Graphics

ATTENTION: Craptastic graphics are due to Blog Ownership Switch-A-Roo. Chat amongst yourselves. It'll be fixed soon!

Quitters

Yesterday, Pam made this comment in response to the I Confess post: "Thank you for letting me know that I am not the only book lover in the world who was unable to finish Lolita! To be perfectly honest, that was the first book I never finished; up until I attempted to read it, I believed I had to finish every book I started, regardless of how long it took or how much I disliked it. I also thought Lolita was "gross" and decided that since I read for pleasure, if it displeased me, it was okay to stop." (If Pam had a blog, you better believe I would've provided a link, but alas! There was none to be found).

Her comment got me thinking about my criteria for quitting a book. I also read for pleasure, mostly, although I also like to keep my brain fit. I find that--with all the short, quippy, internety things to read--I have to work a bit harder to hang with dense literature. Sometimes I'll make myself finish a book I don't adore because I feel like I should love it. Example: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. How the world raved! Yet I...kept fanning the second half through my fingers, willing it to pass faster. Still. What if the problem lay within the shadowy corners of my own cheap-entertainment-saturated brain? Better press on, I said, and I did. Sometimes I'll keep reading a book I don't love if I have somehow managed to get most of the way through it, and I want to count it toward a reading challenge. I'm riddled with OCD a stickler for the letter of the law.

But there are books I cannot finish. They make me feel irritable, distracted, and vaguely panicked, like I'm holding a stretch in gym class.

When do you give up on a book? At the first whiff of boredom? Do you soldier on to the end no matter what? Tell me in the comment section and I'll mail one of you my copy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter. You'll love it. Probably. Most likely. (I'll throw the comment numbers into Random.org and pick a winner that way. I'll announce it on Monday morning's post).

Daisy Chain by Mary DeMuth

Even though I am a Christian, I am not a fan of Christian fiction. Not really. Really not. However, I have found a couple of Christian authors that positively spank the competition with their storytelling and artistry. Mary DeMuth is one of them. Below is a recent review I did of her novel, Daisy Chain.

Fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper keeps secrets, even when they blister his insides and break his heart. When his best friend, Daisy Chance, goes missing, he adds her disappearance to the list of wrongs he is too weak to right. In a story that is as chilling as it is redemptive, Mary DeMuth’s first novel in the Defiance Texas Trilogy explores the corrosive nature of family secrets. Set in the sweaty, sad town of Defiance, Texas in 1973, Daisy Chain haunts readers with its spare depiction of adolescence, shame, longing, sin, and redemption. DeMuth’s narrative voice captures Jed’s age and situation so deftly that readers will find themselves momentarily locked in the mind of a fourteen-year-old whose hands are tied between childhood and manhood, driven by equal impulses to hide and to rescue. “Bald Muriel,” a cancer victim with a bizarre past, and Hixon, an unlikely prophet, befriend Jed as he waits for the local police to piece together the clues about Daisy’s disappearance. As a result of their friendship, Jed finds himself dragged toward other revelations about his family, his neighbors, his friend, and himself. As if holding up a sobering mirror of reality, Mary DeMuth invites readers to venture to the very edge of hatred for several characters, before revealing the frailty, fear, and regret that motivates their behavior. While Daisy Chain resolves in that it points to “bleeding Jesus” as the answer to Jed’s brokenness, DeMuth leaves room for situational and philosophical development in the rest of the trilogy. Reminiscent of the literary giants, Harper Lee, and Francine Rivers, Mary DeMuth has written a masterful coming-of-age novel which reaches beyond itself in its confident hope of redemption.

I made myself sound sort of smarter in that one. You know. For fun. It was like trying on a crazy costume or playing in Mommy's makeup.

What about you all? Anybody read Christian fiction?

Self-Published Books?

Hola chicas. And chicos, if there are any chicos. I have a question for those of you who like to review books: Does anybody NOT have objections to reviewing self-published books? I'm not going to review them on here, singularly awesome though they may be, but should I pass anyone's name along for the ones that come trickling in? Email me at homegirlsbookblog@yahoo.com.

