The Neighbors
Hey, remember last year when ABC made Work It? Or in 1996 when they made Aliens in the Family? Clearly ABC executives do not because they are making this show. The Neighbors is about a family that moves in to a suburban community only to discover that everybody who lives there is an alien.

666 Park Avenue
The impression I get is American Horror Story-lite. It’s about a haunted apartment building? Not sure what it’s about. Is it trying to be sexy? Or scary? Both? I dunno. The idea seems interesting, so I’ll check out the first couple episodes of this show.

Last Resort
This is one of those shows that sound both bad and good at the same time. After disobeying an order to nuke a nation, a nuclear powered US submarine goes rouge. They find themselves a quiet little island and declare themselves an independent nation. Then some drama happens. The trailer doesn’t impress me, but I still like the idea.

How to Live With Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life)
Seems like ABC’s answer to FOX’s Raising Hope. It also reminds me of The Middle. In the end it will probably just make me miss Cougar Town.

The Family Tools
“To get this family back in business, he’d better nail it.” Did you see what they did there? It’s about a family construction business and hilarity ensues once the klutz of a son takes over.

Zero Hour
Did you ever wish they would adapt The Da Vinci Code into a TV series? Well here you go! Zero Hour is something about 12 clocks, a clandestine society, nazis and demon babies. You know, it’s a show for the whole family.

How did Die Like a Girl came about?
JS: I was hanging out and drinking Old Crow with a drug dealer friend of mine, when she spontaneously starting telling me stories about her life. They were some of the funniest/scariest/craziest stories I’d ever heard.

Of course, for legal reasons, she swore me to secrecy, but it did give me the idea that a female drug dealer could be one hell of a protagonist. I’ve been trying to track her down so I can give her a copy of the novel, but she’s currently missing.

Who or what made you decide to publish Die Like a Girl as an e-book?
JS: It’s clear to me that e-books are the future. It’s also clear to me that most (if not all) of the major publishers haven’t really accepted this. They’re still pushing print and clinging to an antiquated system where it takes 18 months for a finished manuscript to make it to market. Self-publishing with ebooks (and Print-On-Demand) allows me to get my work out to readers instantly, avoiding the antiquated system altogether.

Both of your books feature a female protagonist whose world seems to start spinning out of control. Is there anything that draws you to that type of character?
JS: I think I’ve always seen the world as spinning out of control. I don’t know if this is the result of my Hollywood upbringing, or simply because the world REALLY IS spinning wildly out of control. As for why I tend to write female protagonists, I honestly have no clue. If only therapy wasn’t so pricey.

What’s your writing process like?
JS: Profanity ridden. I mean, to an absurd extent. It’s like a tick. I end up taking out something like five “fucks” a page during the editing process. Even so, there’s still a fuckload of fucking “fucks” all over the fucking fuck.

What’s next? More ebooks or are you retiring off all money you’re making by cutting out the middle man and self-publishing?
JS: The next book in the series (Kill Like a Girl) is already in the works. However, if I do start raking in that sweet sweet ebook cash, I plan to ditch the hoodie and start wearing a crested blue blazer wherever I go… possibly a yachting cap as well.

Title:

From the back cover:

Fiona Blacklock sells drugs. Not the hard stuff, but a rare hybrid strain of thousand-dollar-an-ounce marijuana called Biodiesel. Given that she lives in the left-wing Mecca of Portland, Oregon, the cops mostly just look the other way—if they’re not looking to score a little herb themselves.

Sure, she’s fifty grand in debt to a psychopathic loan shark named Barry the Hippie, but other than that, it’s really not a bad gig… that is, until she agrees to take emo pop star Finn “The Well-Coiffed Penis” Jameson along on a drug deal so that he can research a new indie film role. A drug deal that goes very very wrong.

Now Fiona has to figure out who set her up, who’s blackmailing who, where to environmentally dispose of a disemboweled corpse, how to seduce the single most attractive man in Hollywood… and, most importantly, whom to kill next.

Gun to my head, would I recommend this book? Yes

Review:
In a lot of ways Die Like a Girl reminded me of the book series with a dragon tattoo, only with a more Portland than IKEA vibe. Fiona Blacklock is a drug dealer who gets mixed up in some pretty serious situations after she agrees to take a pretentious indie film actor on a deal with her. Things go bad (naturally) and Fiona is left trying to stay alive while figuring out who set her up.

Die Like a Girl is a book I devoured within a couple of days of buying it. I did the same thing with Jonathan Selwood’s first book, The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse (review). It’s only 504KB long which I guess translates into roughly 294 pages. It’s still hard to me to gage a books length when it comes to e-books.

This book was really fun to read. It did start off a little slow since a handful of characters had to be introduced and the plot setup. But it picks up once all that is out of the way. For most of the novel I was in the same boat as Fiona and had no idea who was pulling the strings, so the book was hard to put down. As things kept getting progressively worse, Fiona is forced to resort to desperate measures in order to stay one step ahead of the game. One character in particular that I enjoyed was Fiona’s mother who is just completely insane, and I love her. She is incredibly worried about Fiona’s soul and desperately wants her daughter to see the error of her ways. Can there be a spin-off book featuring her? Please? No? Okay.

