There are some kindred spirits working at TNT/TBS/USA who choose which movies to show regularly on the weekends. It's like they somehow know that I will ALWAYS watch Overboard, What About Bob?, Hook, Father of the Bride, and about a billion other movies--and there must be tons more people just like me that regularly think about dressing up as Bob Wiley for Halloween every year because why else would they be showing the same movies unless people are watching them?  Death Becomes Her, which you may or may not remember as MY FAVORITE MERYL STREEP MOVIE EVER EVEN INCLUDING HER MANY AWARD-WINNING PERFORMANCES, is always on basic cable on the weekends...and I pretty much know it by heart. It is just so bizarre, I mean, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Isabella Rossellini in a movie about two women dueling over a balding mortician and then taking a potion to life forever? That's pure cinematic gold. I saw Rachel Caine at an event last weekend and you can't really tell by looking at someone but I'm pretty sure she also likes Death Becomes Her. Evidence:

I haven't fully signed on for the new zombie love story trend in books and I'm sure many people would try to argue with me about the main character in this book not being a zombie, so here's a quick two-question quiz to find out if you are a zombie:

Question 1: Did you die at some point? If yes, move on to question 2. If no, congratulations! You are alive!
Question 2: Are you somehow still walking around and "living" to a varying degree? If yes, congratulations (?), you are a zombie!

Some people might say that you need to be craving brains to be a zombie. Then again, some people think bands like Nickelback and Creed make good music. Bryn, the MC of this book, dies and is subsequently revived by a chemical compound that must be taken daily to maintain her zombie, oops, I mean revived person's body. I know what you're thinking here--that's hot. You totally would be attracted to an animated, walking, talking, thinking corpse, right? Wait...something's not right here. We had a discussion at book club about whether or not the romantic element in this book was off-putting and it totally was to me BUT it is mostly for one reason and surprisingly, it isn't because Bryn is revived. Patrick sees her die. He sees her as a dead body. He sees her beat up, shot, and basically mangled and then sees her tissue regrowing in front of him. Um, that's gross. That is a constant reminder that the person you are looking at is artificially alive. Necrophilia is so in right now. I couldn't truly get on board with it in this particular book but she does basically live a normal life so I'm not ruling out romance with some future guy who doesn't know she's dead (SPOILER ALERT FOR HIM! "Hey, I've been meaning to tell you...I can't have kids." "Oh, is it something genetic?" "Meh, actually I'm a reanimated corpse. No biggie.")

Overall, the mystery and intrigue were entertaining and the series started off with enough world-building and quirky characters that I'll come back for more. (*cough*some of the side characters are more interesting than the main girl*cough*) Since Bryn was in the military, I expected much more badassery to be happening but she gets punched out pretty regularly. Perhaps she'll really come into her zombie self in future Revivalist series books? Until then, you can most likely find me watching What About Bob? on repeat...

Inside Job
Author: Connie Willis
Publication Date: 6/05
Publisher: Subterranean Press

Blurb (GR):
Connie Willis is the master of the science fiction novella, from seminal efforts such as "Blued Moon," "Fire Watch," "The Last of the Winnebagos," and beyond. "Inside Job" takes its place on that permanent shelf, a tale of spiritualists, séances, skeptics, and a love that just might be able to rise about it all.

Review:
You might like this book if: You’re a skeptic, you get depressed by this, you know a lot (or a little) about the Scopes Trial, you think séances, channeling, and psychics are a bit of a joke, you love Connie Willis, you are making your way through all the Hugo Award Winners (best novella), you can laugh at yourself for at least thinking once or twice of ordering stuff off of infomercials, or you like H.L. Mencken quotes.

You probably won’t like this book if: You are a creationist, you believe that séances, channeling, and psychics are NOT a bit of a joke, or you don’t like Connie Willis.

Plot in a sentence: A man who runs a skeptic magazine and his Lady Bountiful partner attempt to uncover one of those people who charge hundreds of dollars to contact the ghosts of your loved ones and other fascinating jazz like that.

Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Publication Date: 8/16/11
Publisher: Crown

Blurb (GR):
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
 
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.  

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

Review:
This book is nostalgia porn. If you grew up in the 80s, enjoy video games, or go crazy for popular culture, you will devour this one. I was supposed to be reading this with a friend but I couldn’t stop. I read the beginning and thought, “what’s the big deal with everyone’s obsession?” Then Ernest Cline got his meat hooks into me and I read it while I was making dinner, while I was eating dinner, and then afterward until I’d finished it. I think I am just a few years shy of this books prime audience but I can see how it will appeal to most of my fellow geeks friends. Ready Player One is set in a future where we have depleted our resources to the point where many people lives in Stacks, which are basically just trailer homes piled 20+ high and many people struggle to make ends meet. Wade Watts, the protagonist, attends school in OASIS like many of his peers. OASIS, an online world created by James Halliday contains thousands of different worlds, including copies of many famous sci-fi verses—I’m sure you could spend most of your time in Sunnydale or on Dune if you wanted to. In a very Westing Game move, Halliday leaves his entire $250 billion fortune to the player who can find the Easter egg hidden in OASIS. The book is set five years after his death and no player has gotten even one step closer to figuring out Halliday’s mystery. And the kicker? Halliday’s obsession, besides video games, was the 1980s. All the kids and adults alike are well-versed in all things 1980s from fashion to music to games to computers. These characters know more about the 1980s than most people who lived through it.

