Charlaine Harris Signing my book

I was so excited to meet her! San Diego isn’t exactly a short drive for me, but once I heard she would be there, I had to go. I was actually at the LA Times Festival of books when I heard about the event as I walked by the booth Mysterious Galaxy had there. Charlaine was so sweet, I loved her Southern accent! There were so many people there to meet her, and she stayed for HOURS signing books, I was amazed!

Charlaine and I!

I can’t wait to meet her again and have her sign my next book :)

The same thing happened with Twilight, I didn’t start reading the series until the last book, Breaking Dawn came out. I saw the huge display inside a Borders store the day it came out, got curious and bought the first book. 5 days later I had the entire series read. I tend to get into things at the tail end of them :)

Since Twilight, I’ve been reading more YA novels at the recommendations of friends. First was Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series, which I absolutely LOVED. Once I finished Catching Fire, I was disappointed to learn that the last book wouldn’t be published until August 24th of this year.

Next up was the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, starting with The Lightening Thief, since the movie was due in theatres pretty soon. I was actually reading the books over my Anniversary vacation. I thought they were alright, but very Harry Potter-esque. I didn’t like them as much as I liked The Hunger Games & Catching Fire. And The Lightening Thief movie? Incredibly disappointing! Not faithful to the book at all (what is all this business about Persephone’s pearls?), tons of elements of the movie were completely made up when they didn’t need to be, the book was fine as it was.

Now I’m on to the His Dark Materials series, about 100 pages into The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights as it sometimes called). I never saw the movie, and apparently it wasn’t faithful to the book at all so I’m not planning on it. So far I’m really liking the book. It has a parallel universe to our own, much like The Hunger Games, and I’ve found that I enjoy those novels more.

Feel free to comment if you also enjoy YA novels and have some to recommend to me! :)

And now, back to (re)reading the Midnight Sun draft!

• Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black) talks about the sequels
• Kristin Stewart (Bella Swan), Rob Pattinson (Edward Cullen), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black) are presenting at the VMAs this year!
• Twilight’ Cast Heads Back To The Set To Shoot New Scenes which include Cullen family flashbacks and more Jacob Black at the prom! yay!

Ah, now to wait until next Tuesday… :)

Why? Because for some unfathomable reason the studio that owns the rights to this film has decided to let it go out of print, and it has been so for at least a few years now, as far as I can tell. After finishing the novel, I decided I wanted to see the movie again. I went to my local Target and Blockbuster, neither had it. I wasn’t too upset; neither are known for having old movies in stock. I checked online, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. That’s when I discovered that the only places you can buy it are amazon marketplace and ebay (at exorbitant rates). I can’t understand how a film that won Best Picture (1940) and is considered one of the best films of all time could be out of print. I can’t even express how disappointed I am to learn of this…

I have been blogging, just not here as much. I have a feeling that eventually I may abandon this domain (though I love it!) in the future for livejournal. Although it’s not as customizeable (for me) the community feeling is great and I also like the privacy I can get there.

And I can’t believe it’s already time for me to renew my domain! 2 years this has been my home… I need to do that soon. :)

Later!

The book itself was not written well at all in my opinion (LOTS of passive voice, which just annoys the poo out of me, past tense) and not compelling. I mean… ugh I guess I’ll put this behind a cut because SPOILERS AHEAD OOH.

So in the book it was CONSTANTLY “Hm, what does this mean? Wait, let me just have a convenient flashback to my childhood… ponder… OH YES THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW.” Do you know what I mean? It was just constantly so convenient, it didn’t build to anything. Also I found how they constantly were explaining everything to Sophie really unbelievable. In a high pressure, fast-paced situation, they wouldn’t take the time to explain everything to her. But I guess if they didn’t explain it to her, we wouldn’t know either. The biggest complaint I have about it is the glaring plot hole that is the discovery of the identities of the senechaux and the Grand master. They did say that Teabing had suspicions, but they didn’t go into (not deeply enough for me anyway) if he bugged ALL of those people, then figured out by listening to their conversations who was who, etc. Even that seems highly suspect to me. If the society is so secret, they wouldn’t be talking about it in a public place, like the Louvre in Sauniere’s case.
It was just poorly written in my opinion.

Now the MOVIE! Sweet Lord it was fast-paced. Also they changed things that didn’t make sense to me to change. Like why make Sauniere not Sophie’s real grandfather? That didn’t make sense to me and also made the plot weaker, in my opinion. Also, I was amazed that Mike was able to keep up. It seemed to me that if I hadn’t read the book and known the explanations ahead of time for things, I would be completely lost. But Mike wasn’t. I like how they took the romance out between Sophie and Langdon, that was just stupid in my opinion. They also made Langdon kind of like a father figure at the end. The ending was weird, how they were all acting like she might have power and might be a leader, etc. And how all the Priory members revealed themselves, that was unlikely. Anyway.

My thoughts. :)

Should I read The Da Vinci Code? Or should I play Zelda?

I love summer :)

Currently my comments are being deluged by spam, and I have finals next week so I won’t really have time to deal with the spam… so if you want to suggest something you could always email me your suggestions!

Wish me luck!