Review: Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
First published: January 15th, 2013
Source: NetGalley
Format: eARC
Pages: 240

Goodreads Summary:

Anna remembers a time before boys, when she was little and everything made sense. When she and her mom were a family, just the two of them against the world. But now her mom is gone most of the time, chasing the next marriage, bringing home the next stepfather. Anna is left on her own—until she discovers that she can make boys her family. From Desmond to Joey, Todd to Sam, Anna learns that if you give boys what they want, you can get what you need. But the price is high—the other kids make fun of her; the girls call her a slut. Anna's new friend, Toy, seems to have found a way around the loneliness, but Toy has her own secrets that even Anna can't know.

Then comes Sam. When Anna actually meets a boy who is more than just useful, whose family eats dinner together, laughs, and tells stories, the truth about love becomes clear. And she finally learns how it feels to have something to lose—and something to offer. Real, shocking, uplifting, and stunningly lyrical, Uses for Boys is a story of breaking down and growing up.

I'd recommend this for an older audience (16+).

My Rating: 2.5 / 5

First thoughts:

Turning out to be completely different than I expected, Uses for Boys still was a fast and easy read, but had many moments and scenes that disturbed me. Considering the almost explicit sexual content in some parts, I'd definitely recommend this for older teens.  

More detailed:

... the plot and the narration:

Even before I started reading Uses for Boys, I knew that it wouldn't be a light contemporary read. I had heard that it can be slightly depressing and heart-breaking, but since I knew what to expect I didn't mind that. Of course I felt very sorry for Anna, who was simply trying to find someone she could call family. The first person narrator tells the story from her point of view and while it focuses very strongly on her thoughts and less on dialogues and "action", I found it quite easy to read.

Nonetheless I was very surprised by the amount of sexual content in Uses for Boys. I'm definitely not a prude and usually prefer more "grown up" Young Adult novels, but at times I was a little bit disturbed by certain scenes in this story. Considering Anna's life circumstances it's somewhat easy to understand that she's looking for love and approval in people she should have just ignored, but I'm not sure whether this is the right reading material for younger teens.

 ... the characters:

Anna thinks back to the first years of her life very positively, remembering a mother who loves her more than anything. But with her mother's continuous quest to find the love of her life, Anna starts to feel left alone. This makes her try to find love again, searching for the perfect boyfriend. While I definitely felt sorry for her, I sadly couldn't connect with her completely. I'm not sure though whether this is because of the slightly unusual style of narration or Anna's naivety. Sadly I could connect even less with the secondary characters, who we don't get to know very well thanks to the focus on Anna's point of view and emotions. To be honest, I wanted to hate most of them since only very few seemed to really care about the poor girl.

 ... everything:

I'm not exactly sure how to categorize Uses for Boys. Considering Anna's age and the coming-of-age feeling to the story, I'd call it a Young Adult novel. But the sexual content is a little bit hard to ignore and would rather make me think of this as a mixture of Young and New Adult. All in all, it was a very easy and fast read, but it's definitely not one of my favorite books. Though if you're looking for something unconventional and unique to read, you should definitely give this a chance.

Buy this book:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Have you read Uses for Boys? If yes, what did you think about it?
If no, do you plan to read it?
Carina

WINGNUTDAMMERUNG (Twilight of the Wingnuts)?

So, within a few days, the House passes a bill raising the debt ceiling without the draconian spending cuts the Teabagger Caucus  claimed were an absolute condition for such a raise; Sarah Palin gets ignominiously dropped by Faux News; the Defense Department lifts the ban on women in combat; Republicans and Democrats in the Senate get together on an immigration reform package that provides a "path to citizenship" for the undocumented; and the Boy Scouts of America are reported to be actively considering lifting the ban on gay members and scout leaders. A former Romney adviser admits that "the culture wars are over and Republicans largely lost."

Now, I've been fighting these wacked out, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, everything-but-them-phobic nutballs for so long, I'm not taking a victory lap just yet. There's still a lot to do. But you've got to admit, it's the best time to be a liberal  that we've seen in  a long, long time.

Debt Ceiling Crisis? What Debt Ceiling Crisis?

Latest Newspaper Column:

You know, it would be very easy to make fun of Orange John Boehner and the House Republicans over their capitulation this past Wednesday on the debt ceiling.

You may have missed the story, because the media were more obsessed in the past week with a much more important issue- namely, "Who knew that Beyonce lip-synced the national anthem, and when did they know it?"

So in case you've forgotten what the debt ceiling fuss was about, let's review.

