All work and no play make Ly a violent jerkface

Why does the digital version cost
more than the paperback? It's digital!

I added a picture of today's title, in case it wasn't obvious what I'm about to review. You guys... I have had an extreme mental block regarding this book. I wasn't even writing a story; I just couldn't make up my mind what to tell you about it! The Shining is a classic horror story. If you haven't read the book, you've certainly seen the movie. If you've done neither, you have seen it referenced. If that hasn't happened, I don't know how you're reading this because I must assume you're some kind of hermit slug living underneath a rock in a cave too deep to get Wifi.

If you've got nothing to say, why are you writing the review?
It isn't that there's nothing to say. There's actually too much, but none of it is necessarily new. But I like sharing what I've been reading and this is it. Actually, I've been listening to this on audiobook on my commute to and from work. Funny story, there: my drive to work is a little over an hour long each way, and when I get home from work I'm too tired to do anything. I haven't even had the energy to plug my phone into my computer to update the content on there. Consequently, The Shining is the only audiobook I've been listening to. I'm on my fifth time listening to it. In a row. So you see, that is why I'm writing the review. After five — and counting— listens, I'd better damn well write something about this book.

And that something is...?
I understand why Stephen King didn't like the movie based on his book (or at least I think I get it), madness could be contagious, and this story doesn't actually scare me — it makes me sad.

Those are some diverse angles for this book, lady.
Well, when you listen to a thing five times in a ROW, you start to notice all kinds of things. Jack Torrance is a normal guy with several big problems: he's a recovering alcoholic with a short fuse, and his life is going to shit. He loves his family, and is doing his best to be a good husband and father. Unfortunately, as we are all aware, you're best isn't always good enough. Torrance is a writer experiencing a prolonged writer's block, was recently fired from his position as a creative writing teacher in an elite prep school, and is pretty close to being penniless.

Sounds like a really shitty day.
Life's a bitch and then you die, as my mom likes to say. Which is exactly what happens! When a friend gets him the job as winter caretaker of the Overlook hotel, Jack recognizes it as a perfect (and potentially his last) opportunity to get his shit together. This is the time to finish the play he's been working on, reconnect with his family, and generally stay out of trouble while keeping his family fed and sheltered through the harsh Colorado winter. Unfortunately, the spooks in the hotel have other ideas...

Come play with us Danny...
Okay, so we all know this kid is psychic, right? I hope I'm not spoiling it for you; this book has only been around since the seventies. Dick Hallorann— our friendly, magical, black character in the story— refers to Danny's knack as "shining." I like to refer to it as "brain allergies." You see, even the book refers to the "shining" as something people might have in degrees. Some people don't shine at all, some shine only a little. Others, like Danny, shine hot. Again, think allergies. If a person is not sensitive at all, the hotel doesn't bother them. Others may feel a slight unease, but generally be okay. Still others, like Danny, not only see the horrors that happened, but apparently also activate a cognizant malevolence lurking within the hotel.

For someone else's in-depth look at the book vs. the movie,
check out "King, Kubrick, and The Shining" on
thewordslinger.com

Now, if you've only seen the movie, you might start seeing why King is not a fan of Kubrick's work. I'm not saying Stanley Kubrick didn't make a kick-ass movie, but it's certainly not Stephen King's The Shining. That is going to sound awfully strange, given what I'm about to say next...
The movie touches on all the major plot-points in the book—

But you JUST SAID—!
I know what I said! The gist is essentially the same in both: a man goes crazy and tries to kill his family. Kubrick's "Shining" differs in that his Jack Torrance (Nicholson) is an asshole throughout the film. He's an emotionally abusive man who goes ape-shit very quickly. He dies, his family escapes, and I think, "Good riddance," then move on with my day. In the movie, his wife and son may as well be objects to be acted upon. I couldn't relate to any of them. But I relate with King's Jack Torrance.

