O I forbid you, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair
To come or gae by Carterhaugh
For young Tam Lin is there.

Janet has just begun her first term at Blackstock College. After becoming acquainted with her roommates, she quickly finds herself falling in love with both the great literature she studies, and the charismatic Nick Tooley. Janet enjoys her time at college but can't help but feel that some things are a little strange. Her dorm room is haunted by a ghost that throws textbooks out of the window every Halloween, and there's something strange about the classics department, especially department head, Professor Medeous.

Tam Lin, a retelling of the Scottish ballad of the same name, is a book that has been recommended to me since high school. I didn't pick it up until now due to the range of opinions I've heard. Many people label Tam Lin as their favorite book, but there are plenty of people that couldn't finish it. After finally reading it myself, I can understand why some people may not like it. After all, it's a very irregular fantasy. If you're looking for a fast paced adventure filled with magic, this may not be for you. The pacing is rather slow, and the fantasy elements don't really kick in until the last fifty pages of the book. The majority of the novel is spent focusing on college life in the 1970s, and the inevitable relationship dramas that occur in a dorm setting. As a result, it's not a book for everyone.

That said, I found it to be quite enjoyable. For the most part, I didn't mind the slower pacing due to all of the neat foreshadowing sprinkled among the story. I connected with the college storyline quite well. Upon being introduced to Janet, who arrives at school with dozens of fantasy books and has to deal with the being suddenly attractive to boys, I immediately made a connection with my own freshman college experience. I could relate to her quite well, despite the fact that she was rather moody (granted, I probably wasn't much better at 18). At the same time, some of the elements did seem a little off to me. I enjoyed picking up on all of the Shakespeare references, but I don't know too many 18 to 21-year-olds that can quote dozens of quotes from Shakespeare, Keats, Milton, Homer, and other writers from memory. Although it made sense for two of the characters, I had a hard time buying into it for the rest of the cast.

Tam Lin is a book that really sucked me in. I found I spent a lot of time thinking about the story, when I wasn't reading it, and I even dreamed about the characters a little. The book was not perfect, but it's still something I enjoyed. For those looking for a slower paced fantasy novel that's very light on the fantasy, it would be a good book to look into.

Rating: four stars
Length: 468 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Challenges: This book is part of the 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge
Similar Books: Tam Lin is part of Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series, which also includes Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C Wrede (my review). Another solid retelling of Tam Lin would be Fire and Hemlock by Diane Wynne Jones.

Looking for more books about faeires? Check out my new column five on the fifth, over at temporaryworlds for my recommendations and to share your own!

Next up is Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn!

xposted to bookish  and temporaryworlds 

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: LOVE PSYCHEDELICO - Free World | Powered by Last.fm

Title: Sisters
By Danelle Steel
Pages: 352
Rating: C
Summary: Four sisters, a Manhattan brownstone, and a tumultuous year of loss and courage are at the heart of Danielle Steel’s new novel about a remarkable family, a stunning tragedy—and what happens when four very different young women come together under one very lively roof

My Thoughts: ( Read more... )

Current Location: a room
Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Cool by Gwen Stefani

I had two elderly* women in today. One of them ordered a toasted sandwhich ($6.95) and coffee ($3.50) the other a toasted Turkish bread ($8.95.) I tallied it all up ($19.40) when they told me they wanted to pay seperately and I had to void the tally. I remember very clearly what they paid because the archaic til refused to void and I ended up having to cash it off to start again, so the till would be down $19.40. Not their fault, but I remembered them clearly because of it.

Lady #1 pays for her $6.95 sandwhich. All well and good. Lady #2 pays for her $8.95 Turkish bread and $3.50 coffee = $12.45. No problem.

The problem started when the boss/owner asked me to sort out their complaint, they claimed to have been overcharged and weren't making much sense. Lady #2 complained that she had been charged $12.50 for an $8.95 Turkish bread. I realised I had gotten confused and had charged Lady #2 for Lady #1's coffee. (The way they had been talking to me, I honestly thought Lady #2 had ordered the coffee.) I apologised for the mix-up and explained that it was merely a matter of Lady #1 giving Lady #2 the $3.50. Lady #1 said she had been charged for her coffee.