First, just as they did during the fake "fiscal cliff" crisis, the so-called "deficit hawks" of the GOP blustered and puffed up their chests and insisted that yes, by golly, they were perfectly willing to destroy the country's credit rating and plunge us back into recession if they didn't get massive spending cuts in exchange for agreeing to pay the bills we already have.

Then, when the president said he wasn't going to knuckle under or negotiate again in the face of that kind of terrorism, they went completely hysterical, howled, "OMG! OBAMA IS WORSE THAN HITLER!" and vowed a fight to the death. So, as you can no doubt see, it'd be easy to mock them when they meekly cave in and pass a three-month extension of the debt ceiling without a single spending cut.

But I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that because I think that on the rare occasion that the Republicans act like grownups, they ought to be commended for it. Besides, the one condition they did come up with actually contains the seed of a good idea.

The bill contains a provision that any house of Congress that doesn't pass a budget by April 15 doesn't get its pay. Unfortunately, the 27th Amendment says that "No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened," so the best they could probably do would be to temporarily withhold their salaries - not, say, donate them to Planned Parenthood or the NRA or something like that.

But hey, it's a start. And at long last, we'll finally get the Republicans to do two things: (1) admit that while the president can propose a budget (and has), budgets are made by the legislative branch, and that talking about "Obama's spending" is disingenuous at best; and (2) finally come clean on exactly what it is they want to cut.

Up until now, the GOP line has been, "You Democrats have to give us spending cut proposals, so they look like your idea." They do this because they know if people saw what they really want to cut, they'd be even less popular than they are now. But now they're stuck, which is a good thing.

The only problem I have with the "no budget, no pay" idea is that under the current proposal, if one of the houses comes up with a budget, any budget, its members get paid. There's no real incentive for the Republican-controlled House to come up with a budget they know has a chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, and vice versa.

Indeed, both the House's Paul Ryan and the Senate's Patty Murray have vowed to quickly come up with proposed budgets, each of which is pretty much guaranteed to give the other house's majority party the hives.

So here's my idea: If a budget isn't passed by both houses and signed by the president by April 15, nobody gets paid. Not the senators, not the representatives, not the president. No Democrats, no Republicans, no independents. If they don't come up with something everyone can live with by May 1, then the sergeants-at-arms of both houses will be ordered to remove all the chairs from the House and Senate chambers and all legislative offices. Let 'em work standing up. (I confess, I stole this last part from a legendary tale of a crusty old judge trying to motivate a hung jury to make a decision.)

If that doesn't work, by May 15, we chain the chamber doors shut with all of them inside. No budget by June 1? Cut off the air conditioning. If you've ever been in D.C. in the summer, you know what that means. We'll either get a budget arrived at by fair negotiation and compromise, or we'll need to elect a new Congress.

Frankly, I could go for either one.

Fictional Distractions of the Week #56 (Special Edition - Help me decide)

Welcome to Fictional Distractions of the Week. It is inspired by Book Journey's It's Monday! What are you reading? and Fiktshun's My Reading Pile and it will show you what I'm planning to read during the next week.

The books I plan to read this week:

At first, I'll finish reading Hooked by Liz Fichera. I'm about 25% in while scheduling this post and so far I'm definitely intrigued enough to want to continue reading as fast as possible. I don't know much about golf and while I would wish for more explanations, it's not really confusing and very easy to read. Hope it'll continue to be like this.

Afer that I'll finally be reading Stealing Parker, which I've been wanting to read for the longest time. Since I'll be participating in the third book's blog tour in March, I really want to read this installment first, even though I doubt it's necessary since they're "just" companion novels.

And because I just cannot decide, I'll let you choose my third read for this week:

Which book should I read?
	Awake at Dawn by C.C. Hunter
	Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey
	Wings of the Wicked by Courtney A. Moulton
	Embrace by Jessica Shirvington
	Fated by Sarah Alderson
pollcode.com free polls

What are your Fictional Distractions of the Week?

 

New Distractions #21

New Distractions is a weekly feature on Fictional Distraction, inspired by various memes that make us share the new books we got during a week, e.g. In My Mailbox by The Story Siren, This Week in Books by Pop Culture Junkie and Stacking the Shelves by Tynga's Reviews.

The books I received this week:

For review:

In the Shadow of Blackbirds | Ethan | Dare You To | Infatuate

Huge thanks to Abrams & Chronicle Books UK, P.T. Michelle, Harlequin UK (via NetGalley) and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (via NetGalley).

