Tag: rant

Books, great reads, Out of the Box Blogs, rant, Reviews

The Last Book in a Series and Me

Les

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So I have issues with reading the last book in a series. I buy them, but never read them. I have an entire shelf dedicated to last books. Does anyone else do this?

I want to read them, but then I don’t want to read them. I just can’t bring myself to read them. My reasons that I keep telling myself is that I don’t want the series to end, so if I never read it, then it never has to end. I also tell myself I am afraid to read it, because what if I hate the ending, and I will regret reading it, and be mad at the author for it.

Let me just say that I have been coerced into reading a few last books. I HATED EVERY SINGLE ENDING! I am sorry Jeanine Frost, but the ending of the Cat and Bones series sucked. (if you don’t know this series, you must correct that error) The ending only sucked because she should have killed Tate 3 books before the last one or at least gave us the joy of  Bones killing him in the last book. I HATE TATE!!

See this is what I’m talking about. Here I go on a tangent about the ending because she decided to keep the worst character in the book all the way to the end. This is what happens, so I don’t read them. If I hadn’t read the last Cat and Bones book, I could have pretended that Bones finally killed him! Can someone besides Karen and I who has read this entire series tell me if you agree with us?

I am stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Darynda Jones will be putting out the last book in the Charley Davidson series soon, and I love that series, but I don’t know if I am going to be able to read it.

Ok I am ready for your comments, opinions, and if anyone has overcome this, please let me know.

Peace,

Les

Books, great reads, Out of the Box Blogs

Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter by: Randy L. Schmidt

Les

little girl

**THIS ONE IS MORE OF MY FEELINGS AND OPINION OF KAREN AND HER LIFE, THAN THE BOOK**

To be honest I forgot that my Goodreads is attached to the blog, and the whole world sees what I read. Kind of strange to think about it now. This is a book I read for me and my mother. She loved Karen Carpenter, and thought she was a victim of circumstance and an overbearing family as well as the fame.

This book dives into her entire life, even the not so glamorous times, and the low points. There are a lot of interviews with her friends in this book, which is the reason I decided to read it. I know the music, but who was she? My take on Karen is she was a beautiful soul looking for unconditional love, and a life as a wife and mother that she could be proud of. She had this amazing gift, that voice was so unique and so recognizable. I didn’t  know until this book that she recorded a solo album while Richard was in Rehab for his addiction issues. While reading this book told by some of her closest friends, there were times when I was so mad for her. I was so angry, when I found out about the solo album, and then to find out they made her shelf it. They told her it wasn’t good enough. I think they were afraid. They were afraid to release it. What made me the most mad was that they released it after her death. My favorite Karen Carpenter song is on this album. I wish she could have seen how many people loved that album.

So many people controlling her life and micromanaging her. She was already a perfectionist when it came to her singing. The constant comments about her weight in the beginning, to the butting in of her relationships with men. She never had a moments peace. When she found out the truth about her fiancé being a fraud, it is said she wanted to cancel the wedding. Her friend claims her mother wouldn’t here of it, too many invitations had gone out. It would have been too embarrassing. So she married a con man who blew almost all her money, and it is said he even told her ” Look at you, I would never have a child with you, you look sick. Nothing but skin and bones, how can I love that”. It is no wonder she sought refuge in the few who did love her as she was. She tried to be perfect on the outside in front of the world, but she forgot to love herself. This is why my mother told me this story, so I can always remember to love myself first.

She tried to fight her bulimia and anorexia, she was doing well, but she just couldn’t get that monkey off her back. Some friends say she was taking a prescription medicine, instead of her usual laxatives, but some friends truly thought she had beaten it. Some say she was doing so well. Her autopsy says she did have the prescription in her system, but some say it was because she was sick. I say no matter what we lost a great artist, and an amazing woman, who never got to live up to her full potential.  I listen to her music almost daily, and I am saddened by the fact that she didn’t get to see how many people still listen even now.

Here is my favorite song from her solo album. I hope you enjoy it. *of course I do not own the rights to this song*

Peace,

Les

Books, funny, great reads, indie author, Kissing booth, Movies, Out of the Box Blogs, Romance

The Kissing Booth the movie and the book by: Beth Reekles

Les

Original Book Cover                              Movie Cover

Hey everyone! I just watched the movie The Kissing Booth on Netflix. I realized it was based on the book by Beth Reekles. I have a story about this book, so I thought I would share.

