Tomorrow I am going to learn more about ebook and ebook readers. Should be exciting.
Even more exciting are the novels I have read/am currently reading at the moment. My boss, Peggy, borrowed Warped by Maurissa Guibord through inter-library loan, and was kind enough to let me borrow it when she had completed reading it. I had earlier snagged it from the desk where she had unsuspectingly left it, not knowing I would want to snag it from her. I mean time-traveling hotties? Sign me up for a little of that, please!
Warped tells the tale of
17-year-old Tessa Brody who pushes her father to bid on a lot of books at an auction after seeing a tapestry of a unicorn that was included in the lot. She is drawn to the tapestry, though at the same time somewhat repelled because strange visions overtake her when she touches it, dreams of a past where she was the virgin in the forest entrapping a unicorn. And then a thread is plucked, the unicorn disappears, and a man appears in her bedroom, straight from the 16th century. It is William de Chaucy, a hot young nobleman who had been transformed into a unicorn by Gray Lily, a witch who learned the art of stealing human life threads in order to weave them into her own tapestry. She wants him back in her art; it is the only way she can stay young and alive. At the same time, the Norn Sisters are after Tessa because they believe she is the one who has stolen the threads. They threaten to destroy her life and those lives of the people she loves if she doesn't return the threads to them. Will Tessa be able to fix the pattern before her whole life is destroyed by Gray Lily and the Norn Sisters? And what will happen to William de Chaucy, a man whom she has learned to love. Their fates were entwined in the past, can she still hold on to him in the present?Okay, I admit it, I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. Perhaps it was because I picked it up and started it and then got distracted for a couple of days by life and other things and then finished it. So, I had forgotten some of the details of things starting out (like her unimportant date with some high school boy). And then the other part of me that wished that they had spent more time in the past. And the time in the past that they did spend was in the tapestry. So was that really the past or just some sort of Gray Lily's warped view of the past? Who knows. However, I did like the ending. And, as much as I'm all "meh" these days about girls meeting boys and falling in love with them after knowing them for a day (and the feelings being reciprocated), I'm giving this book a pass on that detail. Technically, they "knew" each other for centuries because apparently the Norn Sisters like to reweave your thread into the story even after it has been cut. Basically, she was the reincarnated virgin of the forest that had trapped Will when he was a unicorn. He got over that grudge, apparently, since they did have a nice make-out scene later in the book. All I'm saying is that the instant love kind of romance, I'm not buying it. But, then again, I'm the girl who has loved a guy for two years now. And he doesn't know I exist (as a girl, I mean, I'm like my own subspecies of an "it" to him). But, I digress. I guess that's why I take my inspiration from Helena (All's Well That Ends Well) and Cassandra (I Capture The Castle) these days. All about the unrequited love.
Still, it's nice to still be able to read and dream that these things can happen!
Speaking of Cassandra, I saw a wonderful reading of the new I Capture the Castle musical by Peter Foley held at Signature Theatre this past weekend. I had been looking forward to hearing this ever since three of the songs from the show were previewed a couple of years back in a cabaret. Okay, it was more like "They are doing a musical version of I Capture the Castle? I must to hear that!" Seeing as I always was a fan of the book by Dodie Smith. And, I happily wasn't disappointed. Now, some liberties have been taken. As a matter of fact, Cassandra and Rose's brother Thomas was written out of the show during the workshop process that happened in the three weeks prior to the reading. The actor ended up being the one to read the stage directions. And, it still dragged in places, but with a bit more work, I'm sure it will turn out to be a delightful piece. I put it very much in the same place of love in my heart as Paul Gordon's Daddy-Long-Legs musical. A show that I very much want to see, but I adore the recordings that I've heard because they take whole bits from the show. The one thing that I wish was expanded was the ending and how they have Cassandra say the line "I wanted to run after him and say 'yes!' But, that isn't enough, not for the giver." Because in the book, before the "but, that isn't enough" bit, there is the line about "And surely I could give him-a sort of contentment." I think you really should have left that it to make the last line make more sense. At least they have at the very end, "Only the margins left. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you...."
Ah, and yesterday I was sitting in the audience waiting for Oklah
oma! to start at Arena Stage (very fun production, by the way) when I overheard the man next to me tell his son that when he was living in NYC everyone who visited him had to see Les Miserables. That meant he saw it all of three times and how it was four hours and fifteen minutes long. ::gasp:: I couldn't help but laugh because a)I've seen it too many times to properly remember how many, and b)it really isn't that long. Of course, he lost my respect when he smacked me in the face twice with his coat when he was taking it off and didn't apologize at all.
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