Library of America books

I would like to start off by saying that these books are beautiful. And if they ever release another volume of Hammett's or Lovecraft's stories, I'll be first in line to buy them.

It's time to discuss how I came to find these men and their work.

I have no idea what this book is even about

These came in the mail today. I borrowed Before I Fall from the online library and I loved it. I don’t think Lauren Oliver knows how to write a book with a happy ending, but that’s fine. It’s more realistic if things don’t end perfectly.

Haven’t read Thirteen Reasons Why, but it shows up on the Amazon pages of most of the books I have read lately and I needed another book, so I figured, why not?

I’m going to spend all weekend reading 1984 and Catch Me If You Can.

I think there's a 24 hour recovery period involved here

I finished reading Before I Fall in two days...I read most of it yesterday.

And I planned to start 1984 today, but I just can't focus. On reading anything. I've had some short story sitting on my computer since last night, and every time I look at it, I just think, "Nope."

I'm good when I start reading something. But once it's over, I need a break.

Tomorrow. I'll read 1984 tomorrow.

Before I Fall

I finished reading Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver in two days. I could have easily finished it in one, had I not been so tired yesterday. That's how great it was. Even better than Delirium.

Before I Fall is about a popular high school girl, Sam, who relives the last night of her life seven times, until she finally gets it right.

My first thought was, this is so Mean Girls it's disgusting. And I found myself not being able to relate to it because my high school was nothing like the one in this book. You see all these movies, TV shows and you read these books...The students are always so evil to each other. And my school wasn't like that. There were individuals who had problems with each other, but it wasn't just an entire group of people determined to make someone miserable.

The Mean Girls vibe dies down eventually. Which is nice, because that's when the story starts getting better.

(My second thought, in case you're wondering, was, MAC is mentioned so many times, you'd think they sponsored this book.)

Nothing I say can do Before I Fall justice. So I won't even try. You should probably just read it.

It's about time I got around to this Resident Evil 4 post

Any time I discuss something, I try to be fair in my assessment of whatever it is I'm talking about. With Bioshock 2, I made it very clear that I didn't enjoy the game, but I pointed out that someone who had never played the first game might enjoy it more as it would be a completely new experience. When talking about Divergent, I said that since it's part of a trilogy, I can't judge it without reading the other two books as there's still room for improvement and the rest of the trilogy will expand on the original story. I rarely ever just come out and say, "This is BAD."

I feel like I've explained my stance on Resident Evil 4 so many times, but I've never put all of my thoughts into one post. I usually comment on one thing, leave it alone, come back later, comment on something else, etc. So I'm going to explain why I dislike this game so much.

A night of Broadway/Times Square failures

Yesterday was a huge fail overall.

I went to see Anything Goes. And this is what I saw when I looked in the playbill.

Laura Osnes had already left back in September (I think), so that was disappointing. But then to see that Sutton Foster wasn't going to be playing Reno for that performance and Joel Grey was MIA...I was a little upset. I quickly got over it though because Tari Kelly was amazing as Reno and Robert Creighton had such great comedic timing, he was perfect as Moonface.

Also, while I'm talking about Robert Creighton, I'd just like to point out that in the playbill, it says, "Co-author and star of CAGNEY!, the award-winning new musical about film legend James Cagney." So right away, I fell in love with this man. Anyone who would make a musical about James Cagney is okay with me. The musical has a website with the script and some songs on it.

http://www.cagneythemusical.com/

Outside the Stephen Sondheim Theatre

Souvenir book and playbill

I feel like I need a separate paragraph to discuss how incredible Colin Donnell was, since all I've done for months is go on and on about how excited I was to see him. And he was definitely incredible. When he came out disguised and in a wheel-chair for "It's De-lovely" and started singing in that weird old-woman voice, I lost it. It took me at least a minute to regain my composure because it was so funny.

That being said...Colin Donnell was not my favorite part of the show. No one was. With a musical like Anything Goes, it's hard to choose a favorite actor or character. Because they're all so talented and the characters are all well written and VERY funny. I actually forgot just how funny this musical was until yesterday. All the actors did a fantastic job.

Anything Goes, for those of you who don't already know, has a soundtrack comprised of some of Cole Porter's best songs. So aside from the great script, it also has a lot of fun music to go along with it. Add in the beautiful costumes and the extraordinary choreography, and you get a pretty great Broadway experience. The only complaint I have is that the first act is stronger than the second, but that's a very minor complaint.

Anything Goes was everything I could have hoped for. It was everything that came after that made the day a failure.

As soon as we left the theatre, we were surrounded by Occupy Wall Street protesters. I don't mind that they're protesting. If you truly believe in your cause, and you know WHY you're there and what you stand for, and you're going to be level-headed and have a peaceful protest, then by all means, go for it. But the people who are doing it and don't understand why, or are doing it because they have nothing better to do on a Saturday night...You guys suck. And this is why.