I relate to the man who's struggling to keep his shit together and provide for his family, all while fighting his addiction and his violent inner demons. I understand how difficult it can be to not be an asshole to your friends and family when you're miserable. I'm sure a large portion of the U.S. population can empathize with a character who stays in a life position that's obviously bad for him because he has no alternative.
I can also relate to Wendy and Danny Torrance. They find themselves unable to do much more than hope for the best in an impossibly difficult situation. Maybe because of the shine —and maybe not— Danny understands a lot of what's happening to his family. Not all of it, obviously, because he's only five. But still, he gets that his daddy used to get drunk all the time, that he got fired, that he needs this job or they'll have nowhere to go. Danny understands, and that is why —despite his growing fear of the Overlook and its monsters— he doesn't tell his parents sooner that maybe they shouldn't go; maybe they should stay as far the hell away from that area as they possibly can.

One of the most iconic scenes in the movie, spoofed to death,
isn't even in the book. I love it.

Why so serious?
It makes me sad! When you listen to a book five times in a row and the first half of it is establishing how much this family loves each other... I got attached to them, okay? I want to have walked away from that many listens with a sense of, "If only they'd done this differently, maybe they would've been okay." But what could they have done differently? The true horror in this book is knowing that no matter what they did or tried, this family was doomed. They were isolated, not only while at the hotel, but in terms of their support network. What friends or family could've helped them while they got back on their feet? None, it seems. Love within their family wasn't enough, and it bums me out.

Now that I've maybe bummed you out too, let's talk about the ridiculousness that is repeatedly listening to a book about isolation while being isolated for hours at a time in a car during commute. I'm not about to say that listening to The Shining made me angrier than I already was about being stuck in traffic, but I'm not sure that it actually helped my situation. I spent a good deal of that time wishing I had Magneto-like powers to fling aside or crush all the cars ahead of me. So at the very least, I wouldn't recommend listening to this repeatedly during your daily commute to work. I do recommend that you read or listen to it, if you haven't already. Just be sure to take frequent breaks for hugs, though, okay? It's for your own good.


P.S.
Hey guys, I'm sorry it took so long to get another review out (again). I've been bashing my head against this one for the last couple of weeks. However, I'm trying to get back on a weekly (Thursdays) schedule, so please stay tuned!

Next time, on Tea-time Reviews!

The Water-Saving Garden: Because weather doesn't always happen in California

Fun fact: the state of California has every type of climate in the world except for tropical. Pretty cool, huh? That means if you travel a few hours in any direction, you'll find yourself in a different climate than where you started without even needing to leave the state. Unfortunately, for the last several years, we've been suffering through a severe drought. This makes me nervous: I've never wanted to live in the desert. My favorite color is green, not brown, and I love playing in water. So water conservation is high on my list of priorities. The Water-Saving Garden, by Pam Penick, is a book I picked up for free from Blogging for Books (in exchange for a fair and honest review), in the hopes of cultivating a kick-ass garden without wasting water. Let me tell you a thing or five about what I've learned...

The Water-Saving Garden is broken up into five different parts: inspiration, retaining water, planting, making you see things that aren't there, and recommended plants. That is a lot to pack into one book, but Penick does a great job of it. The inspiration portion features multiple gardens and highlights the different features that make them drought resistant. This portion is more photos than text, but it's a great way to start— giving you ideas as to what is possible.

My favorite parts in this book are probably the second part and third parts: retaining and planting. Basically: plan your garden. Before reading this book, I hadn't thought that planning a garden was more than deciding what plants to put in the ground or where I would place them relative to each other. That is certainly part of it, but you also want to consider how you can make it an inviting or relaxing space to be in, how you're going to water it, and how you can retain the maximum amount of rainfall on your property. Are you interested in holding rainwater to use during dry spells? There's a section for that in this book. What about preventing that rain from just going down the gutter and instead replenishing the ground water? That's in here too! I want to say that the basic premise of this book is: don't just reduce the amount of water you throw outside from your taps. Tap into the water that's already in the ground!

Thirdly, a chance to get dirty: Plant your garden!

So now you have a bunch of cacti planted in your yard so you won't have to water them?

