From one extreme to the other...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

The premise of this book sounds silly in the extreme: an 11,000 year old Atlantean god, born of mortals, and abused his entire mortal life, the lover of a virgin goddess, killed at the hands of her jealous brother on top of the body of his murdered sister and nephew. Who then goes on to save the world from a spoiled god's curse for the next 11,000 years and be abused by his goddess lover who he now hates, but is tied to. :) Seeing the point?

But nevertheless, I have been following Sherrilyn Kenyon's, "Dark Hunter," and her, "Dream Hunter," series since they've both come out. Some of what makes them special is that they are firmly in the world of what if. What if the gods are real? What if they really are the b*tches and d*cks that we read about in the mythologies? What if, even very damaged people can trust, just one more time and get a happy ending?

Maybe that's what I like so much about these books. Being a victim of abuse, like the author who warns us in her foreword to this book, this book had me on a roller coaster. What Acheron dealt with was an extreme, but the feelings were so valid to what an abuse victim feels. If the abuse goes on long enough your abuser does convince you that you're not worth more. And however long your life lasts, you're always looking over your shoulder or flinching inside waiting for it to happen again. Not that you don't come to trust and love people...it's just that IMHO, when you have had a childhood trust broken, you have a small part of your psych that isn't innocent anymore and is wincing away ready to be abused again.

Kenyon does a good job relating this, and far from being upset that Acheron, "didn't get over it," like other reviews I've read, I liked to see him work through a bit of it, after 11,000 years, he'd earned some time to heal.

I liked the heroine's spunk and compassion; her qualities were badly needed by the hero, who is so compassionate it is hardly believable himself. But again, I understand that quality, if enough pain is inflicted on you...you don't want to inflict it on others and will go to extremes to see that you don't.

So all in all, it was an enjoyable 13 hours spent lost in Sherrilyn Kenyon's world. I laughed, I cried and I felt at peace when he finally got a HEA. It was a long time coming.

Which was such a change from the techo-punk highschool computer savvy of the day before :)

but puzzled goddesses like to go from one extreme to another, it keeps them puzzled.

Teenbooks, vampires and conversations you never want to have...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I made my kids a promise when they were about 3 & 4, that ANY question they had the guts to ask, I'd have the guts to answer (my dh chickened out and keeps telling them that MOM made the promise!) We've discussed where babies come from, what 'jerk offs' are (wasn't THAT fun!), what kinds of things will REALLY make you go blind, racism, elitism, words they want defined...if they asked it, I did my best to explain.

Lately I've had kind of a dilemma. There are some REALLY popular bestsellers that are young adult fiction that a friend of my daughter's loaned to her originally. She told me a bit about them when she was first reading them, and how the heroine got kind of depressing, whiny and teenaged angsty in the second book. I was glad that she noticed it and didn't think much more about it. Now I've read all the books because she insisted they were so good.

Now that I've read them I have MANY topics to discuss with my dd. My dilemma comes down to realizing that I, as an adult, read these books and noticed some weaknesses and the way some relationships were portrayed and I didn't care for it too well. But I enjoyed the books nonetheless. However, as a mommy goddess I had a difficult time with the way the relationships in these books are presented to a teenage girl. Yes, I know it's an alternative reality world, but it's based upon our real world.

With the first book I didn't much like that her parents were portrayed as immature and incompetent to look after themselves. The teen is portrayed as having an extremely low self image, thinks herself mature.

The books I'm talking about are the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer.
Here is my librarything review of Twilight.

In the second book "New Moon." The heroine is on top of the world because this gorgeous god is now her boyfriend, not an unreasonable response for a girl of that age, but she sneaks around and lies to her parents and friends. And while it's all justified in the teen's mind (isn't it always?) I still found it a sad statement on loving and caring relationships. Then when her boyfriend disappears to protect her she spend the last 4/5 of the book depressed and on the edge of suicidal. The obsessive relationship with the hero was scary to me, as it seems like such an unhealthy blueprint for love.

