Sarah's Library

This post will be bit shorter than most of my previous monthly wrap-ups due to the amount that I wrote last night for my May wrap-up.  I also went over why this (and that one) are late and I won't bother going into that again, if you're curious it's all detailed in my 'My May Reading' post, which I posted on the 5th of July.

It wasn't till about the middle of the month that I realised June had unofficially (and accidentally, without my knowledge) become Romance Month.  I read a staggering (for me) 16 books in June, only two of them fell outside the genre of romance.  I don't have a problem with having a romance month, it's just that it's all a strange coincidence that the appropriate books became available right when necessary to fit into my month of romance.  Serendipity.  Isn't that a notion common to the romance novel?  Now it's helped me to spend a month in 'romancelandia'.  You can find links to the books I read in June below.

1. The Shape of My Heart (2B Trilogy, #3) by Ann Aguire, you can read my review here

2. Kulti by Mariana Zapata, you can read my review here

3. HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, you can read my review here

4. Shadow's Stand  (Hell's Eight, #5) by Sarah McCarty, you can read my review here

5. Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven, #1) by Julia London, you can read my review here

6. Big Bad Beast (Pride, #6) by Shelly Laurenston, you can read my review here

7. Love thy Neighbour (Friend-Zoned, #2) by Belle Aurora, you can read my review here

8. Tempting the Bodyguard, (Gamble Brothers, #3) by Jennifer Armentrout, you can read my review here

9. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, you can read my review here

10. True (True Believers, #1) by Erin McCarthy, you can read my review here

11. Tempting the Best Man (Gamble Brothers, #1) by Jennifer Armentrout, you can read my review here

12. Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell, you can read my review here

13. Shatter (True Believers, #4) by Erin McCarthy, you can read my review here

14. The Look of Love (The Sullivans, #1) by Bella Andre, you can read my review here

15. Out on Good Behaviour (Radleigh University, #1) by Dahlia Adler, you can read my review here

16. Ruined by Rumour by Alyssa Everett, you can read my review here

My Reading Stats for June

16 books in 30 days, that's an average of 0.53 books per day

• 5137 pages (despite reading three more books than in May, that's only two more pages) in 30 days, that's an average of 171.23 pages per day (I was a busy reader last month, but I was lucky with my book choices, half of these books were read in well under 24 hours) and 321 per book
• 16 books with an average rating of 3.37 stars
• My fastest read was either Love thy Neighbour or The Look of Love.  I started both of thrm around breakfast and had them finished before dinner in both cases (on different days, of course), but as I didn’t time myself it's not clear exactly which took me the least time to read.
• My best, my only five star read of the month, was The Look of Love.  I just loved that book!  I can't really explain it as it had many flaws and it's not like I was blind to them, I just didn't care while I was reading.
• My worst was a very disappointing Elizabeth Lowell title, Beautiful Sacrifice.  I was more disappointed because of how well-loved Lowell is (by me, as well as others).  If this had been written by an unknown-to-me author, I could possibly have seen myself giving it two stars, but Lowell is too experienced an author to write that crap.

Still not done wjth these major posts, next up is my half yearly report.  Talk to you all later and have a great day, Sarah.

5/7 - I returned this to the library back on the 10th of June, but somehow I managed to forget to review it. I will attempt to write a comprehensive review despite the time gap.

3.5 stars, better than the last Hell's Eight book I read, but still not quite up to the level of Caine's story. Fei Yen is my favourite heroine of the whole series. She and Shadow were a great couple and I loved the way she brought out Shadow's softer side. Why do these Hell's Eight men always think they're cold-hearted bastards who will only bring pain and suffering to the women they love? They always sell themselves short and that gets so frustrating. I loved Fei Yen's expertise with explosives and the enjoyment she seemed to get whilst using them. Not a particularly comprehensive (or cohesive, now that I read back over it) review, but that's about all I can think of regarding memorable scenes and my feelings while reading them

I am so behind in my blogging!!  I've got three major posts to write and they all need to be done ASAP as they are all late.

