I have the best friends

Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate my birthday with me. It was a very fun time. Of course, I'm easy - I was having fun already in the car, just from the simple fact of traveling in relative style (the dealership's simplest car beats the best Egged bus any day of the week) and the temporary total freedom from responsibility.

But I'm pretty sure it would have been very fun by higher standards, too.

Of course, the friends who gave the most weren't even there. They were hosting all of my kids for a sleepover.

As I heard the next morning, some highlights of the evening were:

- A, N and their friend E demonstrating remarkable teamwork in getting D up from sitting on S's head.
- Baby S's bed being found empty - it turned out she'd climbed into bed with A in the middle of the night (awww).
- D's bed being found empty - it turned out she'd climbed into bed with the friends' parents in the middle of the night (any parents will do in a pinch, I guess) (to be fair, D doesn't climb in next to us, she climbs onto our feet. So it may not be that she didn't care who she was sleeping on so much as that she didn't realize whose bodies the feet were attached to).

***

About a day later I wasn't feeling so great. I had a bit of a headache and was unusually tired.

I realized that between the drinking during Thursday night's celebration, the late night that night coupled with the brutal trifecta of work, homework and cooking the next day, and the fact that I have after all been getting older, there was only one reasonable explanation - carbon monoxide poisoning.

For some reason, others did not agree.

Fortunately, I felt fine by yesterday. The carbon monoxide must have left for someone else's house.
***
A very random quote from the kids (context: explaining how very, very bad something would be):

"חס ושלום! חס וחלילה! בעזרת השם - לא, רגע, לא בעזרת השם!"

(rough translation: "God forbid! Heaven forbid! With God's help - no, wait, NOT God's help!")

Book reviews: Hush, Hush

Like I said, I have read some good books over the past couple of weeks. But I'd really rather tell you about the one I most hated.

Hush, Hush (Paranormal Romance)

(Normally I would write *spoilers* here, but nothing I have to say can spoil this book any more than the plot already has)

To understand "Hush, Hush," you have to go back to the book that made the whole paranormal romance thing really take off - Twilight. Twilight managed to take a story about a 105-year-old vampire stalking a human girl and lusting after her blood and to make it a romance. 

"Hush, Hush," looked at Twilight and said - if a 105-year-old immortal guy feeling tempted to kill a 17-year-old high school student is romantic, what if we made him, like, 10,000 years old and he was actively plotting her murder? How hot would that be?

The book features the relationship between Nora and Patch, who is a fallen angel (Yes, the male lead is named "Patch." Really. I can't imagine the name bringing to mind anything but either a Depression-era hobo, a serial-killing clown, or Patch Adams as played by Robin Williams. (It's hard to say which of those three would make the worst romantic lead (Hey Snan, new writing contest - see who can write the better romantic short story starring a serial-killing clown))).

Nora and Patch meet when he decides to murder her in a ritual sacrifice aimed at getting him a human body (There's a great how-we-met story for the grandkids). Later, of course, he decides not to murder her after all. Because he's realized what a horrific crime it would have been? Because he grew as a person and was able to see beyond his own selfish desires? Because he's come to understand the value of human life? 

Of course not.

From the book: "I'm not going to kill you, Nora. I don't kill people who are important to me. And you top the list."

That would be the male lead flat-out telling the female lead that the only reason he's not murdering her is that he likes her right now. Her response is to make out with him in the bathroom of a movie theater. Really.

(Warning to male readers: if you are in need of a romantic gesture, don't go with "non-murder." That kind of thing really only works in books. Real life women are a lot less impressed by "Happy Valentines Day, honey! I didn't stab you to death in your sleep last night - did you like it??")

Getting back to the plot: Later, Nora's life is in danger anyway, as the villain of the book tries to kill her to get at Patch. What could he have against such a nice guy as Patch? Well, it turns out that for two weeks a year for the past 500+ years Patch has been entering his mind and taking control of his body while he remains a helpless spectator. It's heavily implied that the mind-rape is accompanied by rape-rape - a fellow fallen angel mentions his plans to use his own temporary human body to hook up with women. Does his human host want to do that? He doesn't care. Does Patch object to this? No. In fact, the other angel mentions Patch's tastes in human women.

Look, I know that these books aren't meant to be taken seriously. I know there needs to be suspension of disbelief for it to work. But - speaking seriously for a minute here - this book took the whole not caring what messages it's sending thing way, way too far. It really disturbs me that this is, apparently, a very popular book (I decided to read it after finding it near the top of a few lists of popular teen paranormal romance novels. Like I said, it's for research).

Twilight was bad enough, with its "it's not stalking if he loves you" message. This book is coming straight out and saying it's OK if a guy tried to hurt you before, as long as now he says he likes you and he's sorry. And it's OK if he hurts other people, that has nothing to do with you and the love you share.

On a scale of one to five, I give this book negative three stars. I'm considering burning the copy I borrowed from the library and offering two books on how to recognize abusive relationships in its place.

(PS - how old is Patch? The book never says. A book about angels, and the human characters don't care enough to ask where they came from or which religion if any got things right or any of that. It's not that stories with angels and demons need to back a particular theology - Cassandra Claire's City of Bones series had a nice way of leaving that issue unresolved - but when nobody even asks, they kind of look like simpletons, in my humble opinion.)

Comfort reading

Some people eat too much when they're upset. Others get drunk

I read too much bad teen fiction. 

I'm pretty sure my way is worst.

I've done a lot of reading in the past couple of weeks. Like, I would guess around 5,000 pages worth.

The good news is that not all of it was the mental equivalent of cheap ice cream. I also read some Oscar Wilde and Sylvia Plath and the like.

The bad news is that one of the things I read was the Draco Trilogy, which, aside from being Harry Potter fanfiction, is also infinity pages long. So statistically speaking, I was lying in the last paragraph - everything I read over the past two weeks was by Cassandra Claire (to be fair to Ms. Claire, her books are the mental equivalent of good ice cream). 

Here's something odd about reading paranormal romance books meant for people half your age (OK, fine, there are a lot of odd things about that, but you know what I meant): 

After book one, you think, "OK, that was stupid but kind of enjoyable. Now on to real books."

After book three, you think, "I'm so ashamed."

After book six or so, you start to see patterns (I mean subtext patterns, not the obvious "oh hey look they're all about hot half-human guys taking an interest in completely boring teenage girls" thing). At some point I started getting so interested in paranormal romance as sociology research that I stopped even trying to stop myself. I stopped caring if the books were any good (most were not). 

I now have a list of new bad teen fiction books I want to read to help me complete my informal research on societal views of homosexuality as portrayed in paranormal romance novels of the early 21st century. (Research on feminism in paranormal romance will take place concurrently). It promises to be, if not fun times, at least a distraction.

And now, I must ask my readers a favor - if you see me in the next few days, say, "Ali, if you need a distraction, you could try reading those two statistics books you have left." I need to hear it, and for once, there's nobody I'm sure will say it. 

And now and now - for book reviews.