Review Haiku for Those with Short Attention Spans

I know, you guys were just DYING to know what my handwriting looks like.

You remember how this works, right?  I’ve read ~20 books since I did the last review haiku round-up, but don’t worry – some of them I intend to write full reviews for.  Trashy Tuesday might even make a comeback.  Not sure yet.  Regardless, here are some mini-reviews and crummy poetry for the books I haven’t got much to say about.

I tried to like this
but I really just didn’t
blah blah daddy blah

So, I don’t know what it was about this book that I just could not get into.  I think I prefer my sf just straight pulpy goodness (much like my orange juice), and I’m not interested in a literary novel disguised as science fiction.   Seriously, I went in expecting something like Doctor Who meets Thursday Next (time machine repairman lives in a fictional universe), but instead it was an exploration of daddy issues.   I feel betrayed by every reviewer that suggested this was what it would be like if Douglas Adams and Philip K Dick had a baby – I assume they’re talking about when PKD wrote himself into the VALIS cycle as Horselover Fat, since the protagonist’s name in HtLSiaSFU was Charles Yu, but where Dick succeeded (heh, twss!) Yu did not.  Also, the lack of full stops really turned me off.  C’mon, dude.  There’s a period key on your keyboard for a reason. No one likes a run-on sentence, especially not one that goes on for A PAGE AND A HALF.   Just…no.  No.  Sorry.

~o~

I like the thought of
match dot com for deities
dunno who I’d choose

I generally find A. Lee Martinez to be highly entertaining, and Divine Misfortune didn’t fail me.  I read this between Mockingbird and the new Thursday Next (man, I can’t stop talking about Fforde today, can I?) and it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.  I enjoyed the idea of what was essentially a dating service for choosing your religion (er, punintentional) and got a few giggles out of it.  That’s pretty much what I’ve come to expect from Martinez.  If you haven’t read any of his other stuff, this might be a decent place to start.

~o~

I’m a sucker for
the modernized faerie tale
Guess which one this is.

Insatiable Bookslut Susie recently wrote a Reading Rage post about crappy foreshadowing.  This book was the first thing that popped into my head when I read her post.

While I enjoyed thinking of Cinder Wench as a cyborg (the story opens with her searching for a new foot to replace the cybernetic one she’s outgrown), the foreshadowing hit me in the face VERY EARLY ON.  I’ve read other reviews that suggest this was a deliberate choice on the author’s part, but it just annoyed me.  I don’t want to figure out the whole thing an eighth of the way into the book.  Will I be reading the rest of the books in this series?  Um, probably.  Like I said, I’m a sucker for faerie tale retellings.  Shut up.

~o~

double ewe tea eff
how was this book of the year?
I don’t understand

So, I feel kind of bad for not liking these as much as pretty much every single other person on my friend list at goodreads did.  The first book got four and five stars all around, and I am having a difficult time understanding that.  Maybe it’s because I’m not the target audience, but I felt pretty ripped off.  How are we supposed to accept the scenario that’s lain before us if we have zero world-building or explanation?  Granted, that was somewhat explained at the end of the second book, but the first book should have had some kind of setup or something.  I couldn’t stand the main character, and I don’t know how the hell she could have avoided realizing someone was in the same faction as her when the other person was only TWO YEARS OLDER.  It…it makes no sense and WHY IS NO ONE QUESTIONING THIS?!  rant rant grumble rant.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t HATE these books, I just don’t see what makes them different from every single other YA dystopia out there.  They have the same voice as a hundred other series.  [sigh]

Meg is reading Divergent right now, so maybe she’ll weigh in with her thoughts, I can’t actually write a full review for it because I was too annoyed.

Review Haiku for Those with Short Attention Spans (now with mini reviews!)

Once again I find myself falling behind on reviews.  I read faster than I feel like writing, I guess.  While the last review haiku was somewhat successful, I decided I’d rather give myself a little more space to talk about these books.  I liked them ALL (inorite?), and don’t really want to shortchange with just 17 syllables. IN READING ORDER!

(Oh, and click on the pictures if you want to be taken to the book on goodreads)

~o~

Find a faerie egg
Make a  deal with the devil
Rescue the dragon

A Series of Ordinary Adventures by Stevie Carroll (recommended by Susie over at Insatiable Booksluts) is probably the best book of short stories I’ve read in FOREVER.  Honestly, I’d kind of given up on short fiction, cos it’s not really my bag usually.  This, though?  This was totally my thing.  Yes, not every story was totally mindblowing,  but there were only one or two that just didn’t click with me.  The three I mentioned in the haiku were THE BEST.  Highly recommended.