Closing Thoughts:
Hands down one of my favorite books this year so far. It never takes its self too seriously which helps suspend disbelief as Fiona’s situation goes from bad to worse through the entire book. I liked that it was set in my hometown and not some foreign country overly fond of the umlaut. Selwood’s hyper-satirized portrayal of his characters, from indie movie star to religious mother, are funny without being distracting. Die Like a Girl is worth your time if you enjoy a good action/mystery.

Gone Reading International is an organization that was recently brought to my attention. Their whole schtick is that they help fund libraries and other literary projects all over the world. Just listen to their mission statement:

“We envision a world where everyone has the opportunity to better themselves through the open pursuit of the dreams and ideals of their choosing. We envision a world where such opportunity exists for everyone, regardless of their country of origin or locale. Our mission is to bring the world closer to this vision by helping to ensure that everyone has open access to the reading materials they want and need.”

I’m a big fan of organizations that are pro-developing reading which is why I have no problems mentioning GoneReading on my blog. They donate 100% of their profits to help spread the word about words.

As a bonus, GoneReading was kind enough to hook me up with code to share with all of my readers for 25% off any purchase. That’s 25% off any of their t-shirts, bookmarks, book lights, journals, etc. Simply use the special coupon code: BOOKPIRATE25 (good until March 17th) when checking out. If you are having trouble figuring out what to buy, may I recommend one of these fine shirts?

Go on. Buy something for the reader in your life (or yourself) and help fund a library.

Title:

From the back cover:

ARTHUR WOOTEN’S SHORTS
A Stroke Of Luck: a short story

Chip Lowell is a sexy, spicy and self-confident celebrity chef who is just about to debut his first television cooking show. But in the blink of an eye, a life-altering incident forces him to change his menu and reevaluate himself and the people in his life.

The “Dear Henry” Letters

For two years Arthur was the humorist for the London magazine, reFRESH. In each issue of this gay publication he wrote a letter to his exasperating and fictional lover, Henry, explaining the never-ending reasons why they must end their relationship.

But as we all know, sometimes breaking up is really hard to do.

Gun to my head, would I recommend this book? Yes

Review:
One of the things I like about my Kindle Fire is that it allows to me to review books that I would have otherwise passed on. Take Arthur Wooten‘s ridiculously long titled mini-book, Arthur Wooten’s Shorts: Stroke Of Luck: a short story & The “Dear Henry” Letters. It’s not a full on book, nor is it a full short story collection. Instead it’s a single short story and a collection of humorous letters that had previously appeared in a reFRESH magazine.

With the the short story, Stroke of Luck, it follows the professional chef Chip Lowell who, on the verge of getting his own cooking show, has a stroke and is hospitalized. His life is forever changed by the fact that he now has difficultly moving around, affecting his cooking skills. On top of that, his boy toy stops paying him visits. As luck would have it, there might be a silver lining in Chip’s situation in the form of Allie, a sexy Cuban occupational therapist who moves in with him as his personal living assistant. As far as the story goes, it’s nothing special. It progressed exactly as I expected it to. However, the fun parts lay in the dialog between Chip and Allie. Their dialog is flirty and what they say is often not what they really mean. Their interaction is what moves the story along.

The second part of this book was the “Dear Henry” Letters. These were short letters from Arthur to his (hopefully fictional) ex-boyfriend Henry. Each letter is Arthur explaining why their relationship is over. If Stoke of Luck was predictable, “Dear Henry” was anything but. In each letter Arthur describes the insane actions of Henry, and things only get crazier as the letters go on. From misspelled tattoos to drag queens and falling off a cruise ship, Henry leads a very exciting life. It’s no surprise that Arthur keeps taking him back even though, as the reader, we know Arthur could do better/saner.

Closing Thoughts:
The biggest downside to this collection is how short it is. It’s 80 pages long, but there was enough room in the margins to draw a considerable amount of doodles (if only my Kindle would let me do that). As an English major, I know all the little tricks to make your paper seem longer than it actually is. While the quantity may not be there, the quality of the two sections of the collect do justify the 99 cent price tag Arthur Wooten’s Shorts sells for.

I’m super excited for this movie. I may have to re-read the first book, The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists, soon.

The device was ready to use pretty much as soon as I opened the box. It came pre-link to my Amazon account which sounds pretty now that I think about it. However, there’s something cool about starting up the device for the first time and seeing “Colin’s Kindle” in the upper corner. The user interface is pretty “eh”. On one hand, I like see thing like a library, but the carousel will show all items from apps to web pages to books. I would have liked the ability to permanently not have certain apps or books show up on there.

Book reading has gone pretty well for me so far. I haven’t had any problems with eye strain from reading for long periods. The books offer the ability to customize the text size, margins and page/text color. I would image that’s pretty standard on most e-readers. As for magazines, I’ve been enjoying the New Yorker. A couple years ago I had a physical subscription to the periodical but hated (with a passion) the fact that I would receive a new issue every week, before I had time to finish the one that came before it. Now, instead of having back issues pile up in the corner, they are neatly stored on my Fire. It’s not the magazine reading experience Amazon intended for the Fire. The New Yorker delivers the issues via its own app. While other periodicals would populate under the Newsstand tab, I have to boot up the New Yorker app if I want to read any of my issues.