As I couldn't wait to delve into it, I already read and loved Ethan - you can read my review here. But I'm equally excited for these other über-awesome books and hope to get to read them as soon as possible. I was especially crossing my fingers to get approved for Infatuate, since I loved the first book and am dying to find out more about this world!

Which books did you get this week?

Carina

Short Story Review: Ethan by P.T. Michelle

Ethan by P.T. Michelle
Series: Brightest Kind of Darkness #0.5
Publisher: Self-Published
First published: January 11th, 2013
Source: Received from author
Format: eBook (Kindle)
Pages: n/a

Goodreads Summary:

Ethan Harris never thought monsters and darkness would consume his daily thoughts, but every night the same visions repeat in his dreams. He’s careful to project a semblance of normalcy, keeping the suffocating darkness locked inside. As much as he wishes he could focus on girls, sports, and cars like other seventeen-year-olds; nothing distracts him from his own demons or shines through.

Until Nara Collins crosses his path. The blonde fascinates and intrigues him, giving him a measure of peace he’s never felt before.

When Ethan discovers there’s more to Nara than she allows others to see, that she might have a unique secret of her own, suddenly his world comes into focus.

Review(s): Brightest Kind of Darkness (#1) | Lucid (#2)

My Rating: 4.5 / 5

What I thought about it:

I've been in love with this series ever since I read Brightest Kind of Darkness, so of course I had to read this prequel novella as well. It's told from Ethan's point of view and starts off even before he and Nara have met, which gives us an idea about what his life used to be like. Instead of just filling the time until the release of the third installment, it adds more dimension to the story, especially after we didn't get to see Ethan a lot in Lucid.

There has never been a doubt that Ethan is a great character, but witnessing certain moments from his point of view just makes me love him even more. His life is anything but easy, but he still seems to care more for others than for himself. Witnessing his interactions with animals is both heart breaking and beautiful.

Of course my favorite part is when he sees Nara for the first time and develops feelings for her. Those two are such a wonderful couple and I'm already crossing my fingers for them to get their happy ending. All in all, Ethan is a wonderful prequel for a series that will always be one of my favorites. If you haven't read Brightest Kind of Darkness yet, I'd recommend you to pick up a copy of these books immediately.

Buy this novella:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Have you read this series? What do you think about it?
Carina

Waiting on Wednesday #84

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pick is WINTER QUEEN by Amber Argyle.
It's going to be published on June 19th, 2013 by Starling Publishing.

Goodreads Summary:

~Becoming a winter queen will make Ilyenna as cold and cruel and deadly as winter itself, but it might be the only way to save her people from a war they have no hope of winning.~

Mortally wounded during a raid, seventeen-year-old Ilyenna is healed by winter fairies who present her with a seductive offer: become one of them and share their power over winter. But that power comes with a price. If she accepts, she will become a force of nature, lose her humanity, and abandon her family.

Unwilling to pay such a high price, Ilyenna is enslaved by one of the invaders, Darrien. While in captivity, she learns the attack wasn’t just a simple raid but part of a larger plot to overthrow her entire nation.

With the enemy stealing over the mountains and Darrien coming to take her to his bed, Ilyenna must decide whether to resurrect the power the fairies left behind. Doing so will allow her to defeat Darrien and the other invaders, but if she embraces winter, she will lose herself to that destroying power—forever.

I'm almost tempted to say that this cover would be enough reason to pick up Winter Queen. So gorgeous! But the actual reason why I put this onto my to-read list is the fact that it's been way too long since I've read an awesome faerie novel and this one sounds really great. Can't wait to find out more about it!

What are you waiting for this Wednesday?

 

 

The Red Dawn Fantasy

Well Said:

“… in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons?” I think we have to talk about what I call the Red Dawn fantasy. Red Dawn of course refers to the very entertaining film in which The Wolverines, a bunch of kids from a rural western community, heroically engage a division of Cuban paratroopers and their Soviet advisors who invade the United States at the start of World War III. If you ask those who insist they must own one or more assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols with high capacity magazines, the answer you’ll hear over and over again is: I want to be ready to defend America against the Commies, the terrorists, the immigrant invaders, the United Nations, and yes, even the government of the United States of America. That’s the Red Dawn fantasy. It’s time we saw it for the paranoid delusion it is, and stop giving craziness the legitimacy of the Second Amendment. The gun debate shouldn’t be about whether we need armed guards in every school, movie theater, and place of worship. I shouldn’t be about hunting rifles or weapons for home or personal defense. Take the Red Dawn fantasy out of the equation, and we’ll have no problem coming up with a sensible gun policy in America. But as long as it persists, and as long as we let a delusional minority dictate the terms of the debate, we’re accepting more mass shootings as the price we have to pay.

h/t: TPM Editor's Blog

SWORS: A Deadly Epidemic Returns

Latest Newspaper Column: 

An epidemic is sweeping America. It has visited us before, but this January it’s come early and this strain appears to be particularly virulent, even dangerous. 

