As you can see, i didn't make my goal of reading 50 books in one year. It was a lot harder than i thought it would be and let me tell you why. First, i found that i have trouble finishing books especially if i start reading a better book. So at any time i'll be reading 3 or 4 (and sometimes more) books at the same time but i'll only finish half of them. i also do this with tv channels. i'm a channel flipper. i flip. even if i'm watching something i like, i'll still flip just to know what's on the other channels. i have Entertainment A.D.D. and i'm sure it annoys the hell out of Jimmy when i have control of the clicker.

The second reason this was so hard is that it's really difficult for me to enjoy the books fully while reading them because i was trying so hard just to finish them so's i could add them to the list and not run across another book first and then not finish the first book. If i hadn't written a little blurb about each book i bet i wouldn't be able to tell you anything at all about more than half the books i read.

The third reason this was harder than i thought it woud be is that reading takes time. And i'm thinking that the only reason i was able to get as far as i did is that since i work for myself i was able to give myself more time to read than if i had to work a regular 9 to 5 job.
"Why were you late again, Jaimie?"
"Well boss, i was reading and i just lost track of time. Sorry, chief."
But the good thing is now that i get up in the morning and read my book du jour while having coffee...i'm not watching Valley of the Dolls or whatever other goofy movie on AMC's Morning Movie anymore. i swear, i have seen VotD and Suddenly Last Summer like, 5 times each just because i would turn the TV on in the mornings. So books are keeping me from rotting my brain out.

The fourth thing i learned is that re-reading a book i love takes me forever because i already know what happens. i have no discipline when it comes to this. i started to re-read like, 10 books i LOVE, but i didn't finish them. Beowulf, anyone? and i LOVE THAT STORY TO PIECES. But i couldn't finish it. Poop, and again, poop. So there you have it. Reading 50 books in a year is difficult, especially when you have Book A.D.D.

44. Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner.
This book was hilarious. The characters were so funny. The main character, Kate, is a retired demon-hunter, but now she's a stay-at-home mom, and her family, husband and two kids, have no idea that she used to kill demons for the Vatican. She has to come out of retirement because demons are in her town again, and manage to keep it a secret from her fam.

I know this isn't exactly challenging reading, but neither is Harry Potter and I think if you go back and see the tripe I've read this year you'll see that I'm not exactly Harold Bloom here, and let's thank God for that.

I was glad that the character didn't go on and on about what she was wearing (or what color the nike swoosh was for the love. and she didn't whore around. take that, anita blake.) and guns...she never used a gun. in fact, she never actually had a weapon. Her old gear was in the back of the shed and she was too lazy/busy to get it out. To me, that's hilarious. So she ended up using things around the house or whatever she could find to kill the demons.

You should read this book. It only took like, 3 hours.

43. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
So far I've liked this one best. It is, however, a TON different than the movie. And I know it's heresy to say, but I think the movie was better, mostly. The book, and let's face it, honestly, it was too long. The thing with Hermione and the house elves? Yeah, that should have been edited out of the book too. It went nowhere, and I don't know, maybe that picks up in the 5th book? If it does, I still don't think it matters.

Also there were too many characters in the book. Bagman? Crouch? Fudge? These characters should not have been in the book much. I can understand Crouch more than the others, but honestly, Fudge and Bagman? They should be barely mentioned or left out completely.

The first 100 pages all about the Quidditch World Cup? KILL ME. And I actually LIKE SPORTS. Talk about dead horse beatings.

But like I say, it's my favorite book so far. I think part of it is 'cos the kids cuss more. hee.
See the movie.

42. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Book 3 of the Harry Potter series. This movie is the one where I can remember very little of it, and now that I've read the book I have managed to forget it even more. This is the one where Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban. The only thing that really sticks out of my mind about this episode was that the dementors and the nasgul (spanish?) from LotR were very similar.

Once again Harry saves the day. Without the help of anyone. Because it's a formula now.
It gets two Jose Cansecos for being the same book as number one and two. and WHAT is up with these British writers?! (looking at you too, lemony snicket) I mean, Harry nearly gets to not live with the Dursleys but at the last minutes it's all, "Sorry Harry! But all the adults who know you are basically ineffectual and have no control over say, ANYTHING, and therefore they must knowingly send you back to live in the house with the family who abuses you. Buck up, Harry, it's only for 2 months!"

41. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

Kelly Fish! You would like this book!

This is a novel but it's written kinda like a memoir, only not exactly. The narrator flashesback a lot. It's a story about a Mennonite teen named Nomi, and she hates her life, but loves her family. She's really snarky and sarcastic. The book is pretty hilarious, but it's also very sad. The mom and the older sister end up leaving the village (it's in Canada). They were actually excommunicated. So it's just Nomi and her dad. I think the story takes place in the early '80s. And to hear her describe the Mennonite stuff is so hilarious.
You should read this book.

This book was really great and pretty short (246 pages). Here's a quote to show you how hilarious the whole thing is:

"We're Mennonites. As far as I know, we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you're a teenager. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man called Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing...Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking, temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock'n'roll, having sex for fun, swimming, make-up, jewelry, playing pool, going to cities, or staying up past nine o'clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno."

See? The whole book is like that. But also, the whole book is like that. So it's kind of redundant. But I didn't mind because I like the sarcasm. Oh, and there's dialogue, but no quotation marks. YES!

I enjoyed this one just as much as I did The Keeners so it gets 0 Jose Cansecos!

40. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter is one of those things that you cannot talk about because some people haven't read the books or seen the movies, and so if you talk about it they get pissed because you've ruined it for them. Well, this book and movie have both been out for years and if you haven't read it or seen it by now then you are a filthy muggle. Or a dirty gypsy. I can totally see how a gypsy wouldn't have time to read.