Here's my librarything review of New Moon.

The third book, "Eclipse" was more of the same, low self esteem, obsessive love, vacillating between two relationships. The plot was tighter and the characters more three dimensional, but it was an average read.

Here's my librarything review of Eclipse.

The conclusion of the series, "Breaking Dawn," was satisfying as a reader, but gosh it left the mother with a great many concerns.

Here's my librarything review of Breaking Dawn.

There were aspects of the book that were done well. The final confrontation for one, the building and layering of the characters interactions.

But I had so many problems with this book that I don't know where to begin. It could have been 200 pages shorter and been a tighter, more closely plotted book with less wandering. The father's reactions were unbelievable. The portrayal of pregnancy was horrifying and scarifying (and if you expected anything even approaching that you wouldn't want to continue the next generation!)

Again, the love relationship seemed over the top, but the virginity until after marriage and the groom who must have been the oldest virgin in the Western World was kinda cute.

The "imprinting" relationships in the last books between almost adult males and girls who were toddlers just hit my 'ick' meter BIGTIME!

The author used the old standby of the men looking out for the girls and wanting what is best for them, etc. But by setting the story in the real world this just swung too close to the edge of pedophilia for me to want my daughter to think it might a good type of relationship. If the world was less real, I don't think it would have bothered me as much.

And maybe, in the back of my mind, I'm making the prejudiced connection between the scandals with young girls and the old men in the Mormon church; since it has been widely advertised that the author is Mormon, and this may be some of my creepy, ick feeling. I know that reading the articles about girls that ARE girls, forced to (or brainwashed into) marry men old enough to be their fathers just hits all my feminist hot buttons.

I hope it's not prejudice because I really respect a great deal of values the Mormon Church espouses; I just don't want my daughter raised with them. :)

And yet, I can't see banning books either...

I raised her to think for herself; now I guess I have to trust her to know how to do it. (Especially if I've read it and can talk to her about it as well *grin*)

From a puzzled goddess who really wanted to like the books more

Creeping Vampirism and more Neat Sh*t...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I know I'm becoming a vampire; it just keeps creeping up on me, ever so slowly. I mean the pale skin, dark hair (I'm sure the blood red lips and slinky body will catch up with me eventually!).

But I've had 2, count them, 2! Massive runs of Vitamin D medicine in the last 6 months to get my levels up somewhere midway of normal. Mine are down below 20% or so...much lower than the doctor likes to see. So he gave me the first set of pills and my Vitamin D climbed wAAAAY high! Higher than the test's limits for checking...he checked again a bit later after telling me to stop taking my calcium and vitamin D supplement.

Uh oh, I guess my levels now are back down and 1/10 of a point less than they were when he first handed me the supplements...so I get to take them again. I haven't noticed any appreciable change from the increase & decrease, but maybe it's my vampire habbits of staying in the dark behind drawn curtains all the time? Nah...





But we got out to town last night!
We had to do the monthly grocery run from HELL and so I talked my Baldric into a visit to the local (kinda) goodwill.





We saw much neat sh*t!
We found a present for my
mother-in-law who loves the
fishing/coast/lighthouse theme...maybe it's all those years
living at the coast?














We then found a VERY cool carved rock (looks like soapstone) indian/persian style pieces with a wood
and mother-of-pearl inlayed board.

















The last and best gift of the day for me,
was a run through their book aisles!





My ds got a player's guide for Assasin's Creed (with my dh)
my dh got 4 or 5 books he likes.
My daughter got about 6 or so....
but the goddess herself picked up over 20
to keep herself in books for a week or two.

Blessings on you from the myopic puzzled goddess..

PS. the one in front, Second Opinion...just finished it,
great premise some good interaction with secondary
geriatric characters, but the main secondary
characterizations were flat, the heroine was pretty
idiotic as well. Darn, can't have everything.
At least the sex scenes were good.