Explosive Eighteen

Posted by Matt

Janet Evanovich writes a series of mystery novels about a Jersey girl who finds herself a job as a bounty hunter, using her charm to overcome her lack of any real talent at catching bad guys. Each book has a number in the title, and this is the eighteenth. On the one hand, the audience is built in - we've read seventeen of these adventures, the odds are we're still on board, even if she does phone this one in. But the book has its importance a little elevated. For one, this novel follows Evanovich's best cliffhanger yet, and for another, this is the last book published before Katherine Heigl attempts to embody lead character Stephanie Plum on the big screen this spring. I am pleased to report that the book is a success, with the mild annoyance of an abrupt ending. At the close of the last book, Evanovich teased a resolution to the series's love triangle - Stephanie was going on vacation with ONE of her suitors, and we weren't going to learn who until the next book. I was expecting this book to start by telling us who got that other ticket, and I thought we'd read about that couple solving a mystery in Hawaii instead of the usual Trenton haunts. Instead, the book opens with Stephanie sneaking back home, and for a hundred pages, the author drops clues about what happened without yet revealing. It was a great way to hold my attention, with pacing worthy of the best primetime dramas as they return from summer hiatus. The rest of the book was the usual enjoyable action, comedy, and romance. Reading it reminded me of how she described morning sex - satisfying and enjoyable, but not a marathon because everyone has something else to do that day. This woman has learned what works for this series, and I recommend new readers take a look at One For The Money. By the time you get to Explosive Eighteen, you'll be thanking me.

Break the Spell (2 of 2)

Posted by Kurt

I started my review of Daughtry's new album, Break the Spell, here.  This is the rest of the review, starting with the most embarrassing track on the album.

Break the Spell (1 of 2)

Posted by Kurt


I am a semi-secret fan of Daughtry.  I liked his sound on American Idol, I loved his self-titled debut album, and I basically liked his follow-up album, Leave This Town.  I’m aware that I lose any snob street cred by liking his music, but I can’t help myself.  When I noticed an opportunity to pre-order his third album, Break the Spell, on iTunes, I put it on my credit card without a second thought.  And while, at this point, you already know whether or not you like Daughtry and are interested in a predictable third album, so it’s kind of stupid to write a review.. I am that kind of stupid, so here we go.

420 Characters

Posted by Kurt

This beautiful collection of hyper-minimalist stories is simply stunning.  Lou Beach presents himself with a simple challenge - make an impact in a Facebook status update, which means writing 420 characters or fewer - and succeeds in roughly 160 different ways.  Each page of this collection is one status update, each standing independently but some tracing faint connections through the volume in a vaguely Spoon River Anthology kind of way.  Some are complete stories with a beginning, middle, and end, and some are completely surreal images that don’t have an obvious surface-level connection, but most are single rich images that suggest much larger stories.  I have been madly in love with minimalism since reading a Chuck Palahniuk essay about Amy Hempel (and then devouring each of her collections), and most of Beach’s work compares well with the best of Hempel’s creations.  Beach clearly understands exactly how to cultivate just the most evocative details of a scene, like a cowboy realizing that all of his lover’s letters have taken on the aroma of campfires, a child absorbing the warmth of a small wooden bridge while dropping pebbles into the stream below, or three lines of dialogue that suggest the overall shape of a passionate argument.  

Comics roundup 11/2/11

Posted by Matt

Mostly new business with the X-Men as the rest of the comic world shakes off that last crossover...

The Song is You

Posted by Kurt

This fascinating hipster love story isn't quite as charming as (500) Days of Summer, but I was enchanted by it anyway. The main protagonist (Julian) is a director with a self-consciously astounding collection of music on his iPod, and the novel is generally about his love for Cait, a young Irish rock star on the rise. Their courtship is truly unique, as he gives her hard advice to make her a better artist, and she begins writing the next steps of the relationship into her songs. As the love story develops, though, the book gets more complicated in unexpected but strangely inevitable ways. He follows her around like a man in love, and Phillips is a strong author who is able to subtly shift perspectives and introduce enough doubt to make the reader uncomfortably confront the idea that he may also be following her around like an unwanted stalker. What if, for example, an anonymous message was from some other admirer? What if he is creating his love's reciprocal feelings from inside his own head? It is occasionally nauseating and often creepy and kind of exactly how I think hipster love goes.

Run For Your Lives! (3 of 3)

Posted by Kurt


He is tall, with very short hair and a generally thoughtful expression.  He wears a tattered suit covered with blood.  She has a beautiful dress, like a glass of champagne, that would be more presentable if not for the occasional bloody stab wound.  Her hair is an enormous frizzy white wig, and it looks like the only part of her costume untouched by blood.  They are ready for prom, and very much in love.  When humans appear, they stand next to each other as they lurch after stragglers, but in their down times, he stands with a hand casually resting on her hip.  In the morning chill, his shredded jacket offers little warmth, but it’s on her shoulders when they don't have to perform.  When her wild hair begins to bother her, he tears a strip of “caution” tape from the end of a barrier so that she can tie it back, and when she wants it to go wild again for a later wave of humans, she ties the tape around her ribs.  In the warmth of the early afternoon sun, they curl up together on the grass, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.  When a young human woman dashes shrieking through the zombie horde in an.. impractical costume.. the zombie prom date turns to her boyfriend and mutters an observation about the runner’s motivations for her wardrobe choice, then gives him a grin that is made just a bit more charming by the shine of fake blood that covers her jaw, neck, and chest, like she has just aggressively imbibed spiked punch directly from the bowl.  From time to time between waves of runners, the zombies making small talk will glance at the prom couple and confirm to each other that we are all completely in love with them.