While reading this book I kept remembering the movie so I suppose the book and the movie were really very close and the crazy movie people didn't change anything or ruin anything. The only weird thing was this is the 2nd book in the Harry Potter and the... series, but I kept getting it confused with the 3rd movie. Which is totally my bad.

"SPOILER" "ALERT".
This one had Gilderoy Lockhart in it. And Ron's wand gets broken. And Hermione turns into a cat...and then into stone. And Harry eventually saves the day with some help from Fawkes and the Sorting Hat.

39. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Yes, a kid's book. Once again, padding my numbers.
This was a sweet little book. I'm glad I read it before I saw the movie. Because the book, it's really for kids, and I suppose unless the movie people really screw with it, it will be hard to make the movie bad. The book has no serious fleshing out of characters, and no complicated plot points. Kind of like Little House on the Prairie...there's good guys and there's bullies.

There's lots of symbology (hee) I'm sure, but I was mostly concentrating on finishing the book so I could start another book. I will say that this is my favorite fiction novel by C.S. Lewis I've read so far. It wasn't boring like his other fiction. I'm looking at you, space trilogy.

38. Don't Kiss Them Goodbye by Allison Dubois
When I saw this book on the shelf at the library the author's name stuck out and I thought, "Allison Dubois? Why is that name familiar? Did we go to school together?" Because everytime I hear a familiar name but am unable to put a face with it I immediately think, "Did we go to school together?" I don't know why. But when I pulled the book off the shelf I realized, that oh yeah, that's the Medium character's name. Duh. And this book is written by the real medium.

I liked this book because it was short and easy to read and by "short and easy to read" I mean IT WAS WRITTEN IN 14 POINT TYPE. So it's kinda like cheating to count this one on my list but i'm taking it. The book was redundant because she kept saying the same things over and over. For example she said to never give a psychic any information, but to make the psychic give you the info. That way you know it's a real psychic and not a con artist. Good advice, I guess. But she mentions it a lot.

But it was enjoyable because she has such a good sense of humor as does her husband. So it seems like the characters on the show are a good representation of the actual people. One thing I found interesting is that she says she rarely dreams, and you know, on the show, that's how the character gets lots of her visions or whatever they are.

She talks about listening to her guides. At first I thought her guides were like, other mediums but that were like, professors or teachers or something. But later I realized she was talking about spirits or something. Yes, I am slow. And yes, I have a really bad spiritual vocabulary. Shut up. But she was all, "Some people call them guides, some call them angels, blah blah blah." And that kind of grossed me out a bit.

She's not very New Agey. And that's neat. She doesn't meditate for hours or hold crystals or anything like that. In fact, she seemed really normal and like I say, pretty funny. Oh and she's really polite and humble. And she's young, I think she's Jimmy's age. Which is funny 'cos I always think of psychics as being old crones. hee. You know what I mean. "It's in the basement! Of...of...THE ALAMO!" hee.

It gets three jose cansecos for giving me a stomach ache when I read it.

37. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
The "tagline" for this book was something like "nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality". It was nonfiction.

This book had some good parts to it. Several parts made me go, "aw crap." Because it was like looking in a mirror and seeing the bad things I do. But most of the book? Most of it was lame. I say this from a Lady's perspective because this book was definetly for dudes. It doesn't say that it's for dudes...but it is. Several people told me that this book was awesome and great and awesome so I read it and while I was reading it I thought, "gah, this is for dudes." And I realized that everyone who told me it was awesome and great and awesome was a dude.

There you go!

So while I'm reading it I'm trying to figure out how old the author is because half the time i'm thinking he must be in high school. because he's kinda immature. Not immature in that he's making fart jokes, but immature in that he is WAY too awkward about girls. On one hand I'm thinking, "I wonder what happened to him to make him a middle aged emotional child?" and on the crusty, other hand i'm wondering, "I wonder if he knows he's gay?"

I am being too harsh aren't I?

There were many good sentences in this book that made me think about things like Jesus and my own shortcomings. But for the most part I kept thinking, "Dude, you need to GROW UP."

I am a judging judgehole.

36. The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski
This was a good book. Not great. It really would not be a good book at all if you haven't read House of Leaves. In fact, if I had never heard of either book and had picked this one up first? I would have hated it and probably never would have picked up HoL. And then where would I be?
Well, Laura and I would still be friends, but Mr. F probably wouldn't have written that awesome paper.

So if you want to read this book I suggest you read HoL first.

It gets

three jose cansecos. sorry MZD. I heart you and your books, but really, this book? Pretentious and unnecessary.

35. The Keeners by Maura D. Shaw
This novel was amazingly fantastic awesome. I loved it. It was sweet and sad and amazing. It tells the story of a girl (Margaret, not to be confused at all with Crazy Margaret) from Ireland in the 1840s who marries and has a family and lives through the famine and emigrates to America and works in the laundries and starts a union and lives to be an old woman. It's really not anything I ever thought I'd enjoy reading but the part that sucked me in was that she was a keener, which is someone who wails for the dead. It's something she studied to be under an old Irish lady when she was a kid, but then the more Catholic things became the less she had to use her keening skill because it was a pagan-type thing.

And then when she emigrates to America she never gets to keen again because it's not done at all in America.

Some other cool things I liked was that she was an adept healer and even had to help birth a few babies but she didn't like that kind of thing too much because she was more comfortable working with death, what with the keening and all. And that really made me think. I cried at a couple parts, and I did not want the book to end.

Anyway, you can read the reviews at amazon because I'm lazy. Oh, and this is another book that I checked out because of the cover. This novel was so amazingly good that it gets 0 jose cansecos.

34. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
I thought that this book was going to be like Super-size Me only in book form. Not that the author would eat McDonalds everyday but that he would talk mostly about the unhealthiness of fast food.

I was wrong.

The author barely touches the "fast food is full of fat and fattiness" deal. He mainly talks about the greed, power, and evilness of fast food companies. I would read this book in the mornings as i drank my coffee and I would get so mad at how only a few people can make so many people miserable. I would cry at the working conditions of the meat industry (and trust me, i'm not crying over the cows. it's the workers that have it so bad that i just want to take them all away from that horrible job and give them all sacks of money and comfortable chairs to sit on.)

He discusses the ranchers, the feedlots, the slaughter houses, and the packaging companies. He talks about the potato farms. He talks about minimum wage. He talks about how our government is supposed to regulate and keep us safe from unhealthy meat and that it not only doesn't do that, but CAN'T do that, legally. The USDA cannot recall meat that is unhealthy. It has no rights to do that. The meat companies can voluntarily recall meat, but they can't be forced to, even if the meat is infected with epidemic proportions of e. coli 0157:H7, which, as far as i can tell, is like ebola, it turns your organs into mush.

The meat industry is so corrupt and has bought so many republican congressmen that it has no watchdogs, no police. OSHA is not allowed to investigate a factory unless the injury records show above the national average. The meat companies hire doctors to lie about the severity of injuries and, and, and they keep two injury logs. the real one and the one they turn in to OSHA. This is illegal. And when the companies are caught they have to pay a piddly fine.
The FDA doesn't care about the food you eat. They only care about prescription drugs.
The USDA is not allowed to police the thing it was set up to police. (This is not new and it's also the reason i don't drink milk.) The author also says that the government will not change any of this. That the only way to make some change is if McDonalds will make the change. So if enough people complain and make bad press about McDonalds using nasty beef instead of clean, grass-fed cows...nothing will change.

He discusses the franchise/franchisee relationships.

He discusses the hisory of fast food and the american west. It's amazing.

This book was so interesting. If I were to become a vegetarian it would not be because I had a problem with the way cows are treated. Nay, it would be because of the treatment of humans.

This book gets 0 jose cansecos because it was such a great book, that i can't bear to taint it with a mr. canseco.

33. Dead Until Dark: A Sookie Stackhouse Mystery by Charlaine Harris
Cookie Magoo recommended Ms. Harris's books to me when she found that I couldn't stomach the Anita Blake novels. This book is also about vampires and monsters, but it's not about a vampire hunter or slayer or whatever. The heroine (Sookie Stackhouse) is a waitress. And most of the people in the book are just normal people who don't wear guns all over their body. It was a cute book, and it's very "southern" (with a name like Charlaine, duh). Well, not southern in that Weird Southern Author kind of way, like where you finish the book and you feel kind of sick at the end. Oh hi, Flannery O'Connor! I didn't see you standing there.

Anyway, it's a sweet book and I enjoyed the characters more than the Anita Blake novels' characters.

OH! and it took me WAY too long to figure out who Bubba was supposed to be.

32. Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton
I would love to tell you that this will be the last of Ms. Hamilton's "books" that I will ever read, but Laura has asked me to read one of the later books so I can see what a slut Anita Blake becomes. And since, Laura has read things that I have begged her to, just so that I'll know someone else who has read a book that I have (read: The Bell Jar, Out of the Silent Planet, an Anne Lamott book, among others) well, I owe her. And, like that slut, bitch, ho bag Anita Blake, I hate owing people.

This book was about monsters and Anita Blake. There was a snakewoman in it. I can buy vampires and zombies and even werewolves...but when there's extra magic animals? like snakepeople for instance? I tend to lose interest. because...snakewoman? Yeah, I just....no.

The book was redundant like the last one and concentrated, once again, WAY too much on what she was wearing, the color of her shoes, and where she hid her guns on her body. And? Just to further prove that NO ONE edits her books? There was a stand alone sentence...in the middle of the page...all by itself....and it said something like, "Than I guess we better leave."

Than? Than?

nnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!

Yes, I suck at grammar.
Yes, I purposely ignore grammar.
Yes, I make TONS of writing and spelling mistakes on my website.
But I don't get paid for this shit either.

31. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
This is book 2 of the Anita Blake series. It was just as bad as Laura had described. The story isn't bad, and the characters aren't that bad. It's the writing. It is SO FLABERGHASTINGLY REDUNDANT... but in a bad way.

Dear Ms. Hamilton,

We get that Anita carries a gun with her at all times. We do NOT care what kind she has or where she wears it. The fact that her jacket hides the shoulder holster perfectly? No one cares. Well, maybe we cared the first time, but not the 10 other times you mention it. We get that she wears black a lot. That's understandable. We do not, i repeat, WE DO NOT care what color her fucking Nikes are...AND? because we don't care about the color of the NIKES? WE ALSO DON'T CARE WHAT COLOR THE GODDAMN SWOOSH IS ON SAID NIKES, OKAY?! Do you have to describe every outfit and how she can hide a gun with it? DO YOU?!

Another thing, you need to remember that your character, Anita, is 24 years old and a female. SHE IS NOT SAM SPADE.
REMEMBER THIS.

And why is every paragraph made up of short sentences? It's called a conjunction, and perhaps you and your proofreader could look that up? I realize who am I to judge bad writing, right? The thing is though, if I notice bad writing? It's bad. And why must all paragraphs end with a sarcastic remark? I'm talking every single one! Don't get me wrong, I love sarcasm, I really do. BUT YOUR SARCASM IS REDUNDANT and unnecessary.

