Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

So, after reading #1 and #2 in this series, I started #3 - Bite Me: A Love Story - shortly after I finished You Suck in the early part of May, and finished toward the end of May.  The Husband was able to get this from the library for me which still perplexes me that they would have the 3rd book in the series but not the first 2.

This book was really funny.  Of course, it picked up where the other left off.  Bite Me was a little more ridiculous than the first two, but hey, it's a vampire book, it has to be a little bit ridiculous, right?  Tommy and Jody are still vampires but are trapped (I won't tell you where), and our old faithful goth-girl-extraordinaire is at the helm leading the way.  The problem of the day in this book - vampire cats.  Chet, the homeless man's extremely large cat, is now a vampire (a catpire, a vampcat, a vampirat?) whatever, but Chet is a creature of the night and has made hoards of other cat vampires that are terrorizing the City.

During a precarious vamp-cat fight we meet an old ninja who decimates many vamp cats with his ninja sword.  Then he disappears.  Abby meets Foo-Dog, a character who made a brief appearance in the first two books.  She falls deeply for Foo-Dog and they become a thing.

Like the first two books, this one is a race to stay alive in a world of vampires and now vampire cats.  I have to say that Abby's narration was a little annoying, she was a little too valley-girl-ish - a young girl from SF wouldn't completely talk the way she does (it was a little too LA-ish), and I'm not sure a goth girl anywhere would talk that way.  But maybe that's just a comedic tool that Moore used to create some kind of tension or contradiction in her character?  Don't know, but it was a little annoying.

I loved the parts with the old vamp-cat-killing ninja - I can't go into too much detail about this, but I really liked his character.  He was the strong silent type but plays somewhat of a big role for one of the other characters.

One of the most hilarious things in the book are the rats.  Rats are gross (yes), but in this book they are pretty funny.  Many funny things happen with rats, one even involving Abby.  I laughed my tail off at what happened to Abby.  Again - can't go into too much detail on that - don't want to give it away.

This book was a nice end to the series.  It was a quick read.  Funny, witty, entertaining - everything I like in a book.

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

So, after finishing Bloodsucking Fiends on April 25, I started book 2 in this series, You Suck: A Love Story, on April 29.  I finished this little gem on May 7 - so, yeah, a quick read again.  I really like quick reads, until they end and I wish they were longer.   

You Suck picked up where Bloodsucking Fiends left off.  A lot of this book is narrated by Abby Normal, a 16-year old goth girl who becomes the daytime minion of Tommy and Jody.  It's hilarious how this, at times precarious, relationship comes to be.

The Safeway Animals continue to have a large role in the book as does a blue hooker, the ancient vampire who turned Jody, The Emperor and his 2 fearless canine companions, the 2 SFPD cops, and we meet several other interesting characters.

This is a witty, funny vampire novel that I tore through in like 9 days.  Loved it, and couldn't wait to get into the 3rd book in this series.  The Husband was able to get #3 from the library (I find it odd the library didn't have #1 or #2, but did have #3)...  Things that make you go hmmmm...  Anyways, this was an entertaining quick read.  If you like vampire books and San Francisco - pick this one up - but read them in order.

As I was reading other reviews of this book, some thought it fell a little flat after reading the first one.  I don't remember noticing that while reading this book.  I did notice, as other reviewers mention, several typos which always make me cringe.  Regardless of those, I did really like the book and the antics of all of the characters.  It's funny - putting together all of the vampire stuff I've seen and read - each author has a slightly different take on what it is really like being a vampire.  Just the other night as I was flipping through the channels on TV, I came across one of the Twilight movies - and Edward (vampire) was out during the day.  The Husband remarked that he thought vampires had to be in the dark during the day and why could Edward be out in the day.  I didn't have a good answer for him - so I think I said - he's a different kind of vampire, and left it at that.  The Husband chuckled and changed the channel.

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

After finishing Tales from Watership Down on April 8, I had a little time off from reading until my next book came from Amazon - Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore.  Sadly, our local public library didn't have this book.  I started this on April 17 and finished it on April 25.  I'm a sucker (no pun intended) for a vampire novel.  Yes, I read and liked the Twilight series (and the movies), I devoured the True Blood books by Charlaine Harris and enjoyed the HBO series, and I think I read at least one Anne Rice book way back when.  I also really liked the books Jane Bites Back, Jane Vows Vengeance, and Jane Goes Batty by Michael Thomas Ford.  I loved Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (the movie wasn't as good).  Of course I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the movie and the TV show.  So, maybe I have a thing for vampires.