Wade Watts has spent years playing through all of Halliday’s favorite games and songs trying to figure out the first step. When Wade figures out the first move, his name shoots to the top of a previously empty high-scorers list and the world goes into a frenzy. The entire rest of the book follows Wade and his fellow contestants through the game in their attempts to reach the goal first. It seems like every person in the world is up against each other—especially the “gunters” (egg hunters) and the “sixers.” (Corporately-sponsored hunters who want to take over the OASIS for monetary gain, so-called because their avatar names begin with the number 6) My adrenaline ran high for the whole book. In fact, I actually kept speaking to Wade aloud. “Wade, what the hell are you doing? You are past the first gate! Pull your head out of your ass and stop spending your time at dance parties!” “Art3mis is so much smarter than you, Wade!” Wade’s fellow gunters include his long-time online crush, Art3mis and his BFF Aech (pronounced like the letter H). They were seriously awesome side characters with distinct personalities, which I especially enjoyed considering I have several friends on Goodreads whom I’ve never met in real life but I feel like I know pretty well. (you guys better not be lying to me!) My experience with WoW and Second Life is pretty minimal…well, I did once try Second Life but it mostly consisted of my friends and I goofing around and then accidentally wandering into an orgy and getting yelled at. Anyway, my point is that people quest all the time and talk to the same people regularly online. They have distinct personalities. I’m so happy that Ernest Cline was able to capture the personalities so well when the characters were only together outside of OASIS for limited amounts of time.

As someone who has spent probably entire weeks of her life playing video games, this book feels a bit like validation. SEE, NERD! YOUR TIME SPENT COLLECTING RUPEES WASN’T FOR NOTHING!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this highly addictive and fun read! 

The Best American Poetry 2011
Editors: Kevin Young (installment), David Lehman (series)
Publication Date: 9/20/11
Publisher: Scribner

Blurb (GR):
The latest installment of the yearly anthology of contemporary American poetry that has achieved brand-name status in the literary world.

Review:
I thought for a long time about whether I wanted to review this or if I had the capacity to do so. I feel like there are hordes of poetry fans and critical readers who are waiting in the wings to tell me I’m an idiot and that I don’t understand poetry. Anthologies are always hit and miss for people--it’s near impossible to something meaningful to every reader but this collection had enough poems that truly hit it out of the park for me that I felt I should at least write something about it. Is this the definitive collection of the best poems of the year? I really couldn’t say; I am no authority. I’ll leave that to other people to debate and just speak to my reading experience. Thankfully, David Lehman discusses this point in his foreword. The plethora of quotations in the first half of the foreword made it a choppy read for me but I am ecstatic to say that the part I enjoyed most about it was the last few paragraphs that Mr. Lehman wrote which summarized his own feelings on anthologizing poems, the wherewithal of poetry, and the structure and organization of the collection and all while devoid of quotes. It came as quite a surprise to me that this anthology is organized alphabetically. I read the foreword and introduction after the collection and didn’t notice (and constantly wondered about) the connective thread. I'm happy to finally know. Kevin Young, who selected the poems for this work, manages quite a feat in his introduction—he made me want to reread every poem in the book with his discussion and he compared the comeback of the sonnet to the much-hyped and awaited return of the McRib sandwich. Bravo, Mr. Young.

My favorite poems are the ones that punch you in the gut in the fewest number of stanzas possible. Tell me in a two pages or less or my eyes will start to glaze over and my mind will start wandering. I read three or four of these poems every few nights before I went to sleep and some I read over and over and over. It is truly a gift to be able to evoke emotions with your words in such a brief format. I must admit that a few of them made me tear up, but the same number dazzled me with their humor and cleverness. For example, Rachel Wetzsteon’s Time Pieces features short haiku stanzas, each a clever play on a heading about the passage of time: “Intermission Time/Guilty admission:/this plunge from art to life’s a/painful transition.” Or “Just give it time/Though I frankly feel/better, there’s nothing sadder/than starting to heal.” (emphasis my own to differentiate headings) For some reason, I am always drawn to poems about loss. I was touched by Yusef Komunyakaa’s A Voice on an Answering Machine, in which he writes of a woman lost but whose voice still remains as a reminder and similarly moved by Gretchen Steele Pratt’s, To my father on the anniversary of his death. I think the common thread for me will always be personal memories. We all like to make that connection with other people and wait patiently for those a-ha moments in literature when writers fascinate us with their perfect statements.