WHAT. IS WITH. THE GUNS?!
I previously mentioned that we don't care about the guns. But I understand that Anita does. What I don't understand is this:
Half the time she bitches that she can't carry the big gun that holds the most bullets. So then she's all, "well, if i need more than 6 bullets i'm probably dead anyway." okay, fine. Point made. but then? later in the book? She kills two zombie using like 10 bullets. Okay, different gun, sure...but she had to use more than 6 bullets...so i mean, why bitch about using more bullets when they obviously saved her life? then, when she carries the big gun? she's all, "yeah. this big gun is big, and shoots big bullets, but it's not like that helps when you're going after zombies and vampires."
WELL IT SURE AS FUCK HELPED YOU KILL TWO ZOMBIES ALREADY. ALL I ASK IS FOR A LITTLE CONSISTENCY, OKAY?

Ri-ight.

30. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
oh my sweet...i'm only on 30?! see, i've checked out 6 books in the last two months and i didn't finish any of them because they were so sllllllllllooooooow. gah.

This book was pretty good I must say. I bought it at a local used book store because
A. I liked the cover (Why must I keep admiting that I choose books for their covers? Why?! And what is so stupid is that the 6 books since then that I could not finish? I totally did not pick them for their covers. They were books I genuinely wanted to read. The hell?!)
B. It was on the schools' required reading list and I was nosey and wanted to see what "the kids" were being forced to read these days.

I will say this, I wish that book had been part of our required reading in high school. Not because I think it's relevent exactly, to high school behaviors or shenanigans or whatnot. But because it's funny and sad and bitter and funny and easy to read, and it wasn't written by some old white man, and how refreshing would that have been to read in high school, i ask you.

Good book. Read it, it'll take you 2 hours tops.

29. Waking the Dead by John Eldredge
This was a God book. It was pretty clever. The author uses a lot of literary and movie examples to make his points and that's kinda neat, so instead of it being all, "hey! we should be like David and slay giants and pray and write songs!" the author is more, "hey! remember the part in the Matrix where Neo..."
However, it took me 6 weeks to read it. And it's not a very big book. Maybe it took so long to read because it was nonfiction and didn't have any porn or spurs or psychic detectives in it. (i go back every once in a while and see what i've read so far and i think, "this? this is the shit i've read this year? WHAT?! i read EVERY Kay Hooper thriller?! i am WORTHLESS!") but see, now that i've read this book i know that that is just the DEVIL telling me i'm worthless. and we all know that THE DEVIL IS A LYING LIAR JUST LIKE OUR U.S. PRESIDENT. um, the last part wasn't in the book.
Anyway, good book. i recommend it.
It gets 1 Jose Canseco.

28. The Girl With the Golden Spurs by Ann Major
I know what you're thinking.
Okay wait. Lemme 'splain. See, I was painting at the Holy House library, and I kept running across this book. The title cracked me up every time. It sounds like a bad porn movie, huh?
Yeah, well, it was kinda porny. I'll level with you, it was porn. They call it Romance or whatnot, but c'mon, at one point the main girl thinks something about how she couldn't wait for the main guy to "go down on her". What is this book doing at the Holy House's library?! Those dirty, old people! With their dirty books about ranch life and oral sex! Shame! SHAME!

So when I saw the title I wanted to know just WHO the girl with the golden spurs is and WHAT exactly she does and just, I mean, golden spurs.

Well, let me save you guys some time and brain cells. See, the thing is, her daddy is a big ol' rich ranch owner, and the ranch? Is called the Golden Spurs Ranch. Yeah. Talk about a let down. She doesn't even wear spurs. She doesn't even like ranch life. She wants to be a big city girl. Anyway, the plot is goofy. The characters are many and stupid. In fact? It was like all the characters had to have life changing events happen to them. Like, drastic events. Por exemplo:
dad has a stroke!
murder!
amnesia
he married her sister!
the sister dies
that's not her real mom?!
she never did get along with her, well gosh, that explains that
that means the sister...wait
halloween party dressed as a hooker!
plane crash!
her real mom's name is Electra?
and she's already dead?!
do i love him? i don't know! i hate him!
no! i love him!
he doesn't remember the sister, he loves her!
who killed the daddy?
who killed the sister?
who killed the hooker named Cherry Lane?
why does everyone hate her?
the mom is going crazy and only loves birds!
okay, so like, what about the dead sister's baby? who's watching the baby?!
she went horse riding? alone?!
fire!
gunshots!
oh my god! i shot him! but i love him!

That kinda thing.

"I've heard all about you," she said. "you're known to have a nasty, vengeful disposition. You're a gambler, too, and you've got a bad reputation with girls."

This book is set in the present. Who talks like that? The Amish?

I give this book four jose cansecos in a plane crash with amnesia.

27. Far Traveler by Rebecca Tingle
Okay, I was 30 pages from finishing the book when I noticed that I had checked out a Young Adult book. The reason I checked it out in the first place was 'cos the cover had a girl chopping off her her with a knife. So then I checked out the inside sleeve to read what it was about and it's a historical novel situation about the early Anglo Saxon royal family blah that i had to learn about back in the College Days, and the author (i think she has history degrees of some kind) said that the only thing that is mentioned about Aethylwyn (King Edward's niece) is that she was sent to Wales (or something like that) and the author was all, "so i wanted to make up what happened to her and make it cool and heroic." That's not an actual quote from the author. Ms. Tingle can actually write real sentences.

So I got the book. Then, like i say, I'm on like, page 203 thinking, "This is a pretty good book, there's no sex, and the love story is so....avoided even though you know it's there...and it reads so easy and the letters seem bigger and easier to read...wait." I check the spine...and there is a huge red sticker with a big YA stamped on it. "Crap! How did I miss that!?"

