Review: Gone

So yesterday I finally finished reading Gone by Jonathon Kellerman. It took me about a month to finish. Looking at the reviews on Amazon I'm not alone in struggling through it. I thought I just had trouble cause detective books aren't really my thing. Or because this was part of a series. Which, I did not know it was part of a series when I got it. Apparently it's towards the later end of the series. And after looking at some of the reviews apparently people seem to think the villain was obvious! lol, really? Course maybe if you read enough mystery books you get good at seeing these things, but as for me I had no clue up till they more or less spelled it out for me.

It follows this psychologist and a lot of random stuff happens in the book that I guess long-time readers of the series would understand, get, and appreciate. But for me it was random and provided nothing for the story. A little personal life stuff is ok, but not when I don't get the significance of it. Not when it seems forced like it only happened cause the author decided he needed to throw in some personal life and didn't really care about it too much. Like it was an after thought. Asides from how careless the personal life bits seemed they did not entice me to want to read the rest of the series. This guy is sleeping with two different women without caring about what he's doing! And apparently these women know each other, and don't care about what's going on; if they don't know they certainly guess, I think. I don't want my hero of the story to be like that.

The writing was annoying with way too much detail. I doubt there's many people who actually think in so much detail as was described. Things like, he'd drive up to a house, immediately recognize the style of architecture, the paint type and shade, the age of the house. Then he'd see things like "the door was open approximately 6"". No one things in terms of distance like that. "Slightly ajar" would have been perfectly acceptable and even expected! Then inside the house he'd immediately recognize the shade of paint or the style of wallpaper on the walls, the style of carpeting, the style of furniture, the knicknacks on the walls and their style and type, and he'd be able to date some of it. With one single one-second glance at the person he's going to talk to he'd instantly know what style and type of clothes and who made them, as well as the type of jewelry they're wearing if any, and what style their hair is in. Wow.

At one point things get rather confusing. He shows up at the murder scene and sees someone he knows. Of course he spends a page and a half discussing with himself the style of clothing and watch his friend is wearing. Then he goes on for another page about a memory he has of said friend. This memory is attached to another memory. So basically we have a memory of him remembering a conversation he'd had.

By the end of the book things pick up and we stop having quite as much of the useless details. They're still there just not as many and not as frequently. Either that or I got used to it.

Also apparently being an adviser on psychology to the police means he gets to ride along and know every tiny detail of the case and work it with the detective? I thought he was only brought in because he had previously had sessions with the person who was murdered! I guess both these things means he gets to play detective. I dunno, maybe that happens in RL. Just seemed kinda odd to me.

The story itself was alright actually. If it were a movie it'd be one of those ones you flick on on the tv or netflix/hulu in the middle of the day when there's nothing else better to do. One of those summer I'm Bored rot your brain movies. But you wouldn't regret seeing it. As a book it kinda fails though.

This one is going back in the donation bin for the used book sale. Unless Victor wants to read it, which I doubt.

Update

This is a little late, but oh well. I had an ultrasound and... it's a boy! We got a clear shot of everything, which was nice, since some people's u/s pics look like tv fuzz. Anyway, it was wonderful to watch. He was active and kept hitting the camera and at one point kicked it, which was adorable and my highlight of the whole thing. And I'm measuring further than the midwife put me at so he moved me up from a due date of the 13th to a due date of the 5th.

I kinda wanted a girl... And now I'm stuck on middle names. We have Thomas for a first name but I have no idea for a middle! Victor wants Allan but I dunno. I'll probably let him have it since I really can't come up with anything better. And a lot of baby names sites have pages upon pages of names from other countries mixed in with the names I consider normal. I mean, I'm sure that these names are normal by that country's standards but they're not normal by mine. Victor had said he wouldn't mind an Italian sounding middle name but I can't find any that are "normal" enough to be acceptable. I don't it want to scream "I'm partially Italian", but a hint of it would do. But like I said I can't find anything good there either. I just need to look harder.

I'm still working on crocheting that blanket I started back in, what, March? Early April? It's getting there. I think I'm finally almost to the point where I can put the border on it and call it done. I realized I only have about 3 more months before it's born. I need to get going on these things! I still want to make a diaper bag (I have fabric I just need to put it together), and any other things. Like I have this really nice baby weight greenish yarn I want to do something with. I want to look at my baby snow suit and winter gear pattern and see what I want to make. I want to look at my boy clothes pattern and make him some cute stuff. I want to do all this stuff that I doubt I'll actually do. I mean I can just buy this stuff but why when making it is fun and you get exactly what you want?

We're starting off late on the garden. Victor's got it all dug up and now he has to get rocks out. I went ahead and started things in planters yesterday. We'll see how that goes and when things start popping up he should have the garden completely ready and I can transplant to the ground.

Let's see... I re-started Manhunt since it's not on the cloud I think (on steam) and I hadn't played in over a year or two anyway. I got stuck on a level and then steam updated the game which broke it for everyone. I managed to fix it by downloading someone's old backup save file and replacing the "updated" version with the old one. I wish Steam would quit forcing updates.