Actually, right now I have a patch of dirt that needs to be cleared of debris. But to your insinuation that I would have a yard full of cacti I say, “Hah!” And no. While cacti and other succulents are certainly water thrifty plants, they are absolutely not the only choice available if you want to conserve water in your garden. You know what isn't really a choice in this type of garden? Lawns.

Lawns are the Humvees of the plant world —they're resource guzzlers, require a lot of time and maintenance, and don't look all that great anyway.

GASP! How can you say that about lawns?! It's the American way!

I know a lot of people picture a house with a white picket fence and a beautiful lawn as an integral part of the American dream but I think we can do better. There are other ways of doing things! And like it or not, the fact remains that during a drought, your lawn is going to wither and die because the roots just don't grow deep enough. They require a lot of water, you have to mow them frequently, they get weedy if you blink at them — they are just a lot more work than they're worth. If your main goal is to conserve water: lose the lawn. If you can't bear to lose the lawn, reduce it. If you decide to install artificial turf, lose my number.

Wanna tell us how you really feel about fake grass?

That's a post for a different day and a different blog. My point is that lawn is boring, lacks creativity, and takes a lot of effort for not much pay-off. There are alternative grasses and ground covers available to create visual interest, that thrive on less water, and give you an open green space if that's what you're after. There are wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and ground covers that are drought hardy. It doesn't have to all be about cacti or other succulents: we have options if we take the time to find them. I suppose that's the biggest deterrent for a lot of people having a garden instead of a lawn. You can set a lawn down and it looks like a lawn right away, but it takes more maintenance time later on. It might take you more time upfront to plan and set up a drought-hardy garden, but it will mostly take care of itself afterward. After all, it's meant to thrive on the amount of water that falls from the sky instead of you hosing it down.

What about this “making you see things that aren't there” section?

The section is actually about creating the illusion of water where there may not be any. This can be achieved by using stones, cascading plants, a simple water feature, etc. — anything that evokes an image of lakes, the sea, or other water by using plants.

The final section in this book is dedicated to 101 plants for water-saving gardens. Because like puppies, 100 just isn't enough. Gotta throw in that extra one.

And there you have it! The Water-Saving Garden: How to grow a gorgeous garden with a lot less water by Pam Penick is 223 pages of beautifully illustrated advice on how to grow a garden while conserving resources. If you have any aspirations toward creating an inviting outdoor space, I highly recommend it!

Crocodile Stitch Fashions a.k.a Fancy Stitches

I would like to thank all of you for indulging my fondness for crochet, and all things related to it.

Find me on Amazon!

Fondness, or obsession?

I say "toe-MAY-toe," you say "tuh-MAH-toe." Or in today's case, you say "crocodile stitch," and I say "dragonscales." Yes, I use my imagination whenever I see or make anything using this stitch. I cannot understand why someone would name a fantastical stitch such as this after something like a crocodile. "Dragonscale" sounds so much more elegant! Anyway, I'm rambling—

Per the norm...
But you're still here, so let me tell you about this book! Last year, one of my best friends sent me on a quest. For her birthday, she said, she wanted a pair of "dragonscale gloves."

"I want you to slay a dragon, and use its carcass
for my gloves!"

"I've seen them on Etsy, and they're rather fetching! I know no one more capable of procuring these for me than yourself. Why, with your amazing skills, I know you could whip up a pair of these in no time!"

With flattery such as this, how could I refuse? So I ventured forth to the magical, faraway land of Joann's Fabric Store. My first task, in this multitask fetch quest, was to procure the patterns. That's where Crocodile Stitch Fashions, by Lianka Azulay, comes in! This book had caught my attention on previous visits to the store, and I was delighted to finally have an excuse to stop stalking it and give it a proper hello.

"Looking good, book!
You work out?"

Though I bought it for one pattern in particular, this book contains eight different patterns featuring the crocodile stitch. Some of the patterns are fanciful, others beautiful, and some are just bizarre— but all of them are fun to make!