A friend at work recommended Christopher Moore's series so I started with book #1 - Bloodsucking Fiends.  My work friend billed this as a funny vampire novel set in San Francisco with a group of misfits who work at the Marina Safeway on the night shift stocking groceries.  So, having lived in San Francisco for some time, I tend to enjoy reading books that are set in familiar territory.

And, if you've lived in San Francisco, you have to know the reputation of the Marina Safeway as a major pick-up place.  You know about the fog and how it rolls in, you've probably seen the Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, Chinatown, and more.  All of those places have a role in this book.

It starts with Jody, a 30-something girl working in the Pyramid, who ends up being turned into a vampire.  C. Thomas Flood is a small town kid hell bent on becoming a writer.  He drove to San Francisco from Indiana and joins the misfits at the Marina Safeway courtesy of a homeless man called the Emperor.  Jody and C. Thomas become intertwined and crazy vampire shit happens.  C. Thomas becomes obsessed with reading vampire books while Jody sleeps the day away in a bedroom with no windows.  He tests her vampire abilities time and again to figure out what kinds of "powers" she has.  Mostly, it is a bust.

Here's a funny part of the book:

There's an explanation for this, she thought, standing in the bathroom looking at the turtles.  There is a perfectly good reason why there are two huge snapping turtles in my tub.

     "Do you like them?" Tommy was standing in the doorway behind her.

     "These are for me, then?" She [Jody] tried to smile.  She really did.

     "Yeah, Simon helped me get them home.  I didn't think I could carry them on the bus.  Aren't they great?"

     Jody looked in the tub again.  The turtles were trying to crawl on top of each other.  Their claws screeched on the porcelain when they moved.  "I don't know what to say," Jody said.

     "I thought that we could feed them fish and stuff, and you'd have a blood supply right here at home.  Besides me, I mean."

     She turned and regarded Tommy.  Yes, he was serious.  He was really serious.  "You haven't..."

     "Their names are Scott and Zelda.  Zelda is missing a toe on her back foot.  That's how you tell them apart.  Do you like them?  You seem a little reticent." 

So, yes, snapping turtles named Scott and Zelda.  You'll have to read to the book to learn of their fate.  It may or may not have something to do with 2 biker-ish burly men who make bronze statues.  Or it may not have anything to do with that at all...

Strange murders are afoot in San Francisco and it looks like C. Thomas is getting framed for them.  So, Jody, C. Thomas, the Animals, 2 cops, the Emperor and his 2 dogs all band together (in a peculiar way) to solve the murders and ensure C. Thomas isn't on the hook for them.

This book was a very fast read, super funny (especially if you know San Francisco), and quite clever.  I couldn't wait to read the 2nd book in this series, You Suck: A Love Story.  

Aside from a few inaccuracies in the San Francisco setting (BART doesn't run on the Embarcadero, Muni does, and no one calls it "The Noe Valley" just "Noe Valley"), this book gets 2 fangs up from me!

Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams

So, after finishing Watership Down (still not about sunken Navy ships), I was poking around on Amazon and found that there is a sequel of sorts to Watership Down, called Tales from Watership Down, also by Richard Adams (of course).  I asked The Husband to request it from the public library for me.  I started it on March 14 and finished it on April 8.

I sort of expected this to be a continuation of happenings in the warren on Watership Down, it kind of was and kind of wasn't.  I can't give away what happens in Watership Down, but Tales didn't really pick up where the other left off, nor did it fill in any substantive holes in the story.  It really was more rabbit stories.  There were several about El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle and their adventures, exploits, and shenanigans.  These stories were told by familiar rabbits in the warren, like Dandelion.  And, we met some new rabbits that came into the warren.

I wish this were more about the adventures of the familiar rabbits in the warren and less about the "stories" of past adventures.  I was dying to know how the rabbits got on after the big war with General Woundwort.  I was also curious about if General Woundwort would make an appearance.

It was nice to see that a female rabbit became chief and it was kind of annoying that it was controversial among the male rabbits.

     "I'd imagine she'd be a very good Chief Rabbit," said Silver, "as long as she had a male partner to - well, you know - to balancer her when she needed it."

And the doe who accepted the co-position said:

     "I promise to be the biggest nuisance he's ever met in his life, and to disagree with him about everything." 