My household had a dreadful problem with mysterious middle of the night internet usage that led to everyone being ordered to turn their devices off whenever they walked away from them for more than an ad break's length of time so that we didn't go over our data limit and in order to keep track of who was using the Internet when.  The next problem happened when it was decided that our password needed to be changed to eliminate the possibility of a hacker getting into our system in the middle of the night.  For unknown reasons after the password was changed our modem extender was no longer recognised by our devices, which meant that internet usage was restricted to only one end of the house (unfortunately, not the end I tend to sit in).

With all these problems and restrictions I got out of the habit of logging on to Goodreads and Booklikes every morning and started eschewing the trials of trying to use the Internet for the fun of continuing a large cross stitch project that I put aside about five years ago.  Now that the mysterious midnight internet surfer has been foiled and the extender has decided to behave itself again I've gotten back into my old 'internet all day, every day' habit, but I hope to continue on with doing my craft projects.  There's enough time in the day for three hobbies, right (reading, wiritng, and sewing)?  With the occasional day off from one activity to focus more intently on another?  Anyway, that's what I'm going to be attempting for the rest of the year, which will mean slightly less time on the Internet.  So, while I will continue to review every book I read (that's a lifelong goal), I won't be around to comment as much as I have previously been.  So please don't think I'm ignoring any of you, I will reply to your comments/questions/messages, it just might not be today.

Anyway, to the books I read way back in May.  May was a pretty good month for me, 13 books, although that did include two DNFs which ended up being the last two reads of the month which caused mixed feelings of disappointment that the month ended on a sour note and relief that I was done forcing myself to read books I wasn't enjoying.  You can find links to my reviews of those books below.

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, you can read my review here

2. Divergent (Divergent, #1) by Veronica Roth, you can read my review here

3. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks, you can read my review here

4. Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) by Orson Scott Card, you can read my review here

5. The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner, #2) by James Dashner, you can read my review here

6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, you can read my review here

7. Where Sea Meets Sky by Karina Halle, you can read my review here

8. City of Bones  (The Mortal Instruments, #1) by Cassandra Clare, you can read my review here

9. Vision in Silver  (The Others, #3) by Anne Bishop, you can read my review here

10. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Sisterhood, #1) by Ann Brashares, you can read my review here

11. Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1) by Cassandra Clare, you can read my review here

12. The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, you can read my review here

13. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, you can read my review here

My Reading Stats for May

• 13 books in 31 days, that's an average of 0.41 books per day
• 5135 pages in 31 days, that's an average of 165.64 pages a day (that's quite an achievement!) and 395 per book
• 13 books with an average rating of 3.3 stars
• My fastest read was Vision in Silver, 400 pages in less than 24 hours.  It was such a fantastic book that I could probably repeat that performance every time I read it (which I will do every year or so as it's likely this series will become my all-time favourite series)
• My best is a no-brainer, clearly it's Vision in Silver.
• My worst is also pretty clear.  I may have more than one single star read of the month and two DNFs, but the award has to go to the book that will stick with me (in the worst way possible) for the longest - Lolita.  Even now, two months after I finally finished it (not the first time I tried to read it, but that's a whole other story that you can read more about in my review) some of Humbert's words/ideas still make me shudder.  As soon as I finished  I immediately had to start reading a happy book to try to erase those horrible images.

Well, that's another month done, now immediately on to June's post as I'm running a bit behind with these things.  Talk to you all later and have a great day.

