Rain, Lightning Strikes, Eye of The Storm Part II

Whatever, Whatever, I Read What I Want
Title: Rain, Lightning Strikes, Eye of The Storm Part II
Author: V.C. Andrews
Medium: Hardbacks

Megan and Victoria, oh, this is going to be fun. Megan is in Mrs. Hudson words “A spoiled brat” who had her father give her everything she ever wanted, including having Ken, who worked for the Hudson’s take her illegitimate, biracial child for a measly $10,000. We have, in proper V.C. Andrews fashion, Victoria, Megan’s polar opposite. Victoria is a comical version of how someone thinks a rich unmarried woman would act. Married to the business as they say (no, they actually say this). Megan is beautiful, Victoria is less so (we’ll come back to this fact later). These two girls have one think in common, they are both totally awesome.

Megan’s husband wants to run for Senate, which adds to her desire to keep Rain a secret. So Rain moves in with Megan’s mother, under the guise of being some sort of acting prodigy, this absolutely infuriates Victoria, who has the audacity to show up unannounced during dinner. Rain makes some snappy comments that are kind of boring. Whatever.

Victoria, put back in her place, leaves. And we get to follow Rain to school, which is boring, she’s perfect and impresses her teachers and there’s this awkward moment where you think someone is going to say something horrifically offensive like “you are a credit to your race”, but that is avoided by Rain trying out for the school play. I only mention it because it brings up Megan’s other mistakes children, Brody and Allison.

Allison is of course the polar opposite of Rain, just like her mother pretty much just a bratty kid. Brody on the other hand is okay. Now being that this is a V.C. Andrews book and Megan’s husband is running for the Senate the family can’t possibly know about Megan’s little black indiscretion. Brody of course is therefore smitten with Rain. Yep, both of her brothers, Roy and Brody both totally want to hit that. Oh and some boy named Corbette. Luckily the boy that isn’t related to Rain wins out, leaving all the others heartbroken. Well kind of, Roy joined the army shortly after Rain left home and she only hears from him a few times, most notably when he calls to let her know that their mother (Latisha) has died of lung cancer, whatever. Let’s be perfectly honest, we knew it was coming from the beginning, it’s a V.C. Andrews book, if she had a place to go back to away from all of the batshittery there would be no need for Lightening Strikes or Eye of the Storm.

The thing that I like about the Hudson series is really Victoria. Rain and Megan are pretty stale characters that don’t change very much throughout the course of the books, Victoria however is awesome. For those of you familiar with other V.C. Andrews books, I’d say Victoria is second only to my favorite V.C. Andrews character of all time, Vera, from the standalone My Sweet Audrina.

Anyways, back to the main plot point because Victoria doesn’t start to get really fun until the third book, Rain wins the lead in the school play and is so awesome she gets to go to London to go to a performing arts school there and stay with Mrs. Hudson’s younger sister in their manor. That book is pretty weird and creepy so it’ll get it’s own post, soon.

Rain, Lightning Strikes, Eye of the Storm

Whatever, Whatever, I Read What I Want
Title: Rain, Lightning Strikes, Eye of The Storm
Author: V.C. Andrews
Medium: Hardbacks

Hey, I warned you that I’d be grouping stuff together and that I’d be reading some trashy stuff, I read Rain at the end of 2012 but finished the last one in a few weeks ago.

I don’t think there’s a woman in my age group that hasn’t heard of V.C. Andrews and Flowers In the Attic, but many don’t know about the hidden literary masterpiece that is Rain.

That’s not sarcasm in my tone readers, Rain is probably one of the best books that Andrews’ estate has ever come up with, why is that? Because it’s a book about black people clearly written by someone who has at best just a passing familiarity with black people.

For the most part, the series follows the standard V.C. Andrews pattern, which you can read more about at Trapped in the Attic, but for some reason, the books really weren’t that popular. I think it’s mostly because the first book was published in 2000 which is relatively late but people are missing out. Especially because along with Flowers In The Attic, Rain, is one of the only other V.C. Andrews books to be made into a terrible movie.

Rain Arnold lives in Washington, D.C. in a ghetto, rat and roach infested building, with her mother, Tisha, father, Ken, brother, Roy and younger sister Beni. Rain’s father Ken, is an alcoholic who gambles and can’t hold down a job. This is actually a pretty standard background for a father figure in a V.C. Andrews book but Ken is special because his gambling and well wayward ways lead to Rain overhearing that Ken wants to go back to Rain’s “people” and demand more money.

