Properly Awry

After I read Melissa Bank’s first book , The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, a few years ago, I added Ms. Bank to my list of authors to watch for.  Her second book, The Wonder Spot, lives up to her first and is a satisfying read.  I rarely read straight, plain ‘ol fiction, but writers like Melissa Bank give me hope that maybe there is some good, unpretentious stuff out there.

Rachel snorts.
Ivy snickers.
Jenks gets big.
The good guys win.

We, 14 others, 6 dogs, and a baby spent the Canada Day long weekend at Rancho Relaxo on Pender Island.  There was much consumption of booze, food, and fun had by all. 

Had I realized that this is the first in what will be a trilogy of books, I most likely would have put it down and made a note in my booklist to look for the whole trilogy in a few years. Alas, when the nice girls at Coles proffered this and a few other novels they thought were up my alley, I took them up on it without much thought. That being said, the book is good, the writing is good, and my only regret is that the other 2 novels for this trilogy do not yet exist.
Oh well, I guess I have to make note to check again in a year or so for book 2.

We just finished watching Black Books Series One again last night.  It is a truly hilarious BBC series that doesn’t fall into the lowbrow category of humour (i.e.: Little Britain, which is funny, but quite lowbrow most of the time).  I can now only sit and wait for Series 2 and 3 to be available in North America, though they have been available in the UK for a couple of years already. 

The fact that I have now read all of the current (paperback) books in this series must mean I decided I like it. Sookie’s world is a much easier, light-hearted, relatable read than many other alternaworld novels. Anita Blake’s world has become so twisted, dark, and occasionally deprived that the average reader cannot related to any portion of her life any more, and while I quite like the Rachel Morgan series, it too, is a bit out there sometimes, what with the fairies and elves and things. Not that I think books are only good if they are relatable, I mean, these are meant to be “fantasy” (for lack of a better word) novels. I find that Sookie’s world contains that extra something that Buffy’s world had: the idea that all these otherworldly beings are out there among us, and in the shadows, but “normal” humans choose not to see them or acknowledge them. I like thinking that maybe, at night, roaming around my neighbourhood is a friendly vampire or two.