The Making of Nebraska Brown by Louise Caiola

The Making of Nebraska Brown [***]
by Louise Caiola

So, Ana Lisa/Ann Leigh wakes up in a garden in Italy, mysteriously able to speak the language, and with an apartment and a hunky, hunky boyfriend. BUT, AL is having flashbacks/dreams of a life back in Nebraska with a not-so-hunky boyfriend. She starts investigating her double life with the help (?) of hunky-hunky boyfriend and girl friend Ren, and becomes convinced that she has a past life in Nebraska.

And usually, I'm not a fan of the back and forth, past and present, but it works here.

The dreams/flashbacks get longer and more detailed, so AL and HHB end up in the States, first in California to see a head doctor, and then to Nebraska. And, without giving too much away, AL learns some things in Nebraska, about herself and HHB.

I want to be more enthusiastic about this book. There's nothing that leaps out at me as a major flaw, and the story itself interesting. AL is well fleshed out, reasonably believable. And I would definitely read more by Ms. Caiola, and I really enjoyed her writing style. But for some reason this fell just below book love for me. But hey! Three stars, and I would definitely recommend it.

romancing the reader

Dear Romance Authors,

Please note, before I go any further, that this is not a dis of the romance genre. But for the love of all that is holy, please give me a reason to want your characters to be together. You can wax poetic all you want about how they are meant to be together, but if there is not one scene in your book that actually SHOWS chemistry between them, that actually makes me think "man, they belong together", then all those words are just wasted.

And throwing in a random romp in the sack doesn't count. That's not to say there can't be a little nooky now and then. Hell, I'm all for it. But sex does not always equal chemistry, and chemistry does not always equal sex.

Seriously. You can go on for pages about A's amazing, flawless personality and why B loves him/her so much, but if every time your characters are together there is no chemistry, nothing to support these claims, I'm going to put the book down and walk away. If I am reading a romance it is because I want to read about love, passion, two people who are made for each other/making it work despite not being made for each other.

And characters do not have to be irritatingly perfect. Hello? Mary Sue? Is that you? I, personally, like a little flaw now and then. It makes the characters real, believable. And, again, if I can't believe the characters I am going to put the book down and walk away. I don't have to love a character to care what happens to them, but I do have to believe that character, understand them to a point. And I just can't root for cardboard.

Yes, I do realize that this rant can pertain to genres other than just romance, but it feels like at least one of every three romance novels I pick up lately suffers from this problem. Too many want to get right to the 'good stuff', but, to me at least, the good stuff just isn't as good without the believable characters/chemistry.

PS: This rant may, or may not, be the product of not enough wine in the house.

The Raising by Laura Kasischke

The Raising [**1/2]
by Laura Kasischke
**spoiler alert**
This book. THIS BOOK. I finished reading it at 11pm and my first instinct was to put my shoes on and take it across the street to the library drop box (yes I live across the street from the library, envy me), because this book! I had to get it out of my house immediately.

Okay, so, last year Nicole Werner was killed when the car her boyfriend Craig was driving went off the road. And of course she was blond and leggy and beautiful because that makes it much more sad than if she was fat and pimply faced. But anyway so she was killed in this car wreck and Craig was drunk or high, or whatever, but he was never charged with anything so now he's back for his sophomore year.

But oh wait, now we are back to last year. Because clearly someone took the chapters of this book, tossed them in the air, and then put them back together in whatever order they landed in.

And can I just stop right here to say what a great big pile of no this book is? Seriously.

But anyway so now people around campus have been seeing Nicole. In pictures, sneaking into their dorm rooms, etc. And Craig's roommate is taking a class about death and Craig is (obviously) depressed. And Shelly, the woman who came upon the accident, can't get anyone to listen to her and starts having an affair with a sorority girl, and ...

Ugh, I just ... Such a slow, tedious build up. Agonizing. And then [spoiler] it ends. I can't even ...

So minus one star for the mental anguish it caused me, and one because THIS BOOK HAS NO ENDING. Well, I mean obviously it ends, but it doesn't actually SOLVE anything. For serious. And minus another half because ugh, spoiled rotten, evil, over-privileged kids.

*I was not compensated in any way for this review. And even if I had been, it would not have been enough to cover the mental anguish and stress this book caused.

book reviews

Okay, let me just start by saying I tend to get very emotionally invested in the books I love. Very. And if I love a book I own it. And it gets read. Repeatedly. Dog-eared. Stuffed in the bottom of bags. Spine creased. You. Get. It. And I will tell anyone about these books. Sing their praises.

But here's the thing. This is not every book I read, and it takes a lot for a book to reach this status. There are a lot of books that I like a lot. Books that I'd reread if the mood hits me, books that I'll recommend to others if I think it is up their reading alley. Books that make me look up an author's other works. But these aren't necessarily the books I love. For me to love a book is has to have all of the right elements working together; well rounded characters, believable plot lines with few to no holes, witty or realistic dialogue, and the ability to tug at my heartstrings or do some deep thinking. There are many books that have many of these characteristics, but not all. They might be lacking that one last little oomph to send the book from like to love. It doesn't mean they aren't great books worth reading. It just means that I don't LOVE it.

So, I tend to take book reviews, especially the online, reader submitted variety, with a grain of salt. I am usually very skeptical when I see five star reviews with titles like "THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ!!1!11!!" And, I'll admit, it sometimes makes me wonder what else this person has read to push this particular book to the status of best ever. And when a single book has only five star reviews? Okay, that just makes me a little suspicious as to how many friends the author has trolling the internet leaving these reviews. I know this makes me sound cynical, but I just don't think there are that many five star books out there, and I have an incredibly hard time believing that every single person that read a certain book gave it five stars.

I realize that there are usually two schools of reviewers in general, those that loved a book and want to recommend it to the world, and those that hated it and want to make sure no one else ever wastes their time on it. This helps to explain the lack of middle ground reviews. I mean, if I'm basically indifferent to something, not just books but anything, I generally won't go out of my way to tell anyone else about it, good or bad. There's just not enough time in the day, right?

I guess my point is a.) there are very few books I'd give a five star review to, and just because a book does not get a five star review from me does not mean that I did not enjoy it, and b.) I feel like we need more honest reviewers out there, people who are willing to leave the less than gushing reviews.

And that's my rant for the day.

a good first line

A good opening line is important. As a reader of ... 25? years, I know this. Which is why this has been sitting here empty now for a week or better. That killer first line has been eluding me. I mean, I needed something with pop, right?

Meh, I guess I just needed to start writing. Because if I kept waiting, nothing would ever get written. That killer opener isn't always written first. Maybe someday, a few weeks from now, it'll hit me and then I'll just pretend that this post doesn't exist. This is just filler, the babbling of someone running on too little sleep and too much caffeine. But for now, it is what it is. My opener. My introduction to blogging.

I hesitate to label this blog as anything in particular. Even before I wrote the first word, its purpose has changed several times. First I was just going to post snippets of whatever writing project I was working on at the time. Then I was going to share book reviews. Why not do both? But what about commentary?

For now this will just be my place to throw out there whatever random ramblings come to mind. Most book and writing related, yes. But not necessarily always. I wear many hats, and sometimes switching between them isn't an in-the-moment kind of thing. I make no promises about this being an exciting, or even remotely interesting, venture. I promise to try, though.