Oh, you thought I meant the flu? Well, yeah, that’s bad too, but what I’m talking about here is another outbreak of SWORS: Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage Syndrome. 

As you regular readers know, SWORS is a disease of the central nervous system particularly prevalent among members of the American right wing. SWORS sufferers experience a significant degradation in upper level brain function, leading to a near-total loss of any sense of proportion. They become prone to manic outbursts of indignation and rage over trivial or even imaginary events.

The latest outbreak can be traced to a remark made by Vice President Joe Biden while speaking about the plan he was working on to curb gun violence in the wake of the horrific school shootings in Newtown Connecticut. Part of the plan, Biden said, might include “executive orders” by the President, actions taken under the power of his office that didn’t need to be voted on by Congress. 

Now, anyone who knows anything about this country’s Constitutional separation of powers would realize that what can be done purely by executive order is limited, and certainly do not include a blanket ban on semi-automatic weapons or high capacity magazines. You can at least rest assured that Barack Obama, a former Constitutional Law professor, knows this. This did not stop SWORS sufferers from immediately concluding that “the plan might include executive orders” meant that Biden was actually saying “OBAMA’S GONNA TAKE ALL YOUR GUNS! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!”

Reaction followed the classic pattern of SWORS, including overly dramatic public statements of irrationally disproportionate anger. Washed up rocker and gun advocate Ted Nugent claimed gun owners were going to be “the new Rosa Parks.” Tennessee resident James Yeager, CEO of a company that trains people in “tactical skills” and who has an online shop selling “tactical” equipment, put up a YouTube video in which he stared into the camera with what I suppose was supposed to be a look of fierce determination but actually more closely resembled psychotic rage. 

“I’m not [bad word] putting up with this,” Yeager snapped during a profanity-laced tirade. “I’m not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I’m not letting anybody take my guns! If it goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.” The state of Tennessee promptly suspended Yeager’s gun permit. Hint: when you go on YouTube loudly announcing that you plan to start killing people, don’t get all surprised if the state acts like you might be serious. 

Yeager later apologized. According to the Huffington Post, he stated "It's not time to shoot anybody," while sitting next to a lawyer (who no doubt, wished fervently that Yeager had come to him before openly making terrorist threats on the Internet).

When the proposed plan was revealed on Wednesday, the “executive order” provisions had nothing on confiscation or banning of any guns. They promised that the Executive Branch would, among other things, “nominate an ATF Director"; “develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education," and "issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations." Any  limitations on types of weapons or high capacity magazines would be left to the Congress, although the President did call upon the Congress to enact those, which given the makeup of the current Congress, is a pretty long shot, so to speak.  Expansion of the background check requirement to include gun shows stands a better chance, but the President still left that up to Congress, while issuing executive orders that would make information more readily available for those. 

 Hardly the sort of stuff to send the citizenry to the barricades. Sadly, however, another symptom of SWORS is the inability to hear what someone has actually said. Instead, the SWORS victim reacts to a voice which apparently only they can hear. Republican representative Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, for example, demanded that the Obama Administration “enforce current laws,” apparently not noticing that some of the executive orders called for just that: they require  that the government “maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime” and “require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.” RNC Chairman Reince Preibus called the plan an “executive power grab,”  while failing to specify a single one of the executive orders that does not fall squarely within the President’s Executive authority. 

Sadly, there is no known cure for SWORS, since it renders its victims incapable of logic or persuasion. Even more sadly, it’s not just the infected person who suffers. It’s all of us. 

Review: All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen (Blog Tour Stop)

All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen
Publisher: Entangled Teen
First published: December 11th, 2012
Source: Received from publisher
Format: eBook (Kindle)
Pages: 304

Goodreads Summary:

What if your life wasn’t your own?

Liv comes out of a coma with no memory of her past and two distinct, warring voices inside her head. Nothing, not even her reflection, seems familiar. As she stumbles through her junior year, the voices get louder, insisting she please the popular group while simultaneously despising them. But when Liv starts hanging around with Spencer, whose own mysterious past also has him on the fringe, life feels complete for the first time in, well, as long as she can remember.

