And if David Miscavige Doesn't Like It, He Can Sit on a Tack!

Troublemaker is a disappointment, she gave all the good stuff away for free. So what was left for me? Leah starts off by doing a quick rundown of her crimes, her husband's crimes and some of her mother's. She's trying to cut the CO$ off at the pass before they can discredit her by calling herself out. Meh, I don't give a damn what she did or her husband did or her mother did. Anyone with a brain knows that the CO$ is going start some kind of smear campaign against her for this book and speaking out in general but anyone who's familiar with $cientology will also know that the "crimes" they will allege she committed will either be overly exaggerated or flat out lies. Leah, honey, millions upon millions of people worldwide have been hip to the CO$ and their sneaky and at times possibly, illegal, ways for decades now. Why do you think that the CO$ goes to such great lengths to keep their members from learning the truth about what goes on behind closed doors and why they have such a bad reputation? You were in Sea Org as a young teen, you saw first hand what the real deal was, you even experienced the abuse first hand when Sea Org leader, Mike Curley, threw you overboard. 

I gleefully and greedily ate up her stories of Tommy Girl Cruise behaving like an overgrown toddler throwing fits over cookie dough and chipped mugs. I reveled in picturing Tommy Davis behaving like the bossy little top bitch diva that he is or at least was while he was a high ranking stooge in the CO$. I salivated over Katie writing up Leah up in the church's slam book aka knowledge reports because Leah was a bad guest at her wedding. Katie lucked out that her handlers forgot to update the chip implanted in the back of her head and got out when she did. I almost pissed my pants from joy when Leah tells David Miscavige who in the fuck does Tommy Girl think he is running around embarrassing the church, acting like an SP (suppressive person) and behaving as though he was the head bitch in charge. And finally I had a "fuck yeah" moment when Leah demanded the $300,000 she had to spend at Flag in courses to make amends for her behavior at the TomKat wedding and then telling David and the rest of the church where to shove it. 

I felt the humiliation that you suffered when you were told by your auditor that in order to make the fact that you were having an affair with a married man right by paying for his marriage counseling apologizing to his wife and then having no contact with him. Later when you married him you should have demanded the money you spent on his marriage counseling back. I rolled my eyes and thought "It figures" when Chenbot and that chav Sharon Osbourne joined forces to freeze you and Holly Robinson-Peete out of a job. Fuck those bitches, Julie Chen only has a job because of who she blows and I'm not sure why Sharon always gets a pass. Maybe it's because Sharon is a known psycho and the cowards at CBS don't want dog shit sent to them in the mail. Actually, I hate The Talk like I hate The View. If I want to sit around and hear a bunch of hags bitch about people and things I'll pay attention to my co-workers instead of blocking them out while I'm at work.

Before reading this book I always gave Leah Remini the side eye for being a $cientologist, but now I see her in a different light. I found her sincere in that she believed in her religion and the good works it claims to do, so when she starts seeing it for what it really is,  I didn't roll my eyes when she admits to crying. I admit I don't understand the disappointment and hurt that she felt when it all went down but I believe her pain was real. Hell, I even like her now.

Leah is honest and I'm sure was very restrained in what she could have shared. I think she laid out the bare minimum to get her story out there, while that's admirable and all, I wanted more. I wanted embarrassing stories about Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and Jenna Elfman (all of whom I hate with a vengeance) even stories about third tier celebrities like the Masterson family would have had made me happy. Maybe next time Leah, maybe next time. 

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children!

About 14 years ago I read an interview with some smarty pants scientist that within the next 50 years or so the world is due a global pandemic that will wipe out a good portion of the population because medical science cannot keep pace with all of the new viruses the human race is creating. Think about our overuse of antibiotics and all of the antibiotic resistant superbugs we have, hell, now we even have super lice. That's right, we now live in a world that is getting warmer, polar caps are melting, trees are so dry that they exploded if struck by lightening or catch fire and we have now we have hard to kill cooties. This is why Suffer the Children gave me chills, there is a realness about it and if you think about it too much it could start to eat away at you and turn you into the next cast member of the reality series Doomsday Preppers.