Can I make these if I suck at crochet?
Mmm, kinda? Okay, maybe this is not for complete noobs. As with all new things, it takes a little getting used to before you get it down. All the patterns are listed as "intermediate." The crocodile stitch is comprised of two basic components: chain stitches, and double crochet stitches. That's it. You just do that over and over, layer upon layer, until you come up with something fabulous. Luckily, Crocodile Stitch Fashions provides full-color photos of the different steps to help you along, as well as a stitch guide in case you forgot—or didn't already know—the basic stitches. To be fair, it actually took me several hours of doing, undoing, and redoing my first few rows before I really trusted that I was actually doing things correctly.

So maybe you're curious about the book now, and you want to check it out. Here are some things you'll want to know going in:

• This title includes patterns for two different kinds of gloves, three hats, one shawl, a neck-warmer (not quite a scarf, I suppose), and a hood. Two of the hats are, in my humble opinion, quite ugly. The gloves, hood, and shawl make up for it. All of those are downright gorgeous.
• These are great projects to work on during "down-time." Waiting in line? Have a little spare time during your lunch? Crochet it up!

Self patterning yarn

And that's honestly pretty much all there is to it! I know, kinda short, but it is a short book after all. I hope you enjoy it! It's certainly worth checking out.

What about the multitask fetch quest? Getting the book was just the first part!

That's true! The second task in my fetch quest was finding the proper yarn to make the gloves! The patterns are fun, but finding yarn to use for them is not. All the patterns in this book require superfine, light, or sport weight yarn, and those are tough to find in your average craft superstore in colors other than soft pastels meant for babies. Be prepared to run out to a specialty store or shop online for your yarn if you don't see something you like at the store. Your options at Michael's and JoAnn's are limited. As luck would have it, my friend wanted gray/black gloves in changing colors. I couldn't find a "multi-color" yarn in only gray and black, so I had to improvise. Afterwards, it was just a matter of obsessively making and remaking the first few rows until I was certain I could do no better.

Which brings me to my final point about these patterns: It's going to take a while to finish any of these projects. A shortened pair of gloves can take approximately eight hours to make. And if you're lacking in time and/or patience, consider commissioning me for a pair! I've had some time to practice.

The Bee-Friendly Garden

Click here to find me on Amazon!

I have far too many hobbies. Along with reading and reviewing books, I also crochet, draw, write, and sometimes I try to garden. Unfortunately, I suck at it. If you don't think that keeping a plant alive is particularly difficult, just hand it to me and I'll happily demonstrate. 

Maybe it's something about your karma?

Let's not get personal. Maybe I know nothing about the proper conditions to keep a thing alive in a pot. However, I do know how to read, and I'm not so terrible at research. One of my motto's is "When in doubt: READ A BOOK!"

You don't just watch a youtube video?

I do that too, but it doesn't fit the theme today, and for this particular hobby I would literally be watching grass grow. I picked up The bee-friendly Garden from Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and honest review. As someone who loves honey and is concerned about the decline in bee populations, I thought this book could help me choose appropriate, hardy, plants that would survive my black thumb while also providing nutrients for our friends the bees.

Speaking of our friends the bees—I had no idea there were so many different kinds! Typically, when I think of bees, I picture bumblebees and think they're also honeybees, but those are actually distinct species. You know where I learned that? From this book!

Duh...

Hey, I was expecting a lot of information about plants that attract bees and maybe how to design your garden. That is included in here, but there's so much more to it! The first chapter is dedicated to various bee profiles: their genus and species, common names, habitats, and their preferred types of flowers (because bees have favorite foods too). Chapters two and three talk about the different plants you can include in your bee-friendly garden. We're not just talking flowers, either. The main point I pulled from this book is that in order to have a healthy garden for healthy bees, variety is key. Variety of plants—annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees—will extend the length of time your garden blooms, thus providing nourishment for your friendly neighborhood bees for longer. Authors Kate Frey and Gretchen LeBuhn also stress the importance of including native plants in your garden. These make it likelier that local bees will visit (and pollinate) your plants, but also increases the health of your garden. Local plants, if you think about it, are hardy weeds we like. They'll make it less likely for weeds we don't like to take over our garden areas.