 7/6 - I read this in the first days after my surgery and it was one of the few things that could distract me from the pain of my wound or the seemingly never-ending nausea that plagued me. Unfortunately, while I was able to read for short periods of time (I kept falling asleep due to the drugs I was on and the sheer trauma of the surgery), I wasn't up to reviewing. Now, nearly two months after finishing the book I don't feel I remember it well enough to write a review worthy of the fantasticness of the story. I think my brain has blocked out a lot of that first week, or I was too drugged to 'make' the memories, because I no longer remember a lot of the things I said or did or that were said to me while I was in hospital. So, while I have already read this and remember enough to know that it absolutely deserves five stars (giving this five stars is my main reason for marking this as 'read'), at the moment I can't write a review that actually discusses the book (and I want to, because even without being able to remember exactly what happened, thinking about the book makes me feel happy, and that time in my life was not a happy one). I remember scenes in the book, but not necessarily in the correct order and off the top of my head I can't remember exactly what happened at the end. So, this has been re-added to my 'to read' list for this year so that I can give it the review it deserves (also because I want to be able to remember it clearly). I'll be back when I've gotten my hands on this for the second time. To be continued...

23/5 - Rereading this in order to review it. To be continued...

31/5 - I finished this days ago, but was taking an enforced break from the internet due to my ISP being 'down' for a over 24 hours (I took the opportunity to do some cross stitch in the meantime), which means that while I absolutely loved getting the chance to re-read this, the main point of the re-read was so that I could write a coherent and concise review of the book, and that hasn't happened again. All that this review will end up being is appreciation over how amazing the book is, nothing to do with the plot will really be mentioned.

I have no words to tell you how much I loved this book. There was nothingI didn't like about this book, it was complete perfection for me. It's definitely the best book of the year so far, and may be the best book I read in all of 2016 (possibly tied with Marked in Flesh which I should be getting from the library soon). I'm trying to type calmly here, if I gave free reign to my love and excitement the rest of this review will just be a whole lot of randomly jumbled letters and exclamation points written in bold capitals. Anyone who reads my reviews regularly will know that I don't 'squee' or 'fangirl' over books (the only other examples I can think of off the top of my head that might qualify are the previous two books in this series), so the fact that I'm just hanging on by a thread here definitely says something about just how awesome this book was. I'm going to buy it as soon as I finish typing. I don't know how I'm going to manage while I wait for my hold on Marked in Flesh to become available, I have doubts any other book will be able to hold my attention like this one did (and still does).

For those of you who are also on Goodreads, you can enter to win a paperback of my latest novel.

1/7 - I read this immediately after finishing the first book in the series,True, which may have contributed to this not getting a slightly higher rating. I disliked Jessica and Kylie so much in True that I just wasn't in the right mind to accept either of them as sympathetic heroines. It's probably lucky that I didn't go straight to Jessica's book as she seemed to be the more objectionable of the pair.

Once I got over my prior dislike of Kylie this was pretty good, above average. I got choked up when

 and felt that Jonathan and McCarthy handled the situation well. I really liked the epilogue with the 

 because it was a start on the road to healing their pain as well as being a nice humorous ending to the series.

Buddy read with the Unapologetic Romance Readers group.

1/7 - For most of the book I wanted to do serious violence to both of the main characters - shake her and slap him, or maybe it was the other way around, either way I was perpetually in a state of wanting to scream at them talk to each other. I was eventually proven correct (as I'm sure a lot of readers were) when they finally managed a conversation where they each managed to have their say without being interrupted and eveything was magically sorted out because they had talked to each other and it all took about five minutes of speaking (imagine that, they could have saved themselves all that embarrassment if they'd talked to each other three months earlier). During some scenes where one or the other was being particularly reticent or letting the other talk over them I got very close to jumping in and telling the talker to shut up and the silent one to spit it out (except, of course, this is all fiction and those conversations were all in my head).

About 3/4 of the way in I started to warm to Roxana, but then George reappeared and she started to behave like an idiot again. I never found Alex (or his chosen topic of conversation) dull, just apparently completely lacking in a sense of humor. Living with someone like Alex, who can never just have a laugh with you would be very difficult - no teasing or joking, no playing with the kids, everything you say/hear has to be taken with the utmost seriousness. What a joyless life. No wonder Roxana was terrified about the idea of marrying him.