So there you go.
Anyway it's about Aethylwyn. muh huh? And she has to run away from King Edward who wants to marry her off to Some Old Guy. So she runs and cuts her hair and pretends to be a traveling bard. Then she saved the day and goes and lives in a convent. but at the very last paragraph the man she loves (the man who thought she was a boy) comes and takes her to his mountain house. I assume they marry.
It was a good book and I would recommend it to kids in junior high.

26. Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big by Jose "Douche Bag" Canseco
This is one of the worst books I've read. Not only is it EXTREMELY repetitive, but I don't think it was even edited by an actual paid editor person. And if it was? QUIT YOUR DAY JOB. U SUK.
The book was 304 pages (including a name-dropping index). This book would have been 150 pages if THE A-HOLE WHO EDITED IT FOR CONTENT WOULD HAVE EDITED IT FOR CONTENT. Jose "Douche Bag" Canseco has one thing to say, and he says it a quadrillion times in the book, "Steroids are good."
The other thing he repeats a billion times, "I'm Cuban." Which, he uses as a crutch. He constantly whines that he was never the All-American Hero Baseball Player Awesome Man, because he's Latino and he thinks that people hate the Latinos and won't let them be All-American Baseball Heros. Yes, he's playing the Race Card.
Jose Canseco, how much money did you make playing baseball?
hm? What was that?
I see.
SHUT UP, JOSE CANSECO. YOU HAVE FERRARIS, PORCHES, AND A LAMBROUGHINI. YOU WOULD DO WELL TO QUIT BITCHING BEFORE SOMEONE WITH REAL PROBLEMS FINDS OUT THAT YOU'RE COMPLAINING. You know, like, people who STILL live in Cuba.
The reason that you'll never be considered a true All-American Baseball Hero of Awesomeness can be broken down into three main reasons:
1. You were a good player for a short time.
2. You are a douche of great magnitude and no one who claims to be an All-American Baseball Hero Guy should ever be a GIANT WHINER.
3. And most importantly, you used CHEATER DRUGS. SINCE THE AGE OF 20. You cheated. You earned nothing on your own. You even admit that without steroids you weren't that great a player. Just how fucking retarded is your Cuban brain anyway? (no offense against real Cubans.)

Oh, and another thing? You admit to cheating on your wives because it's so easy to do as a baseball player out on the road, and tons of players do it, and there's all these beautiful girls ready to JUST HAVE AWESOME SEX with you all the time. And then you go out with Madonna a few times and she wants to have sex with you and YOU DON'T SLEEP WITH HER?
faggot.
right.
DON'T PISS ON ME AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING, YOU CUBAN WHINER-MAN! A REAL CUBAN WOULD NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANY OF THESE THINGS. HE WOULD LIVE HIS LIFE LIKE A REAL MAN. IT'S CALLED MACHISMO, YOU DOUCHE. LOOK INTO IT.

25. Whisper of Evil by Kay Hooper
Finally, the last one. This one was about a small town, Psychic FBI agents, a serial killer, and of course the obvious love story plot. Geez, formula much? You know, for once Kay, I'd like to see one where the guy was psychic and the girl wasn't. And also, I'd like the two main characters who are in love but not willing to admit it because of SOMETHING FROM THEIR HAUNTED PAST to be fat and ugly. I'M TIRED OF PERFECT-LOOKING PEOPLE. Make the dude a fat mouth breather and the chick have bad teeth and a big honking nose. Can I get a little reality in my contrived fiction please?

24. The Full Cleveland by Terry Reed
This was a novel. I thought it was going to be chicklit because of the cover art which featured quirky panted legs and shoes. Maybe it was chicklit but it wasn't what I would consider chicklit. It was a coming of age story that blah blah blah. I hate when they say "coming of age story". It's about a girl in a big, rich catholic family and then they go broke at the end. But also, while reading the book I was thinking that the family wasn't really as rich as they seemed to be, so it wasn't that hard to guess what was going to happen, and even when it does happen the girl doesn't act weird about it either.

It was okay. Had some really great sentences. But also? no. It wasn't that good. What I mean is, it wasn't written clearly. If I had turned that book in to one of my high school teachers or college professors they would have said, "Hey, this is a GREAT first draft. Just clarify these 900 parts for me, m'kay?"

I couldn't tell when the book was supposed to be taking place...late '60s...no, wait, mid-'70s? '80s? Also, I hate not knowing what the main character looks like. I mean, yes, she mentioned she had a crew cut...but that's for only a bit of the book and would it kill you to tell me what these people look like?! Everything was so vague and annoyingly so.

I was going to pass this one on to laura, but now I'm not because the last half of the book was blah.

23. FBIgirl: How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code by Maura Conlon-McIvor
This was a memoir. And it was very good. It's about this girl who grows up in California with her family in the '60s and '70s and her dad is an FBI agent. She loves her dad. Her dad though, seems a little weird to me. He rarely talks. I dunno. She would ask him a question and he wouldn't acknowledge her. She was all, "Well, that's my dad. I knew he was talking to me in code." and I'm thinking, "No honey, he's just an asshole."

The girl reminds me of me. She was all into Nancy Drew and baseball and she would spy on people. Of course, for me it was Hardy Boys all the way.

It was a really sweet, sweet book. And look, there's a website! www.fbigirl.com

You should read this book.

