I know that I’m only seven years old and lack the necessary wisdom to make such a decision, but I decided to become a vampire. I’d finished reading Twilight* and wanted to be like Edward so I could get all the ladies.

My friend already was one so I kindly asked him to bite me, which he did…on my hand. It didn’t hurt at first, but then while my mother and I were strolling through the grocery store that evening, the full weight of my situation settled on me, in the form of searing pain and uncontrollable hunger, and I knew I had made a mistake.

My mother didn’t believe me when I calmly told her that I was becoming a vampire, but she perked up when I threw myself on the floor and told her I needed to go to the hospital right away so they could reverse the changes. Being a vampire just wasn’t worth it. Luckily we made it in time.

I was given the antidote disguised as a Popsicle and some stickers and now I’m fine. But let this be a lesson to anyone else under the age of sanity: Don’t make the same mistake. Being a vampire sucks.

(Technically, the seven year old in question didn’t read Twilight himself, but had caught the craze in passing.)

So, I downloaded it a few months ago but never really used it. I mean, reading from the laptop just isn’t ideal. Then I downloaded the Kindle for iPhone and then downloaded a few free books from the Kindle store.

Then one day I’d forgotten my paperback books and was stuck in a waiting room when I remembered that I had the Kindle on my iPhone, so I pulled it out, loaded a book and started reading. It was surprisingly comfortable.

When I was about halfway through the book, I decided I wanted to continue and fired up the Netbook. When I figured out how to change the background color from white to pale yellow, we were in business.

One thing I noticed, however, was that it took me longer to finish the book than if I’d read it in dead tree form. It wasn’t horrible, but I did put the book “down” more often and forgot about it for longer periods of time.

But at any rate I did enjoy reading the eBook more than I anticipated and while I can’t say I’m an eBook convert, I can say that I’m likely to read more short eBooks. In the future I’ll probably wind up with a dedicated eReader (or an iPad…but the eInk displays sound more comfortable on the eyes).

Right now, I’ve started reading The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton. Since I’m only a few pages in, I haven’t formed a solid opinion of the story, but have formed a solid opinion about Chesterton’s writing: That man has a wonderful way with words. It’s playful and adept.

I’m curious now how many out there have a Kindle or other eReading device and how they like it.

Do you use the Kindle or Kindle for PC or iPhone (or any other iteration of the Kindle software) and what has been your experience with it? What about another eReading device?

Now’s your chance to convince an eReading novice to pull the switch.

From Borders

American Gods by Neil Gaiman: Having enjoyed other Gaiman novels, I decided it was time to give one of his grown up books a try and I’ve heard so many good things about this one that when I saw it, I had to buy it.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz: There’s a 99% chance that I already own an older version of this book. I read a great deal of R. L. Stine and Alvin Schwartz when I was a kid, so this is going to be a nostalgic reading experience for me.

Tales from the Odyssey (Part 1) by Mary Pope Osborne: This was a book I couldn’t resist—Greek gods, goddesses, and a cursed Grecian king? I’ve already finished it and must say, what an excellent retelling of Odyssey for a young audience. Already looking forward to the second part. (See the Amazon section.)

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke: The first thing that caught me was the cover: Dark and mysterious. Then I read the back cover and knew that I wanted to read this. It would probably be a good R.I.P. challenge read, but I don’t know if I can hold off on it that long.

From Amazon

Tales from the Odyssey (Part 2) by Mary Pope Osborne: When I got home and got halfway through the first book, I realized I’d made a mistake by not snagging the second book. (Plus, Borders didn’t have it in stock.) So I hunted it down on Amazon and was glad to find it in stock and on special, 4 for 3, which meant I needed to get another three books to take advantage. (Yes, I know there are 6 books, but technically the last 2 were bargain books.)

Soulstice (The Devouring, Bk 2) by Simon Holt: I don’t know how long this book was sitting in my shopping cart just waiting to be bought. Finally, I thought about The Devouring and how badly I want to find out about Ebon which broke me down. I’m trying to save this read until October, but I don’t think I’ll make it. Maybe.

Song of the Wanderer (The Unicorn Chronicles, Bk. 2) by Bruce Coville: I absolutely adored Into the Land of the Unicorns, which was the first book in this series. I was elated to see that the second book was also on special, so I snapped it up. It will make a lovely light fantasy read.

