minor book report rant regarding a young adult book...

A friend recommended a book to me called "Missy The Werecat". 

Premise is that Missy at age 13 was at soccer camp on summer and woke in the middle of a moonlit night to go into the woods.  She changed into a panther. She is an intelligent teenager and stumbled around a bit getting used to her new self.  She tried to her best to change back but that didn't happen for two years. 

So she lived as a cougar in the woods hear Mount Washington.  She fed herself on rabbits, the occasional deer.  She went into heat several times and drove off male cougars successfully. 

Eventually she migrated south along the mountains and found herself changed back into her human form.  She was naked and stole some clothes. She is contemplating how to contact her parents and has no idea how to explain her absence.  She gets involved in a rescue when a car goes off a mountain road and she plunges down a cliff to rescue the passengers.  She ends up getting transported to a hospital. 

The rest of the book involves the authorities, her parents, the reunion.  The delicate handling of this possibly sexually abused teenager.  And things stumble along.  A year goes by before she outs herself to her parents.  So that is mostly the first book.  I really enjoyed it.  She does extremely well in high school in getting caught up and in sports.  She has extra strength because she is a werecat. 

By the end of this book she has endeared herself to friends of the people she rescued and is trying for a position at West Point.  The books dealing with this were pretty good, the pleb rituals and all of that was very interesting. 

However the authors writing style began to wear on me.  Missy giggled....a lot.  I was hoping for the occasional smirk, or smile or guffaw but no it was steady giggling.  Her good friend Tracy giggled a lot as well.  The author used italics way too much for emphasis.  Didn't need it...at all.  Somewhere around the third or fourth book and author began using quotation marks around a single word to indicate emphasis.  Ugh. NO that ain't grammatically correct.

There was a sex scandal a group of 7 upper classmen had hired prostitutes for sex and they pimped these women to other cadets. Missy broke that up but it seems like West Point has actually a better system to handle this type of thing compared to other military academies. 

So the books progress to the point where Missy discovered she can teleport about 500 miles at a time so the FBI has her infiltrating enemy computers with virus. Everybody partners up, marry or have relationships and merrily have sex sex sex sex sex.  Uh gets a little repetitive.  I reached a point where I ignored the boring bits and paged ahead about five pages of panting and thrusting. 

Also the author recapped endlessly the subsequent books had to tell 35% of the previous damn story and that AFTER a good three chapter Prologue.  If the author is THAT short on word count, time to develop the characters. 

The only thing we ever hear about Missy's internal dialog is that she compartmentalizes well, pain, anyone killed in battle, etc.  Oh and she has bonded with her soulmate and they chat telepathically with each other constantly.  Isn't that kind of like texting and driving?  Could be a BAD thing.  SHUT UP MISSY!!!!

I enjoyed reading quite a few of the reviews.  About half complained about the sex and at least one did a full analytical review pointing out grammatical errors and made actual suggestions.  Hope the author reads it and took it to heart.  I will check back to see if there any other Missy books.  Hope she actually finishes West Point and goes on to Ranger and Seal school as those were goals of hers.  Mebbe.

BOOK REPORTx

REDBIRD by Fannie Flagg

I want to move to Redbird, Alabama.  I shudder to think of moving to the South due mostly to mosquitoes and humidity.  Since this place is fictional, chances are it shall remain in my imagination. The writer is as lyrical as Marjorie K. Rawlings who wrote "The Yearling".  I want to attend a luncheon given by the Secret Society.  I want to eat some of the special macaroni and cheese.  Fortunately there are recipes in the back of the book. 

The story starts in cold wintery Chicago.  Our hero has just visited his physician who told him that his emphysema was going to kill him soon and his liver was shot.  It was recommended that he go somewhere warm.  He is given a very old tattered hotel brochure for Lost River Hotel, Alabama.  So our hero took a train and was met by one of the town residents.  He had rented a room in a charming bungalow owned by Mrs. Kitchen.  There is actually a redbird involved, an orphaned little girl, several reunions and redemptions.  This book is a Christmas story and although there are many Hallmark Christmas stories, this one could become a classic it is that good.  Made me want to go meet the Cajuns across the river. 

Retro Blog: Stand up schstick

Retro Blog: Stand up schstick: I have been contemplating a stand up comedy routine, not that I would actually get up on stage...unless it was for a bunch of senior citize...

Stand up schstick

I have been contemplating a stand up comedy routine, not that I would actually get up on stage...unless it was for a bunch of senior citizens. 