22. Hiding in the Shadows by Kay Hooper
CONTAINS SPOILERS THAT YOU NEED TO READ ABOUT SO YOU WON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID.
I think I'm finally done with Kay Hooper. This one was "eh". A lady wakes from a coma and she has amnesia. She tries to piece stuff together and people are trying to kill her for some reason and there's a guy and they do it. And oh, the lady who she's trying to find is dead. Let me say that again, THE LADY. WHO TALKS TO HER TELEPATHICALLY. IS DEAD. THE WHOLE TIME. SO DO NOT BE SURPRISED LIKE ME. BECAUSE LET ME TELL YOU. I FELT BETRAYED. Oh, and since I've spoiled that much for you let me just tell you the whole ending here, so that you won't waste time reading this crap. THE DEAD LADY AND THE AMNESIAC SOMEHOW BECOME ONE. AS IN. TWO LADIES ENTER; ONE LADY LEAVES. BUT WAIT, THE LADY DOESN'T ACTUALLY BECOME LIKE TWO WOMEN IN THE HEAD BUT MORE LIKE A THIRD PERSON. SHE BECOMES THE TWO AND YET, NOT, SO SHE IS LIKE THE ANTITHESIS OF BOTH. HOW DOES SHE REALIZE THIS? BECAUSE SHE CAN'T PLAY PIANO ANYMORE. I REPEAT: SHE CAN'T PLAY PIANO ANYMORE. That was the most retarded thing I've read yet. Kay Hooper, you are dead to me now, you're not a sister, not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you at the hotels; I don't want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?

Crap! There's one more Kay Hooper book left. I don't want to read it! Will Jaimie throw caution to the wind and NOT read the other book? Or will her OCD not allow her to leave a series incomplete? I bet you know the answer to that.
Shit.

21. Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
I've read this one before, but it was a couple of years ago, and I had totally forgotten about some of the funniest parts. This is one of Ms. Jacksonifyou'renasty's nonfiction books she wrote about raising her kids in the 1950s. It is such a funny book. Her kids are riots, and she tells a really good story. It's way different than her horror novels and while reading it you're thinking, "I can't believe she wrote The Haunting of Hill House AND this." I wish she would have written much more nonfiction stuff. Not that her fiction is bad, it's great actually. You should read some. They're very psychological.

Anyway, I'm rereading the second one, Raising Demons, but I probably won't finish it this week as Laura has given me a couple of books to read. Yay! Books!

20. Out of the Shadows by, you guessed it, Kay Hooper
Shut. Up.
This time I finally find out just who the hell Bishop and Miranda are. They've had cameos in the other books, but never their own storyline. Of course, if I had started with the first book of the first series then I would know all about it. But why be all chronological? This way it's like Quentin Tarantino is picking out the books for me. Or, something.

This one, like the last one...Stealing Shadows, I totally knew who did it as soon as the character was introduced. "He did it! I know it! I should just shut the book now. Save me some time." But no, I finished it. Go ahead, quiz me.

19. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I'm not sure if this book was good before or after Sylvia Plath killed herself. And I don't think that any of her friends or family could've been surprised that she committed suicide. Unless they hadn't read the book.

THE BESTSELLING NOVEL ABOUT A TALENTED YOUNG WOMAN WHO DESCENDS INTO MADNESS

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. But the book is sort of autobiographical, right? So maybe people did know she would probably kill herself. Maybe they were tired of her always talking about killing herself. Because let me tell you, I was sick to death of the main character, the autobiographical one, always talking about suicide. Yes, it was the 1960s and they didn't understand chemical imbalances so well. Yes, there are many ways to kill oneself. Yes, I see that you've thought of a ton of them. Yes, I even see that you've come pretty close to ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE NEARLY ALMOST KILLING YOURSELF NEVER. EITHER DO IT, OR GET HELP AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT. I NEED TO SEE SOME PROACTIVE BEHAVIOR YOU SPOILED LITTLE SHIT.

Which is why I'm not a counselor.

At the beginning she seemed kinda spoiled and all and then somewhere she kind of snaps and I'm not sure why. What was the breaking point exactly? Okay, I've changed my mind, yes, it was a good book, but no, I'll never read it again.

I might watch the movie.

18. All New People by Anne Lamott
This book is pretty wonderful. The characters are so real. And she writes so well. There's pain and humour and wonderful, wonderful sentences. I love great sentences. An example:

"I am living once again in the town where I grew up, having returned here several weeks ago in a state of dull torment for which the Germans probably have a word."

Another exemplo:

"In a way I've never quite understood, the veil tore an inch for me that day, like it does every so often, when in the midst of all that is mundane and day-to-day, there's suddenly a tiny tear in the veil, and you see the bigger and brighter thing, and then the veil repairs itself, and the day goes on as before."

The book is filled with wonderful sentences.
It's a short book, but it took me longer to read than I thought it would. In fact, I've read two of the Kay Hooper books in the time I've been reading All New People. But it's not a difficult book to read. Not like V. by Thomas Pynchon that I've been trudging through since January. My God, how many characters can you shove in a book?

So, All New People. Read it.

17. Stealing Shadows by Kay Hooper
Yes. I know. Another damn Kay Hooper thriller. Shut up. This one wasn't as good as Touch of Evil and Sense of Evil. But it was far better than those romances. Um lessee, premise....premise...there's a psychic who works for the LAPD but then she gets one of her visions wrong and the killer gets away so she moves to some podunk town to live in an old house with her failure. But then! A serial killer starts killing serially in the podunk town! So she has to Face Her Demons From the Past and help the local police! And also, she falls in love! But wait! She's so emotionally scarred from....from...something, that she Needs More Time! But then her new lover almost dies, then she almost dies and then she's all, "hey i'm over it!" and he's all, "great!" and she's all, "i'm ready to get married now!" and he's all, "yay!" and she's all, "good thing, huh?" and by now he's turned psychic (WHAT?!) and he can read her mind (NO!) and holy jesus in god, "you're pregnant!"

It was actually a pretty good book until the last three chapters.

