It Was a Dark and Stormy Night....

Oh my gosh-- Bulwer-Lytton contest, where have you been all my life?!

Have you seen this?

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Where “WWW” means “Wretched Writers Welcome”

It's a celebration of horrid opening sentences! 

And it is hilarious!!!

Check out the Lytton-y of Grand Prize Winners!

I am so amused. :)

May I Gripe?

Like you could stop me. ;)

I am SO FREAKING SICK of Nancy Drew!!!!!

I swear, how many times can a) someone steal her car, b) someone kidnap Ned, c) someone deliver a threat before she even knows about the case.

PLUS I just found the same boat name used in two different books in two totally different locales.  :P

Honestly, there is one thing that is seriously bothering me: I loved George as a kid, but as an adult I can't stand her!  She's a jerk and a bully.  I had considered reading these with Boo, but I cringe everytime George harps about Bess' weight!  Which she does in EVERY STUPID ONE OF THEM.

Girls today are presented with enough reasons to hate their bodies-- Nancy Drew should not be adding to those.




Okay, I'm done now.

Only 16 more to go for the challenge.... then I may never read another one as long as I live.

Are You FREAKING Kidding Me???

That's it.  This has gone too far. 

I overlooked the idea of

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

and Jane Slayre

and whatever the other one was...

But Little Vampire Women?  Seriously.

ENOUGH I say.  E-FREAKING-NOUGH.

Okay, getting off my soapbox and ending the tantrum....

(Though I must admit feeling slightly intrigued and amused by the idea of --




Could just be me, though.)

MORE Kids Books We Didn't Love

Am I the only one who has this problem?  Your child picks out a cute-looking book at the library, you bring it home and start reading it aloud....

Only to go "What the crap is this?!?!"

This is one of those books.

Larry and Roy are young polar bears asking about their father, only to be told that if they go near him he'll hit them at tell them to get lost.

When they protest to their mother that that doesn't seem very nice, she basically tells them to deal with it because that's how polar bears are and soon she's going to tell them to get lost too.

Okay, now I get that that's how nature really is.  Let's not even talk about what wretched parents lions are.  But really?  For a child's picture book??

I started paraphrasing.  Like... a lot.  And if it had all been "true to nature" type storyline stuff, that would be one thing.

But it just got weirder from there.  Larry and Roy go off on their own and find that they can take care of themselves.  Good for them.  Then Larry falls asleep on a piece of ice and ends up in New Jersey...

Where he has a banana muffin.  Which wasn't blueberry, but hey, it was pretty good.  (Passengers on a cruise ship throw blueberry muffins to Larry and Roy at the beginning of the book.  Whatever.)

But you need money for muffins, so he becomes a lifeguard.  Until they realize he's a polar bear.  Which apparently took quite a while.  (Insert New Jersey joke here, I suppose.)  So he gets fired, but just then he saves a freakishly rich man who promises to build a hotel so that Larry can be the pool lifeguard to get money to buy muffins.

And they walk off together to buy muffins.

Seriously?  What the heck?

I have GOT to start reading library books myself before reading them aloud.  That one is sooooooo going back.