In this case the global pandemic that wipes out a good portion of the world is known as Herod's and it only takes out children who haven't reached puberty. One day out of the blue, children the world over start dropping dead, there are no signs off illness, it just happens as though Samantha snapped her fingers or Jeanne nodded her head. The suddenness of the Herod Event leaves parents the world over grief stricken, society grounds to a halt and then there is the problem of what to do with the children's bodies. The bodies have to be hauled off by sanitation workers to be placed in a mass grave, not an ideal situation but a necessary one. The body count is so high the town of Landsdown doesn't have enough body bags for all of Herod's victims. After three long miserable days the children make like Lazarus and come back from the grave to return to their parents. It's a frigging miracle! God is good! Oh dear Lord, that smell, but it's a small price to pay to have my chi.... gotdamnit, the children just dropped dead again. 

That's right, the children die again as quickly as they came back to life, and it's soon learned that human blood can bring them back again, if only for a couple of hours at a time. This time society disappears completely, people don't go back to work, there are shortages in food supply, the "suicide" rate has skyrocketed and blood has become the worlds most precious economy but the problem is one can only give so much blood at a time. The blood trade has become a serious business for those who can afford it and for those who can't and have exhausted all of their donor resources it's time to make tough choices. Do they let their child go or do they find the "medicine" by any means necessary, and just like that, the rules and laws that we normally live by no longer apply. It's each parent for their child/children. I give DiLouie extra points for his very life like characters, I think I might be living next door to a Doug and Joanie right now.

If you take away the vampire/super natural aspect of the story it's frightening how rooted in reality it actually is. Something terrible will happen in the future that will affect the entire world and chaos and anarchy will be the only rule of the land. Barring any nuclear or environmental world events I say, stay somewhat dirty my friends. 

Twinkle Twinkle Fallen Star, What A Bitch You Are

When I first started this book I hit a wall (no pun intended) fairly quickly so I cheated and watched the movie. I wasn't impressed with the movie and was underwhelmed by the book.

The story of Tristan Thorn traveling beyond the gap in the wall that separates the faerie world from the village of Wall, England to fulfill his heart's desire is flat in tone slow in pace lacking in action and anticlimactic. And the women that occupy this book's pages are a pack of bitches. 

The "love" story between Tristan and Yvaine felt sterile and a bit frosty, even when Yvaine  does come around to Tristan it seems more like she's settling and less like she's actually in love. Then again, I guess she would have to settle because she's a star that fell from the sky and has no way to get back home. How bleak! 

With a title like Stardust you would think this story would sparkle and shine and leave behind a warm glittering trail of magic instead it just lays there like a dull dirty cold lump of coal. 

Just One Look Will Drive You Mad.

The unknown is frightening, people aren't afraid of the dark, they're afraid of what may be in the dark. That's what makes Bird Box so unnerving, it's the not knowing that eats at you.

There's something so terrible outside that one look at it will drive you mad and make you violent and suicidal. The only thing the public knows is that they need to stay inside cover their windows and lock their doors and if they have to go outside they need to wear a blindfold and keep their eyes closed. 

Malorie and her children are the only survivors out of a small group of people living together in a stranger's house. It's been four years since the night she gave birth and a massacre that wiped out all of her housemates. In those four years she's been training her children to use their ears instead of their eyes to survive. She's spent those years planning an escape to a potentially safer place to live. As she travels down the river to find the safe haven she's stalked by wild animals and the creatures that should not be looked at. 

This book is ripe with tension and gave me a suffocating trapped feeling that only Daphne du Maurier's The Birds made feel. Bird Box is effective in making you feel the fear of being alone in a world gone mad, not even animals are safe in this new world, by something that has no name shape or face. 

A Head Full of Ghosts

Congratulations Paul Tremblay, you managed to creep me out and made me lose some sleep. Oh, and I really didn't want to turn off my bedroom light at night either. 

