Book Reviews 10, 11, 12 and 13

 SO: here's what happens when I do not write a review of a book after I directly finish it. You get a triple, possibly quadruple review, depending on if I want to finish the book I'm reading right now in the middle of this review just to add it on. This probably would have taken until the end of the year had my email not reminded me that some of these books are due soon. So, without further ado:

( YES! Dare to read more (ellipsis) )

But see for yourself!:

The Child In Film by Karen Lury
Environmetalism in Popular Culture by Noel Sturgeon
The Countess von Rudolstadt by George Sand trans. by Gretchen van Slyke
The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books edited by Jeff Matin & C. Max Magee

Atalanta part 10

 Charlotte rested her head against the leather seat of Strike’s car. The location he had pin pointed was some miles outside of the opposite side of town on which the vigilante lived, and now they had been driving just over the speed limit for nearly thirty minutes.

“You know normally, I would complain about someone digging her fingernails into the leather of the seat, but really I think you need to relax,” Strike told her, glancing over from the driver’s seat. “It really won’t help your fighting if you’re tense.”

“I’m fine,” Atalanta retorted. “I just need to get there.”

“Look, I know I sound like I’m telling you what to do—”

“Probably because you are.”

“Yes, probably because I am, but you need to relax and you need to calm down. Things will work out better for all three of us if you do.” Atalanta huffed.

“I want to, but I can’t, not until I know she’s safe.” The air held quiet for a minute until Atalanta began to speak again. “This is my fault, if I hadn’t done all this and gone looking for that information, she never would have offered to hack for me.”

“Well, firstly, it’s an admirable thing, what you did. Going out and just saving someone like that. I mean, I started patrolling before Nocturn went missing, and I never had the courage to just run into a burning building and save someone,” Strike confessed glancing between her and the road. “Not to mention, in a situation where I was kidnapped, getting out would be first priority, so though it was a little stupid, the fact that you even got some records was also pretty cool. And I don’t know much about Natalie, but she seems like a pretty smart girl, and I don’t think you could have forced her to do anything.”

“That sounds great on paper, but it’s different when you’re friends with someone,” Atalanta told him. “I didn’t force her to do anything, but she still did it because she was my friend. She still did it for me, and if I hadn’t presented her with the opportunity.”

“Maestro would have come after you anyway,” Strike said. “He would have come after you, and you wouldn’t have had the chance to deny it. He would have exposed you.”

“And then what?” Atalanta asked. “Would it be so bad to be exposed?”

“Well, the press would be hell,” Strike pointed out, nodding to her with the side of his head, keeping his eyes on the road. “Speaking just as a rock star, the press is hell. As far as being someone with a super ability there would be a lot of people trying to control and convince you to do things, like the government or the anti-super groups. I’m scared of exposing my abilities to the world, and I’m not even a super.”

“So is that why you act like a jackass?” she inquired, smirking. He snorted.

“Am I really that much of an asshole?”

“Only with the mask on. Without it you’re just kind of a regular asshole.” Strike scoffed a little again. “Why do you hide the fact that you’re smart?”

“Why do you think I’m hiding the fact that I’m smart?” he asked.

“Well, there aren’t many guys who could successfully work the Iliad into a rock song,” she pointed out. “But if you, the cool, confidant, kiss a girl who’s dancing in front of the stage kind of guy are afraid of telling the world something, I bet it’s that you’re intelligent, or at least intelligent beyond what you want people to believe.”

“It’s not that I’m intelligent,” he said.

“Okay.”

“It’s not!” he protested. “Okay, it’s just something I don’t like to talk about.” Another pause held in the car.

“You know not telling me is just going to make me wonder even worse things about what it is,” she told him.

“Well, maybe when we get to know each other…on Saturday.”

“You really think we’re going on that date, after all this?” Atalanta asked.

“Well, that would depend upon how this goes,” he said, slowing down as he pulled off to the curb. “We should probably go on foot from here,” Strike told her unbuckling his seat belt. Atalanta pushed down the buckle of hers, allowing it to fly around her into its socket. “Are you ready for this?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. “And hey, I’m bullet proof, so there’s nothing they can do to hurt me.”

“You know that for sure, yet?” Strike asked. “They could easily have something that could easily hurt you that you don’t know about.”

“Well, you know what they say, you won’t know until you try,” Atalanta retorted, opening up the car door. Strike grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t think like that. Even when you’re upset and wanting to rage. Just don’t think like that.”

“Okay,” she agreed softly, her face furrowed in confusion. He let go of her and exited out of his car door. They both walked around out to the front of the car, and stared forward down the street. “Plan of attack?”

