K.M. Grant's Blood Red Horse is $1.99 today, and I'm tempted to buy it, because—Crusades! King Richard! Saladin!—but I am, of course, concerned about THE HORSE THING.
So, those of you who've read it: should I take the plunge?
(And let's keep in mind that although I read I Rode a Horse of Milk-White Jade back in 2005, THE PAIN IS STILL ACUTELY... ER, PAINFUL.)
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No, Treasured Sister, THIS is a Dawson Leery cross-stitch pattern:
And before you ask, the answer is YES. Yes, I have the pattern complete with DMC colors and symbols.
I am suddenly envisioning a set of the MOST AWESOME THROW PILLOWS EVER.
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Coloring pages inspired by The Secret Garden!
I heart them.
Also at the Guardian: a cross-stitch pattern of Matt Smith.
(I had no idea they had a Craft section. Yet another RSS feed to follow. MY WORK IS NEVER DONE.)
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As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.
So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:
Click through for the answer!According to my Kindle, I'm about 5% of the way through the book. I need someone to tell me if the style, the content, the dialogue, hell, if pretty much anything improves and starts to approach that which would normally pass as engaging composition. Because I'm just about to give up. I dove into this book without knowing anything about it, other than it is WWII historical fiction. After reading the first few pages I came to learn that a twelve year old girl has been captured by the Nazi's and is being subjected to the worst brutality. Those beasts are sharpening pencils in her general direction, causing painful pencil shavings to irritate her eyes! Forget waterboarding, these Nazi's are serious. They will take your knickers away!
Is it just the first couple of chapters that are like this? Does she start acting like an adult at some point? Does she ever stop feeling sorry for herself? At what point do you get over that hump of wishing she would just stop whinging and start to write an entry in her diary that reads like the words of a strong woman in a difficult situation instead of an agony letter to Teen Beat?
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...have been announced, and the YA winner is Flesh & Bone, by Jonathan Maberry.
See the rest of the winners here, and the other YA finalists here!
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...Alexander London letter, let's about-face and guffaw over the Smart Bitches' review of the Jude Deveraux, The Raider - Barbie® and Ken® Doll Giftset.
SO. MANY. PICTURES. DEPICTING. SO. MUCH. HILARIOUSNESS.
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Head on over to Alexander London's letter at Dear Teen Me:
You didn’t kiss anyone for two years. When you got back to the states, you even dyed your hair back to brown. You stayed in a closet of your own making. You got angry and seethed in silence. You hid behind your eyes and watched reality happen to other people.
When you eventually did kiss a guy and let life open up to you, it really was all you hoped it would be and more. It wasn’t just the kiss or coming out, though that was part of it. It was realizing you could be your whole self.
Blubbering all over my desk.
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...I wrote about Dianne K. Salerni's The Caged Graves, which I LOVED.
LOOOOOOOOOVED.
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This is about the ongoing SFWA flap, though much of it could be applied to the article I linked to earlier today.
From Terrible Minds:
All this shit starts when we humans are tiny. I have a two-year-old son. Boys get the BLUE STUFF. Hard. Steely! Naval. Girls get the PINK STUFF. Soft. Squishy! Fleshy. Our son loves trucks. You think, “Oh, this is genetic. Boys are biologically attracted to boy things.” Until you see him playing with little girls and the girls are all like, “YEAH TRUCKS ARE AWESOME, MOTHERTRUCKER,” and that dashes that idea into itty-bits. Then you go to buy books and you see it translates there, too: the blue, the pink, the trucks, the dollies. So you realize, this boy/girl thing starts early in terms of writing and publishing. And that means it’s where you have to do some damage control early. Let your boy play with dolls. Let your girl read about trucks. Teach them early on to respect each other and everybody else. (AKA: “Hey, kid, don’t be an asshole.”)
And now I shall go out and read everything Wendig has written.
Which I'm pretty sure is a promise I've made before, but sometimes these things take time to stick.
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