best and worst of 2015 and some very loosely-defined 2016 reading goals

Best:
Julie Cross's Letters to Nowhere series, which I just read over the past 2 days.
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl which is now one of my favorite books of all time.
Stephen King's The Green Mile.

Worst:
Michael Crichton's Rising Sun.

Total books read in 2015: 21 (yikes -- that is really low).

I'm not sure that number is accurate, but I am trying to do a better job of tallying my reads on my own instead of relying on Goodreads and Shelfari.  I am hesitant to set reading goals or resolutions for 2016 in terms of the number of books I want to read because I need to be writing more than reading (although I recently read an agent's advice to authors who said that we should actually be reading more than writing -- I like that advice!), but there is one resolution I found on BookTube that I am definitely going to implement: Read 5 Before I Buy.  I own hundreds of novels I have not read.  Seriously.  Actually, I'm going to count them now.

481.  Wow.  And that's just novels.  I have at least that many nonfiction books that I haven't read too.  So I probably have around 1,000 books just in my apartment that I haven't read.  That's not counting books in storage or at my mom's.  So really I should read 100 books before I buy another, but that's not reasonable, because clearly I am more addicted to buying books than I am to actually reading them.  I have gotten MUCH better about not buying books, but I am now keeping track of all the books I read AND where they came from (my collection, bought, loaners, library books, etc.) because I really need to get a handle on this.  Again, I know book buying has decreased significantly over the past year or two: I amassed most of these books when I was studying for comps because I was reading so much stuff for school and I couldn't read fiction, so I just bought tons of novels.  In a weird way, it motivated me, sort of like writing fiction motivated me to finish my dissertation; it was like -- okay, once you accomplish this goal, then you can read all of this fiction that right now you can only stare at.  Of course, I haven't read nearly as much as I have wanted to or thought I would since then, obviously.  I have had way too many reading slumps where I just couldn't get into any books, and then just gave up for a while.  Watching way too much TV has also contributed to my lack of reading, since I seem completely incapable of doing anything but that in the evening now.  I'm not even going to talk about changing my evening routine because I am really sick of saying I'm going to do it, and then doing the same thing for like years now.  But I will say that I would like to make myself get in bed sooner and read.  That would not only help me read more, but I think it would help me sleep better too.  That seems possible when I'm not watching a show I really like, and I just finished Gossip Girl, so hopefully I won't get sucked into anything else for at least a minute, so I can build some better habits before the semester starts (in like 2 weeks -- eeeek!).

One thing I have been doing over break that I would like to continue if possible is dedicating a chunk of time every week to reading fiction.  Lately that has been Sunday: usually I stay in bed and read until it's time to go to yoga at 1:30, so that generally gets me through at least half of a novel.  If I am able to continue that throughout the semester, then I will read at least 2 books a month, which will put me over my total for last year.

So, with that said, I think I'm going to go back to reading my book now.  I'm currently reading Finding Our Balance by Lauren Hopkins, another gymnastics novel, and the only other one in existence as far as I know besides the Letters to Nowhere series.  Someone really needs to get on that.

Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

I love it when a book inspires a story idea, except that the timing is usually inconvenient.  I am currently in the middle of writing my first novel, as well as a book chapter for an academic collection, as well as teaching, helping to run a writing center, planning an advanced rhetoric course, and dancing every day, so I definitely don't have time to pursue any ideas right now.  But -- I added this one to the folder I have in Google Drive with the many, many projects I'd like to pick up at some point.  Anyway -- Michelle Tea's Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is about a young girl who discovers that she has special powers and ends up training with various witches from different cultures.  The part that inspired me is that I am fairly sure Tea is of Polish descent, and one of the cultures she explores is the traditional magical practices of Poland.  Well, since I am of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, my ancestors also had traditional magical practices (I mean, all of our ancestors did, I just happen to have done some research on mine) and now I really want to explore that in fiction.  So I will.  Someday.