Did you start your bee-friendly garden yet?

As previously mentioned, I have something of a black thumb. You have to look really close, because generally my thumb looks peach, but the point is that it isn't green. So, I have yet to start my garden. However, I intend to plan it using the the regional lists of plants and the section for "designing your garden." So that's in the works. I'd love to show you all pictures of my beautiful, living garden when I make it happen, but that'll be a while.

Obviously you really like this book. Will I?

Quite possibly. You may want to buy a copy of this book if:

1. You enjoy gardening and want to help improve bee populations
2. You like flowers or food
3. Beautiful pictures of outdoor landscapes make you happy
4. Or maybe you just want to learn more about bees, their habitats, and what sorts of plants will draw them in.

There you have it! The bee-friendly Garden: I'm happy to have it and I think you would be too!

My Crochet Doll: A picture book with patterns

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Once upon a time, in a strange, faraway land known as "JoAnns Fabric Store," I came across a charming crochet book featuring a simple doll with practically no nose, no mouth, and a delightfully detailed outfit. Intrigued, I snatched the book off the shelf and flipped through its contents.
"Hello, Kitty," I purred at the pages, for clearly our no-nose heroine's name is Katherine, "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
Having thus acquired several weird looks for the day and no verbal response from the book, I continued my monologue at home after purchasing My Crochet Doll. Sixty pages worth of photos later, I finally found the patterns Isabelle Kessedjian promised. Despite my potentially misleading title (in which you might think that a picture book with patterns is a bad thing), I am quite in love with this book! Sixty pages of pictures goes a long way in showing you what is possible before actually teaching you how to do anything.

But it does show you how to make things, doesn't it?
YES! Okay, this would normally be the point where I start showing off some of the stuff that I've made while using the patterns in the book.
... I have a small confession to make.
       I have owned this book for over a year, and have yet to make anything from it.

GASP OF HORROR!
Don't judge me too harshly, I beg you! Thing is that, for as beautiful as the illustrations are, and convinced as I am that the patterns are sound, there has been something deterring me from just jumping in and making a beautiful crochet doll of my own. The patterns use the European abbreviations for crochet. European abbreviations are a bit odd to my American eyes. How can you call a single crochet a double, and then expect a half double to mean-- Okay, maybe you're not as interested in my tech-gibberish at the moment. That's fine. Moving on! The second deterrent is that the yarn the author uses is a lighter weight than what I normally work with. I believe she uses a weight 3 (or sport weight), while I use weight 4 (medium worsted a.k.a The Yarn EVERYONE Uses). Ultimately, that's going to make the patterns come out a little different. I like making one just how the pattern says for my first try, to figure out any quirks beforehand. Then I go crazy with it, adding or subtracting details as I see fit. But no matter what I do, my end product is going to end up different or a bit off because I'm not about to go out and buy more yarn until I've finished with what I've got. And if you saw the size of my stash, you'd see that's going to be quite a long time.

Enough excuses! What can you tell us about the patterns?!
Well, do you like weird? If you're still reading this, I'm going to go with "Duh, I like weird."
Okay, so you like weird.
This book... has a pattern... to make underwear for your doll. Not even joking. Honest to goodness, you can make cute little undies for your amigurumi. You can also make: shoes, pajamas, overalls, a superhero outfit (which is ultimately why I bought the book), a fancy dress, tiny cakes, and many other things! It's freaking adorable! And that's not even mentioning all the different little accessories that you can add to your new playmate. Ms. Kessedjian also mentions how to make a variety of hairstyles using different types of yarn, from regular 4-ply to wool. She talks about giving your doll additional personality with bits of wire (perhaps adding glasses to the doll) and other scrap materials. The funny thing is that, despite my insistence on making the first doll be "just like the author's" to get a feel for things, the author actually points out that the doll in this book is hers and she highly encourages the reader to make their own. Change the color! Give her different hair, or some glasses, or a different outfit, or mix-and-match with what's available in the book and beyond! Go crazy with it from the beginning! The important thing is to have fun. At the end, what you've made will be your crochet doll.