That’s right, Rain is the unwanted child of a white socialite and a black man. This of course causes strife in Rain’s family. Rain’s sister, Beni tells everyone at school which leads to all of them thinking she’s stuck up because of her white blood. Keep in mind this is all occurring at the same time as a subplot that involves Beni being drugged at a party while the Crips (the gang) run a train on her. Yeah.

In typical and glorious V.C. Andrews format, when learning that Rain is not his biological sister, Roy, Rain’s “brother” admits to having feelings for her. Rain, being sane, is totally grossed out and rebukes Roy because she only thinks of him as a brother. Luckily there’s no awkward bathtub scene but there is a lot of awkward touching that at least Rain admits is awkward.

After Beni is viciously murdered by the leader of the Crips, Latisha is determined to get Rain to safety so she manages to convince Megan, Rain’s biological mother to make arrangements to have her live with Rain’s biological grandmother, Mrs. Hudson.  I totally need to do a review of the movie because Mrs. Hudson is played by the forever flaw-free Faye Dunaway. Did I mention that the Hudsons are rich? I mean I don’t think we ever know Mrs. Hudson’s net worth but it’s pretty high, there’s some awkward rich people posturing about dressing for dinner and then we get some dirt on the family.

Mrs. Hudson has two daughters, Megan, Rain’s mother, and Victoria, the younger spinster sister.

But this is getting kind of long so I’ll break this into multiple posts.

Whatever, Whatever, I Read What I Want

So I failed at my goal of 75 books last year, and I could post a bunch of excuses about how real life got in my way, how my sister had a baby, blah, blah, blah, but I won’t. I actually did come pretty close, I think I hit about fifty but I didn’t come close to blogging about all of the books that I read.

But it’s 2013, a new year and a new blog, 2011 brought you 50 Books by People of Color, which completely changed how I look at not only what I consider to be “literature” but what types of books that I grab for my casual reading. 2013 was Reading the Rainbow, in which I read books by Authors of Color as well as Gay, Lesbian and Transgender authors.

2013, is going to be different. This year is going to be the year of Cartman.

Well, sort of. In the past I tried to pick books that I wouldn’t be ashamed to be reading in public. This year, I’m saying to hell with it and thus Whatever, Whatever, I Read What I Want. Granted a lot of the books will be the same type I’ve been reading and posting about, some, as you’ll soon see, will be different.

Some other changes:

When I read multiple books in a series I might group them together in one entry.

I added the GoodReads widget so you can get a preview of what will be reviewed and track my progress.

I might update the look of the blog, I might not, whatever, whatever I do what I want.

Fifty Pages of Plot

Reading The Rainbow: Book 36, 37, and 38
Title: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed
Author:E.L. James
Medium: eBook

Unlike my reading of Twilight, I read all of these by choice. Honestly, everyone was reading them and I wanted to know what all of the hype was about. Since the first one lacked any real plot I read the second, and then the third because I had already read 2/3rds of the trilogy. You can look around the internet and find lots of reviews, critics and snark of the Fifty Shades books and so there is very little that I can say that hasn’t been said before. These books are bad, there are characters that I liked (namely Christian’s mom and . . . yeah, that’s about it, I liked Christian’s mom) but for the most part the series is about a girl who falls in love with a boy who probably isn’t that good for her. You can read about how bad the grammar is all over the internet, you can read about the tampon sex scene, or any of the myrad of other scenes in the book that are just bad pretty much in any book blog (or video blog – my favorites are this one by Thriftyathome and this tipsy one by Smoothiefreak/AkilahObviously)

Unlike Twilight, which I read earlier this year because of a $20.00 bet, Ana Steele does have goals and thoughts outside of Christian Grey (unlike Bella Swan her Twilight doppelganger) but it doesn’t change the fact that the books are an excuse to have about fifty pages of plot thrown among tons and tons (and tons – who am I kidding) of sex. It doesn’t change the fact that the relationship between Ana and Christian isn’t a healthy depiction of one anymore than Twilight is and I’d probably have a serious if not awkward conversation with my young nieces if I thought they were going to read them

Overall Rating: One star for all three, so .333 for each. I’ve read better in every single category this book falls into. Also, E.L. James need an editor, an American editor because some of the slang was just jarring in how wrong it is.

