Abducted By Chapter 17!

I have recently joined a book club here in Norman, OK. We started out as a branch off from a much larger book club group called Book End Babes. Because we are a branch off of something bigger we were given the name "Chapter 17." I fought against this with all my might. I created alternatives like; Readers of the Lost Arc, Hooked on Books, The Page Turners, or my personal favorite the Write to Read book club (this actually fits because we all met through a writing group), alas all of my protest fell on deaf ears and the rest of the group decided to stick with Chapter 17.
Anyway, Chapter 17 is an all girl book club made up of 6 avid readers!
So far we have read Tainted, Beautiful Creatures, The Book of Fires, and the April book selection which was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
We had our meet up to discuss The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last night. I actually hadn't finished reading the book yet so I spent the whole day carrying my laptop with me all around my apartment. You see I had also downloaded the audio version of the book to my laptop so all day yesterday as I cleaned my apartment and did the dishes, my laptop came along with me. That is right, even when I was taking a shower my laptop came with me!
Okay, well, I didn't actually take it in the shower with me but I did have it sitting on top of the toilet (toilet seat down) and the volume was turned up as loud as possible.
And it worked. By six o'clock I had the book done and I was on my to meet up with the girls.
I feel bad though because I seem to be developing a theme when it comes to this book club. At our first meeting we discussed Tainted and Beautiful Creatures. Although I had finished Tainted, I was literally still reading the last few pages of Beautiful Creatures as the girls were already showing up at my apartment. And then last month with the Book of Fires, I didn't even read the stupid thing! I really need to pay attention to my book selections better and actually have the book finished BEFORE we are supposed to meet up!
Anyway, in the book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the characters are always drinking coffee. Every time a new character entered the scene and was about to deliver some very important, or even not so important, information to help with the case, it never failed that someone else in the scene would suggestion to them to "go make some coffee"
As part of our attempts to stick to the theme of the books one of the girls, Mandy, decided to make coffee to bring for everyone. She sent out an email wanting to know what kind of coffee everyone liked. I wrote back and said, that was very nice of her but I really only liked iced coffee.
I showed up last night, and not only had Mandy gone out of her way to provide me with iced coffee even though I was the only one in the group that liked it, she had made me an entire pitcher full of iced coffee. Along with all the cream and milk and other various dairy products that go into iced coffee she had included 12 cups of Starbucks brand mocha coffee!!! I felt horrible that she had gone through so much trouble. So what did I do?
And I drank every last drop of it!!!
At first it was awesome.
After ten minutes my hands were a little shaky and my eyes were popping out of my head. I could feel them! I could feel my eyes getting pulled out of their sockets!
After an hour the caffeine had worn off and all the dairy I had just consumed decided to get back at me. I felt so sick the rest of the night and somewhat still into the next day!
Don't get me wrong, I really really appreciated it!
But I wont be drinking iced coffee again for a very very long time!

Abducted by Dead Until Dark

DEAD UNTIL DARK by Charlaine Harris


Well I had Wed. and Thurs. off so I started to read and finished the book in two days. I really didn't expect to finish so quickly because I wasn't that interested in the book to be honest, but I really enjoyed it.

I watched the first episode of True Blood with Kate (aka Midnight Book Girl) and since I don't have cable that was the only episode I could watch. It was so long ago but I just remember Bill as being more distant and cold in that first episode so it was a while before I could really see him and Sookie together. From what I remember about True Blood I think I like the book better. I liked that Sookie was able to control her "disability" in the book, in the show it seemed like she could hear everybody, including her boss.

I was suspecting Sam pretty early on. I really thought it could be him but I couldn't figure out why he would want to kill all the people that were wanting to work for him. When Sookie was in his office and going through the files I thought I was right and pretty proud of myself. Then he just turned out to be a freaking dog.

It was kind of hard to not compare this series to Twilight. I mean they are in a way, intended for two seperate audiences. But they really are so similar. Regular girl, doesn't have much expierence in relationships, falls for a vampire, has a friend who she doesn't realize is in love with her and oh yeah he can turn into a dog. Not to mention the fact that a lead character in the book can read minds.

But anyway, I didn't really mind Jason in the book, I mean this book doesn't really bring out his best qualities but I thought he seemed like an ok guy. I didn't really care for Sam, but that is probably left over frustration that is supposed to be directed at Jacob.

I liked Arlene and felt bad for her in the end. I liked Terry a lot too. But I also really liked Rene, I thought he was nice and I liked that him and Arlene still had a little thing going. Oh, well

I prefer Edward to Bill, maybe that's just me. I was surprised that Sookie never even really doubted Bill. I mean I even doubted him when he was in the room with the Grandmother.
I hated that she had to kill off the grandmother, and the cat. I mean I can see where that helps the series because Sookie doesn't have to really be tied down to protecting her and it gives her more independence. But it was still sad and I didn't like reading about it. After the cat died, and then she found Jason all bloody, I was like "What the Hell is she doing to this poor girl!?!"

I liked Sookie. I didn't understand why Sookie got so upset towards the end when Sam tells her that Bill doesn't have a "virus." I mean come on how does that really change anything? But she might have been a little dense about some things but as least she didn't have that inner dialogue that just goes on and on. I like books written in the first person point of view but like with Twilight there were entire chapters that were just Bella's thoughts. This book went much faster so for that I was grateful.

I liked that the author leaves you with the idea that maybe people are just born that way. I mean she doesn't really explain why Sam is the way he is or why Sookie is the way she is. Maybe that is something she explains later.

I was surprised that Eric didn't have a bigger role in this book because I thought that he would but I guess the author was just laying ground work for the other books.

I didn't really like the ending. I mean I liked the way that they ended Sookie's story but to have Bill come in and start talking about elections and then having Eric flying outside the window, it just left me going "what?"

I would rather Bill have just come back and when Sookie asks him, just to say "Business in New Orleans is completed but I'll tell you about it later." I mean that would end the book with a question but the way it is now I'm just left wondering what the hell he was talking about.
To be honest, I didn't pick up on the whole Elvis thing. When it got to the part about Bubba and they were saying he looked like the guy from Memphis, I thought that they were talking about some tourist that had come into the bar earlier in the book and I just forgot about him. My friedn Amanda had to point it out to me, then I was like "that's who that was? Really?"

All in all, I really liked this book. I would like to eventually read the other books, but I'm not really in a hurry.

I give this Abduction 3 1/2 stars out of 5.