In the meantime, I plan to finish Tea's novel today, because guess what else will arrive today?  Grey!  E.L. James's latest -- Fifty Shades from Christian's perspective.  I am pretty sure I will have this book devoured within 24 hours . . . except now I'm also catching up on Season 5 of GOT, which might mess up that plan.  Oh yeah, plus the mountain of work I have to do and my daily training, but I suppose that goes without saying.

I also ordered the sequel to Mermaid, Girl at the Bottom of the Sea, so I will read that after Grey.

MacLean is the antidote to Reynard

So I finished the Gabriel's Inferno trilogy and I even read the sort-of sequel novella The Prince.  AND I ordered the sequel to that, The Raven.  What is wrong with me??  Fortunately, The Raven is the last of Reynard's books so far.  Because apparently these books are like potato chips -- I don't like potato chips at all, but once I start eating them, I can't stop.  BUT I am now on the third book of Sarah MacLean's Love by Numbers trilogy and even though, yes, these are fairly standard, predictable historical romance novels, I would call them feminist historical romance novels, because in all three books, the heroines are self-sufficient, plucky, and quite subversive.  Now, I have seen plenty such characters in many romance novels, but usually said characters are "tamed" by some man in the end.  Of course, in order to be considered a true genre romance novel, the main two characters must get married in the end.  So that still happens.  However, the women do not have to change in these books in order for these marriages to take place; the men essentially end up taking the women on their own terms.  So there is not this horrible "breaking" process that happens; the women get to remain intact, still spunky, subversive, and unique.  So I have no problem admitting that I am a fan of Sarah MacLean's work.

I was inspired by running across both of these summer reading lists last night:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/the-ultimate-romance-erotica-reading-list?utm_term=.ijAG1xbGO#.aiqQWqx0E

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/2015/05/29/15-best-lgbt-summer-reads-include-anne-rice-kevin-sessums

I added all these books to my shelfari page (http://www.shelfari.com/shanascudder/shelf).  Obviously my shelfari page is a joke.  I have 3,286 books listed as "to read."  I think my Goodreads page is likely more realistic (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1750471?shelf=to-read).  I was thinking last night as I was obsessively adding new books to my shelf that I don't actually know which I like more: reading books, reading about books, collecting book lists, or collecting actual books.  I think this is quite odd.

But I think it all goes back to the fact that what I want to do most of all is WRITE books.  I'm still working on that part, but I think seeing everything that's out there makes me feel like maybe someday a book by me could end up on one of those lists.

Gabriel's Redemption

I'm about 100 pages into the last book of the Gabriel's Inferno trilogy and I've figured out a few more parallels between this series and Twilight.  First of all, the main one, which I can't believe I didn't figure out sooner, but THE ACADEMICS ARE THE VAMPIRES!!  How perfect is that??  And now Julia is becoming one of them instead of just hanging around them (like when Bella became a vampire).  Also, Christa is Victoria (the female vampire who was always trying to kill Bella) and Ann Singer ("Professor Pain") is Jane (who was one of the leaders of the Volturi and had the ability to inflict incredible pain on other vampires just by getting into their minds).

So I think Sylvain Reynard is probably a professor somewhere and these novels are his backdoor hobby.  I also think he (?) is a conservative Catholic, and the homophobia, in these books really bothers me.  Like part of Christa and Ann's "depraved" sexuality is that they will sleep with women as well as men, and Ann tried to seduce Julia in a really sickening scene (sickening because of the way that a woman seducing another woman was portrayed) in either the first or the second book.  Also, part of Gabriel's "redemption" in the last book was going to Italy and volunteering with a Franciscan charity.  So it will be interesting to see how all of this continues to play out in this book.

I definitely think that, in terms of reading this as Twilight fanfiction, there are some very smart parallels, and I think I'm enjoying the series for that more than anything.  If I weren't such a fan of all things and all plotlines Twilight, I'm pretty sure I would not have wasted this much of my life on this particular trilogy.  There is so much to dislike about it.  But it is also compelling, in its own way, though most of the credit for that is due to Stephenie Meyer, not "Sylvain Reynard" whoever he may be.