This is when I understood what my boss had meant about them not making any sense. Lady #1 KNEW she had been charged $6.95 but insisted that was for the sandwhich and coffee. I even brought over a menu to show her that the sandwhich all on its own was $6.95 and that her friend had been charged for her coffee, nope, she had still paid for both sandwhich and coffee. I went back to my boss and told him that they were either thoroughly confused or scamming us but I had definitely charged them right, and he told me not to give them their money. He's good like that; he'll always refund if there's any doubt, but if he's absolutely sure that we are in the right, he doesn't give a crap about the 'customer is always right' rubbish.

In the end, they stood in front of our till and refused to leave until they got their money. This is at lunchtime so we had to give them the $3.50 in order to serve other customers. I have to admit, having a boss who has no tolerance for people trying to scam us with the 'customer is always right' crap (he's a sole operator, so if he wants to tell a customer where they can stick ther entitlement, he can, and the buck stops with him) I have very little exposure to having to cave when you KNOW you are right, and I know this is very minor in compared to the transgressions of other customers who are quite clearly in the wrong, but.... grrr.

*I mention them being elderly because it's possible they just got confused. I work with the elderly, they do that. I doubt it, but they could have.

Still irks me after two whole days off, so I'm gonna just get it out.

Backstory: Photo lab. Me. I ended up staying one hour past quitting time of 10pm (although my store is open 24/7) because of frustrating problems with my photo printer -- AFTER a tech was already there to fix it.

Guy 1: You came in shortly before 10pm. I am very obviously trying to resolve machine issues, not 10 feet from where you sat at the self-ordering photo kiosk. I already helped place your order. Why do you insist on (politely) asking me every 30-90 seconds if your CD and 10 prints are done?! Shut up and let me concentrate so I can try to go home on time.

Guy 2: I answer the phone, and it's now past 11pm. I am still punched in on the timeclock, so I try to multi-task by helping you while I tidy up before finally going home. You ask about...romance DVDs. I'm not Blockbuster or Netflix, but whatev. I knew BestBuy and other retailers around were closed for the night. We have a *tiny* assortment of DVDs left. Your choices were G-Force, Cloudy w/ Meatballs, or My Best Friend's Wedding. That's it, no joke, unless you find Elmo stimulating.

But then you launch into some book title or other and start a running monologue about romance and relationships. And if that wasn't enough, you try to get acquainted with a female store employee by asking my age and marital status?? I humored you by answering your request to tell you about myself: "I'm tired, I'm AN HOUR late leaving work, I'm having machine problems. What else do you want to know about me?" You just don't know when to give up, do you? "Anything STORE RELATED I can help you with?" You sounded surprised that I would even dare to hang up on you, although I probably should've after the first minute. I thought about asking for your name and phone number so I could report it to my store manager. The overnight manager was at my photo counter next to me during the entire exchange. I swear, if you ever call me like that again.....

Current Mood: devious

I work in a family-owned corner store. We sell you beer and overpriced groceries, and we make you pizzas and sandwiches. Typically there is a cashier (me) and a deli person working. No manager.

As part of the family-store dynamic, now and then our bosses' daughter will drop off her sons (ages 7 and 9) with us while she's running errands. The sons have been raised in and around the store, so when they're dropped off they'll sometimes sit out back and play on their PSP, but most times they'll prepare pizzas or sandwiches for themselves and have the deli person cook them, or if they're really bored they'll help me bag customer's items and answer the phones and take orders. People love seeing them and the boys get a really big kick out of helping.

It's never a problem, and part of the job description is pretty much keeping an eye on them and helping them with anything that involves our oven. These kids know how everything runs and are never underfoot or annoying, and are sometimes even really helpful when we get busy. When their mom picks them up she grabs whatever they helped make, plus maybe a few other items from the shelves, and leaves without paying because hey, her dad owns the place.

