All tagged Condoms

Love, Sex & Feminism (or not?) in Lauren Myracle's The Infinite Moment of Us

Love, Sex & Feminism (or not?) in Lauren Myracle's The Infinite Moment of Us

Sarah Moon
Opinion, Books

I wasn’t planning on writing about Lauren Myracle’s The Infinite Moment of Us. 

When I first picked it up, I only waded through three chapters before deciding it wasn’t for me. Then, glowing reviews piled up, and I thought that maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for this novel and gave it another shot. I slogged through all but the last couple chapters before abandoning the novel again. Finally, after chatting with Laura about the numerous aspects of The Infinite Moment of Us that frustrated and disappointed me, and deciding that my aggravations were probably worth noting on CEFS, I forced myself to finish those last chapters.

The Infinite Moment of Us is written in the popular dual narrative style from the point of view of recent high school graduates Wren Gray and Charlie Parker. Wren is a classic over-achieving people-pleaser, headed for a good college and a future her parents approve of. Except she comes to the realization that pleasing her parents means letting herself down by ignoring her own dreams. She’s also been accepted into an outreach-type program in Guatemala and wants to take a gap year and pursue that rather than start college immediately. The disappointment from her parents about this decision, however, is an overwhelming burden.

Read the rest! 

Links + Things: Justin Timberlake! The Calming Manatee! Plagiarism (Ugh)! Sexism (Double Ugh)! Libraries! General Interestingness!

Links + Things: Justin Timberlake! The Calming Manatee! Plagiarism (Ugh)! Sexism (Double Ugh)! Libraries! General Interestingness!

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

You guys, it's been slow around these parts because I kind of lost the plot with my reading and nearly every book I've read in March isn't out until May or June. Obviously, I would be a jerk if I started reviewing things that weren't out for months--on a number of levels. 

However! I have many links of interestingness, including a Very Special Section devoted to the one and only Justin Timberlake. I have had The 20/20 Experience on repeat since Tuesday and I am in love--especially with Pusher Love Girl, which is Swoon City, USA.  ​

This Week's Video of Awesome

This is a ​fantastic speculative ad for Durex--it's brilliant and actually tells you want you need to know about the product.

Interestingness

Jane Goodall’s ‘Seeds of Hope’ book contains borrowed passages without attribution (Wash. Post)

Jane Goodall, the primatologist celebrated for her meticulous studies of chimps in the wild, is releasing a book next month on the plant world that contains at least a dozen passages borrowed without attribution, or footnotes, from a variety of Web sites.

The borrowings in “Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants” range from phrases to an entire paragraph from Web sites such as Wikipedia and others that focus on astrology, tobacco, beer, nature and organic tea.

​Well, this is disappointing news to say the least. I'm getting so weary of one plagiarism story after another. I realize there are so many pressures to publish, publish, publish, but it's at the point I'm no longer all that surprised by each week's plagiarism story. What worries me the most is the desensitizing--I have had a number of students in their 20s who have been surprised by my anti-plagiarism spiel because it's the first time they've had someone explicitly address the issue of plagiarism and what it precisely means. 

Review: Can't Hurry Love by Molly O'Keefe

Review: Can't Hurry Love by Molly O'Keefe

Sarah Moon
Books

I have a a tough time reading the romance genre. Renegade is our Official Romance Correspondent, and she is so shrewd with her observations of what works an what doesn’t, and really articulating that in the context of the genre.

And, I think that romance is a very important genre. Yep. People who know me are often shocked by this. That’s because romance is the only genre that’s largely dominated by female readers and writers. This is a significant thing. 

However, I often find myself distracted by the tried and true character types and story structures. There’s nothing wrong with those things, it’s just they often don’t work for me. I like books that push the limits and take characters in unexpected directions. And more than anything, I want an emotionally authentic story. 

This is why I appreciate the two novels I’ve read by Molly O’Keefe so much—they work for me because they’re emotionally complex and the characters surprise me. Can’t Buy Me Love was remarkable in how challenging the characters were, pushing all sorts of boundaries in terms character motivation and development. Can’t Hurry Love, the companion novel featuring different characters but set in the same Texas ranch, featured similarly challenging characters, one of whom was simply unlikable in the previous novel. 

But (also as in the previous novel) Can’t Hurry Love explores damaged people finding a path forward and coming to terms with their own pasts and figuring out a future together. 

{List-O-Rama} Five Dealbreakers

Sarah Moon
Listorama

Editor’s Note: Today we’re introducing another one of our regular features, “List-o-Rama,” which is part opinion, part airing of grievances, part miscellany. 

I really try to be an open-minded reader. I’ve tried loads of genres and authors I assumed I wouldn’t like and have found gems that really speak to me. With that said, I have a few absolute reading dealbreakers. You know, those things that just leave you saying, “No, no, no.”

Dealbreaker #1 Controlling, domineering Alpha-male, characters. 

Now, you may be saying,

“But Sarah, you love Urban Fantasy, which is full of this character type.”

Which would be a true statement.  

However, the UF that I love has actual consequences for this sort of behavior. For example, in Patricia Brigg’s marvelous Mercy Thompson series (Goodreads, Amazon), Adam has to learn to keep his domineering tendencies in check—it’s a key part of his character development. The same goes for Jeaniene Frost’s incredibly fun Night Huntress series (Goodreads, Amazon), in which Bones (that name still kills me after following this series through a slew of books) has to change his behavior because he can’t call all the shots anymore. So, really, I’m fairly forgiving as long as there are consequences and a change in the behavior for this character type.