I'm balancing out my reading of this by also re-reading Interview with the Vampire, which I am halfway through.  Sylvain Reynard is seemingly the anti-Anne Rice, who herself and whose books are sex-positive, queer friendly, and appropriately critical of organized religion.  I definitely want to read her Beauty series at some point, but that might be a ways down the road, since I am first wanting to get through Queen of the Damned so I can read Prince Lestat, and then I think I want to tackle the Mayfair Witches.  But who knows when and if I will make it through all of those books.  Rice's writing actually takes some effort, since she is a quality writer, and I seem to only be able to process large amounts of trash like Reynard right now.  Plus I have the first book of Christina Lauren's Beautiful Bastard series waiting for me -- another Twilight fanfiction.  Not to mention that it's been a while since I've read anything YA, and I'll need to remedy that situation very soon as well.

Gabriel's Inferno (and other musings on Twilight fan fiction)

I am justifying writing this at work because I am actually working on an article about Twilight fan fiction, and the Gabriel's Inferno trilogy is one of the many published works that have their genesis in that genre (others include Fifty Shades, Alice Clayton's Wallbanger, JM Darhower's Sempre (Forever), Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia, and the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren).  If you are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, you might immediately think, "wait, there are vampires in Fifty Shades??"  Nope, as far as I know, not a one of these books includes any supernatural creatures, much to my chagrin.  But the thing with Twilight is that most people who flocked to this series are not regular consumers of supernatural fiction.  I'm pretty sure Anne Rice readers actively ran away from any and all things Twilight.  The pull of the series is the dynamic between Edward and Bella, the love triangle, and the promise that even an ordinary, socially-awkward girl from a working-class broken home can in fact become extraordinary (if she finds the right man, of course).  Now, I am a scholar, a feminist, and generally a pretty smart person who thinks about and analyzes the way race, class, and gender function in the world, but let me be clear -- I read the entire Twilight series FOUR TIMES.  If you read my previous post, you will know that I rarely ever get through a series for even the first read.  I admit, often with some degree of shame, that these are in fact some of my favorite books of all time.  In fact, I would be hard-pressed to think of another book or series that has had the impact on my reading life, and even my writing life, and possibly my entire life (yikes) that these books have.  And I know from formal and informal research that I am not alone in this.  One of my good friends echoes the sentiment of book blogger Maryse (maryse.net) that she wasn't much of a reader before Twilight.  Now these women inhale multiple books every week.  I can say the same for myself.  Twilight re-introduced me to the kind of voracious reading habits I had as a child, but ironically lost the more educated I became.  The kind where I would always carry a book with me, and take any opportunity to read a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence.  The kind when I would just live in that world, and miss it terribly when the experience was over, like being lost from one's home.  Twilight re-introduced me to that, and I think I have spent the last 7 years or so trying to figure out why: what is it about that series that continues to inspire so many women (and not just young women -- I am far from young) to read similar books, and then to produce books themselves?  It is no surprise that Fifty Shades is also on the short list of series I have actually completed, and would probably read again, had I not loaned out and thus lost my copies.  And I am certain to finish the Gabriel's Inferno series, problematic as it may be, as I just finished the second book and the third is on its way (although I did start re-reading Interview with the Vampire in the meantime, so that could derail or at least detain my progress).

Okay, so Gabriel . . . first of all, there is something really, I don't know . . . trying-too-hard about Sylvain Reynard's prose.  Neither E.L. James nor Stephenie Meyer are going to go down in history as authors of serious literary fiction, but their books don't try to be that, and I think in some ways Reynard's does, and I think it would be much better if he(?) just dropped that pretense.  So I don't like his writing style at all, and Julia's characterization just takes the sexism of this stock character to a whole new level.  I actually don't have a huge problem with Bella or Ana, as I think an argument could be made for them as strong female characters, but Julia?  Nope, not really ever.  She is portrayed as overly weak, frail, and waif-like to a nauseating degree.  And to a degree that isn't even believable.  She is also depicted as an out-right saint (overtly stated) with zero flaws.  Paul, the Jacob in the story, is similarly drawn.  So of course the only character with any degree of complexity is Gabriel.

