Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

Which author’s writing surprised you when you first read their work and what about it grabs you?

Okay, there is something that all of you should know about me. Are you ready? This is my grand confession…

I am a vampire book snob.

There, I said it. It is out in the open and I can’t take it back. All of you now know my terrible truth.

You see, it all began in the year 1994 when my mother took me to see the motion picture version of one of her favorite books Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice. Entranced can’t even begin to explain what I felt when I watched the sophisticated, sensual, elegant vampires gracing the large screen of the small Ft. Monroe military base supplied theater, which was probably there before the Civil War AND the slave contraband decision. I had always thought vampires to be pallid, disgusting creatures. Like animals, I would say. Yet when I saw Lestat and Louis in their Frenchman clothing, vampires became something new to me.

I became and still am completely in love with the Vampire Chronicles (Marius is the end all and be all of literary characters in my mind and heart).

It made me a snob.

As a result, it is very hard for me to even pick up a vampire book. I’m close minded. I worry that the vampires within the pages won’t live up to my expectations. I don’t want them to be gothic cliches and I don’t want them to be full on beasts a la 30 Days of Night.

But, upon many recommendations, I decided to give the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris a try. Everyone said that they were great and the show True Blood was interesting. It was just that previously, I had read the back of the first book in the Southern Vampire Mysteries and thought to myself, “oh man, some superhero telepathic waitress and vampires ‘out of the coffin.’” It just sounded like one of those Mary Sue, vampire cliche books that I wanted so desperately to avoid.

With much trepidation, I opened up the first book.

And LOVED it.

Oh man did I love the book. I am a full fledged fan of the series now. I have learned that I can love sophisticated, elegant vampires, but I can also love your normal, sometimes country, very human in nature vampires. Where Anne Rice is elegant and reads like prose, Charlaine Harris is witty and down to earth but no less talented. The characters in the Sookie Stackhouse novels aren’t grandiose or extraordinary (funny to say when referring to vampires, I know). The world that Harris makes seems as if it could be real. I think that is what I like the most about Harris’ writing– when you real, you feel as if the things happen are possible.

Tracy at Book Room Reviews is holding a book giveaway carnival that will last the week of March 2nd through the 8th. This carnival is a chance for book bloggers and regular bloggers alike all over the net to hold giveaways and contests to give out great books for free. Some sites may give out one, some may give out many. I have at least two books so far that I am going to hold contests to win. Since I still have a few days, I am collecting books that I think would make good giveaway material. Keep an eye out here and at Book Room Reviews for when the carnival goes live. There are already quite a few sites promising participation, so the contests that week will overwhelm and delight you. With so many books up for grabs, the chances of winning something that week increases greatly. If you have a book blog or a few books you’d like to give away and a blog, you should participate! Join in the fun.

Author(s): Joshua Henkin
Genre: Fiction – General
Tags: marriage, friendship, college, coming of age, slice of life, american culture, divorce, parenting, relationships
Finished: February 19, 2009
Rating: 4 Stars

Matrimony by Joshua Henkin is a novel about people, relationships, and life. The book follows the life of Julian Wainwright, his wife Mia, and a select few of their friends. We first meet the characters in college and follow along as they grow, mature, and face the new challenges of life that inevitably come their way. There’s betrayal, love, friendship, and just simply growing up. This book was different from what I normally read, though. It was not a nonfiction book about some historical event or person. There were no vampires, no supernatural forces doing battle, and no complex theories of magic and mysticism. Matrimony is quite simply about people. When I got the book and looked at the quaint and relatively unadorned cover, I gave an audible, “Hm.” I wondered if this sort of book would be the right fit for me.

Julian begins the story in college, studying to be a writer. He wants to write that great American novel and escape the corporate expectations of his rich family. He and his friend Carter are the stars of the class. The two of them develop a strong friendship and bond even after they meet the women of their dreams. Julian falls in love with a young woman named Mia. After graduating college, the two of them marry, propelled to push their life together forward faster when Mia’s mother comes down with breast cancer. Life takes over and people move apart– Carter moves away to California and Julian and Mia are left to decide what to do with their future. Julian begins his novel and finds it a harder task than he imaged. Mia has to cope with the death of her mother while getting her graduate degree, her interest in psychiatry peaked after she goes to therapy herself. After this, it’s just life. Couples talk of kids, divorce, and what middle age means. Friendships are severed and people grow apart, but in the end the characters find that they are in the very same place as they have always been, only stronger for what they have been through.

Most of what we see comes through the eyes and experiences of Julian and he becomes an easy to relate to figure because of this. I found that because he was the most central character, he was the one I sympathized with the most. When bad things happened, I was on Julian’s side. When he was betrayed by Carter and Mia, I felt wounded in my stomach as if I were him.

