I might as well just move in.

[apocalypsos]

I was at Panera this morning again, which should amuse the hell out of my co-workers. And yeah, I can't keep doing that at the very least because I don't have bunches of money to toss away on Panera cards (we had a state-of-the-business meeting to discuss the new increase in how much we'd pay for our health insurance last night and the general consensus was, "We can has cost-of-living increase nao?", which the VP said they were thinking about, and yeah, think harder, man in outfit that costs more than my rent), but I'm probably going to end up going there as much as I can manage, if only because it's a really comfortable atmosphere for me to write in.

Also, the staff here today was incredibly amused because after they unlocked the doors at 6:30 a.m., five different cars showed up and the place was so freakin' crowded. You know, for bright and early in the morning.

But, yeah, I'm trying to encourage myself to write more (which seems to be working) with that and by picking up more paperbacks to read, which I've been kind of laying off of in the past few months in favor of fanfiction. I keep trying to read at work on my breaks but that's difficult because Jess smokes and it means walking outside with her, and then trying to carry on a discussion with her at the same time, and then walking back in, when I'd rather just curl up in a chair at one of the desks and read my damn book.

Anyway, I read "Howling At The Moon" the other day, which is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. I'm not exactly sure I want to pick up the other two when they come out. One of the Amazon reviewers described it as a bit thin, and ... yes, that's exactly the phrase I was looking for.

The main character is a female werewolf living in Austin and working as an auditor whose mom gets framed for murder. Plus, there's this handsome new werewolf in town, who's distracting her from her awesome human boyfriend. I love a good female protagonist, but ... I don't know, this one just kind of bored me. Not to mention the fact that this book contained the two things guaranteed to turn me off with most books featuring female protagonists:

1. "I have to choose between two handsome men! Oh, no!" You know what? Bite me. Oh, poor you. All the boys wants you. Isn't that a hard life?

2. Women who keep talking about their manicures or shoes or designer dresses or whatever. Again, bite me. Granted, it's mostly the best friend of the protagonist who's like that in this book, but she's in most of it and it bugs the hell out of me. Yes, tell me more about how worried you are about the expensive clothes and nice shoes you can buy that I can't afford. Unless you're Paris Hilton and your conspicuous consumption is insanely ridiculous, I'm not even going to find any amusement in that.

Also there was one big thing that annoyed me and kept throwing me out of the story. There's a lot of comments made by the protagonist about how she's got to shave her face or her legs or whatever all the time when "that time of the month" comes around, which I guess would be an amusing quirk if it weren't for the fact that the same character who keeps ducking into the bathroom during her workday to shave the rapidly growing hair from her legs claims to have bare legs as a werewolf. Wait, what? You were just in the bathroom shaving them! All of a sudden they're just not growing hair when you're a wolf WHY, exactly?

So, yeah. Probably not going back to that series.

Okay, now I have to go write, which should be really easy considering the cat just crawled into the butterfly chair and spread out across my arms.

Comments

[sunktheglow.livejournal.com]

First things first, I wanted to say hello because I recently added you. I have stumbled upon your fiction and I wanted to friend you so I can keep up with it! Secondly, that book does sounds a little bit annoying. Kind of reminds me of anything Laurell K. Hamilton has ever written, though primarily for the first reason. I swear, I would like to see one of these novels with a dog ugly female lead. That or a gay one. And ew on the shaving legs multiple times a day thing. Just ew.

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

I immediately thought of Hamilton when I clicked the link to Amazon too.

[sunktheglow.livejournal.com]

I think there was one book she did that I liked. It was the one with Edward in it. And there as no sex, which was totally refreshing. That is something I'd never thought I'd say.

[unexpectedgift.livejournal.com]

--Random saw-you-on-a-friends'-page comment!--
OMG I used to work at a Panera. It's actually deeply unsettling to wake up at 4:30 to get to work at 5 and then open at 6:30, only to be SWAMPED with customers. Of course, the one I worked at was waaay in the middle of the 'burbs, so it was really odd--I mean, these people own McMansions, so it should make sense that they go to work around, say, 10AM.

Re: "Howling at the moon"--Wow. I thought nobody stumbled onto those hideous books but me.

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

She named the character Garou. How cliche is that? It's worse than Lupin.

Well, she shaves, so obviously that's why they're bare!

The shoe thing reminds me of the book version of "The Princess Bride". It's subtitled "The Good Parts Version".

The premise is that the writer (of "the good parts version") was read the book by his grandfather numerous times as a child. He buys the book (at great expense) for his kid; only to discover that his grandfather used to skip 2/3rds of the book. So he edits out the bad parts and publishes it. There's one part where the "author" interrupts the story to say "What followed was 34 pages concerning hats."

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

You know what gets me about the name thing? It's that she got the last name from the French werewolf father she never met, Luc Garou.

Apparently neither her nor her mother have ever thought, "Luc Garou? Boy, that sounds a lot like loup garou. I wonder if it's an alias." *headdesk*

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Have you read Sparkle Hayter's Naked brunch (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400047437)? Mousy secretary who gets bitten by a wolf, but good.

also, if you want something with werewolves, a strong female protagonist that isn't flight and fluffy, [Kit Whitfield's Bareback (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bareback-Kit-Whitfield/dp/0099499452/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205401431&sr=8-1)is excellent Bareback is the slang term for someone who doesn't turn into a werewolf in a world where 99.6% of the population do and the narrator is one of them. It's actually one of the few books that calls itself "gritty" and *earns that, instead of using it as a slang term for "Gratuitous and tasteless violence! Aren't I impressive with my unflinchingly badly written porn!"

It's harsh, but well-written.