Easter weekend was awesome. It was wonderful to be with *almost* all the reindeer cousins in E-Town again. My thumbs are only just now recovering from multiple rounds of Mario Kart and Rock Band. Good times were had sipping margaritas and wine in the hot tub, there was an extreme amount of shopping done, and I got to have lunch with E-Town native RAL who I hadn't seen for a long time. Needless to say I was extremely disappointed to have to come back home and go to work on Tuesday :(
During the long car ride to and from, I got to do a little recreational reading. I had recently purchased Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez. See it was recommended in January's Cosmo as a good Teen book for adults to check out, sort of in the Twilight/Harry Potter tradition. Well, let me be the first to tell you: Stay far, far away from this book. It really sucked. It was badly written, the plot seemed to jump ahead suddenly in spots, the prose was choppy, etc. Believe me, it's no Harry Potter, and sadly, it's not even as well-written as Twilight. The heroine, who we are told again and again is supposed to be some sort of social outcast, manages to become the girlfriend of the star of the football team, make the cheerleading squad, become best friends with the richest most popular girl in school, and then, with her psychic powers, she squashes the evil vampire lady with a set of bleachers just in time for her to attend the homecoming dance with her football star and become the homecoming queen. Cuz, you know, what else could a girl aspire to? Everything was way too easy. Zero character development. Bleah.
Seriously, what is with all these books with these dumb female protagonists? If you want to read a well-written book with strong women characters, check out anything by Shannon Hale or Tamora Pierce. I also just read Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, and there is no comparison. Unfortunately there is apparently two sequels to Dead is the New Black. I won't be reading them.