I admit it, I'm a scaredy pants and the subject of demonic possession fascinates and scares me at the same time. I cannot watch the film adaptation of The Exorcist, because scary make up and demon voice, but the book bored me to death and didn't bother me but A Head Full of Ghosts just got to me and in a bad way. 

Our narrator, Merry, relives the events that lead up to the exorcism of her fourteen year old sister Marjorie. There is a catch though and the catch is Merry shares her story with us 15 years after the fact. Merry was only 8 when everything went down so her memory isn't that reliable and she doesn't know much other than what she personally experienced or flat out made up. 

From Merry's recollections she notices Marjorie's odd behavior when Marjorie starts telling her stories like the story of the tragic Boston North End molasses flood of 1919 which she claims no prior knowledge of until it just pops into her head one morning and a creepy story she just made up about vines that grow everywhere and take over everything. Merry doesn't like these stories or the other things Marjorie just claims to know and to have always known. Things deteriorate to the point that Merry's father turns to the Catholic church and is convinced that an exorcism is the only thing that can help Marjorie and things get even worse when somehow  a production company gets wind of Marjorie's supposed possession and decide they want to document it for a show on the Discovery channel. 

I've always felt that a true possession would be more subtle than the histrionics of The Exorcist, Tremblay does give us the usual cliches and uses them to good effect, I almost threw up during the vomit scene. I also had a "Hey it's that guy!, well actually girl." moment. Tremblay gives us in depth analysis of the documentary via a blog written by one Karen Brissette. She's my friend on Goodreads and writes some of the funniest and smartest reviews out there, he doesn't nail it but he gets pretty close. But alas this Karen Brissette isn't the Karen Brissette on Goodreads.

Tremblay gives us an ending that is pure Shirley Jackson, I won't tell which Jackson story though, it would ruin the ending for you. This is a good read for Halloween. 

My cat knows better.

As I was reading this my cat Molly came up to me and started to nose about. When I told her what I was reading she got that glint in her eye, the one that tells me that I'm a stupid head . She then stuck her tail and nose in the air and told me all I ever needed to know.

"Know how to operate the pull tab to my can of food, keep fresh water in my dish, always keep my potties clean. And most importantly, remember that I own you!"

Summertime and the reading is sleazy.

I'm no longer a monster porn virgin! I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I just known that I'm about $6 poorer for it but at least I know how a diner can turn you gay. 

Lars is a trucker, but he's not your stereotypical trucker. He has goals, he's planning on going to college and he likes to look good so he works out a lot. One night during a run he broods on his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend and realizes he forgot to bring snacks. Uh oh! Good thing there's a diner up the road, the Alpha diner.

As Lars steps out of the truck he notices the diner's face, the diner has a very handsome face, he's also impressed by the diner's rock hard abdominal doors. Inside the place is full of hungry truckers, young couples on first dates and the smell of good food. Shortly after being seated he hears a voice, it's the voice of the living Alpha diner and his name is Turk. Turk asks Lars if he's single and if he's gay, Lars is so turned on that he decides right then and there that decides that yes, he is indeed gay. 

Now we're to the porn part of the story and I'm already confused by the logistics of man/living diner man monster sex. How does the diner keep from tearing Lars apart? How does the diner get pleasure from something as small as a man? These are the questions I'm left with. 

After just one sexual encounter Lars and Turk fall in love and Lars decides to give up his college dreams to work at and be with the diner he so loves. 

Awww, and they lived happily ever after or until the health inspector shuts them down after finding a mysterious sticky substance on everything. 

This was my second experience with monster porn and it was just as ridiculous and I was still left wondering how anuses weren't split open and bowels shredded. 

Allen is a political reporter living in a brave new America, this America has accepted and embraced the Sasquatch race and has elected it's first Bigfoot president, president Yuldok. When the political blog he works for is granted an interview with the president, Allen thinks he has hit the big time, but little does he know that president Yuldok has a crush on him and has needs that only human Allen can fulfill. 

This is pretty much the story. 

Yuldok to Allen: Fuck me or get out. 