Don't read this book if you're looking for sexual tension, there is none. There's just a sweet, bumbling guy who's so afraid of looking like a fool that he ends up looking for a crashing bore who looks down his nose at anyone with the temerity to have fun in his presence and he's stuck with aTon socialite wannabe who's actually a country bumpkin but doesn't know it. Their personalities clash, but not in the hot 'slam me against the wall and kiss me passionately' way because he always turns away to avoid looking like a fool, leaving her standing there thinking he finds her distasteful.

I woukd consider reading more from Everett, as long as he's not a bumbling fool and she's not a gossip queen.

28/6 - This was my first f/f book, so I have no idea how it compares to other f/f books out there, but I thought this was pretty great. I felt the same reading this romance as I have with most previous romances - warm and squishy when love is finally admitted, frustrated when problems could be cleared up with a simple conversation and in need of a fan during the sex scenes. For my heart and brain it doesn't matter what bits go where or what shape those bits come in, if there's love it's all the same to me. I really loved Frankie and Samara, although I would have enjoyed this more if some of the chapters had been told from Samara's PoV because I don't feel like I got to know her very well, certainly not as well as I did Frankie. I wanted to know more about Samara's home life and I wish the epilogue had been longer, to show more of what happened once she and Frankie made it to her parent's place. I wanted there to be a HEA for Samara and her parents. Dahlia Adler is definitely an author I'll be looking out for in the future (both her f/f and f/m books)!

27/6 - I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, now that I've read my friends reviews, but I absolutely loved this. I completely understand their complaints with the book - possibly the worst case of instalove ever, the stupid idea of opening the book with an info dump, and more sex than plot - but none of that mattered to me because Andre immediately hooked me with Chase's instant attraction to Chloe. I would liken it to a girl being in love with a guy who's commited multiple crimes and she knows it, but she can't help loving him anyway, despite all his flaws. I'm that girl and this book is that guy and I fell in instalove with this book. My only problem with this book (obviously not that much of a problem) was that I wanted it to be longer.

My mum finished this at breakfast this morning and I picked it up after lunch this afternoon (I had to finish Beautiful Sacrifice first, you want to talk about bad books, read my review of that one). It took her about 10 days to read it, I only needed six hours. She wasn't all that impressed and said that's why it took her so long to read it, but then again she really enjoyedFifty Shades of Grey. She saw Christian as a tragic figure and felt sorry that he was unable to have a normal romantic relationship because of his troubled past (we had a few 'discussions' regarding Christian's personality and eventually agreed to disagree). I couldn't stand the book and wished a fiery death on the man, but found myself as in love with Chase as Chloe was. I loved this book so much I would pay money to own it (anyone who knows me, knows how rare that declaration is). Even though I've already read Marcus' story I think I might read it again so that I can read the series in its correct order.

 27/6 - I was thinking this was a two and a half to three star read, not completely dreadful, but populated by too much purple prose to be truly enjoyable, but then I read some of the other reviews that talked about her mistakes regarding the geography of Houston and Cozumel, and the Maya culture. Those kinds of mistakes are pretty unforgivable. If you're going to use a culture and specific real-life locations in your book then you had better do your research and represent them in a way that natives of the location or culture would be happy with, otherwise you're not showing them the respect they deserve. It would be like a movie set in a South American jungle being filmed in a redwood forest, anyone who's been to either place would know immediately that they were being lied to and would feel like the people behind the movie were trying to trick them into believing something that was clearly not true. That's how I feel about what Lowell's done with this book. I was very disappointed with the story before I even knew about the inaccuracies because of the dreadful metaphors and overly flowery descriptive writing. I've long been a fan of Lowell's, but this reminded me of her early 80s works with the eye-rollingly bad metaphors

'His face was as hard as anything she'd ever seen carved in stone. And as compelling.'

*sigh*
But this was written in 2012, not 1982, and unfortunately the only difference between this book and one of her 80s books that always seemed to feature 'hard men' and horses is that a condom was mentioned in both of the sex scenes, which would have been unlikely in books like Beautiful Dreamer. You'd think her writing style would mature with age and experience...