I used to read a lot of stories on WattPad. If you’re not familiar with WattPad, it is an app where people share their stories, and others can read them. They are normally unfinished stories that are updated every week or so. So every week you get a new chapter, and you give feed back on what you liked or didn’t like. I actually found a lot of great stories on there, and every so often I pop back in the app to see what is new.

I found the story ” The Kissing Booth” one day, I think it had maybe 2 chapters done at the time, and it grabbed my attention. So every time I would get a notification that it had been updated, I would drop what I was doing , or reading and read my new chapter. I was really into this book. I liked the characters and also story line.

Fast Forward and Beth makes an announcement that she has an offer and will be publishing her story. This is kind of a close knit group that have been growing with the characters and the story, so we are hella excited for her! I love supporting new and indie authors, so as soon as it came out I bought the paperback. Funniest thing: I never read the paperback! I was always afraid that they may have edited out some of my favorite parts.

All of a sudden Harper Sloan (another author) makes a post about watching the movie The Kissing Booth. I am like, WAIT!!! It’s a movie now? I got super excited and swore I would watch it. But lets be honest, I work in tourism and this is busy season, and I have a company to run. (For anyone who didn’t know Kar and I are both in tourism, and both run companies, hence why we fall off the grid sometimes)  Meanwhile, my daughter is watching a movie on her phone in the car, and I ask what she is watching. She replies, “The Kissing Booth, and it is really good”. So, tonight I cooked dinner and kicked everyone out of my family room, including the husband, (not a family room tonight! It’s my room) and I watched the movie.

I LOVED IT!! It stayed pretty true to what I remember from the book. I mean it was published in 2012, so I read the original draft before that, so I don’t remember every detail. I have added it to my list on Netflix, so I can watch it again and again. My daughter has watched it 3 times already, so look at me being cool, and now she is reading the book! I love it when I can get her to read books I have read and we can talk about them.

Has anyone read the book and seen the movie as well? What are your thoughts? Should I read the published book? I am still scared of that one.

 

Peace,

Les

Books, fantasy, funny, Out of the Box Blogs, paranormal romance, scifi, steampunk, Urban Fantasy

Should Villains Really Be That Bad?

Karen

YES THEY SHOULD!!

Today is going straight into rant territory everyone so if that is not your thing I don’t want you to feel obligated to read. I love you all equally!

Still here? Okay then..

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Has anyone else noticed a new tread of long running series, no standalone here, trying to redeem villains or making a good character suddenly bad? I’m not a fan. I don’t mind a gradual change, like someone slowly slipping into madness, but what I’m talking about here is a hard shift for a character all in one book. So let’s talk about it.

And I also want to be clear we are talking about series that are 6,8,10,20, etc books long and the characters are WELL established.

Let’s start with the heroes, the good guys, the best friends, the reliable side kicks, the one we all want to win or at least always dreamed would get there very own book or novella. But then with a careless action on their part, or something ridiculous from another character they go from good to bad. From one of your favorites to one you wish never existed. Why? To make someone else look better? To further the current plot? Who knows, but I do know this, I have dropped series because, my favorite character isn’t always the main one so destroying a fan favorite sometimes just seems illogical or cruel. Sometimes I wonder if we have come to love them too much and we shouldn’t….

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How deliciously bitter but ultimately disappointing. I like characters that I have developed a relationship with to stay where they belong so honestly I wish it would stop. Good guys are good, not secretly horrible.

Now the villains, the bad guys, the bitches everyone loves to hate, my favorites…

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A good villain, evil to the core, destroying dreams every day, and willing to do things to keep making you hate them. I’m talking anything, even make you throw a book across your room. A properly constructed bad guy will go to such lengths that sometimes we wish they would be killed off already! I digress though because we are talking about the new trend, where nonredeemable characters suddenly show you a character flaw, or a weakness and we are suppose to see them as redeemable. But see that there is the problem, we have been convinced they are horrible, evil people, terrible to their very souls which is what allows us to despise them. So why the sudden attempts at redeeming these characters? And why must the redemption of these characters many times cost us characters we have grown to love? Is it feared boredom from the fandom? Is it boredom from the author?

Look some of my favorite books involve antiheroes or even a story told from a villains prospective. But I like characters that I enjoy to stay what they are presented as. So the question is am I asking too much?

Do you like it when someone who has been good for so long suddenly become bad? And not a bad boy in a good way but truly evil, a character meant to be hated. Or when a author starts to redeem a bad character (again not just a bad boy with a good heart but a truly evil being) and tries to make us sympathetic to them or accept them as good?

Thoughts?