So let me just draw you a map of how the plot (so far) of this series parallels Twilight:
Gabriel meets Julia and is a total asshole to her at first.
This was the case with Twilight except that Edward was a jerk to Bella because he wanted to suck her blood; Gabriel has no reason.
Then Gabriel and Julia realize they have this past/family connection and that Gabriel was actually Julia's first love (the fact that Gabriel doesn't remember her is patently ridiculous).
Bella and Edward's connection is that for some reason Bella's blood is particularly tasty to Edward, hence the asshole-ism.
These obstacles are obviously overcome, and the respective couples fall in love.  Then . . .
Gabriel gets in trouble for dating a student (duh).  To save Julia's academic career, he pretends to leave her, except that, of course, Julia thinks it's real.
Edward leaves Bella after Jasper tries to suck Bella's blood.  Except that Edward actually does try to leave her.
There is the requisite period of tortured separation during which the women pine and the men go off the rails.
Also during this time, Bella forms a platonic-ish relationship with Jacob the werewolf and Julia forms a similar relationship with fellow scholar Paul.
But of course, the primary couples eventually get back together, and then get married.
I'm assuming book 3 of Gabriel's will be about the kids.  I'm interested to see what the conflict will be and how that will parallel Twilight, as the conflict after Renesmee was born was about an all-out vampire war.

So my only review of Gabriel's Inferno so far is that it's written in a style that is probably even more unreadable for connoisseurs of literary fiction that Twilight or Fifty Shades.  The characters are much flatter, and there are many plot points that don't even make sense.  So why have I invested over 1200 pages of my life in this series?  Frankly I have no idea.  That's why I keep writing about it.

Series I'm in the middle of

This is crazy; I just went through my books and wrote down all the series that I have started but not (yet) finished.  The book number, if not currently reading is the next one I have to read in a series.  This is not counting series in which I haven't yet finished the first book (Bared to You, Outlander, A Kiss of Shadows, Game of Thones, Captivated, Marked, Witches of East End), or Harry Potter or Beautiful Creatures, which I didn't finish but intend to re-read all of them at some point.

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (#1) -- currently reading (although I read much of this series back in high school -- I think I got to The Vampire Armand -- but I am re-reading at least through Queen of the Damned because I want to read Price Lestat which is the sequel to Queen)

Sylvain Reynard's Gabriel's Inferno trilogy (#3) -- this book is on its way and I just finished #2.  I'll probably have a separate post about this series since it is the most current (besides Rice).

Sarah MacLean's Love by Numbers series (#2)

Rae Carson's Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy (#3)

J.A. Redmerski's The Edge of Never Series (#2)

Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments Series (#3)

Kristen Cashore's Graceling Trilogy (#3)

Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Series (#11)

Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy Series (#2)

Christopher Pike's Last Vampire series (#2)

Anne Rice's Wolf Chronicles (#2)

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle (#3)

Lauren Kate's Fallen Series (#4)

Some of these I'm sure I won't finish, but for all of these I own at least the next book in the series.  Some of these I haven't read for years and would probably have a hard time remembering where I left off, but if I went back and re-read every book beforehand, then I would never get through them all (which I probably won't anyway).  The ones I feel are worth the effort (Vampire Chronicles, Harry Potter, Beautiful Creatures series), I will do that with, the others, I'll just either read summaries online or figure things out as I go along.  This list would indicate that I rarely finish series I begin.  Exceptions would be Twilight, of which I have read the entire series 4 times, The Hunger Games, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Fifty Shades of Grey.  Oh and the Chronicles of Narnia.