2/7 - My only complaint with this 'book' is that it's way too short. I don't understand why Armentrout didn't make the effort to write a full length novel for this story. I thought the plot was fantastic and had the potential to be a 300+ page book, instead of the novella length that it was. I spent most of the time I was reading wondering why she couldn't have expanded on the scenes and topics that she only lightly brushed over, it at least could have been as long as the third book in the series. I really like the 'she's in love since childhood, but he won't touch her because she's his best friend's baby sister' trope, so add another 100 pages to flesh out the characters and make the instalust/love slightly less insta and this could have been five stars. Such a shame :)

29/6 - Nothing remarkable about this romance, except for how much it made me hate Rory's friends, Kylie and Jessica, for the way they tried to set her up. Rory was able to rise above it and put their behaviour down to a case of 'they were only trying to help' much better than I would have. It's likely I would never have spoken to them again.

I once made the mistake of admitting that I had small crush on a guy in my class, the girl I made this admission to immediately stood up and called out to the room (the teacher and all the students, including him, watching in amazement) that Sarah (me) was in love with Mike (not his real name). On the outside I refused to show any reaction, I didn't want to give her the satisfaction, on the inside I wished I could die from shame, but I learned something - don't share personal information like that with anyone. She wasn't even a friend, but we barely exchanged a single word after that (no way was I giving her the chance to do something like that again) and I was happy to see her leave the school a few years later.

I may not have liked the relationship between the girls, but I really liked Tyler and his brothers together, I just wish it hadn't been necessary for them to have such a dreadful mother in order to bring them closer to each other. Future books were, of course, set up between one of the brothers and one of Rory's friends. Not sure if I want to read that one considering my strong feelings regarding their behaviour towards Rory.

How are my fellow Australians enjoying election night?

28/6 - This took me so long to read, not because of its content (on which I am reasonably well read and am no longer shocked by the things that were done) because of how dense it was. It seems to be a peculiar feature of non-fiction books that they often tend to have fewer paragraphs, page breaks, or chapters, leaving the reader to deal with many pages completely filled with text with nothing to break it up. The end result for me was that a book of this length, which would usually take me a week to read ended up taking me 12 weeks. I was warned that the fourth reborrow would be my last because the library was getting worried about the condition of their book considering I'd had it for four months (isn't it amazing how time flies? I would have been ready to argue with them about how long I'd had the book but for the system logging the date I borrowed it on).

I found myself feeling a bit indignant on Schindler's behalf when Keneally mentioned that one of the men who had been bumped off Schindler's list blamed him for his experiences through the rest of the war (he ended up being marched to Auschwitz where he spent the final months of the war waiting for a place in the gas chamber, which fortunately didn't happen). How much can one man be expected to do!? Schindler spent most of his wealth paying off guards, commandants, other business owners, whoever he needed to in order to get as many people as he could to safety (inside the walls of his factory). He gave little thought to his own safety (which was in serious danger on a number of occasions) when he was negotiating these transactions, it was all about what kind of deal he could do in order to save just a few more people's lives. What right did this prisoner have to complain when it turned out that Schindler wasn't the only one doing deals, and that the other guy was more interested in the money (translation: wedding rings, family heirlooms, gold teeth) he was getting out of the deals than the lives he was saving or eliminating.

Schindler was a hero because of who he was before the war (an aryan aristocrat with an entrée to all the right Nazi party functions, doing deals with the top party members - pretty much a guy you would expect would go along with, if not agree with, the party line regarding the final solution) and how he was able to come to the realisation that what was happening wasn't right and change not only his own mind, but that of others around him. What other single man was able to do so much good?

Now that I've read the book I will definitely be on the lookout for the movie. I found the first few chapters of 'getting to know Schindler' to be bit boring, but I imagine that those chapters will be condensed down into a much more manageable (and enjoyable) few minutes of screen time. I'm also looking forward to reading further books by Thomas Keneally, at some point in the future.

1. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? 
I sleep with them in whatever position they were in when I entered the room.  I'm not afraid of the dark or the wardrobe monster.  My main reason to shut the doors would be because a certain dog or cat gets in there and takes great pleasure in digging the shoes out or attacking the hanging clothes.

2. Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?

Tucked in.

3. Have you ever stolen a street sign before?

No.  Not really sure how it would be done.  Do street sign stealing people walk around with an angle grinder under one arm ready to cut the sign off the pole, or a set of screw drivers to unscrew it from the pole (along with a ladder in order to reach in either case)?

4. Do you cut out coupons?
I wish Australia gave me the option to, I would end up on that show Extreme Couponing, where people buy $500 worth of groceries but only pay $10.  I do use the Flybuys coupons (Flybuys is a company that gives you the opportunity to earn points for every dollar you spend at a certain supermarket in Australia, when you have enough points you can use them to buy items for the home or yourself) to boost my points total faster.

5. Would you rather be attacked by bears or bees?

Like most people I'm going to go with neither.

6. Do you have freckles?

Yes, mostly on my forearms.

7. Do you always smile for pictures?

Yes, but when it comes to photos I'm pretty hard to catch.

8. Do you ever count your steps when you walk?
No, but I used to avoid the cracks and had a strange thing about stepping on leaves and the idea that once they were stepped on they would never fly again.

9. Have you ever peed in the woods?
Yes once, but only because it was either that or pee in my pants (I was so unprepared that it was a case of shake it dry because there was no toilet paper). 
 

10. What about pooped in the woods?
No. Fortunately, the day that I had to pee (the one and only time), I didn't have to poo, with no toilet paper that would have been an absolute disaster.

11. Do you chew your pens and pencils?

No never.  Sometimes I hold them in my mouth while I do something else with my hands, but there is no teeth action going on.

12. What’s your song of the week?

I'm listening to Bon Jovi at the moment and I have around 160 of their songs so I can't really pick just one.

13. Is it okay for guys to wear pink?
Depends on the situation and the shade - a hot pink mesh top wouldn't be appropriate for court, while a suit with a muted-pink self-striping shirt wouldn't be right for a rave.

14. Do you still watch Cartoons?
I watch some Pixar movies (Toy Story is hilarious), but I don't watch cartoon tv shows.

15. What do you drink with dinner?

The same thing I drink with breakfast and dinner - Diet Coke.

16. What do you dip a chicken nugget in?

I like my nuggets naked, although I haven't had a nugget in ages, but not because I don't like them, because we haven't had Maccas in ages.

17. What’s your favourite food? 
PRetty much any pasta dish.  I lean toward the creamy sauce side of the discussion, if pushed.

18. Were you ever a boy/girl scout?

No, that involved too much time spent outside with the bugs.

19. Would you ever strip or pose naked for a magazine?
Nope.

20. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?
Nope.

21. Favorite kind of sandwich? 

Grilled cheese with lots of butter and 'plastic' cheese.

22. Best thing to eat for breakfast?
Scranbled eggs made with cream (instead of milk) on white toast with middle bacon that's just barely cooked (I don't like crispy bacon).  That's the best thing, normally I have a single poached egg on Marmited toast.  Eggs are the single best ingredient in the world of cooking.

23. What’s your usual bedtime?
Sometime after midnight and then I almost always read for an hour or more.  10:30 is early for me, but that doesn't happen very often as I get involved in the tv and then suddenly it's 12:30 and I'm running late again.

24. Are you lazy?
Yes, I spend most days on the couch either blogging and watching tv or cross stitching and watching tv, but if it's something I'm interested in or that I think is important I'll make an effort to do it.  For example, despite the rest of my family frequently trying to talk me out of it and saying it's not necessary  (especially during inclement weather), I insist on making an effort to grocery shop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because I don't like to use the freezer except in an emergency or when meat is on special and I think it's important to have fresh veggies and herbs.  I also make an effort to cook from scratch as many meals as I can every week (even when Mum tries to tempt me with takeaways or something out of a jar).

25. What is your Chinese astrology sign?

I believe I'm Year of the Rat, but I'm not positive.

