The BookFetish Blog

A line from Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” is running through my head: “Who-ah, we’re halfway there…” That’s right. This is book 26.  I’m halfway through my goal of reading 52 books this year.  I’m excited to be at this point. But enough about that… on to the book!


Evermore is another young adult book.  I’ve been reading a lot of YA books lately, and while I’m certainly not in the targeted age group, I’m not alone in being the only one not in that age group devouring books in the genre.  Some friends and I were discussing why we’ve been reading so much YA lately. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s simply because there are some great stories being written for this group. And after all, we once were that age, so we can certainly appreciate the genre. With Evermore, I’m adding Alyson Noel to the ranks of Melissa Maar, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, and Richelle Mead- all YA authors in my library.


Evermore is the first of the “Immortals” series.  Ever Bloom has relocated to her aunt’s home in southern California after a car accident claimed the lives of her parents, sister, and dog. She’s mostly recovered from her injuries, save a scar on her forehead and, oh, yes, the ability to read the thoughts of everyone around her and see dead people. She’s not sure what to do with this new psychic ability and deals with it by using her iPod to block out as much psychic noise as possible.  Then she meets Damen.  He’s the one person whose aura she can’t see, whose thoughts she can’t read.  And this sets up the rest of the story, so I’m not going to say anything else about what happens. I don’t want to be giving out any spoilers.


Evermore fits in well with the paranormal genre.  It doesn’t try to be a Twilight, Vampire Academy, or Mortal Instruments.  Noel creates her own niche, so I didn’t feel like there was any copycat storytelling going on.  Her characters are well drawn, realistic.  The story is fast paced. I found myself wanting to know the story of Damen- what IS he, and how are he and Ever tied together? What is he playing at with his inconsistent behavior? Why is Ever’s dead sister visiting her?  Noel gives out the details of the story in little nuggets and hints that had me turning the page to see what I’d get to learn next. 


A quick read for me, entertaining.  Anyone who likes this genre would like this book. And I’ll be checking out more from Alyson Noel.


http://www.amazon.com/Evermore-Immortals-Alyson-Noel/dp/031253275X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273416555&sr=8-1

My best friend came to visit over the weekend.  To me, that’s the ultimate GNO.  Vanessa and I go way back, all the way to high school.  And our friendship has survived some pretty incredible things over the years, not the least of which is the distance between us and Vanessa being a wife and mother and me still being single and a perpetual pseudo-aunt rather than a mum myself.


I could write for days about our history, but I’ll save some of those old, juicier stories for later.  Instead, I’ll focus on what makes our visits so special, especially now that we aren’t in high school any longer.


I moved a lot growing up.  That’s one of the reasons I love Facebook.  I’ve been able to reconnect with people I went to junior high and high school with and no longer live near.  With us moving so much, I don’t really feel like I have a hometown.  “Home” is wherever my mother is  but it is nowhere I’ve lived or plan to live.   Having someone who has known me since I was fifteen, and is still a part of my life, makes me feel as though I have some roots.


A weekend visit just seems too short now. No matter what, there’s just not enough time for everything we want to do.  We did dinner Friday night; Saturday we shopped all day, then went to dinner, then shared a bottle of wine and watched a chick flick.  Sunday, we lingered over coffee before Vanessa had to head back home.


It’s just easy when you have a friend you’ve known so long, and who knows you so well.  We often laugh about how we share a brain.  And we’re so often on the same wavelength that it can be eerie.  Like the time we met for a Saturday of shopping dressed identically, down to our novelty socks, with absolutely no consultation about what each other was planning to wear.


Vanessa probably knows me better than anyone else. She is that true best friend to me. The one with whom I discuss the REALLY BIG ISSUES. The person with whom I dissolve into a fit of giggles for no apparent (or at least no sane) reason.  


Having no sisters of my own, I feel like Vanessa is what I would want in a sister, if I could create one.  The sense of familiarity and loyalty. Where we have fun no matter what we do.  Saturday night we had planned to go to dueling pianos at a local tapas bar.  And we would have had a great time (which reminds me of another post that needs to be made from when my college roommate came to visit).  But we had just as good of a time just talking and hanging out, a nice low key Girls Weekend. Part of what I think is the best thing about friendships in general, and especially best friends.

I intended originally to include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in only the list of other books I read this year, since there are already two other Harry related posts in the blog.  But then some friends pointed out that this weekend is the assumed commemoration of Voldemort’s downfall,  and I had only about 70 pages left to finish the book so I decided to go for it.

Disclaimer now: If you’ve not read the HP series, there will be spoilers here.  If you’ve only seen the movies, there may be some things you didn’t know. If you’ve not read the books or seen the movies, you should.  I’m also tackling this posting a little differently than most others. I’m just going to list some of the things I really like about this particular book.  For reference, I re-read GOF this time in the UK, hard-cover edition. 


