, so we went to Sonic and got cheeseburgers, ate them there, and went to the outlet mall so I could buy some in-between pants. It may not sound like much, but the feeling we had cannot be replicated. Children are a blessing, and so are dates without them. It's good to look back at that day and remember that even though we can't get out much, we can always leave the kids with someone for an hour and go get burgers together.

There you have it, folks. I've been on lots of really fantastic dates, but those are the ones that I really remember. All I need to be happy on a date is leather pants, Bon Jovi, Bono, or a cheeseburger.

Weight loss, dating, and time travel

It's a new TV season! My DVR is humming with activity these days. There are just so many shows to record! And Tim and I have discovered yet another show that adds to my recording schedule. Here's a quick summary of what's on this season.

We all know that I love to watch trash, so, of course, one of my weekly obsessions is The Bachelor. I have watched the last 3 seasons, and this is the first time the Bachelor is a decent guy. He's a single dad, who's wife ditched him and his toddler. He was on The Bachelorette, and either he's really good at faking sincerity, or he's a really genuine guy. He got the boot on the final episode, after a very lovely proposal, and all trash-watching girls of America were in an outrage. So now he gets to be the boss. I am hooked.

It is also another season of The Biggest Loser, which I've already raved about in previous posts, so I won't say much here. Let me just say that there are 2 pairs of LDS guys on there, Dane and Blaine, and Felipe and Sionne. It's refreshing to have a few contestants that aren't being bleeped every other word during the last chance workouts. I'm cheering for Felipe, a big Polynesian guy that seems really nice. This season is better than last season, because almost everyone is really nice. Joelle is completely bonkers, and super annoying, but everyone else has been quite pleasant up to this point. Go losers!

After like 4 years, it's time for another season of Lost. Yay! The break between seasons is so long, it's hard to keep caring what happens to those people on the island. Then you watch the first episode and you get sucked back in for another 18 episodes. Let's just avoid a writers' strike this season, PLEASE! This season there is time travel involved, which has made the first two episodes even more confusing and complicated than the previous 4 seasons. Awesome! Just keep Desmond in there, and stop letting Sayid kill people, and I'll be happy.

Tim and I are huge fans of The Office, which, if you aren't watching it yet, is a special brand of humor that is realistic to the point of being uncomfortable. If you've ever had an office job, you most likely know a Dwight (I worked in an engineering firm for a few years, and they were all Dwights), a Kevin, a Michael, and maybe an Andy (who is exactly like all those guys my freshman year that spent hours playing the piano in the Wilk and trying to sing harmony at girls' dorm windows). You feel embarrassed for Michael during most episodes, sorry for Pam most of the time, and hope you are more like Jim than anyone else, because he seems to be aware of the ridiculousness surrounding him, and has a good sense of humor about the situation. My brother and his wife, as well as some other friends, know what we like in a TV show, and recommended 30 Rock. We Netflixed the first 2 seasons and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It, too, has a humor that is so relatable that you sympathize with Liz Lemon as you laugh at her. Alec Baldwin is genius in his role as an ultra conservative executive at the studio. Kenneth the Page (I don't know the actor's name) is a Southern boy with hometown values (I don't drink coffee. Hot drinks are the devil's temperature!) and steals the show. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is a harried, work-obsessed producer at a variety show, who has to deal with The Talent on a daily basis, and has a disaster of a personal life. It's painful, yet funny, just like the Office. There are political jokes that I actually get! We are impatient for Season 3 to come out on DVD, or at least go into reruns so we can start watching! If you're a fan of the Office, I'm guessing you'll like this show as well.


There are my other shows, of course, like Ugly Betty (what's going on these days? There are new episodes every 3 weeks or so!), and House. Still enjoyable. And Chuck is back on now, too. I'm just waiting for the next cycle of America's Next Top Model and Pushing Daisies! I'm enjoying Psych and Monk again, too, now that we've got USA again. For anyone aged 28-35, you'll enjoy all the pop culture references in Psych. Even if you're not, it's a good laugh.