As-is, holding the device is a bit tricky. It’s very smooth and offers to grip. I could see how this would be annoying if holding the Fire for long periods of time, such as book reading. I ended up buying a nice zip-up case which allows me to hold the Fire easily.

As for comics, and this is one of my big complaints, I have not tried yet. The only place to get comics for the Fire seems to be Amazon’s store (for trades) of the ComiXology app (for weeklies). Dark Horse comics is not featured in ComiXology for whatever reason. They apparently have an Dark Horse app ready and waiting to go, but Amazon had not approved it yet. The biggest problem I have with the Kindle Fire is the lack of good apps. I know I didn’t buy a Fire for the apps, but I did buy it knowing that downloading apps was a possibility.

Web browsing on the Fire is pretty smooth, in my opinion. It’s Wifi only (sorry 3G), and I’ve had no problem checking my RSS feeds or my Facebook. I am a little annoyed there isn’t a Twitter app on par with what is available for the iPhone.

As a book reader I am very pleased with the Kindle Fire. However, as someone who has gotten use to the myriad of apps available offered for Apple devices, I feel a little bit let down. I’m sure it will only get better as time goes on.

It would that a new four book prequel series focusing on the childhood of Lemony Snicket is in the worlds. The series will be called All the Wrong Questions and the first book will be titled Who Could That Be At This Hour?. More importantly, the first book will be coming out this year on October 23rd. The books will probably be as dreadful as the Series of Unfortunate Events and good portions will be made up of Snicket encouraging readers to read something else.

From the press release: “Drawing on events that took place during a period of his youth spent in a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, Snicket chronicles his experiences as an apprentice in an organization nobody knows about. While there, he began to ask a series of questions—wrong questions that should not have been on his mind. Who Could That Be at This Hour? is Snicket’s account of the first wrong question.”

I’m excited. Are you excited?

Title:

From the back cover:

This is the box, Ed.

Inside is everything.

Two bottle caps,
a movie ticket from Greta in the Wild,
a note from you,
a box of matches,
your protractor,
Joan’s book,
the stolen sugar,
a toy truck,
those ugly earrings,
a comb from the motel,
and the rest of it.

This is it, Ed.

The whole store of why we broke up.

Review:

Let’s see how long I can go without mistakenly referring to Daniel Handler as Lemony Snicket. Oh damn, I just did it didn’t I? I might as well get this out of the way then. Yes, Handler and Snicket are the same person. However, in terms of writing style, they are vastly different. Why We Broke Up, Handler’s third book released under his real name, lacks the wit and sharpness found in the Series of Unfortunate Events series, yet We We Broke Up does have its own merit and is worth considering.

Why We Broke Up is a love story told in hindsight. Minerva, Min for short, and Ed had a relationship that ended (i’m not spoiling anything, just rephrasing the book’s title). This book is written as if it were a long letter from Min to Ed explaining the events of their relationship that caused Min to end it.

Min is a geeky film fanatic who falls in love with Ed, co-captain of the high school basketball team. When they first meet, it’s clear that these two characters are not meant for each other; they are complete opposites. For some reason, they hit it off and decide to give it shot. Ed and Min try to become more involved in the actives that interest the other, Min going to his games and Ed seeing weird, arty films. There were points where Ed drops his jock personality and appears to be actually interested in the things Min is into. In those moments I believed that there might be a future for their relationship.

Since Min is the narrator here, it’s impossible to tell if she is retelling the events as they actually happened, or if she’s putting her own personal, spiteful spin on them. For most of the book I didn’t think Ed was that bad of a guy. If anything, I thought Min’s stubbornness might be the real reason they broke up and not all the items she lists. Mayhaps she was adding spite to the letter just to hurt Ed’s feelings as he reads it.

By the end of the book, when the big reason why they broke up is revealed, it’s one of those moments that could only be described as ‘anti-climatic’. The final reason made perfect sense as to why they broke up, but it also makes all the other reasons that came before it less impactful. I mean, really, a toy truck is one of the reasons they broke up, oh, and that big thing too. I understand from a literary stand point that Handler had to work up to the climax of the book, but when it hits, it makes all the other reasons (and the 300+ pages spent explaining them) seem kind of moot.

We We Broke Up is a sad story about a couple that shouldn’t be together. The reader knows it, and they’re waiting for the moment for it to dawn on Min or Ed. This book does a really good job at being unique compared to all the other YA novels about two teenagers who fall in love and it worth checking out if the initial premises sounds like something you would like.

Closing Thoughts: I liked this book, but it was a bit of a downer. Also, are high school students really this annoying/stupid?

Question: Can we get some more Lemony Snicket books please? A Series of More Unfortunate Events?

Second Opinions: 
The Story Siren
Muggle-Born.net
Reading Vacation