One thing that I especially liked about the book is how it approached the nature of friendship and how we form and keep strong bonds with other people. For example, Julian and Carter were great friends, but not entirely loyal to one another. People are not perfect and even good people who sincerely care about each other are capable of doing things that are hurtful. Matrimony shows how people cope with betrayal and how friendships can survive very devastating obstacles. No matter how good or fun a friend Carter is, he is always kept back by the fact that he envies Julian. To Carter, everything Julian has is somehow better than what he has; Mia experiences this too through the eyes of her sister Olivia, who fails to see or find her own self worth because she is hung up on how much better Mia supposedly has always had it. Whether Carter or Olivia both have cause for feeling as they do, they do.

Henkin doesn’t make her characters perfect. I get annoyed very quickly by characters that are created just to be infallible and without any fault whatsoever. Julian is never quite sure enough of himself, Mia has a coldness about her that is hard to accept, and Carter is envious by nature and compensates for what he sees as imperfections in himself. Of course, there are moments of long contemplation, especially from Mia, that sort of drag on. In reality, I doubt many people are so introspective. It isn’t insincere or unrealistic, though, for Mia to be this way; I’ve spent enough time within the walls and atmosphere of a university to know that graduate students really ARE that long winded and pseudo-philosophical… sometimes exhaustibly so. Mia’s transcendent self-speeches were a bit haughty and pretentious like she is trying too hard and doesn’t even realize it, but that is just the way that some people are. I guess there was really no way for her not to be since her parents were strong liberal advocates. They probably had protest signs stored in their closet for the next opportunity to protest inequality or unfairness of some sort.

That brings me to another point. Even though Mia’s parents were liberal and modern minded, it was odd and almost hypocritical that her mother had to give her up her dreams and her career to be a mother. Wouldn’t that sort of thing be the very thing her parents would reject for being part of the norm? The traditional way of doing things that kept people down? You see? Matrimony doesn’t try to create perfect people and situations. People are just who they are.

By the end of the book, you will feel as if you ‘know’ the characters intimately. You’ve been through all of their trials and tribulations and survived them, too. It is really impressive the way that Henkin delivers such a character driven book that doesn’t need exaggerated drama or passion to keep it interesting. Henkin has an admirable ability to describe people’s thoughts and actions in a relatable way. He certainly has a way with words and description.

This is a great book. If you like the “slice of life” type of book, you’ll enjoy this one. And hey, even if you’re like me and have only just begun to explore this sort of story, you may still enjoy it. I certainly did.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am currently holding a contest to win a copy of Joshua Henkin’s Matrimony. If you would like to enter, go here. The contest ends February 25th.

- More can be found in my Reviews section.
- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

I recently got new bookshelves for my room, and I’m just loving them. Spent the afternoon putting up my books and sharing it on my blog . One of my friends asked a question and I thought it would be a great BTT question. So from Tina & myself, we’d like to know “How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?”

Considering that I just, not three weeks ago, bought new bookshelves, I recently had to decide this very thing for myself. I was very concerned with arranging my books because I wanted it to be clean, organized, and also logical. I was full of questions like, “if I have series and nonseries books by the same author, do I arrange the series’ in alphabetical order in accordance to the other titles and then place them in series order after that?” Is it obvious that I over think every little thing? I am sure it is. I just want my order to make sense, but the more I try to make sense of it, the more confused I get in my own head!

I don’t want to split my books up by genre or make a distinction between fiction and nonfiction. I want all of my books to blend seemlessly, you know? I don’t want to have one shelf for fiction and one for nonfiction in case I run out of room for one and have TONS left for the other! My whole plan would wind up ruined because I would have to use the other shelf for overflow and they would combine anyway.

So, no to that.

I also don’t split my books up by hardcover or softcover. Again, I worry that the same thing above would happen. Plus, I have some books that are in the same series that are in hardback and some are in paperback. If I made a distinction by cover style, I would end up splitting series’ and that would be no good either.

I chose to simply do my books my author last name. Starting with A and ending with Z, my books are arranged quite simply. When a book is in a series, I use that to place it within the alphabetical scene and then arrange them by their series number regardless of their title. So, you see, I have answered that troubling question above quite easily. However, there is always a kink. Some of my books tend to be rather tall, so I have had to abandon them within my scheme and over lay them on top of the other books.

I do need to rearrange because I have gotten a large influx of books that are currently unshelved.

Unfortunately….

I’ve run out of space. I need to buy another shelf. After that, I will commence with emptying all of my shelves and re-alphabetizing.

I just won Heart of Stone by Diana Palmer at J. Kaye’s Book Blog.

I haven’t given up on the romance genre yet, guys. I am absolutely determined to find a romance book to like. No matter what it takes. This particular one is about a rough cowboy with a tough exterior, but I imagine a soft inside. They always do. It wouldn’t be a romance novel unless the man caved in, did something sweet, and properly wooed the woman. The reviews on Amazon were… mixed. More 1 star reviews than 5 star, that’s for sure. Most of the complaints said that this book is pretty much a carbon copy of her other books.

Fortunately for me, I’ve never read any of her other books!

I just won Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble at Jenn’s Bookshelf.

This book sounds like it is going to be a tear-jerker. I know, just KNOW, that I am going to spend the entire time I read the book thinking about my mother and imagining how I would feel if my mother were the one in the story. This will mean I will inevitable sob at every moment and turning point.