I have to admit that I laughed out loud during Erin Belieu’s, When at a Certain Party in NYC…clearly we’ve met some similar people in our travels. (and felt unhip at times) And I was quite surprised, as several of my reader friends may be, that both Sherman Alexie and Julianna Baggott have poems in this collection. I only mention these two specifically as I was familiar with their names before reading their biographical sections. I particularly enjoyed (as much as you can enjoy) Alexie’s Valediction, which goes back to my death-related poem obsession. He writes, “Yes, my sad acquaintance, each dark time is/Indistinguishable from the other dark times./Yesterday is as relentless as tomorrow.” Makes you really want to go to sleep, eh? A few of my other favorites were Eric Pankey’s Cogitatio Mortis (“After awhile, each room is a waiting room.”), James Longenbach’s Snow and Jane Hirschfield’s extremely short The Cloudy Vase, which captures optimism in just four lines.

Because each poem is such a singular experience, I could obviously ramble about this anthology for ages. Some were better than others to me and many poems I enjoyed were left out of this review for the sake of brevity. This was my first experience with The Best American Poetry series and it won’t be my last. I’ll just leave you with just one more quote, from James Richardson’s “Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays from Vectors 3.0,” “What is more yours than what you always hold back?”

Thanks to the publisher and Simon & Schuster’s Galley Grab program for reminding me how amazing poetry can be and for a larger collection of favorite quotations.

All Seated on the Ground
Author: Connie Willis
Publication Date: 11/26/07
Publisher: Subterranean

Blurb (GR):
The aliens have landed! The aliens have landed! But instead of shooting death rays, taking over the planet and carrying off Earthwomen, they've just been standing there for months on end, glaring like a disapproving relative. And now it's nearly Christmas, and the commission assigned to establish communications is at their wits' end. They've resorted to taking the aliens to Broncos games, lighting displays, and shopping malls, in the hope they'll respond to something!

And they do, but in a way nobody ever expected, and Meg, the commission, and an overworked choir director find themselves suddenly caught up in an intergalactic mess involving Christmas carols, scented candles, seventh-grade girls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Meg's Aunt Judith, Victoria's Secret, and Handel's Messiah.

Review:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh my gosh, I have no idea what story some of these other reviewers were reading. This is a pretty short work and I had to take a nap in the middle of it. No, seriously, I had to--I was totally falling asleep.

Here are a few reasons you might want to read this:
1. You know every Christmas carol and know all the lyrics.
2. You go apeshit over choral music.
3. You really enjoy reading about humans trying to communicate with aliens...and can deal with when you're reading about Christmas carols and choral music the whole time.
4. You like satire and social commentary...enough to get over those aforementioned things.
5. You want to read all of Connie Willis' work.

I still enjoy Willis' sense of humor. She makes me laugh but there were really only a few hilarious moments in All Seated on the Ground. (there were two) However, I still adore Connie Willis and I will keep truckin' through all of her kooky stories.

Feed (Newsflesh, #1)
Author: Mira Grant
Publication Date: 5/1/10
Publisher: Orbit

Blurb (www.miragrant.com, via GR):
In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as "Marburg Amberlee"—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed "The Rising," and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Set twenty years after the Rising, the Newsflesh trilogy follows a team of bloggers, led by Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they search for the brutal truths behind the infection. Danger, deceit, and betrayal lurk around every corner, as does the hardest question of them all:

When will you rise?

Review:
I think my Venn diagram says it all. What? It doesn't? Well, alright then. This book was a real roller coaster for me. I attempted to read a library copy in December and I just couldn't make it through. THE POLITICS. THE BLOGGING. There are several sections of Feed that really slow down the pacing. At points, I felt like I was running around an empty track. At others, someone had tied concrete blocks to my feet and I was running in quicksand. I am so happy that I finished it my second time through, though I have to admit that my motivation to do so was increased by 1) the fact that I was reading with a friend and 2) several of my Goodreads friends sing this book's praises.

The ultimate strength of this novel is in the characters. Adopted brother and sister, Georgia and Shaun, hold the entire story together with their bond. I grew to really enjoy some of the side characters as well, though it was clear to me who was up to no good before their big reveals.

I think the reason I didn't love this as much as some of my friends is that I felt it could've been at least 100 pages shorter than it was. The beginning solidified Georgia and Shaun's familial situation and their friendship with Buffy, as well as the entire world they were living in and the blogging atmosphere. I was hooked. The ending was just fantastic. It was the middle that was rough going and it makes me nervous to start the second Newsflesh book--will it be a blog slog again?