book: Dead In The Family by Charlaine Harris

A lot of series books either start to suck or they start to read like they've been ghostwritten. Charlaine Harris is no exception to this. Unfortunately, not all of this book had that spectral flavor.

Dead In The Family starts out reminding us of stuff that happened in the previous book, but what she is summing up does not closely resemble what I remember reading. It wasn't until this one specific detail 4-5 pages in that I was finally convinced that I hadn't missed a volume.

There were some details in this book which irritated me. 1) Sookie falling for that "family is everything" business again. Though it was written like she gets value from interacting with her brother, I think he should have been killed 7 books ago because he's a complete ass. 2) Sookie having trouble buying clothes because even though she works nights and the local store closes at a normal time, they won't be open. 2a) Woman who owns the clothing store can't find anything to wear while pregnant because her store doesn't carry maternity things. [Honestly, you are your own advertising as a sole proprietor. If you look like trailer trash just because you're pregnant, then your clothing store deserves to go under. Maybe that makes 2 make more sense, she just didn't want to shop there and wanted an excuse.] 3) the interactions with Pam (the vampire). 4) the large percentage of pregnant women.

Basically my problems with this book are single-fold: Sookie is a poor southern girl who, even though she's got actually miraculous abilities and coincident opportunities refuses to leave this backward dump of a town that's a pimple on the state which is akin to flaming hell.

I didn't particularly find the plot interesting, but I read them more like people watch soap operas, to watch what's going on in the characters' lives, so I don't mind so much that the plot was puerile.

These would be fantastic books if Sookie had taken her telepathy and moved to Chicago or Los Angeles once she got enough vampire blood to control it, and if she stopped undermining herself by letting her trailer trash roots hold her back to being a low-paid barmaid who is expected to be grateful her boss lets them lock up their purses in his desk.

meh. There are better choices.

book: Fantasy In Death by JD Robb

It might look like I read a lot of books but these pop fiction series things go really fast. I can read the whole book in a single day and still put food on the table.

Fantasy In Death by JD Robb is the latest in the Eve Dallas series which is set in 2060 (currently. Dates in the book suggest that the earliest books were in 2058.) I started reading it because it was recommended to me on a childfree group. It's about these murders which are solved by Eve Dallas (or in the books' vernacular "Dallas, Lieutenant Eve" which always strikes me as Yoda-ish.) But Eve herself is couched in her circle of friends and her husband Roarke who is so far beyond wealthy that Eve cannot comprehend it.

Eve and Roarke share, throughout previous books, an aversion to the gooey family-making behavior. When Eve is asked to be in the delivery room with her best friend Mavis, Roarke pretty much says, "Better you than me." They're both completely and totally squicked. They can barely say the pro-forma things that are required.

But in this book, Roarke actually blames Eve's hangups and baggage for her being unwilling to even talk about them starting their own family. That was a WTF moment for me.

The singular thing this series has going for it is Roarke and Eve's childfree life choices and how it's constantly presented as a choice they make together. They're shown being a loving couple; they're shown being mature and responsible. They're shown with friends and helping others and generally being good people.

It's a polar opposite of all the media representations of people who choose to be childless/childfree--- the media says not having a baby is selfish and immature and irresponsible. Even unplanned and unwanted babies are not aborted on TV or in movies. There are no role models for people who love each other but do not need to express it in the form of an untreated accidental pregnancy. I personally have heard, in real life, people say that the only reason for marriage at all is to produce children. "So gays, old people, sterile people, and those selfish child-haters shouldn't be allowed to be together at all." Really. There are people who think that.

So the one series I have been following where the main characters are honestly squicked by the idea of producing a child, though they politely support their friends who choose differently--- and it's being undermined by the author. Bitch.

I'll probably read another one in case she was just drunk or something, but if they in on the baby-rabies, I'm gone. Ewwwwwwww.

This mystery was less gruesome than the immediately previous book where the gore was described in detail so far beyond lurid that I found it nauseating. In fact, there weren't very many crime details at all in this book. The mystery was dead obvious too. I knew from the first chapter when we met the suspects who had done it and what set them off. I was wrong about the motive, but in such a way that it almost seemed like the author hadn't been paying attention, not that it was my mistake.

There are a lot of these books published, maybe they're ghostwritten too. If that's the case, I want them to find a third option, one with less gore and less baby at the same time.

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I would like there to be more books where the characters have a stable, romantic relationship that does not need children in order for it to be whole.

I am actively resisting the social contract that says one grows up, gets a job, gets married, has children. But I have found that there is resistance to the belief that one is actually grown up without being married or having children. Even people I know who have lousy jobs have babies. And somehow I'm the irresponsible person according to society.

book: Strange Brew (anthology)

I also read, Strange Brew, a short story anthology about witches.

Overall: Meh.

A couple of the stories were really good, but I don't like some of the authors and *shocked look* those were the ones who tended to write Victoriana stories.

Except for the author of the Jane Yellowrock series who I am boycotting; her story might have been okay if I didn't already hate her work for being trashy, southern, and god-ridden. This was all those things again and starring someone who obsesses about her babies to boot.

It was worth borrowing from the library and skimming to see what interested me.