14., 15., 16. Enchanted by Kay Hooper
This is a shitty anthology of Ms. Hooper's first three romance books. They are really bad. Her thriller stuff is like 9,000 times better. Even she knows this, because she has a disclaimer saying that she wrote these books when she was "a child". Yes, Ms. Hooper, I believe that. However, that does not excuse your editor. All of the characters had to have strange names. I mean, could there not be a regular name like, Sam, Judy, Frodo? I mean, Donovan Knight?! Come on. Also, the word daunting was in the books more than once. More. Than. Once. And it was used in conversation. What? Look, if the setting had been Victorian England, then yes, sure, use daunting...use it more than once. But a book set in the present? And the characters use daunting in everyday vernacular? Is it just me here? No.

14. Kissed By Magic was by far the worst. It's about a business woman that is tricked into falling in love with her secretary (a man. no girl-on-girl action. pity. it would have made the story much better i'm sure.) who just happens to be the son of a rich family, and he doesn't even need a job he just wants to work for the lady. He tricks her into a working vacation and woos her and then she finds out that he's been tricky about who he really is but then comes clean and she still loves him even though he's a Great Big Lying Liar because now she knows he really loves her and it's not just for her corporation since he's already richer than she is.
What the fuck?
worst character name: Rebel Sinclair.

15. Belonging To Taylor was better than the first book because the characters were so witty and strange and funny.
worst name: Trevor King

16. Eye of the Beholder was dumb. It's like, this lady moves into a new house and the first morning there's a dude at her door and she opens the door and he says, "will you marry me?" and she's all, "and who are you?" and he's all, "who are you?!" and from there is just snowballs into disaster.
worst name: Devon York

They all have the exact same ending. They have sex. Then one of the characters is all, "I need more time." and then two weeks later they get married and have kids.

I went and read the customer reviews for this book on amazon.com. They all said how great this book is and how "real" the characters are. Um. Kill me.

13. Touch of Evil by Kay Hooper
The Library had another one of her books in and so i snatched it up hoping it was the first one. I'm sure that it's the second one, meaning, the one i haven't read is the first one, and i'll have then read them completely out of order. And I'm just anal retentive enough for that to bother me. However, it's just books. If reading them out of order is the worst thing that happens this month then really, I'm quite blessed, huh?
I did not enjoy this one as much as Sense of Evil. I liked the characters better in that story than this one. Its the same premise, paranormal FBI agents work with police to find a crazy killer. This time the police sketch artist was also kinda ESP-ish. Which helps her sketch the baddies.
Anyway, kinda blah.

12. Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue
This book, like 8 and 9 I checked out because I liked the cover. (shut up!)
It's a very good book. However, the 'brary was very sneaky. You know how they put stickers on the spine to let you know it's a mystery (magnifying glass), horror (skull), fantasy (unicorn), sci-fi (spaceship), or the newer Christian (a cross) book? This did not have a sticker on it so I figured it to be a regular fiction book. Not too fiction-y, no murders or ghosts. And the way the back of the book read it seemed like it was going to be more of a philosophical book.
Turns out, it was one of the Christian fiction type books. Those tricky Christians! However, it was really a good book. Sweet, even. I'd recommend it to the ladies. I mean, it's not a tear jerker, but it's not action packed either. A quick read, and it's got some good "struggling with the idea of God" kinda thing. And it managed to not be cheesy at all. Bonus!
Plus no weird sex. In fact, no sex at all.

11. Sense of Evil by Kay Hooper
A friend of mine who constantly reads recommended this book to me saying, "If you like Patricia Cornwell you'll love this."
Well, I guess, if Scarpetta was a psychic FBI agent who worked with a bunch of other extra-sensory agents in a secret department of the FBI, and if she wasn't a total cold bitch, well then yes. And also, no Pete Marino. Am I the only one who likes Marino?
Anyhoo. This book was good. Now, I'm not psychic or anything, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this is the third book in a series. Shit.
I hate when that happens.
This book did have much witty dialogue, and the characters never took themselves too seriously, which was also a plus. If the 'brary has the other books in the series I'll probably read them.

10. Shadows of Myth by Rachel Lee
This was a fantasy book that I checked out basically because I liked the cover. Look, I know. Seriously... I know. You are preachin' to the choir.
I don't read a lot of fantasy (or sci-fi) because I hate the parts where the author makes you learn about a whole new world with crazy politics, magic, and words that look strangely celtic-egyptian. This book wasn't so bad but when I saw that the first page was a map i said, "Well, shit."
Since I don't read many of these books I'm not sure if the plot was cookie-cutter for the genre or not. However, the names of the characters were quite, um, I don't know how to put it. I'll let you decide:
Sara Deepwell
Bandylegs
Archer Blackcloak
Tess Birdsong
to name a few. I mean, hello? Deepwell? Is that her porn name?

9. Shadow Game by Christine Feehan
This was total pulp. I just needed something easy to read at the moment. I would not ever recommend this book to anyone who can read. The plot was about a military psi-ops group gone wrong and sex. Mostly sex. Psychic Dream Sex, Sex Sex, and Oral Sex. Also, Sex.
I blushed.
I thought to myself, "Who is this lady author with all the sex in her head anyway?" so i flipped to the back to see if she was brave enough to put a picture of herself on her Excuse To Write About Incredible Sex That Can Not Happen Ever or "book" as she probably calls it. And yes, there's a picture. And oh my goodness, she looks like a sunday school teacher or something wholesome like that. because, you know, obviously.
It's always the quiet ones.

8. Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
This is Ms. Lamott's sequel, if you will, to her other book Traveling Mercies. TM is probably in my top 10 favorite books. Plan B was pretty good. I love her honesty. She's so real about things. I wish I could write like her. She has written several fiction books as well, but I like her nonfiction better. It's similar to Shirley Jackson's nonfiction about raising her kids (Raising Demons), only Ms. Lamott talks about God, spirituality, her frustration with G. W. Bush, as well as her son. You laugh, you cry, and then you laugh some more.

