8 down... 92 to go...

Another sad update of my 100 Books in 1 Year Challenge. I just knocked off book 8 tonight, and got #9 loaded up and #10 on deck. Here's my updated list:


1. Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry  519pgs
    Started 1/9/13 Finished 1/10/13
2. Changeless by Gail Carriager  374pgs
    Started 1/11/13 Finished 1/24/13
3. Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen 195 pgs
    Started 1/19/13 Finished 2/18/13
4. Psych: A Mind-Altering Murder by William Rabkin 274pgs
    Started 2/13/13 Finished 2/21/13
5. Walking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly  178 pgs
    Started 2/19/13 Finished 3/14/13
6. Froggy Style by J.A. Kazmier  288 pgs
    Started 3/11/13 Finished 3/13/13
7. Undisclosed Book of Mysterious Mystery!
    HA!
8. Rogue Angel: Paradox (#21) by Alex Archer
    Started 3/14/13  
8. Assassin's Code by Jonathan Maberry  482pgs
    Started 3/20/13   Finished 4/13/13
9. Eureka: Road Less Traveled by Cris Ramsey  262 pgs
    Started 4/13/13
10. Fruits Basket: Volume 1  by Natsuki Takaya  198 pgs
     Started 4/13/13

Yeah, I changed my #8 book. So sue me. But this is also why I've been stuck in the middle of the Rogue Angel series for a few years now... I find other books to spark my interest more than that series... it's a little formulaic...? Perhaps after reading some not-so-intense-emotionally-wrecking books for a while will get me back into the fantasy/action-adventure/Indiana Jones type genre again. I need some "fluff" to reset my brain after I read any of Maberry's books. It'll be a while before I attempt Extinction Machine. And yes, it took me nearly a month to finish Assassin's Code, a fact I am not proud of. Some life/work stuff got in the way and it took a while to get into reading it. As always, in a few days I'll have a review of Assassin's Code up here on the blog for you all to enjoy (after I've had time to process it).

G'night and good reading! =^_^=

Review of Froggy Style by J.A. Kazimer

It's taken me a while to get this review up, and I apologize. Work, life, and other distractions kept me from being able to fully reflect on the book. But now, I have reflected and it was good! 

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy from the author herself. Thank you so very much, Ms. Kazimer!

Froggy Style is Kazimer's second installment in her F***ked Up Fairy Tale series, and it certainly lives up to the standards set by the first, Curses!. We are introduced to Jean-Michel La Grenouille, our princely hero of the story. However, he is a frog. In a pond. And is eight years old. He has spent the first eight years of as a frog in that very pond after suffering a curse inflicted upon him before he was even born. Suddenly a young girl appears, maybe 3-4 years old and all covered in sticky mess with wild crazy hair, and she sticks the frog prince in her mouth. That "kiss" turns him back into a human boy. Flash forward rough twenty years and Jean-Michel has to get married to The One (the girl who broke his curse) by his next birthday (which is in less than a week), or else he'll turn back into a frog forever. But Jean-Michel has enjoyed the wild bachelor life over the last few years and isn't excited about settling down, especially with a virtually unknown princess. 

The princess he is supposed to marry is none other than Sleeping Beauty. And she's a real "beauty" all right. Unkempt, rude, crass, and narcoleptic, Beauty is anything but someone's ideal wife. But Jean-Michel has to make it work---he's not going back to the pond no matter what. After first meeting her, he goes out on the town and tries to drown his pre-marital problems in Cin City's bars (the fairy tale version of Las Vegas). The morning after is when the fun really starts. Apparently, while out drunk off his royal butt, Jean-Michel wound up in a tattoo parlor in the more seedy part of town and hired a hitman to take out his future wife. 

Now the frog prince is racing to solve the mystery of who this hitman is, how to stop the hit, while protecting his uncouth fiancee from dying before his birthday and being turned into a frog forever. Throw in crazy future in-laws, a sexually frustrated manservant, a beyond sexy tattoo artist, and a sleepy bride who hates your guts, and you've got one wild ride. Will Jean-Michel protect Beauty? Will he stay human or have to mortgage out a new lily pad?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As with its predecessor, Froggy Style is not for children and sure ain't your grandma's telling of the frog prince. Kazimer has a true talent in mixing skewed fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters with more adult prose and keeping true to the gritty, dark origins of the Grimm original. Kazimer also is a pro at turning out a great read full of puns, play-on-words, humor, sexy fun times, as well as a surprising emotional depth that sneaks up on you and suddenly smacks you in the face towards the end of the book. Take Jean-Michel: he was your typical playboy prince, think Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark pre-Iron Man. He was cocky, smug, more-than-slightly full of himself. He was focused on only saving his own butt from his curse and couldn't truly care about any one else around him. But suddenly, a switch was flipped and you sit back from the book after a while and realize there was a change in Jean-Michel. You're not sure when it happened, but it happened. 

This was a such a good read. I couldn't wait for this book and when I finally got my hands on it, I could barely put it down. Sadly, one must eat and sleep and work. I really can't recommend this book, as well as Curses! enough. On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I rate Froggy Style a solid 9. Yeah. A 9. 

Go read this book. You won't be sorry. 

Perhaps you'll find your own prince somewhere...