A Little (Werewolf) Romance

Beauty and the Werewolf (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 6)

The Blurb:

The eldest daughter is often doomed in fairy tales. But Bella—Isabella Beauchamps, daughter of a wealthy merchant—vows to escape the usual pitfalls.
Anxious to avoid the Traditional path, Bella dons a red cloak and ventures into the forbidden forest to consult with "Granny," the local wisewoman.
But on the way home she's attacked by a wolf—who turns out to be a cursed nobleman! Secluded in his castle, Bella is torn between her family and this strange man who creates marvelous inventions and makes her laugh—when he isn't howling at the moon.
Breaking spells is never easy. But a determined beauty, a wizard (after all, he's only an occasional werewolf) and a little godmotherly interference might just be able to bring about a happy ending.…

My Favorite Line:
"Slowly, regretfully, he drew back. "I think I had better--we had better--stop now,' he said.  "Before things get quite enjoyable, extremely messy and potentially damaging to glassware and papers." (301) Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey 2011, Luna/Harlequin, New York

Why I Kind of Love It:

• I am a sucker for any fairytale adaptation but Mercedes Lackey's entire Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series is just great fun.  
• You get strong characterizations, fully fleshed out characters and a wide variety of cultural settings and traditions.  
• This Beauty knows what she wants and goes after it.
• The wizard is more along the lines of Leonard from the Big Bang Theory than Sirius Black.

Also Check Out:


The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

Among the Betrayed by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Betrayed

I am teaching two history courses in addition to my regular day job and I really don't have the leisure time to read.  Of course, not having time to read has never stopped me before.  I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in one day when I was in high school.  While attending all seven of my classes.

I have never lost my love of juvenile or young adult fiction.  Now that I am older, considerably older, I like to read juvenile and young adult fiction when I am too busy to read.  The shorter lengths and sheer fun make them like miniature mental vacations.

Usually. 

This book was . . .  not.

Hated it Strongly Disliked It

I originally started reading the Shadow Children series years ago and I came across it again while browsing in the library.  The first book in the series was also on the summer reading list for put-upon school kids across the great state of South Carolina.  I couldn't recall finishing the series and that is unusual for me.  I like to stick things through to the bitter end.  I plowed through the first two books in the series.  Among the Hidden and Among the Imposters were both great reads.  Then . . . Among the Betrayed.

It suddenly came back to me why I stopped reading this series.  Among the Betrayed put me in the fucked up position of kind of wishing a child would be put to death.  There-I just said it.  My main problem with this book was not the plot, not the supporting characters, and not the suspense and drama.  All of those things were present and pretty damn great.  My problem with this book is that the main character, Nina Idi, was just so lame.

One of the more interesting factors of the Shadow Children series is that Haddix has not chosen to present her characters as superhuman or even exceptional juvenile badasses.  They are not overly mature for their reported ages.  Their reactions and responses are not out of sync with their imagined realities.  They are real characters who suffer fear, doubt, selfishness, greed, and anger like actual people.  These characters are thoughtful.  They have some depth.

That does not seem to be the case with Nina Idi.  This character was introduced in Among the Imposters as a possible spy and informant for the Population Police.  We don't see very much of her in that book, but she comes across as confident, competent, relatively resourceful.

That girl was not in this book.  If this were a romance, this chick would be TSTL. (too stupid to live)

She's so bad that Alia, the six year old street urchin supporting character, was like, "girl please."  Think of every negative stereotype applied to your average middle school girl and combine that with an inexplicable helping of privilege and you get a character who is really kind of insufferable.

I was like, "okay. . . maybe this is just a thing."  One of the interesting features of the Shadow Children series is that a character might be introduced in one book and the next book might be told from that character's perspective.  Again, I appreciate the realism and I understand that we are all generally about 12 times more awesome from an outsiders perspective.  But . . . this chick made me tired. 

I finished the rest of the series and I would highly recommend all the other books.  This one, not so much.  It doesn't do girls any favors and it also seems really out of step with the larger story that is being told.  

Athens Awesome: Blockader Homebrew Supply

Wes and I like to explore Athens on slow days.  I thought it would be fun to write about our excursions.

Remember that post where I talked about how the internet convinces me to do stuff?  Well, I decided that I wanted to make my own ginger ale.  Every recipe called for a plastic bottle but I watched this documentary on Netflix about how plastic is toxic so I thought I would at least look into trying to find an alternative.  Which led me to google.  Which led me to Blockader.

Source

Wes and I decided to check it out.

This place is awesome.  It has this kind of dungeony, speakeasy vibe which I appreciated.  That's just gloss though, because it also has all the equipment you would need to really start cranking out some brew.  Even though we were there for pretty frivolous purposes (which I will blog about later) the guy, the owner, random dude ( I guess I should research such things) was an absolute fount of information.  And I have to say, we love it when people so obviously love their work.  Wes got to get some of his mad scientist yaya's out in conversation too. 

It's always nice to find your people.

Anyway, if you want to check out a cool local business, or embark on experimentation with homebrewing you should totally check out Blockader.