“Well, I figure we’re going to need to creep in. He’s going to be expecting us,” Strike told her.

“Well, if he’s going to be expecting us, then maybe he’ll be expecting that we’ll try and sneak in,” she said. “And if he’s expecting that we’re going to walk in, then maybe we should walk right through the front door.” Atalanta began jogging down the street

“Do evil lairs have front doors?” Strike asking jogging after her.

Journal

 So today, is kind of meh. I'm really sleepy and I'm about a thousand words away from my total today and Atalanta just does not want to be written and now it's so late that I want to finish my homework before I go to bed (at the very least, my math homework, because I don't think the other things are going to quite get done at this point, but I still want to try and get those done tomorrow somewhere, but probably tomorrow morning, because my math teacher is having us climb a mountain tomorrow...more on that in a minute). I have not done a lot this weekend because...well, I guess I just haven't.

I think one of the reasons I didn't was because I felt kind of overwhelmed by my list and I just felt like I didn't know where to start. I think I also did feel like I was getting some stuff done and that I really needed some down time. Both of these are probably true, because I was trying to social network to get people to do this survey for my Comm class (which we only got assign like last wednesday, the group that is, he approved our surveys on this wednesday and expects it to be done next wednesday and it's really frustrating, because I feel like we haven't had nearly enough time to do this project right and I'm almost worried about failing this, but I don't think it's going to happen). And I actually did get some stuff done. Plus I feel like I haven't been sleeping a lot so I was trying to rest this weekend, especially since I have this feeling that I am going to get sick after semester is over.

So yeah, not much got done this weekend.

I did go out to dinner with Abby and on the way over to Olive Garden from the mall (because our shuttle only takes us to the mall, and Walmart and down town and Abby wanted buy me dinner because I helped her save a poem. And I kind of wanted to go to Olive Garden), we walked through JC Penny and I saw that they had a lot of dresses on sale, so I asked Abby if she would mind if I tried one on, and she said no. So I tried it on really quickly and it fit really well, and I really liked it, so I called my mom and asked if I could buy it and she said that I could if I had enough money and my checking. I checked and I did, but then the card reader at the cash register would not read my card. I tried several times and it just wouldn't work. So I had to go to this ATM out in the mall.

But you see the thing about ATMs is you have to take things out in twenties and I would have had to take out a mutiple of twenty to pay for the dress that would have been fine...except for the surcharge. With the surcharge I didn't have enough. But it said that I could take the money out of my savings...the ATM lied to me and I was verily pissed. And very frustrated that I was making Abby wait so long. But then they had the dress on hold for me, so I got onto my phone and transfered funds into my checking from my savigns and finally had enough to withdraw from the ATM. FINALLY.

Then I went back and paid for the dress in cash (FINALLY) and then we went to Olive Garden. But wait, there's more. We had to cross a street with no real cross walk at the place where we needed to to get into the Olive Garden parking lot. So we just had to wait the cars stopped long enough to cross the street. Then it was really cold in the Olive Garden, and I started getting a headache in there somewhere. The food was really good, but you know Olive Garden. They like it when you can't finish a plate. Then we had to walk back across the hard street to cross after we didn't finish our food. Abby and I talked about whatever came up and I am really tired--just brought up a lot of subjects.

When we got back to the mall, though we ended up looking at shoes because I needed a pair that went with my dress, because the flats I have (and the other shoes for that matter) would not really go with the dress I bought. So we went to a couple of different stores and I tried on a couple of pairs of shoes I didn't like and I was trying not to notice that my right foot is about half an inch longer than my left foot (which I just recently discovered), and eventually, I ended up with a pair of brown flats that go with my dress, and I could wear with brown slack ans skirts for business reasons more than anything else.

I'm trying to think about what I did on Friday, besides going to work and not really doing homework. I applied for a job at Borders, which I really hope I will get because the gig looks kind of cool, and I would really like to work at a bookstore. Not to mention if I work enough hours I could pay off what I have left on my hollins account, have some spending money and maybe enough to buy a small fridge (which I will need for when I get off of the meal plan). Friday kind of sucked I guess, but I have already vented my opinion about that.

So, today, today is Easter (thank you Jesus for dying and rising again) and I hope all of you are mightily blessed. Today I spent lots of time on my own trying to do stuff, then spent time with friends trying to do some of the same stuff, and then went on a easter egg hunt with those friends. I came back and tried to start writing, but it didn't want to happen. I didn't even make it to a thousand words. I only needed sixty-four more, but it just did not want to happen. I need a shower and sleep. Good night.