Uninvited by Justine Musk: The title turned me off. I’d already tried a book titled Uninvited and the memory of reading it still hurts. But I read the back cover Musk’s book and the storyline just sounds so intriguing, plus (as far as I can tell) there aren’t any vampires, which is a good sign.

Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart: I don’t know if I’m emotionally ready to read this book yet, but I’ve seen so many people mention the beautiful writing that I just can’t resist. I’ll just steel myself and dive in…one of these days.

Kiss & Blog by Alyson Noel: Some time ago I saw this title mentioned on a blog (sorry I can’t remember it now so I could give some credit) and forgot about it. Then Amazon recommended to me, I saw that it was a bargain book and figured why not? From the description, it feels like it’s going to be a fun read.

From Bookcloseouts

The Tarot Café Vol. 5 & 6 by Sang-Sun Park: I enjoyed volumes 1-4 (well, 1-3 more than 4, but…) and I’m trying to figure out why it took me so long to get the final two volumes. As an aside, I’m a bit sad that book 6 is the final in the series, but all good things must eventually come to an end, right?

The Tarot Reader’s Daughter by Helen Dunwoodie: Pure impulse buy. This may come as a surprise, but I love tarot cards—primarily the artwork. When I was doing a search for the Tarot Café books, this book popped up in the search results. It was cheap, it looked interesting, so it was another why not? moment.

From Publishers

Empty by Suzanne Weyn: When I opened up the package and saw this book inside, I got chills. There’s a soft spot in my heart for dystopian reads and this one was especially unnerving because it deals with the depletion of fuel. What will happen when there are no more fossil fuels? What will people do? What will we become? Can’t wait to find out! (Um…not in real life though.)

Solitary by Travis Thrasher: Let me be honest and say that I have no idea what to expect from this book. I received a nudge from someone who said it would be up my street and the publicist was kind enough to send me a copy. I’ve already read the first couple of chapters and I have to admit, I like Thrasher’s style so far.

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford: The back cover made me laugh. That, my friends, is a really good sign (usually). Rich grannie declaring that she’s about to die and that she’s changed her will to exclude the whole family unless the culprit of a crime comes forward and offers her lawyer a written confession…oh I can just imagine the confessions now.

Thanks to Jill at Breaking the Spine, I present another edition of Waiting on Wednesday…

I’m waiting, rather impatiently, on a book called The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff.

While browsing Amazon, I saw the cover and stopped in my tracks. I mean, look at it. It’s the right amount of creepy, whimsy, and cute.

But since I rarely buy a book (or covet it) based on cover alone, I read the description and knew immediately that I had to have this book the moment it comes out.

Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement—left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.

Tell me you’re not hooked now, too. It’s due out September 21, 2010 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

Title: Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher
ISBN: 978-0-5451-7093-2
Story Length: 304 pages
Genre: Young Adult Drama

Three Quick Points About Stolen

• Point 1: Slow. No, that’s not right. In fact, a new word needs to be coined because “slow” (and all its various synonyms) is inadequate.
• Point 2: The camel won. It was the only character that felt genuine. Ty came close, but meh. Let’s not start on Gemma.
• Point 3: A twisted love story. Still, it was an interesting take on the evolution of Stockholm syndrome.

Short Synopsis of Stolen

Sixteen year old Gemma Toombs is stolen from the Bangkok airport and brought to Middle of Nowhere, Australia by a man named Ty. During her captivity, Ty explains how they’ll have a perfect life together away from the evils of the city. Gemma protests, and then after a late-night epiphany, she decides that Ty is only marginally insane and falls in love. Unfortunately, theirs is a complicated love and it comes with its own set of problems.

My Thoughts on Stolen

Let me say up front: This is a hard review for me to write. I wanted so much to love Stolen. So much. But, oh sweet Mother of All Things Good, the writing was bad. (Typing that broke my heart a little, but it needed to come out.)

For me, how a story is told is just as important as the story itself—sometimes more so. Stolen is told in the 2^nd person POV as a letter from Gemma to Ty, which can be an amazing style if done right. In this book, however, the narrative was more arid than the desert landscape it depicted; it meandered and drifted between various shades of lavender to purple. And at the end a justification was offered for the narrative choice, but it didn’t redeem the book, not one iota.