26. How many languages can you speak?
English.  I can say a few random phrases/words in French thanks to seven years of it at school, but I have zero accent and I can't roll my Rs at all (all those French words come out with a pretty strong Australian accent).  I can count to seven and say goodbye in Japanese thanks to a few months of lessons in grade two.  I know a few food/cooking related terms in Italian thanks to being obsessed with the food.

27. Do you have any magazine subscriptions?

No.

28. Are you stubborn?
I can be.  See #24 for further information.

29. Are you afraid of heights?
I would say I have a healthy respect for them.  Some situations are worse than others - I have an annual ski trip to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and I don't have a problem with the gondola or chairlifts you have to ride to get up the mountain, but I would never get on the roof or climb a tree.

30. Do you sing in the car? 

Yes, always.  I plug my iPod into the car stereo system and sing every chance I get, even when I'm not alone (despite my tone deafness).

31. Do you ever dance in the car?

I pick my dad up from the station most weeknights and when a favourite sing comes on while I'm waiting in the parked car you can often see the car bouncing up and down because I'm bopping (and singing, see #30) along.

32. Ever used a gun?

Not since I was five and my dad let my brother and I shoot aluminium cans with his air rifle.  If offered now, I would refuse to even touch it (I am quite strongly against guns in general, specially for recreational purposes).

33. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? 

About 14 years ago for my year 12 school photos.

34. Do you think muscles are cheesy?

I don't really think about muscles on the every day person, when they show bronzed and oiled extreme body builders on the news (when there's an expo in the city, or something) I think they look a bit ridiculous and wonder how difficult they must find it to go clothes shoppjng and what their children's classmates think of them.

35. Favorite type of fruit pie?

I haven't had much experience with fruit pies, apple is the only one I've ever eaten.  I would like to try others, but they're not very common in Australia.

36. Occupation you wanted to be when you were a kid?

Chef or vet.

37. Do you believe in ghosts?
In theory, but I need some kind of proof.

38. Ever had a deja-vu feeling?

No.

39. First concert?
Savage Garden with my parents at Rod Laver Arena in 1996.

40. Nike or Adidas?

Umm, neither.  I tend to buy the cheapest sneakers I can from Kmart, plus I have a pair of well loved Sketchers.

41. Ever take dance lessons?

No.  I get such bad blisters (even through bandaids) that I never felt brave enough to risk it.

42. Regularly burn incense?

No, it gives me a headache.

43. Who would you like to see in concert?
Bon Jovi or P!nk.

44. Hot tea or cold tea?

Neither, I drink Diet Coke.

45. Tea or Coffee?

Neither, I drink Diet Coke.

46. Can you swim well?

Enough to not drown in a swimming pool, not well enough to go out past my waist at the sea.

47. Are you patient?

Yes.  I'm always telling my mum she has to be more patient, she always clicks on links two or three times because she's too impatient for the page to open.  She tends to end up with a dizzying number of webpages open and no idea how it got like that.

48. DJ or band at a wedding?

Both, either.  I don't really care as long as they're playing the right kind of music.

49. Which are better, black or green olives?

Ugh!  I hate both with a longstanding passion.  I hate their saltiness and their greasiness.

50. Would you rather live in a fictional world or the real world?
Depends on the world you're talking about.  I would not want to live in a dystopian world.  I probably wouldn't mind the life of a privileged 17th, 18th, or 19th century lady except that I have diabetes, and wouldn't last more than a few weeks without my insulin.  I'm pretty happy with my life in the real world, but I'm luckier than most in that I get to spend my days doing what I choose.

21/6 - The mystery side of this book was pretty weak - Chandler hardly put much effort into working out who her stalker was and, other than declaring that it couldn't possibly be a past lover, Alana showed even less interest in her situation than Chandler - but the chemistry between Alana and Chandler was hot and sexy, which made up for the lack of mystery. I was also expecting the sex to be something a bit more on the 'kinky' side, considering where Alana tracked him down at the beginning, but that's just an observation not a complaint. I will make an effort to track down the rest of this series at the library (as opposed to picking them up by chance).