So that's pretty much all I've got to say about that. I highly recommend this book. At least check it out. Just remember, the abbreviations are different in this than in a book from a U.S. author. That being said, there is a little section (as in most of these books) that goes over the technical aspects of crochet: what the abbreviations are, what they mean, how to make the stitches, and the difference between U.S. and U.K. terminology and what the heck they mean by each.

I enjoyed the format of the book. The illustrations were gorgeous, and it was pleasant to simply flip through the pictures first and then have the patterns at the end. This may not be the best book for the absolute beginner. I recommend already knowing your basic stitches (chain, single stitch, slip stitch, etc) prior to picking this one up because there are no illustrations demonstrating how to get that started or hold the yarn. You're going to be awfully frustrated if you don't know how to hold your yarn and you try just going at this. Well, who knows... You might actually be a prodigy. But for those of us who aren't prodigies, it can get frustrating if you don't already have an idea of what you're doing.

Some day, I may share with you pictures of My Crochet Doll... but in the meantime, I hope you have fun with your own!

What is this shit? Sentence of Marriage

The story of how rape and
abuse is all the victim's fault.

Why don't you tell us how you really feel?

I'm getting to it. GoodReads has this great feature where you can make multiple “shelves” for your books and name them as you please. Sentence of Marriage deserves its very own shelf. I named it “Fucked Up.”

I downloaded this book because it was free, it had a rating of at least three stars, and it was recommended to me as a “historical romance.” That was a goddamn lie. There is nothing romantic about this story. Historical? Maybe. Romantic? Nope. I call bullshit on that claim.

Wow, it appears you feel rather strongly about this.

You're goddamn right I do. It isn't often that I am sorry to have read something, but maybe I wouldn't be so angry with it if the synopses had painted a more realistic picture of what the story was going to be like. I mean, just look at it!

“In nineteenth century New Zealand, there are few choices for a farm girl like Amy. Her life seems mapped out for her by the time she is twelve. Amy dreams of an exciting life in the world beyond her narrow boundaries. But it is the two people who come to the farm from outside the valley who change her life forever, and Amy learns the high cost of making the wrong choice.”

A more appropriate synopses would have read:

“When her father unexpectedly marries a twit, 12-year-old Amy tries to make the best of a poor situation by showing kindness to her new stepmother. In return, her new mother showers Amy with contempt and emotional abuse. At the tender age of 15, Amy's new uncle (her stepmother's brother) sexually assaults her while visiting the family. After repeated promises of matrimony intended to coerce her into gratifying him, he runs away to Australia when he discovers she is pregnant. Can Amy surpass these hardships and lead a life she can still be proud of?”

Spoilers: The answer is “No.” Maybe you can start to see why I'm upset with this book. The actual synopses implies that someone with the ability to make a choice makes an unwise decision and must then face the consequences. In actuality, a teenage girl has no choice in what happens to her, is brainwashed into believing that she consented to having sex (She didn't. She very clearly said “no”), and then must suffer the consequences of her new status as a “sullied woman,” a broken object now devoid of worth. At one point in the story, her rapist (a twenty-something-year-old good-for-nothing posing as a gentleman), mentions that perhaps Amy should allow him to speak to her father before she goes mentioning anything about what “they” did (like she had any choice). Because, of course, he'll ask her father for her hand in marriage and they'll live happily ever after, and Amy wouldn't want her dad to break his arms, would she? Well, she didn't. But I did. So I continued reading, hoping.

She didn't want her father to break his arms? Why not?!

Sometimes authors do horrible things to their characters, then try to make up for it later in the story. One of the many horrible things Shayne Parkinson subjected our naive teenager to was having her fall in love with the man who would rape her. So after the rape occurred, the rapist convinced Amy that he had merely gotten carried away and it was all moot point because he intended to marry her. They only got a little ahead of themselves! And so, convinced that this was merely a lapse in judgment on his part and that he fully intended to marry her (and soon), Amy told no one what happened.

Wow... That's a terrible story!