Of all the characters, I only cared about the camel. It was the only one who felt genuine. When she was left behind, I almost cried…almost. And if you force me to pick a human character to like, it would be Ty (yes, the mentally unstable kidnapper) because the only emotion Gemma ignited in me was apathy. I wanted to feel for her, and right when I thought I would, the writing got in the way

Ultimately Stolen is a powerful story drowned by stodgy writing and though it may seem like it, I didn’t hate this book; I just wish it were written by someone else.

Rating: Save Your Money [D+] (?)

Title: Broken
Author: Karin Fossum
ISBN: 978-0-1510-1366-1
Story Length: 272 pages
Genre: Adult Literary Fiction

Back Cover of Broken

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night. A strange man is in her bedroom. She lies there in silence, paralyzed with fear.The woman is an author and the man one of her characters, one in a long line that waits in her driveway for the time when she’ll tell their stories. He is so desperate that he has resorted to breaking into her house and demanding that she begin.

He, the author decides, is named Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single,works in a gallery. He lives a quiet, orderly life and likes it that way—no demands, no unpleasantness. Until one icy winter day when a young drug addict, skinny and fragile, walks into the gallery. Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. And then one day she appears on his doorstep.

Three Quick Points About Broken

• Point 1: Where’s the mystery? A quarter of the way through, I realized this wasn’t a traditional whodunit mystery—it wasn’t a traditional mystery in any sense.
• Point 2: It’s about characters under a microscope. Flawed but hauntingly natural characters crafted with aplomb.
• Point 3: Smooth prose and pacing, for a translation. Lost in translation isn’t a cliché for nothing, but if anything was lost in this translation, I didn’t miss it.

Short Synopsis of Broken

A writer agonizing over the line of people waiting to have their stories told is surprised when one evening one of those characters invades her bedroom. After a bit of back and forth, they decide on a name for him—Alvar Eide—and she agrees to start his story. She carved out his life: living alone, working in an art gallery, and shunning basic human interactions until a drug-addicted girl wanders into the gallery, and his life. From time to time, Alvar would stop in on the author to discuss the story, particularly when things weren’t going as he expected.

My Thoughts on Broken

First, I was confused. Then, I was intrigued. Finally, I reflected.

On the cover it says that it’s “a mystery”, and from that I expected something along the lines of a detective in a room with a bunch of people when at some point he would declare that Professor Plum did it in the parlour with a candlestick. But that’s not what I got.

The walls around me dissolved as I drifted into the world the author created. With morbid curiosity (and some sympathy) I watched as Alvar’s world spiraled out of control, all because of one crucial choice he made to help the drug-addicted girl instead of shooing her from the store. When he felt the consequences of that choice—what he thought was an act of kindness backfired—he went to the author and practically asked, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Surprising is the author’s answer: she can only write what she observes as she drifts down the river; she does not have as much control over what happens as Alvar thinks. But Alvar believes, since she is the author, she can write it any way she pleases and begs her to write something more suitable to his nature.

This novel is a mind warp. The true mystery is not whodunit, but whatmadewhodoit: whether our actions are the product of fate or free will. Subtle clues were sprinkled throughout to support each theory and to, no doubt, spark discussions.

Although it wasn’t what I expected, I enjoyed it. Broken is a quiet, languid philosophical book for people who enjoy pondering the mysteries of the human condition. What made this novel even more disturbing was how real each character felt, despite having exaggerated personalities. At the end, you may be left wondering whether we are creations of divine inspiration or the puppets of a frustrated novelist.

Rating: Worth Every Penny [TPB][B+] (?)

The Darwin Conspiracy by John Darton, which I won over at Fyrefly’s Book Blog in celebration of Nicki’s brand new doctoral degree. She says it’s a good read (and I believe her), so here’s crossing my finger and hoping for the best.

Then there’s Emma and the Vampires by Jane Austen (of course) and Wayne Josephson which arrived courtesy of Sourcebooks, Inc.