Liv knows the details of the car accident that put her in the coma, but as the voices invade her dreams, and her dreams start feeling like memories, she and Spencer seek out answers. Yet the deeper they dig, the less things make sense. Can Liv rebuild the pieces of her broken past, when it means questioning not just who she is, but what she is?

My Rating: 4.0 / 5

First thoughts:

Even though memory loss stories can be found very often in YA books at the moment and can therefore become a little bit tiring, I thoroughly enjoyed All the Broken Pieces.  

More detailed:

... the narration and the plot:

I usually prefer stories told from a first person narrator, because they make it a lot easier to connect with the main charcter. All the Broken Pieces is told from a third person narrator who isn't omniscient though. At first this confused me since I'm not as used to this technique, but soon it no longer made a difference. We get to experience the world from Liv's point of view, who isn't a very reliable narrator thanks to her memory loss, which makes stories like this so very interesting.

As I already mentioned above, memory loss stories aren't unique and so far I have read a couple - some were good, some not so good. All the Broken Pieces is definitely one of the better ones, even though it cannot replace my current favorite. The problem I've had with its plot is the rather slow pace and the missing action. While it's mysterious, I found it to be more like a "simple" contemporary coming-of-age story with some elements that are supposed to keep us guessing. Nonetheless I loved those moments that hint at a big secret behind Liv's awful accident and I loved trying to find out about it.

... the characters:

Liv is a character you can't help but end up liking. She isn't too whiny even though she has enough reasons to be and tries to figure out the mysteries of her accident without forgetting that she has a life to live nonetheless. What I didn't like about her though, were her inconsisent reactions. There were moments when she completely overreacts, while I'm completely baffled after some scenes where her reactions are just too mild.

Spencer, too, is a very likeable main character and a great love interest for Liv. He has to work through his own issues, which makes him a very understanding friend and boyfriend for the poor girl, who never fails to support her when she needs it the most. The other characters we meet in All the Broken Pieces are diverse but none of them really stick out (except for Liv's parents maybe).

... everything:

All in all, I can definitely recommend All the Broken Pieces, if you're looking for an entertaining and slightly mysterious contemporary to your tbr-pile. It's a lot of fun to guess along with Liv and Spencer and find out what really happened. And while it's definitely possible to guess the truth (I wasn't too mistaken actually), I'm sure some of you will definitely be surprised by what truly happened.

This review is part of All the Broken Pieces' blog tour.

Cindi Madsen sits at her computer every chance she gets, plotting revising, and falling in love with her characters. Sometimes it makes her a crazy person. Without it, she’d be even crazier. She has way too many shoes, but can always find a reason to buy a new pretty pair, especially if they’re sparkly, colorful, or super tall. She loves music, dancing, and wishes summer lasted all year long. She lives in Colorado (where summer is most definitely NOT all year long) with her husband and three children.

Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Blog | Website

Waiting on Wednesday #83

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pick is BEAUTY by Nancy Ohlin.
It's going to be published on May 7th, 2013 by Simon Pulse.
ISBN: 9781442472655 | pre-order: The Book Depository / Amazon US / Amazon UK / B&N

Goodreads Summary:

Looks to kill for...

Ana is nothing like her glamorous mother, Queen Veda, whose hair is black as ravens and whose lips are red as roses. Alas, Queen Veda loathes anyone whose beauty dares to rival her own—including her daughter.

And despite Ana’s attempts to be plain to earn her mother’s affection,

she’s sent away to the kingdom’s exclusive boarding school.

At the Academy, Ana is devastated when her only friend abandons her for the popular girls. Isolated and alone, Ana resolves to look like a true princess to earn the acceptance she desires.

But when she uncovers the dangerous secret that makes all of the girls at the Academy so gorgeous, just how far will Ana go to fit in?

What are you waiting for this Wednesday?

Review: This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Speak (Penguin)
First published: May 27th, 2002
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 345

Goodreads Summary:

When it comes to relationships, Remy doesn't mess around. After all, she's learned all there is to know from her mother, who's currently working on husband number five. But there's something about Dexter that seems to defy all of Remy's rules. He certainly doesn't seem like Mr. Right. For some reason, however, Remy just can't seem to shake him. Could it be that Remy's starting to understand what those love songs are all about?

My Rating: 4.0 / 5

First thoughts:

Craving more contemporary stories, I decided to finally pick up one of Sarah Dessen's books that were so often recommended to me. And while I definitely enjoyed This Lullaby, I felt as though all the hype surrounding her novels had raised my expectations a bit too much.