Times Square was insane last night. There were barricades all over the place, it was almost impossible to navigate. I literally walked around an entire block trying to find a way out, and then realized that the only way out was the way I came in. We had to go all over the place, completely out of the way of our destination, because everything was barricaded. I've never seen anything like it. There were more police out than I've EVER seen in my life. On every block. These people basically shut down Times Square. How the hell do you accomplish something like that? It's Times Square. That doesn't happen. Again, it doesn't bother me that people are protesting for what they believe in, but it's the other people who don't even know WHY they're protesting...You guys stay home next time. Maybe then Times Square won't be closed off and people won't have to go through a maze of barricades to find their way out.

When Anything Goes was over, we had a choice. We could either go to Comic Con, or we could go to Ellen's and then to the Majestic to meet Hugh Panaro. We chose the latter.

After we finally found our way to Ellen's, which wasn't easy when we weren't allowed through Times Square, we walked in and one of the waitresses was singing "Good Morning Baltimore" from Hairspray. That's always a good way to start things off. AND! They were decorated for Halloween. I was excited about that, I love Halloween.

We walked around until 7:00...Doing nothing, because really...There's nothing to do other than shop (which is boring to begin with) and all the stores are in Times Square...It was not worth even attempting to try to get to them with a protest going on.

So from 7:00 until 10:20, we sat in a hotel lobby. I'm not kidding. I don't get bored, but let me tell you...I was bored. I thought about leaving several times because as much as I like Hugh Panaro, that just didn't seem worth it to me. But, of course, we waited it out.

I brought my playbill from Phantom of the Opera with me, but then I thought...There's a lot of black on the cover, I don't know if this will work. So, not paying attention, I bought the souvenir book from Phantom...

...Thinking that maybe the inside of the cover was white. No. It's all black. (The rose came with it.) I don't mind, it's a really nice book.

Here's the front of the Majestic (the cast does not come out here, they come out of the back of the theatre):

We waited outside the back entrance for a half hour. I had asked one of the girls who works at the Majestic if the cast members come out after the show, she said yes, every night. I asked if Hugh was there, she said yes. This was earlier in the night, mind you, because I wanted to make sure we didn't stay all night for no reason. Anyway...We waited a half hour, and then one of the cast members came out and said Hugh left through the side door. Ohhhh really.

I wasn't even upset or disappointed. I was relieved. I already made a post on Tumblr about this. I feel very awkward meeting people. The only times I haven't felt awkward were the four times I met the cast of Legally Blonde with Lori. If my cousin had been there last night, I would have been fine, but she wasn't, so I really didn't want to do it. It's one of those things that's fun for us to do together, but is horrible to do with anyone else.

The only thing that bothered me was that we could have left right after dinner at Ellen's instead of staying in the city and being bored to death. That was unfortunate.

I wanted to mention that there were only about eight other people waiting for the cast to come out last night, which surprised me. Every time I was waiting outside for the cast of Legally Blonde, there was a huge crowd of people waiting in line, too. I don't know if people don't bother with Phantom because it's been on Broadway so long, or if it's because they don't know where the cast comes out.

When we were trying to find our way back to Penn Station, I saw this.

Never heard of it, not sure if it's new this October, but there are hands coming out of the doors.

There will never be a better Phantom

After I see Anything Goes on Saturday, I'm probably going to stay in the city for another five hours and wait for Phantom of the Opera to end so I can see him when he comes out. Because I didn't have time to do that last year and I don't know if he's going to extend his run again after...December? I can't remember exactly when he's leaving.

So many books to read

I still have to finish reading Catch Me If You Can. But that's going to be put on hold because I borrowed Divergent by Veronica Roth and Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver from the online library and I only have it for seven days.

I bought The Forbidden Game series (The Hunter, The Chase, The Kill) by L.J. Smith just because I loved The Secret Circle so much and I wanted to see if this series was good. Bought it on my Kindle...I don't normally do that. If it had been a book I REALLY wanted to own and knew I would love, I would have bought an actual copy of it, but since I'm not sure, this is fine for now.

And these books arrived while I was away this weekend.

I've already read Delirium. I borrowed it from the online library. It wasn't the special edition though, so I'm REALLY excited because this one has an excerpt from Pandemonium, which is the second book in the trilogy. It doesn't come out until March 2012. I think there's already a post about this book so I'm not going to get into it again, but I will say it absolutely crushed my soul. But it was so good I had to own it.

Zoo is a collection of short stories (all by the same writer). Horror stories, I believe. I haven't read it, but these are Japanese horror stories, so you know they're going to be creepy.

I'll probably post about these books as I get around to reading them.

This is part of the problem with the series vs. show

I've talked about The Secret Circle on here before. I'm about to do it again.

Just to give you an idea of how much I really do love this series, I have copies of the books. I bought the newer ones that contain one and a half books in each book...Hopefully that makes sense.

Now this is where I run into a problem. Aside from the fact that they changed the entire plot for the show, the casting decisions they made baffle me. Because these faces are the ones I identify with the characters (you can click the picture to enlarge it...At least, I hope so, I left it huge for a reason):

I read these books when I was younger, I've had these images in my head for YEARS now. And I can't get used to the cast on the show. Especially Diana...That one bothers me the most. Her appearance was not JUST an appearance, it was part of her identity, it was symbolic of her goodness and purity. But then again, Diana on the show doesn't strike me as terribly good or pure, so maybe it's just as well.

I don't hate the show. But I would have liked to see an adaptation of the books that stuck to the source material.