I started playing Morrowind today. So far I'm a little lost and have only played about 15-20 minutes of non-character creation stuff. But I'll get there. It was a little chuggy so I had to turn it down to 800x600. I really don't want to go lower than that so we'll see if I can deal with it.

Altador Cup starts in a few days. I joined Haunted Woods like I said I would. Yay.

I'm still struggling on that book I complained about in my last review. Gone. Ugh, unless it has an absolutely spectacular ending I'm donating it back to the booksale people. Really, I'm not sure what whim made me buy it in the first place. Mystery-detective style books just aren't what I'm into.

I hate all my clothes. All three or four I can actually fit. lol, or at least that's how it feels! I miss my old pants. My tummy has gotten huge and I can't put my knees up to my chin anymore. And, omg, my ribs! Any activity of any sort (getting up off the couch and going upstairs to bed can do it for me...) brings them to a burning, tingling pain. Like someone has a super heated knife stuck under my ribs and another on top of them. Sometimes yawning makes my rib cage feel like it's expanding to the point of popping. Sometimes it gets so bad that bending over creates so much pressure in my chest it feels like it'll explode. If I'm up and on my feet for a long time (like when I cover for Bonnie) it gets to the point where I can't concentrate and I do things like dig my nails into my palms to distract myself. Tylenol helps for about 10 minutes then it's as if I never took it. My next appointment with the midwife is on the 8th and I'll ask her then. Everyone else I talk to says "oh yeah rib pain's normal". lol, even to the extent I'm getting it? Either I'm being a baby or my pain is not normal. There has to be something I can do. According to the ultrasound my baby was in breech position (feet first) which is no big deal at this point cause they can turn multiple times before they have to be head-first. And the head is more to the left. 99% of my pain is on the right. If I felt where the tech positioned the camera correctly the head is facing my left hip kinda. Some people say that rib pain is from baby pushing a foot or head or arm up in there. If that's so and baby is no where near my right ribs... where is the pain coming from!? Is it his butt shoving into them? Either way I hope my ribs go back to normal or I'll never fit a lot of my old shirts again. Presumably. I haven't measured myself yet. Sometimes I wake up from sleeping with rib pain going on. Yet other times I'm out in the yard for a while and it's a half hour or more before they start hurting. My hips also bother me. For a time my left was great cause I accidentally cracked it and had no pain at all. Now it's both, but mainly my right. Which is odd since I've had hip pain on and off for the last several years and it's always in the left. ...it's my right shoulder blade that hurts too, between it and the spine. I do get pain on the left but it's far more common on the right.

Baby's also been active. We can see him moving around, and Victor's felt him a few times. For the most part I really enjoy feeling him and the closeness it creates. Sometimes he's a bit fierce and it can be uncomfortable. Once he woke me up with it. Sometimes he randomly decides he's being squished and kicks me in places that make me run for the bathroom even if I don't have to go. But I love him. I've cuddled my tummy a few times.

In other news, here's some pictures of my cats:

Civ V is awful

So Civilization V was on free-play this weekend. Since I really like Civ IV I gave it a try expecting it to be as wonderful as everyone claims it is. I was horribly disappointed and have no intention of buying it unless it goes on sale for super cheap. Here's why:

Why I will never be AllStar for AC

Cut for length cause it's long and I doubt anyone cares. (which I really don't mind, I just wanted to post about it cause there's no where else to do so)

Pink Lemonade Cake

I made this cake using a recipe I saw in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It is a pink lemonade cake. I think it came out wonderful!!! The only issue I had was that I had to trim the top half to match the bottom half and when I frostinged it it crumbled some. The only substitution I did was I used pink lemonade concentrate instead of plain because, well, why not? Otherwise I followed the recipe as it was.

The recipe actually wanted you to cut each of those layers in half so you layer it dark, light, dark, light, but I didn't want to press my luck with anything tricky. As it is the middle bowed some when I picked up the layers as they were. It's a tiny bit brown inside cause the edges got a little over cooked. Not so much frosting in the middle because I didn't know how far the frosting would go since I had made it myself and had vastly cut back the original recipe. In fact I cut the original frosting recipe down to 1/4! And I still had leftovers, which actually I wouldn't have had if I'd used them on the middle. But like I said I didn't know how much I'd use.

btw, like my awesome cake stand? I put the cake on a lid from a mixing bowl set I have then set the lid on an upside down plate. lol, it works.

Also, I'm not reposting the recipe here cause the magazine said it was from a cook book and was printed with permission, and since I don't have permission I'm not posting it. But if you get a chance to go to the library or something look up May's issue, it's towards the back. Or I think you can see the recipe if you go to their site and make an account. It says it's free but it wanted my address so I stopped, but I was going to see if it does take you all the way there. Just search pink lemonade cake in their search bar. Cause this cake is really, really good. Victor didn't think it was going to taste good and was skeptical the whole time, but he really likes it now that he's tried it. I am very proud of how it came out and how it looks and how it tastes. This is one of my better cakes.