More detailed:

... the plot:

As I don't read contemporaries too often, I always find the normalcy very refreshing. Without any paranormal secrets to reveal, I know that many people can be bored by realistic fiction, but This Lullaby has enough twists, turns and heart-breaking moments to keep me interested. And even though its narration still concentrates heavily on Remy's emotions, I was never bored.

... the characters:

I couldn't help myself but feel sorry for poor Remy who just cannot make herself believe in true love because of her mother's constantly repeated pattern of wedding and divorce. Therefore she ends up being slightly cynic, but that makes her a very entertaining first person narrator. Her attitude toward relationships can be a little bit tiring though. While she realizes that the relationship with Dexter is different than what she usually prefers, I would have wished for her to change more thoroughly toward the end.

On the other hand, Dexter turned out to be a very swoon-worthy love interest whom I was very happy to meet. While he's not the type of guy Remy usually falls for, I knew from the beginning that I'd love meeting a guy like him, because he never fails to make you smile and feel good. The secondary characters of This Lullaby are very diverse and entertaining, even though I had a hard time connecting to some of them - especially Remy's mother.

... everything:

While not completely meeting my expectations for This Lullaby, it still was a very enjoyable read that makes me want to read more of Sarah Dessen's books. It was a cute but still slightly heart-breaking contemporary read that could be the perfect beach read for the upcoming summer, if you're looking for a feisty main character and a love story that is anything but conventional.

Buy this book:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Have you read any of Sarah Dessen's books? If yes, which one would you recommend me to read next?
Carina

Excellent Review of Lawyers, Guns and Money at Men Reading Books!

Men Reading Books: Lawyers, Guns and Money by JD Rhoades: No matter what the population, information is power. Small town and county politics are being played out in rural North Carolina. Andy Col...

We're Not Going Platinum

Latest Newspaper Column:

With the recent crisis over the nonexistent “fiscal cliff” averted, the president and Congress seem inevitably headed toward another confrontation over the debt ceiling.

The Republicans, who inexplicably continue to be “led” by Cryin’ John Boehner, insist that they won’t allow the United States to borrow more money, even to pay its current outstanding bills, without an agreement to massive spending cuts.

The Obama administration, no doubt remembering that the last “deal” on the debt ceiling resulted in the very debacle we just went through, is saying, “No way. No deals. Do your job, raise the debt ceiling without conditions, the way you did without a negative word when there was a Republican president in office. Then we talk.”

If the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised, the mightiest nation in the world does what even a Third World banana republic should be ashamed to do: It goes into default. The government shuts down. So, with this disastrous showdown looming, some people have begun talking about an allegedly clever plan to save us, in the form of the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin (or, as I call it, the TDPC).

Here’s how it would supposedly work: A federal law, 31 USC § 5112, allows the Treasury secretary to order the creation of platinum coins in any denomination. The law was originally meant to authorize commemorative coins, but it’s not specifically limited to those.

So, TDPC advocates say, the president should just order the secretary to mint a single platinum coin, declare it worth a trillion dollars, and deposit it in the Federal Reserve. Hey, presto! We’re solvent again, and we move on.

Sounds completely absurd, you may say, and you’d be right. But as a number of people, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, have pointed out, what would be even more absurd would be to let the United States become the world’s largest deadbeat nation, able to pay its current outstanding bills but unwilling to do so.

Because, make no mistake, this isn’t about new spending; this is about Congress refusing to pay for spending it’s already authorized. As several writers have noted, it’s like a father declaring that the family’s run up too high a balance on the credit card, so he’s just not going to make the payments on the debt they have.

All that said, the TDPC raises some practical considerations that would need to be worked out. For one thing, how does one “deposit” a trillion dollar coin? Does the Treasury secretary just stick it in his front pocket and walk it down to the Federal Reserve? Does the Fed have tellers? Does he have to fill out a deposit slip? And hey, wouldn’t this be an open invitation to some supervillain to try to steal the coin?

Also, whose face goes on the TDPC? A number of folks have made suggestions: John Boehner; The President Who Must Not Be Named; and for some reason, swimmer Michael Phelps.

As for me, my choice would be late night TV host Stephen Colbert. No one, in my opinion, does a better job of saying ridiculous things with a straight face to make a point. And that is exactly what advocating the TDPC is: a ridiculous answer to a ridiculous impasse.

Some — not all — liberal commentators have urged the adoption of the TDPC, not least because of the possibility it would make John Boehner’s pumpkin-colored head explode. For its part, the Obama administration has shown no signs of actively considering this plan. Nor should it. It also shouldn’t bargain with the shrinking Teahadist caucus that wants once again to hold the U.S. economy hostage.