I Confess

Thanks so very much to everyone who has already made me feel so at home. This is the coziest corner of the blogosphere, for sure, and we all have J. Kaye to thank for that. Aside from her general awesomeness and warmth, J. Kaye wowed us all with her reading challenges, her reviews, and her technological know-how. The reading challenges will continue, and I know my way around a book review, but one area where our beloved Obi One Kenobi of Blogging has me beat is in tech-i-ness. I am something of an Approval-Seeking-Missile, so this defect had me lying awake at night, wringing my hands. Just kiddiiiiing. Not. Not kidding.

But being of a kind-of sound mind, I decided I would learn and thereby endear myself to you in two ways: A.) keep the linked-up posts coming, because those are fun; and B.) tell you all how I did it. Many of you already know all about Mr. Linky and html codes and what-not, but some of you are beginning bloggers, and will be stoked to have these areas de-mystified.

We all know that one way to forge ironclad friendships is by the telling of secrets. And if those secrets are unflattering, the tighter the tie that binds, no? Some of us were giggling in the comment section yesterday about books that we've read that we are super dee duper ashamed of reading. It could be that the book was dumb and we feared it would leave a smudge on our brilliant/edgy personas if anyone saw us reading it (...like the Amish romance I got sucked into). Or it could've been, you know, a bastardization of a great literature (*cough* Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife *cough*). Still, we found ourselves hunkered under the covers, reading at top speed.

I propose we begin our relationship with a confession. A confession involving Mr. Linky. (Oh, stop! It's too much awesomeness, Home Girl!) If you feel so inclined, tell us about books you're ashamed to have read. Or-or! As a funny permutation, tell us about books you've pretended to have read (Nabokov's Lolita. There! It's out. I never finished it. It's too gross.). It's funny, isn't it, the deep, twisty, strange relationships we have with what we read? Let's get this party started!

**Update**

Here's what you need to do: Write a blog post wherein you 'fess up to reading a book that didn't make you proud OR tell us about a book you've pretended to have read. Then, click on the "title" of your blog post. Right-click on the URL, and click "copy." Then, paste it in the URL section of Mr. Linky. Then, we'll all head straight to the related post, read it, belly-laugh, and feel great relief that we aren't the only ones.

Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo

This is a reprint of a recent book review I did. Is that...ghetto? I'm at death's door with bronchitis. Excuses, excuses. Be back soon.

I'm a fairly devoted Jane Austen fan. I'm not obsessively interested in the history of her personal life (because that would be cheating on my girl, Virginia Woolfe), but I've read all of her novels, as well as all published juvenilia. I may, or may not, have even skimmed through Mr Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues by Linda Berdoll, and continued to do so for quite some time after concluding that it was both raunchy and dumb. You really have no way of knowing. Naturally, I had to give Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo a fighting chance.

In this book, a young academic embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about Jane Austen's long-cloaked personal life after her own personal life goes belly-up. In the meantime, she meets up with an old friend-slash-flame (the only interesting kind), and is determined to shake off her preoccupation with heroes and happy endings, delusions she blames Ms. Austen for cultivating in her. Along the way, she learns a little something about the value of happy beginnings and worthy journeys.

I found this book to be...kind of cute. As an Englisher-at-heart who, by some cruel twist of fate, finds herself living in a townhouse in Kentucky, I appreciated some of the descriptive details of London, Bath, and the more rural locations that mark the "Austen Trail." I liked the allusions to Austen's novels. I didn't love the main chick, as I found her to be primarily defined by people's reactions to her. She didn't have a lot of spark. She 'felt tears pricking' a lot. She seemed to be always starving. Like, literally. For lunch. Not my fave qualities in a heroine. (I can hear the author screaming, "That was the point! She was a weakling, and she changed, you thick clod!" Still. It's my blah-ahg and I'll say what I want to, say what I want to...). I didn't feel compelled to quit the book, and it did give me some swoony, Jane Austeny feelings. Happy Reading!

Hi, Everybody (I said, heart racing and hands sweating...)

When J. Kaye passed this blog over to me, I felt a little like Tibby receiving the magic jeans from Lena in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares. My life, my background, even my books are different, but somehow this bloggy community still fits. Furthermore, this book blog seemed to find me at the exact moment I had—unwittingly--carved out a space for it. (Cue tinkling, magical soundtrack and gust from giant fan…). More on that later.