I would speak about something I have noted in the aging process that just started in the last couple of years.  Ever since I got my little old lady skin, I have noted an extra sprinkle of dandruff.  Surprisingly I don't have it in my hair....or maybe that comes along in a couple of years. 

It became alarming to me couple of years ago. I was going to physical therapy for arm exercises and when I got up, there was this huge poof of white flakes expressed through my pants...an actual cloud!  Both my therapist and I were surprised.  I then began to apply lotion religiously but to no avail.  I heard about Mae West using Vaseline as part of her beauty regimen and I have tried that.  It works for awhile but if I don't apply it, I get sock dandruff, pant leg dandruff and shirt sleeve dandruff. Oh and face dandruff but I am sort of used to that and apply Vaseline routinely for that. 

I have begun to avoid black clothing.  I only wear it on a one time basis for public appearances.  I have adopted gray.  I have a nice warm gray sweater worn over gray green cotton shirt and gray sweatpants.  That clothing also allows a certain degree of camouflage. 

I would like to blame some of this on Climate Control and secondarily on Trump.  Our El Nino has given us a very dry and SUNNY winter.  Extra dry, dry, dry.  More skin drying up.  A side effect of all that sunshine is driver disorientation  We Oregonians do better in gloomy conditions.  All that sunshine strobing through the trees while driving is causing migraine headaches and driving into completely sunshine/black shadow corners is very dangerous for all oncoming traffic in both directions. So in the meantime we pray for better distribution of the routine moisture and a miracle cure for body dandruff.

G'night Folks! You've been great!!!

MY FIRST CAR

I left home at age 17 after having graduated class of 65 from EHS. I was invited to live with Carl and Robin, my debonair cousin and his wife.  They lived in Petaluma.  I spent the summer a bit disoriented.  Carl got me a babysitting gig over a long weekend and I wound up somewhere in Russian River babysitting a 13 year old while the parents and teenager and friend attended a local dance.  Hell, the kid should have gone and learned some social skills or at least watched her parents dance together.  Carl told me about Fairchild Conductor and he took me there to fill out an application, shortly after I turned 18 and was hired and became a wage earning, tax paying, emancipated minor.  I got a roommate not to long after that and we lived in a fairly nice house in Novato.  Sue had a car so no problems there.  She kept wrecking them though.  One of the ladies we worked with told us that her husband who was in the Air Force at the nearby airbase sold used cars.  Yeah sign me up.  He sold me a brown 57 VW, it was a stick and I learned how to hold a pause on a steep San Francisco hill without burning up the clutch.  However long before that I was stuck somewhere and the car broke.  I tried to start it, Sue kept yelling, "Pop the clutch!" I had NO idea what she was talking about.  I called a local foreign car repair who towed it and repaired it.  Crank shaft had cracked right down the middle.  So how do I get this thing repaired.  I used the pink slip for the repair shop to hold until it paid for the repairs.  Pam's husband felt sorry for me and left me have it for the amount that I had paid so far, about 250 bucks.  She was pissed at his poor business practice.  So I puttered around in that thing for a couple of years.  One summer visit, Dad decided I needed a better car so they traded their 65 Barracuda to me for the VW.  All the girls learned to drive the thing.  Oh I remember now why Dad gave me the car,  That summer I was home I lost the brakes on the VW and he decided to step in.  Also the drive across the desert was boring, no radio.  So I sang my way "Going to Winnemucca, Winnemucca here I come!", topped out at 35 mph going up the foothills of the Sierra's to get to Reno.  Only other mishap I ever had was running the battery down, when I had stopped at Bergies drive in, you summoned the carhop by turning on your lights.  Gotta remember to turn them off.  I learned how to change tires as my bald tires would go flat or shred at inopportune times.  I paid about 100 dollars for a set of four around then.  I am sure I could have shopped around for a better deal. Uncle Carl asked me how much and I think I lied and said I got a bargain. So my adventures with the Barracuda began.  It was just the right size to fit a twin sized mattress in the back and other bits and bobs of a young person moving from place to place.  It was fairly powerful and kept me on time for work.  Only accident it was ever in was when I loaned it to a friend while I flew home  Got home and dummy had poked a hole in the frame near the hood.  I never got it repaired. And I never loaned it out again...ever.  Oh wait the only OTHER accident to the Barracuda was the winter I decided to drive home because IT WOULD SAVE MONEY.  I did okay until I hit a patch of black ice and blew up the engine just outside of Rome, Oregon.  Called the folks, eventually got it towed, had one valve reground that cost 65 bucks at the time and got a loan from Grandma Horn so I could pay for the repairs.  And Dad insisted on taking me home.  Boy was I pissed/relieved.  God bless him.