~o~

Biff was friends with Josh
We mostly call him Jesus
Poor Biff, no gospel

So, Lamb:  The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore was another book recommended by Susie.  It reminded me SO MUCH of Tom Robbins that I was predisposed to love it immediately (but, in case you’re wondering, not in a bitey way at all).  If you’re a Robbins fan, pretend Switters was BFFs with Jesus, and you’ll kind of know what it’s like.  The book chronicles the missing periods in the life of Christ, told from Biff’s point of view.  He’s been brought back from the dead just to tell his story, and he’s pretty unhappy that there’s not one mention of him in the Bible.  Look, if you’re able to accept the possibility that Jesus studied ninjutsu and bugged his bestie for details about what it was like being with a woman…you’ll probably like this book.  If that sounds too blasphemous for you, give it a pass.

~o~

I would totally
be a walking advert for
Pom or Ocean Spray

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes  is one I still haven’t really made my mind up about.  It’s set in the (all too) near future, and corporations have just started hiring up-and-coming artists to be walking advertisements for them.  The kids are injected with nanotechnology that keeps them healthy and young, but their brand is emblazoned across some highly visible part of the body.  Oh, and they’re then addicted to the soda they’re walking billboards for.  The story isn’t just about that, though, it’s also a fairly apt prediction of where our smart-phone crazed culture could be heading.  Fairly scary to process, but my main problem was a lack of ability to connect with any of the characters.  Not bad, not by any stretch, but not my favourite, either.  I will still read the author’s other book because Kate told me to.

~o~

We’ve read the same books
and watched all the same movies
Heh, Electric Sheep

Okay, so this one was pretty damn awesome.  I’m really grateful to the folks at Angry Robot for the eARC for a few reasons (it comes out on July 31st).  I definitely would have read this on my own, so it’s always nice to get something early (for free!) without having to resort to less than legal means.  The story moves quickly, the world-building is great and I was totally invested in Amy the Von Neumann machine (self-replicating [iterating] androids) and her story.  HOWEVER – if I had paid for this I probably would have written an angry letter to someone about it.  Not because the story made me mad, but because there is NO MENTION MADE ANYWHERE that this book should come with a trigger warning.  Seriously, it needs one.  Of course, not everyone has the same reactions to descriptions of abuse and pedophilia, but there are enough people out there who DO that I feel it’s definitely worth a mention.  It’s not even a huge plot point, but even trying to remain impartial, I’m pretty sure it dropped at least half a star in my own personal ratings because of it.  So – here you go, guys – if you’re able to divorce yourself from the story enough that brief mentions of the scenarios I brought up above will not bother you, do yourself a favour and read this.  If you DO have problems with that kind of stuff, you should probably skip it.

~o~

Zombie Mafia
Rebel Zombie Alliance
Hilarious, right?

I read the first book in this series by Diana Rowland (My Life as a White Trash Zombie) last fall, and loved it.  Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues picks up shortly after that one ended.  Not gonna lie, it felt like it was pretty slow to start.  I had a hard time getting into it until about the 60% mark.  That’s not to say that the beginning was bad – it was just…slow.  Slow, slow, slow.  Even the stuff that was supposed to be exciting and ZOMG DRAMA! wasn’t enough to get me into it.  BUT THEN!  Then there are zoldiers (heh), and the aforementioned zombie mafia and it just got so much better.  I loved it for the last 40%.  LOVED.  Read the first one and see if you like it.  If so, keep reading.  I’m looking forward to the third book, which is supposed to be out next year.  Yay, more cool zombie stories!  Shut up, Kate, I’m allowed to still like zombies.  <.<

~o~

[sigh] pretty cover
you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re
not  (carpet noodle)