I am excited to follow your book trails and join with you in letting books challenge us, shape us, amuse us, pique us, heal us, wound us, silence us, and give us something to talk about. Can I get a witness? Amen.

It may take me a little while to get my bearings around here, but I am going to do my best to keep all the fun things going that made this place so great. I home school my three kids, so I will be blogging in the afternoon and evening, three or four times a week. I can’t wait to get to know you all.

Q for you: What have been your favorite things about J. Kaye’s Book Blog? What will you miss the most?

This Book Blog has a New Owner!

Please welcome Rachel Rigdon, the new owner of this book blog. Rachel also has another blog called Home Girl. She will also be taking over the Twitter account. @J_Kaye is now @Rachel_Rigdon.

This change of ownership will happen tomorrow. Rachel is ready to get going with this and I’m ready to devote all my energy to writing. If you missed that post, my reasons for leaving can be found here. Although I am leaving the book blog community, I’ll still be at GoodReads and my reviews are still posted on Amazon. For those interested in books I am passing on, I’ve opened up a Twitter account just for that. (Click on the highlighted text.) Followers there will get dibs on the books before I publicly post on GoodReads Swap and/or Paperback Swap.

Giveaways at this blog will now be run by Rachel. Click here for the current giveaway. Also, there will be a super cool giveaway announced as soon as that one is over. The event will be hosted by Rachel and sponsored by me. It will be my farewell giveaway to thank viewers as well as the new owner.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post those in the comment section below. Rachel will be taking over. I’ll remain in the background, but only for a short time. Rachel doesn’t need me hovering. :)

Giveaway: $25 US Amazon Gift Certificate or Up to $25 at Book Depository

Note: The ARC Giveaway has been postponed until the 13th of March. From now until then, a $25 US Amazon Gift Certificate or Up to $25 at Book Depository Giveaway will be offered. The guidelines are below. Comments that do not qualify will not be approved. Make sure you read carefully.

• If you are NOT entering this giveaway, please don't comment below. The comments are numbered and Random.org will be used to select the winner. Non-entry comments will be deleted.

• Only comment once.

• You must be a verified subscriber. Which means when I click on your name/Blogger ID in the comment section, I’d better see J. Kaye’s Book Blog under the blogs you follow. If not, it doesn’t count and your comment will be deleted. This will be the way ALL giveaways here are run.

• This giveaway is worldwide.

• Must be 18 years or older. If not, get a parent/guardian to enter for you.

• A winner will be selected on the 13th of March. The winner will not be notified by email. It will be up to the winner to send in the contact information.

This Week's Winner (February 13, 2010)

Winner of this week's giveaway, My Soul To Save by Rachel Vincent, is #96 Ruth Schaller.

It's now been three weeks in a row and the US winner hasn't claimed the $25 Gift Certificate/Book Depository, so another name has been drawn. A new number has been selected from Random.org and the new winner of the $25 US Amazon Gift Certificate or Up to $25 at Book Depository is #188 Sandra Stiles.

Winners, please send your shipping info to jkayesbookblog@yahoo.com before March 13th. If not, another winner will be selected. I'll confirm I received your address the day it's sent.

The next giveaway to be announced will be a $25 US Amazon Gift Certificate or Up to $25 at Book Depository.

Weekly Giveaway: My Soul To Save by Rachel Vincent

• If you are NOT entering this giveaway, please don't comment below. The comments are numbered and Random.org will be used to select the winner. Non-entry comments will be deleted.

• Only comment once.

• You must be a verified subscriber. Which means when I click on your name/Blogger ID in the comment section, I’d better see J. Kaye’s Book Blog under the blogs you follow. If not, it doesn’t count and your comment will be deleted. This will be the way ALL giveaways here are run.

• This giveaway is for US residents only. (For Canadian & other viewers living outside the US, there are gift certificate giveaways. One will be posted soon.)

• Must be 18 years or older. If not, get a parent/guardian to enter for you.

• A winner will be selected on the 13th of February. The winner will not be notified by email. It will be up to the winner to send in the contact information.