Remembrance, Meg Cabot

I wasn't big on the Mediator series when it was for young adults, but I was curious as to what Cabot would do when the book was for adults.

Man, I didn't like it.

Background: Suze Simon is a "mediator," that means she can see and communicate with ghosts and help them move on. Her boyfriend, Jesse, used to be a ghost. (I don't know how that part works, i haven't read the other books.)

So as the book, opens, Suze is bidding on some boots on ebay when she gets an e-mail from a guy who apparently tried to rape her in high school, saying he bought Suze's childhood home.

Suze immediately calls this guy up to yell at him, whereupon he tells her that he plans to demolish said childhood home, in which case, her ex-ghost boyfriend MAY just turn into a demon or some shit.

In exchange for not tearing down the house, he wants Suze to let him rape her.

And she actually considers it!

Also, I get that there may be a swear jar at her job in a catholic school, but seeing as she does not get PAID for said job, it is kind of an asshole concept.

And her friends also doing this to her is beyond the pale. The entire thing is a ridiculous holdover from when the books were for children, and seems like a space-filler to me.

I'm sure everything worked out for Suze, but I didn't stick around to find out.

Fender Lizards, Joe R. Lansdale

Dot Sherman feels stuck in her dead-end job in her dead-end town.

That starts to change when a man claiming to be her uncle shows up, and when she learns a carnival with a roller derby is coming to town. Since Dot works on roller skates, she figures it's worth a shot.

I REALLY liked this book. It's just Lansdale writing the living shit out of a thing, and It's great.

Black Orchid, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Sometimes I miss the days when I would have just felt vaguely unsatisfied with this book, shrugged, and moved on. Understanding why I don't like it does not make it easier to deal with.

Can we start with the fawning introduction by some guy I never heard of? It is especially impressed at how the book BEGINS with the death of a female superhero. How unexpected, et cetera.

So, yes. A woman is captured by the evil, and shot in the head. Beautiful.

Somehow the hero's death wakes up her.. sister? Something. She's a plant. She doesn't have a name.

Things happen AROUND this nameless woman. These things are done by men. Always men. She doesn't do much of anything.

The art's nice, though.

I'm just tired.