But I have a tiny confession to make: I’ve been so entranced by Pride & Prejudice that I’ve been unable to move on from it and have not yet read Emma. I’ll add that to my reading schedule this weekend so I have something by which to gauge this new title.

On another note, I have this odd feeling that I’m forgetting something. I’m sure it will eventually come to me. When it does (if it does), then I’ll update. ‘Til then, whaddya get?

Two books came in for review on Monday. First up courtesy of Simon & Schuster is a middle grade fantasy adventure titled Jack Blank and The Imagine Nation by Matt Myklusch. Second is Passing Strange by Daniel Waters (that cover is the UK version, btw), third book in the Generation Dead saga, courtesy of Price Minister.

The next two just arrived two, courtesy of the UPS lady. I ordered them from Amazon after they sat in my “to be ordered later” shopping cart for a few months. Both are a set of short stories for children. First is The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt and the second is Half-Human compiled and edited by Bruce Coville.

That, combined with the other books on my shelf waiting to be read should keep me busy for a little while.

Kindle books, according to Mashable, are outselling hardcovers. Over the last three months there was a 30% margin and in the last month there was a 44% margin. Granted, these numbers are skewed since Amazon doesn’t reveal all of its data (i.e. how many books were actually sold) nor does it compare to how many paperback books were sold.

The article, however, did get me thinking about why ebook sales might be on the rise. One thing that comes to mind is the intangible nature of the ebook. With a traditional hardcover, or even paperback, the customer will need to pick it up, hold it in her hands, sniff at it a little bit, figure out where she’s going to put it, and then flip it over to see the heart-stopping amount of money she’ll need to dish out for it.

On the flip side, ebooks are ephemeral. There’s no need to make room for it and it’s (usually) much cheaper than the hardcover equivalent. For the price of one hardcover, you can grab two ebooks (assuming that it’s not a bestseller or renowned author). Plus, it’s easy.

With the click of a couple buttons, sometimes only one, you have a new book waiting to be read. It’s so easy to be caught up in the whirlwind of buying that you don’t realize how many books you’ve just bought…and it all goes back to ebooks having an ephemeral quality. With physical books, you can look at the stacks and say to yourself, I think I’ve picked up too many books, but with ebooks, you don’t have that. Or am I wrong?

I’m curious, if you’re an ebook reader, why? Do you appreciate the books taking up less space? Do you appreciate the blazing speed at which you can have the book and start reading? Is it something else altogether?

Pharos was an intriguing read. The best part about the book was the prose. It was evocative, (usually) spare, and eloquent. The story itself wasn’t bad, but I still need to digest it a bit before I try to express my opinions coherently.

Stolen. Oh, Stolen. What can I say about that book? Well, first I’d say that it’s agonizingly slow in the beginning and although it does pick up somewhat around the later middle and end, it’s still relatively slow throughout. That said, I did like the story. Basically, I kinda wish it was written by someone else. But that one is also digesting so I can write a cogent review.

I’m about two thirds of the way through Plain Kate and I’m enjoying the journey. There is so much to love about this book so far: it’s a fairytale without gratuitous sugarcoating, there’s talk of witchcraft, there’s a blood-sucking ghost, and the protagonist isn’t handed all of her heart’s desires on a silver platter—she actually has to work for it. That said, I’ve spotted a couple of (minor) problems which I’ll address in the review, but as of now, this one’s a winner. (I’m totally in love with Taggle, Kate’s cat, because he’s just plain hilarious.)

Assuming I finish Plain Kate today (which I’m positive I will), I’ll take in a few short stories or possibly read one of the new books that came home with me today.

And speaking of new books, I’m now of the belief that it’s darn near impossible to leave the house without coming back with a bucket-load of books. This morning while grocery shopping, I noticed that they were having a 75% off sale, so I decided to rummage through the remains and have now added 3 new books (technically 4, but one of them is a craft book) to my library. I’m not really complaining though because they were only a buck apiece.

I hadn’t realized I’d picked up two books by the same author, but I’m hoping that I really like her style because she’s a new to me author (both of them actually).  Also, I hadn’t realized that The Wire in the Blood is the second book of a series, so I’ll have to scout out the first one before reading it.

If anyone has read Flynn or McDermid or these books specifically, I’d love to hear about your experiences with them.