Review: The Rope Dancer

I finished reading The Rope Dancer by Roberta Gellis the other day. First I'd like to say that I had no idea that rope dancer was an actual term for tight rope walkers! I thought for sure, based on the title, that she'd be, I dunno, dancing with a rope the way some would dance with a scarf. *shrug* I was all set to say the title was misleading but Victor told me it's not.

So asides from that bit of misunderstanding, I thought it was pretty good. My historical reading doesn't normally go back that far. This was set in the 1100s and reminded me just how much history I don't know. I have another book that I think has a basic overall history of England and it's nearly 1,000 pages (or at least it looks that big), so I might take a look at that and see if it is what I think it is and if I wanna read it. I've already started another book but it's not really holding my interest so I'm not opposed to switching books. I believe there were real people mentioned, if I'm remembering correctly some of these people were in that Princess of Thieves movie or whatever with Keria Knightly. But it's been something like 10 years or so since I last saw that movie.

Anyway. This is that book I mentioned I just got recently about the minstrel and the dancer. A lot of the relationships between characters seems to be built on misunderstandings. For example, he doesn't like it that she's ok with killing people. Well during a short fight she's around the corner and has her rope up and catches this guy on horseback and the rope knocks him off. She runs out to slit his throat only to find he's already dead of a broken neck. Well, the main male character comes over and asks what happened and she's all "I got him with my rope and his neck broke!" Her surprise is that the rope killed him. However, he thinks her surprise is that the guy's dead at all and this makes him love her more. The depth to which misunderstandings contribute to how much they like each other indicates to me that if they sat down for a good long talk about inner feelings they might not like each other as much.

The story was good enough, though. The writing was good. The story is more or less that wars are breaking out and they're just doing their thing, trying to survive, and by chance all meet and go around together, then the main male character (who's name is difficult to decide how to pronounce; Telor) finds his old master's dead and they go to attack the people who did it with the help of this Lord. It's pretty good. And unlike the last romance I tried this one balances story and romance pretty well. I mean there is a story and there is a romance and they're interweaved very nicely. You do see action and its nicely done, though mostly just foreplay is shown (no complaints here).

My current book is one of those mysteries I picked up at the last sale. Ugh, apparently it's part of a series and so far is not holding my interest. It's called Gone. About acting students who get killed. I might try it a little longer or I might look into that England book a little closer. My grasp of England's history is very loose and mainly pieced together from various movies. But as I'm so interested in it I might as well learn it, huh?

Not Her Universe

First off, May the 4th be with you!!! :D

Now, let me move on. Because Hot Topic occasionally has good clearance prices (well not anymore, it seems like lately all their "markdown" prices are 12-14 dollars...) I do sometimes order shirts from them. Star Wars shirts. Well, somehow or another this means I got on their emailed ads list, which is fine, I like knowing when clearance sales start. Today they emailed me to say that Her Universe has signed up with Hot Topic. haha, not surprised. At the crappy prices Hot Topic has they fit together nicely. My complaint about Her Universe? Some preppy blonde gets picked to voice Ahsoka in Clone Wars and suddenly she's all into it like she's THE main character in Star Wars, like she's THE reason it's popular, like she's THE only role model for girls, like she's the only person who matters. Then daddy's rich little spoiled brat decided to open a store for women selling Star Wars themed shirts for females. This is pretty awesome actually since most the time we have to buy men's or boy's shirts and alter them if we wish. What's not awesome? Where the mens and boys shirts cost between 5-8 dollars each Her Universe shirts cost, at minimum 22 dollars. Well, I guess it was only natural for daddy's spoiled rich brat to think that was a good price for shirts. But the average person doesn't. Today for May 4th Hot Topic has a sale of 20% off all Star Wars stuff, including the recently added Her Universe products. There's a red tank with a black mythosaur skull on it. 16.40, on sale! What a rip off! And that is the cheapest thing in the line that's on sale right now. I didn't even want to look to see what the most expensive is. The thing is since so many people support this rich girl and her fantasy that anyone can afford such luxury no one else is going to make a line of Star Wars womens wear because it has already been done and is apparently somewhat successful! So those of us who happen to not be rich will have to stick to altering mens shirts. Which does make for a very cute shirt, btw. I took the sleeves off an XL for Victor to make him a tank and wore it to bed one night and noticed that if I stitch the armhole shut a little and bring in the side seam in a curve it would make a nice girl's shirt, you know, with the slanted short-sleeves. But it's still nothing compared to the things Her Universe carries. Granted some of it is pretty stupid, if fitting her type. Such as a Leia shirt that says "Daddy's little girl". However, mens shirts are generally more rugged and never show off stomach. So you know what? I'm fine with what I got. I can alter mens shirts, if they'll last longer and come at the cost of 4 for the price of one of her shirts.

My only thought for happiness is that maybe her shirts will wind up in the bargain bin someday. Which would really only be helpful of Hot Topic's bargain bin would start having bargains in it... Really, what happened to their 5 dollar tshirt sales? I used to get all sorts of good stuff on there, nowadays I wonder if it's worth it to keep subscribed to their emails.