It is. But it keeps going, and it gets worse

You're fucking kidding me...

I wish I were. You see, it's bad now, right? But then Ms. Parkinson refuses to satisfy our ensuing bloodlust, and instead proceeds to continue with the deliberate torture of a minor. Amy has her baby. Amy's baby is taken away. Amy gets married off to a much older man she has been terrified of her entire life in an attempt to salvage her and her family's name (despite the fact that her older brothers and her cousin beg her not to go through with it). This is bad, yes? The rest of the book, Amy is beaten and raped by her new husband. This was worse. At the end of the first book, she is pregnant by the monster she married.

Not a single good thing happened in this book. This was not a romance novel. It's the story of how a minor is put through hell and it doesn't matter that she's a good person. Her life is misery, and her abusers can carry on as they please. If I had wanted to read that story, I would've flipped through the news. If there was a poor choice on Amy's part, it was not committing suicide and ending her torture. (Actually, it was probably her decision to delay telling her father that she was pregnant, but that one is understandable.)

Apparently, there are people out there who think this is a good book. I even read a few reviews where people stated that this was a good book and that they enjoyed it. To those people I say, “I beg your fucking pardon?” What is enjoyable about a little girl getting raped and beaten? I am gobsmacked at the number of good reviews this atrocity received. As historical fiction, it might work. As drama, it might work. As a romance novel? No. Technically, the book is legible. Parkinson's writing works, the descriptions paint their pictures of horror terrifyingly well. It's just too bad the subject matter was so awful.

This is the first book in a series, and I downloaded it for free. I have never been so sorry to have read a story. I would actively discourage anyone from reading this.

Scattered like litter on the floor: Cats in Paris

Cats in Paris: A Coloring Book of the Felines of Paris by Won-Sun Jang

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"I have a great concept for a coloring book!" said the artist.
"Oh? And what is that?" queried the publisher.
"Cats!"
"That's nice, but cats have been done. Can you throw anything else in there?"
"...Paris?"
"That sounds great!"
"But, I don't have a lot of drawings of Paris, so how about we just do whatever with cats and say it's in Paris?"
"Sure, that'll work too."
And that, I think, sums up what went into this book. There are cats all over it, so that wasn't a lie. But there's very little of Paris in it. The art style also changes wildly throughout the book. There were actually three distinct art-styles throughout. The first portion of it we'll call "sketch jazz ugly."

During the sketch jazz ugly portion, the illustrations are sketchy with some bits of dialogue included where a supposedly Parisian cat shows you his favorite sketched-out Paris haunts. It's as weird as I just described it. This portion of the book lasts for about the first 16 pages before it moves on to the next style, "Sketch jazz real." The illustrations from here forward are much nicer than the initial ugly jazz stage, but continue to be "sketchy." I think there may be two clean lines in this entire book. In any case, during the middle portion there are more varied cats, and it looks as though the illustrations are speed drawn from live cats. To be fair, if you like cats, this part might make you happy. It certainly made me laugh, because there's an illustration of a cat lying on its back, presenting its butt-hole to the viewer. No, I'm not kidding. It made me laugh because that's true to cats, but now you've been warned that there is illustrated cat a-hole in this book.

Shortly after the cat a-hole image, the artist's caffeine-and-sugar-fueled high subsides long enough to provide us with some nice, albeit boring compared to cat-butt, images of cat stamps. Yes, stamps. Like the kind you put on your mail. Totally useless to actually send mail, but nice. However, the trip into staid sanity is short-lived, and we return to madness (of the “what the hell is that cat doing?” variety) for a few more pages before the book simply ends.

This book is scattered. The cats in Paris portion is awfully short to have the whole book named after it, and the art style isn't consistently good. It isn't the worst coloring book in the world, but I know I'll enjoy my other coloring books far more. You might like this book if:
1. You like cats
2. You like weird stuff
3. You would like to color cat-related sketches.
If you're looking for Paris, look elsewhere. There isn't enough of it here to qualify.

This review is based on a copy provided by Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and honest review.



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