Allen to Yuldok: No! 

Yuldok to Allen:  Alright, this interview is over.

Allen to Yuldok: Okay then, I will fuck you!

Fucking scene commences. Yuldok has a huge rod, sucking, butt fucking, double penetration with the presidential butt plug, finishing with a hot foamy discharge. 

Though much smaller than the living Alpha diner, I'm sure that president bigfoot would still do some serious damage to Allen's ass and internal organs. 

As much as these stories made me laugh I still suffer from buyers remorse, because the covers are much funnier than anything Chuck Tingle could write. Unless you can get these stories for free, just stick to looking at the covers for a good laugh, you can think of your own poorly written fuck story if you need one.

A not so scandalous scandal

The struggle is real and I really struggled with this one. Honestly, I'm not even sure what I read. I know it's supposedly about a sexual relationship between a music teacher and one of his teenaged students at an all girls school, I guess in theory that's what it's about, but in reality, well at least in my reality,  it's a hot time jumping mess. 

The story starts off with a bitchy middle aged saxophone teacher telling some mother that her precious snowflake isn't ready yet to start playing the sax, because the sax is edgy, sexy and dangerous. She recommends that her daughter play the clarinet because it's the sperm of the sax or some bullshit like that. After one of her students, Isolde, tells her she didn't practice because her sister got caught having sex with  the school's music teacher. Our nameless sax teacher then spends the rest of the book pumping her students for more information on the scandal and just being overall obnoxious nosy bitch. 

Meanwhile on another part of the grounds where the sax teacher has her studio is a prestigious acting institute that some kid named Stanley is trying to earn a place. 

The rest of the story jumps back and forth between the acting institute the school and the saxophone teacher's studio. 

There is not one likable character in this book, the dialogue is unbelievable. Let me show you how unbelievable it is. 

“But the counselor lied,” Julia says. “You lied. You lied about the pain of it, the unsimple mess of it, immeasurably more thorny and wretched and raw than you could ever remember, with the gauze veil of every year that passes settling over your eyes, thicker and thicker until even your own childhood dissolves into the mist.”

Who in the fuck talks like that? Not even the teens on Dawson's creek spoke like that, pretty close though. 

This book for some reason has a lot of love, I'm not sure if I missed something or if everyone else is pretending. 

They should have stayed at the Super 8.

Sarah Waters sure does love her some old timey lesbians and the English class system. 

Frances Wray is a sourish spinster who had dreams, but those dreams were dashed by WWI, the death of both of her brothers and her father. When her father dies, Frances and her mother learn the true state of affairs of the family finances and they're not good. Poor and servantless, it's now Frances' duty to keep up a home and care for her mother as well. In order to stave off their creditors and complete humiliation they turn a suite of rooms into guest lodgings. Enter Lillian and Leonard Barber. 

The Barbers are of the clerk class, if that's not bad enough they've had elocution lessons own tacky furniture and oh the tchotchkes, so many ugly tchotchkes! Leonard's a lech and a creep and Lillian dresses like a carefree spirited gypsy in colorful dresses but deep down she's sad gypsy in colorful dresses. They couldn't be more different from Frances and her mother. 

Frances becomes fascinated with Lillian and the more she gets to know Leonard the more creeped out she gets by him. Frances and Lillian fall in love and carry on an affair underneath Mrs. Wray and Leonard's noses and when Leonard finds out tragedy strikes and it will change everything, including the new dreams Frances has made for herself.

This book is too long, just like Tipping the Velvet but at least it's not the hot wet sticky mess that Tipping the Velvet was. There wasn't one likable character in the whole book, wait I take that back, Frances' neighbor Mrs. Playfair had two Siamese cats, they were likable. Frances and Lillian are actually a little evil and I was rooting against them. But then again I was rooting against everyone in this book. 

So far I've only read three of Sarah Waters' novels and I hated two of them, but I know I'll keep reading her. After all she is one hell of a writer and I'd rather read something that is well written and bad than something that is poorly written and bad.