Firefly Cloak

Reading The Rainbow: Book 35
Title: Firefly Cloak
Author: Sheri Reynolds
Medium: Audiobook

I know, so many audiobooks in a row, I was reading physical books at the same time as you’ll see in my next entry but I decided to group them together. Anyways, Firefly Cloak. Have you ever read a book and gotten about halfway through and realized that the only characters you like are horrible people? That’s how I felt while I was reading Firefly Cloak. Tessa Lee and her younger brother, Travis, are abandoned by their mother in a state park and move in with their grandparents. After Travis’ tragic death Tessa Lee goes in search of their drug addict mother.

Tessa Lee is horribly naive, which is sometimes endearing but generally extremely annoying. The only character I really wanted to like is Tessa Lee’s grandmother, but then about halfway through the book she starts saying some stuff that’s pretty racist. It’s stuff that even she as a character acknowledges is kind of offensive, like thinking that people of different races shouldn’t socialize (and her astonishment that both Tessa Lee and Travis’ fathers are white) and for me it was really hard to think that someone who holds ideas of racial superiority as still being a “good person” so it detracted from the one rational, non-drug addicted, not recovering from feelings of abandonment perspective.

This book at it’s core is very much like The Secret Life of Bees (and is narrated by the same voice actress) so if you’re going to read one and not both, go for The Secret Life of Bees, it’s problematic in it’s own respect but at least there are people of color that exist outside of being simply objects of fear or lust.

Reading The Rainbow: Book 34
Title: Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
Author: Portia De Rossi
Medium: Audiobook

Portia De Rossi narrates her own book which brought me to two conclusions, one that she was going through way more on Ally McBeal than I ever could imagine, and two, that the way she pronounces the word “anything” really bugs me. It’s the only word she drops the “Y” in and it comes out “Ana Thing”, it’s complete irrelevant but it really did throw me for a loop every time it was said.

I remember the first time I saw Portia De Rossi on Ally McBeal and even as a kid I thought she was perfect, tall blonde with long hair and absolutely gorgeous, little did I (or apparently anyone else) know, she was battling both anorexia and bulima off and on for years. Unbearable Lightness follows Portia from her life as young Amanda Rodgers into her modeling carrier and up through her relationship with Ellen Degeneres. It really puts into perspective how much thought, effort and pain goes into having an eating disorder. While the book talks about her career, her relationships, her fear of admitting her homosexuality and her later fear of being outed, it all always came back to food and her exercise habits.

On one hand, it made me feel incredibly lazy for not finding time to exercise but on the other, it did make me see how for some people, exercise and dieting could become all they could think about. My only real problem is that the entire recovery takes place in the epilogue, it’s Portia De Rossi talking about how much better her life is in recovery, which is good, but the last chapter of the book talks about how she collapses on the set of a movie and how she is diagnosed with Lyme Disease and not an acknowledgement of disordered eating.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally like books that do this, and having read this the same year as reading James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces De Rossi gets right what Frey got wrong, the truth and the honesty behind the words is clear it just left me with this feeling of wanting that still hasn’t gone away.

Overall Rating: 3/5

Homecoming and Dicey’s Song

Reading The Rainbow: Book 32 and 33
Title: Homecomming and Dicey’s Song (Tillerman Cycle books 1 and 2)
Author: Cynthia Voight
Medium: Audiobooks

Since I listened to these books in quick succession I figured I should probably review them in one entry. After being abandoned by their mother in a mall parking lot siblings Dicey, James, Sammy and Maybeth travel to their Aunts house by foot. Dicey, the oldest is thirteen and believes that they can make the journey easily but she learns very quickly that she might be in over her head. From under estimating how long it would take them to walk to Bridgeport, Connecticut to trying to feed and shelter her younger siblings, Dicey quickly beings to understand how overwhelmed her mother felt.

A lot of the first book is about the children traveling, meeting interesting people on the road and Dicey trying to enforce a sense of morality on Sammy, who fights and steals. The children do not acclimate well living with the Cousin they find in Bridgeport, so the children run away to find their grandmother who lives on a farm in Maryland.

Dicey’s Song isn’t much different, the theme of finding a place where you belong still exists it’s just more stationary. Knowing they have no real place to go Dicey and her siblings delay moving on from their Grandmother’s home (who doesn’t want them there and makes that very clear) by doing tasks around the farm that they feel they need to complete before moving on. Eventually their Grandmother says they can stay but an interesting power struggle occurs between Dicey and their Grandmother.

Dicey’s Song is actually pretty interesting because it’s kind of like reading a coming of age novel, in reverse. Dicey has to learn how to give up control and allow her Grandmother to be the parent while still dealing with the very real issues of growing up after being abandoned.

Overall Ratings: 3/5, this book is not a fine wine, it didn’t age so well but still readable.