Goblet of Fire was a game changer.  While the first three HP novels all had their share of darkness and danger, there was still a sense that they were primarily novels for adolescents and children.  Clocking in at over 600 pages (over 700 in the US Hardcover edition), GOF broke that mold immediately. This was the book that brought back Voldemort in the flesh (such as it was). More importantly, l the characters, and we the readers saw a loss of innocence.  We learned that JK Rowling would not be sparing us (and the characters) from the deaths of people who were fighting for the side of right or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Children, parents, heroes, friends- like in a real war, everyone was now fair game.


The hormones kicked in.  Harry has his first crush. Ron realizes he just might like Hermione as more than a friend, although he bungles that realization spectacularly.  Hermione snogs an international Quidditch hero. The subtlety with which Rowling presents all of this not only provides humor, but also takes the (older) readers back to that first awkward crush we all remember.  


Ron’s struggle at being “just” the side-kick (at least in his mind), and his belief that he is somehow inferior to Harry is starkly explored in this novel.  And given the age of the characters, quite realistic.


Despite her admiration for rules and order, when Hermione Granger decides something is worth fighting for, she won’t merely bend the rules, but completely obliterate them. Yes, she used a Time Turner in  Prisoner of Azkaban, but in GOF, she imprisons animagus Rita Skeeter in a jar to keep her from printing so many lies in the Daily Prophet.


Voldemort comes back, and nothing is going to be the same. We can see that old alliances will be reforming. And although it isn’t detailed grotesquely, we begin to see the lengths that Voldemort and the Death Eaters will use as they create their new regime, not the least of which are torture and cold-blooded murder.  


Two of my favorite ideas from the whole series comes from this book:First is Dumbledore’s belief that “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open (p627).”  The second is that we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.  Although I am in by no means embroiled in the ultimate battle of good versus evil, I try to apply that sentiment to my own life. I try to do what I think is right because it is right, no matter whether it is easy.


So, forgive me this third Harry Potter related posting, but enjoy it in the spirit is intended: a celebration of the downfall of the Darkest Wizard of the ages.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Goblet-Fire-Book/dp/0747574502/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272835364&sr=1-3

I’m sorry if that title sounds flippant. I truly don’t know the name of the restaurant, and as we planned for that dinner, it was known as this, or as “that place we went on the 3-Day.”  It is a true matter of knowing a location and not a name.


This third GNO from last week was with the 3-Day ladies.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the four of us met when we were training for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  Although this was now three years ago, we meet monthly for dinner.  Juggling four schedules, with two of us who travel periodically for work, one of us with three kids and a husband who travels for work, and the other of us with an unpredictable work schedule, and you can imagine getting things on the calendar can be hairy.


I promise I was looking forward to this dinner but I was TIRED.  In the seven days leading up to this night, I’d been to a concert, a play, a surprise party, two other dinners, fought allergies and cranky sinuses, and worked.  The week had worn on me, and of course since I had to be somewhere that evening, my commute had taken longer than normal (note to self, figure out what I’ve been doing lately to bring bad Karma on the evening commute when I really need to be somewhere and stop doing it). 


So the topics that night were heavier than I wanted to discuss.  I shut down some. And it wasn’t fair to the ladies I was with.  Although I’ve spoken with them all since then, I hope they’ll also accept this as a public apology for me being cranky and disengaged.  And that isn’t to belittle the topics. But sometimes, especially amongst friends, topics hit close to home. They hit you in unexpected ways. And when that happened to me on Thursday night, I chose the easier of the two reactions.  So this was by far not the best GNO I’ve had with these ladies.


But in another way, it was incredibly important to me. Because this same dinner was where the idea for this blog was born. I have L to thank for it.  L is a newly minted real estate agent. Within 30 seconds of sitting down at dinner, M1 asked “how’s our newest real estate agent?”.


L made the comment later in the evening that among her friends, we are some of the only ones who have even acknowledged her new job.  When L told us that at a recent lunch with other play group mothers, that only one of them asked about her new job, and that was when they were walking to their cars in the parking lot, the idea for this blog popped into my head.


I think we look at our friendships as ways to validate who we are as individuals. Sure, most of us have friends that have some context- people from work, from play group, from community groups or religious organizations. But I believe we are all looking for some friends who just see and value us as us, without any other labels.  That is what this group does for me. This dinner taught me how important it is to hear our friends, and understand what is important to them and recognize and acknowledge that. In too many other relationships, we don’t always get that.


Now, we’re trying to plan the May outing… We’ve at least narrowed it down to which weeks we should all have a free night. And I promise to be in a  better frame of mind next time.