As I was reading this, I was kind of gagging and rolling my eyes.  OK - so I genuinely thought this was written in yesteryear, the olden days, long ago.  I had to check the publication date as I write this blog - this was published in 1996.  That makes me gag even more.  What's wrong with female leaders and why do they need a male to "balance them out" - ick, blech, gag.  I guess sexism exists in the imaginary animal realm too.  That's a discussion for another time.

All in all, this was a decent read.  I wish it was more about the warren rabbits and not about the mythical El-ahrairah.

On a separate note, I've become a fan of Teespring and get regular emails from them.  Usually, I just hit the delete button (sorry, Teespring), but one caught my eye because they have a Watership Down shop!!!  I couldn't resist, and got shirts for The Husband and me.
🐰❤️

Watership Down by Richard Adams

So, I started Watership Down by Richard Adams on January 15th, paused on February 13th, picked it back up on February 25th and finally finished it on March 9th.  What a journey.  The pause was due to The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly - library books wait for no other.  When I heard the name of this book, who knows how long ago, I seriously thought it was a book about a Navy ship that sunk.  I mean, Watership Down - totally a Navy ship that sunk, right?  Well, no.  I never read the book before now, and I firmly believe the universe wanted me to read the book - there were several signs pointing me to it.  First - last August when The Husband and I were on vacation, we were in a class on harnessing your intuition and sitting next to a man who was holding a book.  One of the exercises we had to do in the class was to exchange an item we had with us with the person sitting next to us and then try to intuit why the item was held in high esteem (or not) by the other person.  Well, the man, his name was Quantrell, gave me his book, and when I opened my eyes after trying to intuit why it was important to him, I noticed the book was Watership Down.  So I asked him about it.

Turns out it is absolutely NOT about a Navy ship that sank.  It is about rabbits!!  Yes, rabbits!!  I'm a little obsessed with animals, so was kind of shocked to see this manly man reading a book about rabbits and not sunken Navy ships.  I was intrigued more after Quantrell told me a little about the book.  I made a mental note to pick it up soon to read.  Around the holidays last year, I was with my Step-Mother getting a massage at Burke Williams.  We were waiting in the quiet room for our appointments and a lady sat down next to me and pulled out a book to read while she was waiting for her appointment.  The book was.... wait for it....  Watership Down.  When I was gathering my things and packing for my trip home after Christmas, I took a look at the bookshelf in the room I was in at my parents' house.  And, right there in plain sight at my eye level was none other than...  wait for it....  Watership Down.  So, I took it from the bookshelf and brought it home with me and started reading it on January 15th.  The day before I started reading it, I was shopping at Anthropologie and everywhere I looked, I saw rabbits - rabbit mugs, rabbit hooks, rabbit tie backs, rabbit everything.  I mean, if this isn't the universe talking to me trying to get me to read this book, I don't know what it is.  Too much of a coincidence.

The book from my parents' bookshelf is old - printed in 1975, I think, and the print is miniscule.  I powered through it, but it was slow going.  I know I've heard references to Hazel and Fiver before, but had no context.  Well, now I do!  They are brothers, and rabbits, who live on the periphery of a warren in England.  Fiver is an odd lot, and has premonitions.  He has a premonition that something bad is going to happen to the warren.  He and Hazel go to the chief rabbit to tell him about Fiver's vision.  They are ostracized by the chief and kind of shuttled out of his audience.  Some other rabbits on the periphery come to learn about Fiver's premonition and a small group of rag-tag rabbits leave the warren.

This book tells the tale of that group.  Man, they overcome some serious shit.  Like snares, bad humans, rats, owls, dogs, cats, foxes, stoats (I learned that a stoat is like a weasel), birds, and more.  And, man, wait until you meet General Woundwort and the rabbits of Efrafa.  Talk about a despotic, evil lunatic and a crazy lot of rabbits.  This book was a page turner, especially toward the end, but since the words were so small, it took me a while to flip those pages.  I stayed up too late a few nights to "see what happened" in the book.  And, some shit happened, that's for sure.  You know what they say about cats - they have 9 lives - some of these rabbits did too.  I LOVED THIS BOOK!

I learned that it was made into an animated movie.  After a little search on the Google, I found THIS recent article that the BBC and Netflix are remaking it into a less violent version than the original because the original scars kids.  I couldn't find an original movie trailer, but found a few 3-minute "trailers" on YouTube.  It looks like an older cartoon - circa 1978 - but seems like it will be good.  And, yes, it looks violent.  This picture is from the article about the remake - that rabbit on the right sure looks scary and evil.  I mean, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth and body?  Yikes - wouldn't want to meet that scary rabid rabbit in a dark alley, or any alley for that matter.