There’s a time and a place for discussions about spending, but it’s not at gunpoint. Congress needs to do its job and not send the country into actual bankruptcy today in the name of keeping it from going bankrupt tomorrow.

The last vote on the Senate’s fiscal cliff deal, arrived at after the House punted so disgracefully, showed that while there is still a crazy faction of the Republican Party willing to blow things up if they don’t get their way, it’s smaller than we originally thought. Some of them, thank goodness, will still vote not to wreck the country.

And if not — well, the wingnuts finally get what they want. A government that doesn’t spend money and does absolutely nothing for its citizens, one that’s so shrunken, in the words of wingnut icon Grover Norquist, that you could “drown it in a bathtub.”

Let’s see how much the people love them then, and how long before they realize they’ve overplayed their hand and they cave.

Call the bluff, Mr. President.

Fictional Distractions of the Week #55

Welcome to Fictional Distractions of the Week. It is inspired by Book Journey's It's Monday! What are you reading? and Fiktshun's My Reading Pile and it will show you what I'm planning to read during the next week.

The books I plan to read this week:

At first I'll finish reading All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen, which I'm very far into and liking a lot at the moment. While I wish that the plot would move a little bit faster, I really like the mystery surrounding Liv's past. If you like memory-loss stories, this could be a great one for you! My review will be up on Friday for its blog tour.

After that I want to read Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt. I really like contemporary books at the moment and this one sounds really interesting. I already know that it's not the happy read I first thought it would be and I've heard some mixed things about it, but I'm really curious to find out what I'll think about it.

And maybe I'll even get around to start Hooked by Liz Fichera, which is another contemporary that sounds like a perfect addition to my reading pile. I haven't heard a lot about it yet, but some quite good things, so I'm looking forward to read it myself.

What are your Fictional Distractions of the Week?

New Distractions #20

New Distractions is a weekly feature on Fictional Distraction, inspired by various memes that make us share the new books we got during a week, e.g. In My Mailbox by The Story Siren, This Week in Books by Pop Culture Junkie and Stacking the Shelves by Tynga's Reviews.

The books I received this week:

For review:

The Nightmare Affair | Things I Can't Forget | Losing It

Huge thanks to Tor Teen, Sourcebooks Fire, and William Morrow Paperbacks.

Slowly things are getting a bit more quiet for me, but in February I'll start another internship for six weeks which will keep me super busy again. Really hoping to find enough time to read and review. Luckily I only have one side job now, which at least gives me more free time during the weekend.

And YAY! for these awesome books. Can't wait to read them!

Which books did you get this week?
Carina

Review: Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Lux #3
Publisher: Entangled Teen
First published: December 3rd, 2012
Source: Bought
Format: eBook (Kindle)
Pages: n/a

Goodreads Summary:

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love.

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.

I'd recommend Opal to an older audience (16+) due to sexual content and violence.
This review might include spoilers for the first two books of this series.
Review(s): Obsidian (#1) | Onyx (#2)

My Rating: 4.0 / 5

First thoughts:

Believing Opal to be the last installment of this wonderful series, I expected to get closure. You can imagine how surprised I was to realize that there are still more sequels to come, which makes me very happy as this is a series I cannot get enough of.

More detailed:

... the plot and the narration:

The Lux series has never been boring, but with every new installment the plot's getting more and more interesting. Sadly I read Opal during a very busy time, which forced me to put it down again and again, but under different circumstances this would have been a book that's almost impossible to stop reading. Sadly this lack of time to read made me enjoy it a little bit less than I probably would have, so I'm definitely planning to re-read it closer to the fourth book's release date.

Other than that, I'm still incredibly happy with Jennifer L. Armentrout's style of writing - especially Kat's witty narration and the non-stop excitement. But despite the action in Opal, I can already tell you that I'm expecting the next book to be even more nerve-wracking. And once you've read that cliffhanger ending that both broke my heart and made my secret cliffhanger-loving part of my heart smile, you'll know what I mean.

... the characters:

Of course I cannot not mention Daemon, who's probably one of the main reasons why this series is so popular. Even though he's probably always been a sweet guy ever since the first book, he only truly starts to show this now and I love getting to know new sides of him. And considering Kat's reactions to him, I'm not the only one who likes the more open and slightly romantic side of Daemon.

