In news that is always as exciting as it is dreadful, we’re over the halfway point with both of these books now! We’re going to do some polls in the near future, but what are your thoughts about us reading the sequels to either of these books next? We want your feedback!
Left Behind
Rayford and Chloe to the church their family used to go to before they were raptured, and they meet the two insanely miserable characters who work at a church and were also left behind. Meanwhile, Buck flies back to New York after the attempt on his life, because Left Behind isn’t so much about the rapture as it is about the miracle of air travel.
- Rayford drags Chloe to church. They meet Bruce Barnes, who was left behind because “I never really had the desire or the motivation to tell others about Christ”, and Loretta, who’s like 80 years old but never really accepted Christ into her heart. The book is having a hard time convincing me “they were Christian, but not enough” is a workable character flaw.
- Bruce suggests that all they have left to do is wait and see if God “would call me”, and Chloe quips “how will he call you? By phone?”, just in case you were worried that the agnostics in this book about the rapture wouldn’t become its most irritating characters.
- Rayford watches the DVD that the church’s former pastor… left behind. It does not tell us anything new.
- Speaking of telling us new things, the book narrates that also the crime rate spiked over the last few days since the rapture, totally, it promises.
- I guess Buck does something in these chapters too, but we already know that none of these characters can do shit about getting the plot moving.
House of Night: Untamed
Zoey’s friends are still reading a fucking poem.
- Damien kicks things off by saying that not only is it a poem, but it’s a prophecy. Which I took as a given three chapters ago, but apparently this needed to be spelled out.
- Damien, Shawnee, Erin, and Jack are all informed that Neferet is evil. Apparently this also needed to be spelled out? Again? They weren’t on the “Neferet is evil” train by this point??
- Damien, Shawnee, Erin, and Jack are all informed that Stevie Rae isn’t the only fledgling who died who’s come back as an undead fledgling. Apparently this is the chapter where everyone just gets filled in on shit that happened two books ago.
- They guess that the poem means that the earth is losing its hold on the evil spirit, Kalona, who has been trapped deep underneath it, but might now be influencing Neferet’s evil behavior. This could be interesting if Neferet had been in more than three scenes for each of the last two books.
- Zoey’s grandma says that spirit creatures can’t attack anyone unless they’re near death, and insists that she’s nowhere near death, so I guess Zoey’s grandma is getting attacked my spirit creatures sometime this book.
And More!
- Meditating on Kentucky Route Zero (via Kill Screen) – I got published on one of my favorite sites! This is very exciting for me! It’s an article about a magical surrealist, meditative video game called Kentucky Route Zero and the actual practice of meditation, using guided meditation to explore what “meditative” means and accomplishes when we talk about video games.
- One Weird Trick That Makes a Novel Addictive (via Jezebel) – Tongue-in-cheek title aside, this is a fantastic article that explores the storytelling potential of characters that adapt and act differently around different people in their stories. It’s a thought-provoking read for people who like to write books, read books, think about books, pretty much whatevs.
- If you like book recommendations (and you’re on a blog called “Bad Books, Good Times”, so…), then you should check out Roxane Gay’s list of the books she read in 2015.
- Self-Care (via Bitch Media) – I don’t want to fall down the rabbit hole of starting to link to podcasts in these posts, but Bitch Media’s recent Popaganda podcast about self-care feels too important not to share.
- Looking For Stories To Challenge Taboos? Forget ‘Fifty Shades’ (via NPR) – With Valentine’s Day this weekend, this is a good time to recall that the Fifty Shades of Grey movie came out last year, which thankfully didn’t happen again this year. But I wrote about why Fifty Shades is terrible for NPR a year ago, which is worth
shamelessly pluggingrevisiting now. - 30 Minutes on: “The Apartment” (via RogerEbert.com) – But if you’re looking for an actual good romantic movie this weekend, this piece reminded me why The Apartment is one of my favorite movies ever.
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