I LOVED this.  I read the whole thing in less than 24 hours (even with [not enough] time to sleep/eat/take care of the younglings) and was NOT HAPPY when it was over.  Why was I not happy?  Because I wanted to keep reading!  Luckily, I have the eARC of Mockingbird on my reader already and I will probably start it when I’m done writing this.  This is another one that Kate made me read, and I’m the most glad she did.  [sigh]  I have read SO MANY reviews castigating this book for not being YA (um…was it advertised as such?  No, it wasn’t, so that’s your problem not Chuck’s), for being “too violent” (“MOAR VIOLENCE!” says this girl), for having no plot (what?  did we read the same book?), for being “too gross” (again, not too gross, but maybe I’m desensitized?  Dunno) AND FINALLY for being “dicklit.”  I’ll admit, the last one had me checking my pants to make absolutely certain I was the same gender I’ve always thought I was.  I don’t know, as I said when I was reading, it reminded me SO MUCH of a paranormal version of True Romance (one of my favourite movies EVAR) that I fell hopelessly for it almost immediately.  Dark?  Yes, absolutely.  Hilarious?  Yes, also absolutely.  If you can not run screaming after the first few pages (which I’ll even link you to on Amazon so you don’t come yelling at me if it’s too much for you), you’ll love it.  Or…I loved it.  So, I hope you’ll love it too because everyone knows I’m always right.  Right?

Gifts are Always Appropriate [hint hint]

Happy Seven Months!
With Love – sj, Meg and the
Dodisharkicorn

Look, we just like celebrating, okay?

Snobbish Self-Promotion

Look, guys – we don’t mean to be snapebags or anything, but we kind of realized lately that we’re lacking in the necessary promotional skills to have a semi-successful blog.  I mean, I’ve got this thingy hooked up to my twitter account (which you should all follow because I’m sometimes funny there in 140 characters or less), but I don’t even post on facebook – mostly because I haven’t really told many of my friends that the Snobbery even exists.  I know.  I suck.  Anyway, we were hoping you could help us all out, and to do so we’ve come up with a list of reasons you can give why people should read us.

1. We’re awesome.
2. We’re super awesome.
3. We think our awesome haiku/low-ku should be shared with the world.
4. We have Trashy Tuesdays.  Everyone should love Trashy Tuesdays.  Everyone.
5. Meg’s eyes are MESMERIZING.  For realsies.  Don’t look too close, she’ll hypnotize you.

You are getting sleeeeeepy! You want all of your friends to subscribe to the Snobbery...there's an easy little button for them to click on the side...

You’re all going to run right out and share us with the world now…right?

Low-ku

A week or so ago, Heather and I were talking about how she’d received a ton of hits on her blog after mentioning the Gojo Hands-Free set.  I didn’t even know what she was talking about for a while because I’d yet to see the really ridiculous commercial, but somehow it led to the following challenge.

Okay, here’s your post. A haiku challenge. Gojo handset has to be in one of the haikus, and you can take requests for others. Ask people for their weird search terms that they get hits from, then put them in haiku.

She may not have come right out and said it, but this is basically a dare.  HOW DARE SHE DARE ME?!

This is why I asked you all for your best/weirdest search terms the other day.  They’re going to be haikuified!  Shut up, I can make words up if I want, it’s my blog.  I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think I can do it, but I’ll prove her wrong.

Challenge accepted
Mrs Becoming Cliche
We’ll see who laughs last!

Since I don’t want this post to get too tedious, I’m going to space them out a little.  I’ll work with five search terms this week, then do more on a semiregular basis.  As this is Heather’s challenge, I’ll start with hers.

Search Term:  Gojo hands-free handset

gojo hands free set
unnecessary product
with a stupid name

BUT WAIT! There is more!
it can hold up a laptop
I think I need this.

I wish I was kidding.

Search Term:  Santa Pooping Down Chimney

Santa visited.
No candy or toys for us.
Just poop in the fire.

That of course has to be followed up with one submitted by Michael Cargill.

Search Term:  Hitler North Pole

Santa arrested
for public defecation.
Hitler saves Christmas?!

Meg has been wanting to mess around with this term since he mentioned it a few weeks ago. I'm thrilled she finally had the chance.

Hmmm, we’re currently on a Christmas kick so I’ll take one suggested by Green Geek Girl over at Insatiable Booksluts.

Search Term:  I hate xmas cats

I hate X-mas cats
with their tinsel-y whiskers
and silly cat hats

Actually, I think this cat hates *you.*

And finally (for this time), we have one from Tenneseean Historian Blogger at Surrounded by Imbeciles.

Search Term:  What happened to Axl Rose in Nashville

Nashville, it’s your fault.
What happened to Axl?  He
was fine when he left.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand, that’s enough for now.  I’ll do more soon (it’s actually a lot of fun), but I don’t want you to get sick of my crappy pseudo-poetry too soon.  Please try not to be too sad if you didn’t see yours here today.  I promise I will get to more of them.  Keep those search terms coming, I’ll work them in as I can!