Word/Music Associations

Experts say that the sense that is most strongly tied to memory is smell, with hearing coming in second. It is more likely than not that there is some sort of music playing while one is reading. With that being said, I was listening to the radio while I was randomly in and out of the car today, and I heard some songs that instantly brought back some memories of the books I had read while listening to that music. And then that got me thinking of all the music-book links that I've formed over the years

Crimson City series = Sleep Thief's CD The Dawnseeker

(Sitting in the rocking chair during the summer I got over my stupid ex)

Patient Zero = Linkin Park's  Minutes to Midnight

Dragonlance The Lost Histories  = No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom

Volume 2 The Irda and Volume 3 The Dargonesti (I read these on the school bus on the way to and from HS back when the CD first came out, such vivid memories of that)

Liberty = Tori Amos's Tales of the Librarian

Stupid & Contagious = Rachael Yamagata's Happenstance

Sacre Bleu (in the process of reading) = Seth MacFarlane's Music is Better Than Words

There are probably others, but I can't think of them at the moment. I've read so many books and listened to so many CDs while reading said books, I can't remember the book/music combinations. I'm sure there's a Matchbox Twenty (20?) CD in there matched with a Rogue Angel volume, as many others. 

What type of music do you like to listen to when you read? Do you listen to any music when you read? I have found that I read/retain what I've read better when there's some sort of music in the background. Not TV, even if it's like music videos or an all music channels. If there's some sort of visual component, I get distracted and can't focus on my reading. I'm a very visual learner. I have also found that there are certainly specific genres of music that tie together with genres of books. Like Tori Amos for more epic, sweeping stories, hard rocking Linkin Park for a zombie gore fest, and the like. I certainly wouldn't pair Five Finger Death Punch with a romantic comedy... on second thought... I probably wouldn't pair Five Finger Death Punch with anything. Their music makes my ears bleed. 

See?

Are your eardrums bleeding yet?

 

Review of Curses! A F***ked Up Fairy Tale

All right. I recovered from my mouse-death-filled night last night to finally work on the review of this book. I seem to be drawn to these types of off-kilter, more "adult" fairy tale books. This book, an Advanced Reader's Copy, was laying on the ARC book shelf in the break room at Barnes & Noble. I think this was the last ARC I swiped before I moved on to other career pastures.

This book is among the fun subgenre of books that take children's fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and other characters that would be at home in a Grimm tale or Disney movie, and takes those "wholesome" icons and hands them a bottle of Jack, a stack of $1s, and send them to Las Vegas to see what happens. We are introduced to RJ, a villain who has been put on sabbatical due to a nervous breakdown after his divorce. Now, RJ, once the most badass villain in New Never City, is doomed to "being nice" until the villain union reinstates him. And this leave of absence couldn't have come at a worst time. Cinderella had been recently found dead---struck by a city bus---and now one of her "ugly stepsisters" has come to RJ, seeking his help under false pretenses he is not willing to correct any time soon. Asia, the eldest of the stepsisters, wants RJ to help her find out who killed Cinderella in order to save the kingdom. Begrudgingly, RJ agrees to help (since she asked him so nicely, he has to help her due to being "cursed to niceness"). The unlikely pair travel to the kingdom and RJ is plunged into a strange world of troll butlers, closeted princes, and a pair of homicidal monarchs.

RJ's situation steadily grows dicey as the plot thickens. Allies suddenly have evidence point against them that could implement them as suspects. New truths are revealed about the royal family and those around them with each turn as the mystery deepens and as RJ gets closer to whomever killed Cinderella. Through twists and turns, our anti-hero (literally, doing anything heroic is quite against the villain's code!) draws closer to solving case and winning the heart of the girl of his dreams. Even if she may be out to kill him.

Kazimer has a biting sense of humor, satire, a mouth like a sailor, and a twisted talent for making the most innocent fairy tale character into a mob boss with a mean right hook and a pension for triple homicides. Given that the version of the book I read was an ARC, there were some formatting errors (one paragraph wasn't indented *gasp!*), and there did seem to be some pacing/flow lapses during the latter half of the story, I won't go too hard on the criticism for this book in hopes that those were caught and worked on in later editing rounds. Overall, I found the book a great and quick read, a more substantial "fluff" book for summer or lazy day reading bouts, but yet not too heavy and cumbersome to turn you off from it. If you have a bit of a dirty/jaded side and realize that the original Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen versions of these tales we grew up on and/or told our children were a helluva lot more violent and adult than what we remember (or what Disney would lead you to believe), then this book is for you. Also, there is a teaser of the next book in the F***Ked Up Fairy Tale series that this one was apparently the first in. I give it a hearty rating of 6.5 on my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss).

It's out now in paperback and ebook form, it came out in March of 2012. I may go out and buy the non ARC version of this book due to the odd condition the ARC came in. When I picked it up from the shelf, it was bound by a rubber band. I took the rubber band off and discovered this:

Normal cover, right?

Hmm. What is this orange layer underneath?

The... the cover was never attached!? o.0 

WTF? Why would the publisher send the book out... some assembly required!? I love the cover design but hate the fact it's not f***king attached to the book! I highly doubt that it saved money... you had to print the book and the cover separate... I just... I don't even... Some things just don't make sense. Oh well. Can't hold that over the book; it's not the book's fault. Never you mind the weirdness of the ARC cover. Go out and buy this book now if you want a truly original story that, hidden beneath murder, crime, lies, and a pond full of frogs waiting to be kissed into a prince, there is an amazing tale of a man fighting for what is most important in his life.

Reading Girl, Interrupted.

Only 3-5 chapters away from finishing Curses! A F***ed Up Fairy Tale, I get the shock of my life.

I am the pet parent to two poofy cats: Kiera, a 15-yr-old black Norwegian Forest cat, and Diesel, an-almost-8-yr-old cream-n-white Ragdoll; both are a hefty 12 lbs. Diesel is my rambunctious boy, full of too much energy. So, needless to say, Diesel has a lot of energy to burn off and finds random things around the house to "chase": hair ties, pieces of paper, digging at luggage, that sort of thing.

So I was given the shock of my life after Diesel comes skittering across the living room carpet, clutching and grabbing at something with his little paws. I'm sitting in my glider rocker, reading the aforementioned book, half paying attention to my feisty cat. But then whatever he held possessively in his paws flew out...

And scampered under its own volition across my carpet, with Diesel bounding after it. It was a small mouse. In my living room. Being played with by my cat.

I failed to jump damn near out of my skin, but did manage to swear viciously with a fierce: "OH DEAR FUCK!" as I drew my feet off the floor and knees to my chest, almost flinging my book out of my hands as Diesel cornered the rodent under my love seat. Then the feline duo, newly christened mousers, cornered the mouse under a Lego bucket before my husband came home and removed the deceased mouse fro under the Legos. Apparently 3lbs of Legos is enough force per square inch to snap a rodent's neck.

The joy of reading and reaching the climax of my book has been dampened by the life and death struggle going on in my living room. Hopefully I will have recovered enough from this event to finish the book and get a review for it up tomorrow, or at the latest, July 4th.

Here's a video of me freaking out after the two cornered the poor thing under the Legos.