Okay ... stay with me here

So yes ... I used to be an actor. I don't know if I consider myself to be one anymore. Ironically enough, my college killed any desire in me to ever act again. I don't need to dwell on the "why" that happened, but I let politics ruin my desire to not only entertain, but as I always used to say ... to breathe life into a character. How special that is ... to act. However, I have decided to reignite my passion and try to use some of that talent I'm sure is stored away somewhere deep within me. I have an audition with a local Shakespeare company in a couple of weeks, and that has both immensely perked me up and also terrified me into feeling extremely nervous. That being said, it's time for me to practice what I preach. I tell me kids to follow their dreams and work hard, and acting for me always used to be fun and exciting ... hell, it was exhilarating! Which is why, God help me, I'm going to try again to be an actor, and be happy.

That being said, I have a book update. An exhilarating book update. Stay with me here ... I know I've talked a lot about those damn vampire books, but seriously this last once was immensely entertaining, action packed, drama filled, romance ignited ..... it was awesome. So awesome that I spent three hours from midnight to 3am reading the rest of the book. Dead and Gone launches Sookie's life into utter chaos, mixed feelings concerning some lovers, and ultimately a fairy war. YES! A fairy war .... and get this, it's actually pretty terrifying. These are not some Tinkerbell variety fairies she's dealing with. These are creatures with sharp teeth who want to torture her to death ... literally. So again I would urge you, if you want some brainless but enticing plots to follow, pick up the darn Sookie Stackhouse novels. They are way better than the TV show, not that I've truly gotten into them, and I realize that the show that propelled me into wanting to read this in the first place does not do the series justice. Take a jump into the wild side and have fun. These books are fun, and this last one was a doozy (a very, very good doozy).

This book will keep you flipping through pages like a madman. It's delightfully terrifying all the way through (with some sexiness thrown in here and there).

To prove to you that I AM a serious reader, I just purchased a book called The Dinner, which has been called a European Gone Girl (which I've already read and reviewed in this blog). Gone Girl was so ... engaging and twisted, I can't wait to read something along some similar lines. I'll let you know how that book goes ... and once again keep reading! And oh, follow your dreams. Wish me luck as I take my book-loving butt and audition in a couple weeks. Fingers crossed I've still got what used to make me special on stage.

I'm on vacation

I am a teacher on vacation. I have two weeks (starting last week) to relax and enjoy my life for the first time since my last vacation. Do not get me wrong, I very much enjoy being a teacher - I love the discussions, the "ah-ha!" moments, and I miss my kids. I love fostering in them a love for reading ... something I intend to work on more next year with my new class of fifth grade scholars. But on this break, I've had to tear my own self away from the TV and focus on reading. And the question that's popped up in my head is ultimately ...

One of my students and I during the Christmas Party 2012

What do I read next? I assume many of my fifth grades (including the one pictured above) would have many great suggestions for me (including The Hunger Games), but I'm going to have to pick from the arrangement of books in my house.

I've delved back into the world of Sookie Stackhouse and her supernatural world (books you've heard me reference on multiple occassions). These books are guilty pleasures and I adore them. I'm just about to start on the ninth book, which will then leave four more books to go before the series ends, with the final book coming out on May 7th of this year. I really do recommend these novels. They're fun, feisty, engaging, frustrating, and you find yourself cheering for the outcast! Always a good time.

But the question is ... after I finish the ninth book, which will probably take me about a day and a half to finish, I have to make a decision. Do I read ... Beautiful Ruins, The Chaperone, Admission, Sharp Objects (another Gillian Flynn novel, the first she's ever written), What Alice Forgot, or Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?

These are the novels I currently have stacked in my bedroom which doubles as a library of my collected books. I also have a novel I'd like to read, The Devil and Me, but Scott has commandeered that book and he's a slow reader ... by that I mean he takes his time with books, whereas I tend to tear through them like a tornado. If anyone has read any of these, please feel free to let me know what you think. Otherwise I just might have to continue on with Sookie Stackhouse's journey.

Gone Girl

Potential Spoiler Alert:

I just finished reading the rest of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. It is a psychological investigation into two incredibly self-centered people who grate on your nerves, and who terrify you into hoping for the only solution that you're not sure you want.

At the beginning of the story, I was completely against Nick, the husband who everyone thinks killed his wife after she disappears and the scene seems fishy. Then you start to realize that his dear wife Amy is alive and well, and quite a talented liar. This novel is a talented ping-pong match of who do you hate more? Who grabs your sympathy? Really it would be nice if they both went down in flames. There are moments where you despise each character with an inner loathing, almost like you know them in person (or can think of someone you know in reality who fills you with such seething annoyance and disgust). There are also moments where you feel a deep longing to help each character, as something they desperately need is taken away from them - life, love, money, caring parents, justice, and deeply needed escapes. There are characters you want to slap (besides the married couple), and characters you keep rooting for, but deep down, you know they're going to fail.

Then comes the ending ... will there finally be justice for the most insanely detailed crime that pulled the wool over a nation's eyes? No, there won't be. Instead the sick and twisted game of Gillian Flynn's imagining just continues on. I have to say, based on my feelings from her first novel that I read, Dark Places, I don't much care for her endings. Maybe that makes her books good ones? You don't get what you want, you don't get what you expect, and you'll think about the plot and the characters for hours.

Gone Girl should be required of all entry level psychology classes in college, as students try to understand Amy's psychosis and Nick's sterile behavior and stupidity maybe they will learn something about sociopaths and vindictiveness that will shape their future careers and lend insight into why crazy people always seem to be so egotistical and only care about themselves. In the end, Nick and Amy probably got what they deserved - each other.


You will be enveloped in this book and its constant surprises. You will be thrilled to no end at the macabre nature of a marriage between two people, and you may even wonder if your own relationship could take such nasty turns, if only you or your partner were capable of such detailed deception and anger. Read this book. I can understand why it made the bestselling book list of summer 2012.

In the midst of losing my mind ...

In the midst of losing my mind with the stress of work obliterating my senses ... I am reading a story about a man who loses his woman. Literally, like she's gone. Hence the name of the book: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I have already reviewed Flynn's second book on here, Dark Places. Her second book was entrancing. It pulled you in to a truly despicable world with really despicable people. People that make your skin crawl, and your stomach ache, and who really you just want to backhand for being so disgusting and low. Low people. There wasn't much love in Dark Places, just a chilling reminder that what you think you know can be taken away from you so fast.

In Gone Girl, we experience a man, Nick Dunne, who comes home to find his wife missing on their anniversary. We soon come to find out that these people have a history of messy anniversaries. Failing anniversaries. Anniversaries filled with too much expectation, and too little hope and happiness. On the one hand we hear from Nick who is reeling from the discovery that his wife is gone, a messy struggle left behind in their Missouri house, and then we hear from the diary entries of his missing wife Amy, who we soon come to find out is really just trying to look on the bright side of things (that must be hard for a New Yorker ... just kidding), but even as she really is trying to be the best wife she can be, she keeps messing up in Nick's eyes, and she can't figure out why. After both Nick and Amy lose their jobs, they scuttle off to the midwest, leaving their New York luxuries behind. With Amy missing, Nick has a lot of soul-searching today.

This seems to be (I just passed the 100 page mark) a book about "who did it?" but the focus really is on the relationship between these two characters, as if their love life has made Amy's disappearance a thing-coming.

So far, I like the book. I don't love it yet, I'm waiting for it to pick up. This was soon as one of the hottest books on summer 2012's reading lists (according to Cosmo magazine). I have high expectations, we'll see if they're met.