Character-wise we also get to encounter some surprises. Some of those are slightly heart-breaking and will make you want to erase the words of the book and rewrite them, others will make you want to continue reading as fast as possible just to find out whether those people will continue to develop so positively.

... everything:

All in all, I really liked the third book of the Lux series and after that mean cliffhanger ending I cannot wait for the fourth installment. I'm not sure whether to recommend you to wait to read this until the release of the fourth book has come closer, because I'm pretty sure that Jennifer L. Armentrout will torture us again with a mean ending - and you'd just miss some very awesome Daemon-time. If you haven't even started reading this series, I don't even know why you're wasting precious time reading this review - grab a copy of Obsidian and start reading now.

Buy this book:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Do you love this series as much as I do? If you haven't read it yet, do you plan to do so soon?
Carina

Obama Derangement Syndrome In Full Glorious Flower

Latest Newspaper Column:

People sometimes ask me if I have trouble coming up with ideas for columns. The answer is, "sometimes."

But I know that all I have to do is fire up the trusty Web browser, head on over to Fox News or Drudge Report or any of a dozen lesser online right-wing loony bins, where I'll often find the latest outbreak of what's come to be called Obama Derangement Syndrome for our pointing and mocking pleasure.

Take, for example, a recent interview conducted in the Fox News Echo Chamber by Sean Hannity, who indulged in yet another one of those head-wagging rounds of the game "Ain't Obama Awful/Yes, He Sure Is" with syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Hannity started with his usual prep-school-bully sneer, complaining about the president of the United States taking a "tropical vacation" during the so-called "fiscal cliff" crisis. By "tropical vacation," of course, Hannity meant "spending Christmas with his family in the American state where he was born." This is something I'm sure quite a few Americans did, Hannity included.

But remember, we're dealing with Fox News here, the Hot Zone for Obama Derangement Syndrome. No activity of this president, no matter how normal or benign, is beyond the ability of a raging ODS sufferer like Hannity to be outraged over.

On to Krauthammer, whom I've found hard to take seriously since a 2010 column in which he inveighed mightily against a value-added tax (VAT) which he predicted was coming. He urged his right-wing readers to "get ready to fight" against the VAT.

Funny thing is, no one in Congress or the administration had proposed any such thing, nor have they since, nor are they likely to. For an ODS sufferer, however, exhorting people to fight against legislation that doesn't exist is a classic symptom of the disease.

Another symptom is a deep paranoia combined with extreme cognitive dissonance, leading the sufferer to ascribe to his imagined antagonist both complete incompetence and fiendish craftiness.

Krauthammer credited Mr. Obama with no less an accomplishment than "shattering" the Republican Party and plunging it into civil war: "He's been using this, and I must say with great skill - and ruthless skill and success - to fracture and basically shatter the Republican opposition. ... His objective from the very beginning was to break the will of the Republicans in the House, and to create an internal civil war. And he's done that."

Wow. Not bad for a mere "community organizer" who was playing golf on vacation. It calls to mind the Honorable John McCain's complaint during his unsuccessful presidential campaign against Mr. Obama that the blame for rising gas prices could be laid at Obama's feet, even though he was, according to other McCain ads, only the inexperienced junior senator from Illinois.

As I observed at the time, you don't want to make someone that powerful angry. Lord knows what he could do if he was really paying attention.

So, what does Krauthammer think the president should do, now that he has crushed his enemies, seen them driven before him, and heard the lamentation of their women?

Simple. He should give up. Accept Mitt Romney's non-plan of closing undefined loopholes to raise revenue, rather than raising tax rates on the wealthy, which was what the president said he was going to do during the election - an election, lest Krauthammer has forgotten, that he won. If Obama doesn't capitulate entirely, Krauthammer predicted, he'll be blamed for the "fiscal cliff" and go down in history as a "failed president."

Of course, Krauthammer also confidently predicted that Romney was going to eke out a win rather than losing in a landslide, because, according to him, Obama already was a "failed president." He also ignored the polls which show that more people will blame Republican intransigence for any failure to reach an agreement than blame the Democrats.

Here we have two more symptoms of ODS: (1) the unshakeable conviction that the consequence of losing an election is that the victorious side is still required to give you everything you want; and (2) the inability to learn from experience.

People like Hannity and Krauthammer never recognize that the last time they made predictions like this, they were wrong and the polls were right, and that maybe this blithe self-assurance is not confidence but delusional thinking.

Can ODS be cured? In the case of people like Krauthammer and Hannity, we may never know, because it's one of the few mental illnesses that's actually profitable for some of its sufferers.

But at least it gives me something to write about.