I do want to watch the original movie, but have been advised to do it when I'm in a good mood...  Yikes!  I loved the book though - great writing, wonderful rabbit characters, enthralling, endearing.  And most decidedly not about a sunken Navy ship.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly

So, after finishing The Revolving Door of Life on January 14, I picked up another book, but had to hit the pause button on that one when The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly came into the library.  I started this one on February 13 and finished it on the 24th.  Like every Michael Connelly / Harry Bosch book, this one was a very quick read.

Connelly has a tried and true recipe for success with his Bosch books, and this one is no different.  This book opens with Harry taking on a private investigation case for a reclusive billionaire searching for a possible heir to his fortune.  Harry is also a volunteer detective working unsolved cases for the San Fernando Police Department which fell victim to budget cuts and has a bare-bones budget and staff of public servants.  Why is Harry a volunteer detective?  Of course it's because he's Harry and sued the LAPD for making him retire.  So, of course, he's black-balled by the LAPD and the vast majority of officers there.

San Fernando needed detectives and Harry still wanted to work - a match made in heaven.  He's so passionate about the work that he seems to do anything he can to keep doing it.  He picks up an unsolved case that he thinks is part of a series of crimes in the area.  As he investigates this case with the San Fernando PD, he is also working a private case trying to locate the billionaire's heir.  Both cases preoccupy him and compete, at times, for his attention.  Harry is Harry and finds a way to tackle both cases, not without hiccups on the way.  Both cases resolve satisfactorily.

I really liked this book - it kept me wanting more - a real page turner, especially at the end.  I definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly, or detective books.  I do recommend reading these books in order, but it is not 100% necessary.  I think I missed one or 2 before this, and was puzzled about Bosch's retirement, and some of the happenings with his daughter.  But my puzzlement didn't detract from my enjoyment and understanding in this book.

While we are on the subject of Harry Bosch - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the series Bosch on Amazon Prime.  After doing a little search for this on the Google, I see that there will be a 3rd season (YEAY!).  Each season covers a few different Bosch books worked and melded together, and of course with a few liberties.  Click HERE for season 1 (based on Echo Park, City of Bones, and The Concrete Blonde), click HERE for season 2 (based on Trunk Music, The Drop, and The Last Coyote), and a trailer for season 3 is HERE.  OMG - the trailer for season 3 looks AMAZING!  Titus Welliver makes a fantastic Bosch.  The series is gritty, feels real, and is way better than if it was on network TV.

If you are a fan of the Harry Bosch books, you should like the series on Amazon Prime.  And, if you like the books, The Wrong Side of Goodbye is a slam dunk.  Two thumbs up for the book and the series.

The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

So, after finishing The Speed of Sound by Thomas Dolby, I returned to The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith.  I grabbed this book from the up for grabs book table at my parents' house the week before Thanksgiving.  I started this one back in November, read a little, then picked up the Angel of History and then The Speed of Sound, and then came back to this one.  I finished it last night, January 14.

I hadn't head of this author before, but I do remember when the movie "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" came out some years back.  I didn't see the movie, but that caught my eye when I grabbed this book from the up for grabs table.

So - this book was good, but it was also strange.  I think it would be less strange if I read the books in order - it looks like there are 9 books before this one in the series.  Regardless, this book was easy to read, and the characters seemed realistic.

This book follows several characters in Scotland who all live in the same neighborhood.  Each person / couple live their own life but they intersect periodically with others in the neighborhood.  This book focused mainly on Bertie - a young boy whose mother has "accidentally" been taken to a harem in some part of the middle east.  His father is left to care for Bertie and his little brother Ulysses.  The boys' grandmother comes to help out and we learn that the boys' mother is quite overbearing and a major thorn in Bertie's side.  His grandmother changes everything and lets Bertie be the boy he wants to be.  The most touching - she takes Bertie to get his very own kilt.

The stories of the people in this book are quite interesting and I found I really wanted to know what happened with all of them.  The ending was unremarkable and a little disappointing - it left me wanting more.

Although it took me quite a while to read this book, it was an entertaining and enjoyable read.  I would say read the books in order and it will be better than picking up a book in the middle of the series.  I think you will get a richer and deeper experience with the characters.  My guess is that you'll want to read all of the books in the series.

Now on to my next read - about bunnies! I'm kind of obsessed with animals - you can read more about that on my other blog here.