7. Ten Rings: My Championship Seasons by Yogi Berra and Dave Kaplan
I know what you are thinking. "Another Yogi book? Is he paying you?" No, silly. I love reading biographies of baseball players and the Mickey Mantle book I wanted to read was checked out so I opted for this newer Yogi book. It's a pretty good book. Yogi was in 14 World Series in his 17 seasons as a Yankee. The Yankees won 10 of those 14 Series. He talks about each of those World Series and it's kind of neat because he was the catcher so he was right in the middle of everything during the games. He also has 14 World Series records. 14! This really blew my mind. I mean, I knew he must've been a decent player, but I had no idea that he played in so many games. So if you're ever on a game show and the question starts out, "Who holds the World Series record for...?" I'd just guess Yogi.
Unless the question ends with, "... pitching a perfect game?" Then the answer is Don Larsen (in 1956). And also, Yogi caught that game.

6. YOGI It Ain't Over... by Yogi Berra and Tom Horton
Yogi Berra is one of my favorite baseball people. I say people and not player because Yogi was both a player and a manager (and even a coach). This book was an autobiography, and i prefer an autobio to a plain old bio. Why? I don't know, they just seem better. I did enjoy this book. However, Yogi, you apologize too much in this book. Everytime you talk about someone you say, "I'm not putting him down." or "I mean no disrespect." to the nth degree. EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU'RE THE NICEST GUY IN THE WHOLE WORLD, OKAY? STOP BEING SO DAMN REDUNDANT AND JUST SAY WHAT YOU'RE SAYING.
hee.

In the book he points out that through the years many people (in the media) have called him dumb or stupid (liz). That is the saddest thing ever. I don't think you're stupid. I think you're an awesome dude. And i think you're doubly awesome for sticking it to George "douche bag" Steinbrenner.

5. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book I: The Very Bad Beginning
Yes. A kid's book. Shut up.
Okay, I know this is a popular series and all, but frankly, I just don't see the charm. I do like that there's lots of vocabulary lessons in the book, but I don't like that the book is basically about child abuse. No, really. You want to write a kid's book? Fine. You want to write a kid's book about child abuse? Fine. Great even. But for the love, abuse is a serious thing, m'kay? And? AND? THE PART WHERE THE EVIL, GREEDY UNCLE TRIES TO MARRY THE 14 YEAR OLD ORPHAN GIRL?! EW! HELLO?! MR. SNICKET, WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? ALSO, KIDS ARE NOT IDIOTS, AND WE ALL GET THAT THE BABY LIKES TO BITE THINGS. YOU CAN STOP REITERATING THAT ANY TIME NOW.

Perhaps I was expecting too much from a kid's book?

4. Granta issue 87 Jubilee
This issue had 3 stories in it that I loved.
1. Benjamin Pell Versus the Rest of the World by Tim Adams
2. part of a sceenplay for Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey by Martin Amis
3. The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

The other stories were good. But those three stand out in my mind the most.

3. Who Is This Jesus? by Michael Green
"Oh Great," you're thinking, "another God book. How swell."
I know. I should mix it up a bit, huh?
This book had some really great points, and it made me think about how I really should stop using the Lord's name as a swear word. Because that name has power.
Then the book went into Jesus's life. Which was interesting.
Then it went into a realm of crap that I thought was odd. The author is talking to people who are either not Christian or new Christians and one of his prayers that he suggests that they should pray starts out, "Jesus, if you are listening..."
Wha?
Dude, do you believe in God?
On a scale of 1 - 10, I give it a 4, and would not recommend it to new Christians or nonbelievers. Or if I did I would write out a HUGE disclaimer.
So there you go.

2. Are You Out There God? by Sr. Mary Rose McGready
This was another book Laura gave to me. I wasn't going to read it because the title made it sound like a High School Teenage Drama Book, and I'm just not in a mood to read something like that. Ever. So I said to Laura, "What the? Is this some kind of High School Book or something?"
"What? No-"
"OH MY GOD! IT WAS WRITTEN BY A NUN!"
"I know. That's why I thought you'd like to read it."
"AWESOME! A NUN BOOK!"
I have a 'thing' for nuns. I just can't get over how they're married to Jesus, and how they pray the same prayers over and over times 10 to the bazillionth power.
Anyway, the book was really good. It's basically these letters that this nun wrote to different people about the kids she meets at this rescue shelter she works at for homeless kids. It amazed me how this nun (and she's old, like, i dunno, at the writing of the book (1996) she had been a nun for 50 years.) would have to deal with street kids, who were dirty and jaded and mean, and she would always describe them as tiny and brave and beautiful. She never said a mean thing about those kids. However, she did not have one nice thing to say about pimps (lots of the girls she delt with were teenage prostitutes). In fact, at one point she was talking about this pimp and she basically said, "I'm sorry God, I still hate him." I thought it was cool that she was honest about her hate.

1. Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee
Laura gave me this book to read. It was a good book because it's short (64 pages) and very much to the point. He kind of reminds me of Joyce Meyer in that they're both "Here's what you need to do; do it." kind of people. Although when Joyce says it it's more like, "Stop being an idiot and do what you're supposed to do." The premise of this book is basically Christians should first learn how to sit (or rest) with God. Then they should learn to walk (live a righteous life in Christ) with God, and finally they should learn to stand with God. The standing business pertains to spiritual warfare. All of this he gleans from Paul's letter to the Ephesians
I kind of wish I had read this book 5 years ago.
Then again, I never would have read this book 5 years ago.