Last week, a woman ran into our store, shoved her six year old daughter at the register, and ran out without another word. I was throughly confused, ran outside, couldn't see the woman anywhere, and so I came in and asked the little girl what was up.

She informed me "Momma says if I work here for a little while we'll get free food."

What?!

My coworker and I debated over what to do for a bit, and decided to call the cops if the mom didn't return in 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes were up, we did call the cops and told them that a woman had left her very young child at our store, and they sent out a cruiser to check on the situation. It took a little while, and we tried to keep the little girl happy and calm while we waited, while also dealing with customers and phone orders. At around the same time the cops showed up, the mother returned, and explained to us and the police that she'd "seen kids working behind the counter before," and had "seen their mom pick them up," and that she'd gotten "free food as a result." She apparently thought this meant that if she left her daughter in our care for 20 minutes to work for us, she would be able to get free food as "payment."

We left it to the cops to figure out, and she left soon after with her daughter in hand, so I'm not sure what happened there. After telling our boss about it he forbade his grandkids to help out anymore, so now if they get dropped off they have to sit out back and can't help with anything. Which they hate.

Just...really? If she had even talked to us instead of PUSHING HER KID IN WITH NO EXPLANATION it might have been...at least...SORT of reasonable and we could have explained to her how wrong her assumption was. But she didn't. And her poor daughter was freaked out the entire time. I'm just not sure what kind of mentality you'd have to have to assume that any store in the world would have a "drop off your 6-year old child for slave labor and you get free stuff!" promotion, but...geesh.

I work at a game store.

Today, I was helping a chatty, cheerful woman and her husband and two kids pick out some games for the Wii. Quite suddenly, with no warning, the boy, who is about 8-10 years old, grabs himself and yells that he has to pee. We have no restrooms available, so I direct them to the Starbuck's across the parking lot. The kid yells that he can't wait, in a very pained voice, and then suddenly he begins to pee himself. The urine stain spreads down the leg of his pants, and the father and I cringe. Poor kid. Noticing this, the cheerful woman directs her husband to take her son outside.

Once they are out there and she and her hyperactive five year old daughter are left, she turns to me with a big smile on her face and says, "Well, that's what he gets for not going before we left! Now, can you recommend any racing games?"

She shopped for about fifteen more minutes. Shopped. Slowly. While her young son stood outside, in the dark and cold, with his father, standing in his urine-soaked pants. Sometimes she would ask me about what games her daughter might like, and I would try to answer her as quickly as possible, hoping that she would make her choice and take her child home so he could change into some dry clothes. At one point, the father, who didn't look too happy, came in the store and asked her if the kid could sit on her coat. She said, "Oh sure, we can just wash it later. I'm almost finished."

At the end of the transaction, once she had carefully debated the merits of such games as My Sims Racing and We Cheer, she told me her son has a weak bladder because of a birth defect and that he hasn't had this problem since he was a baby, all while her five year old daughter is hanging on the door and screaming like a banshee, perhaps in order to attract the attention of her father. I have no idea. Once she finished, she called her son to the door (still in his wet pants) and showed him the game she picked out for him. The kid looked miserable.

I am still appalled.

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris is the second book in her best-selling series The Southern Vampire Mysteries. This novel focusses on two serperate mysteries -a murder in Bon Temps and the dissapearance of a vampire in Dallas. ( Read more... )

 I've posted a retrospective picspam celebrating the Pilot episode here at my journal.

Current Mood: nostalgic

Okay, where do I begin?

I know this is not the famous graphic novel. They misleadingly market this novelization of the film to appear to be a novel based off the graphic novel. It is not. It's a novel based off the film script. Well, okay. I figured I could like it for what it was...

In regard to the film, when the making of footage shows the director of film (which was based off a graphic novel with the intention of getting young people interested in reading the classics again) goes out of his way tell you 'The characters in this movie are from these huge, archaic books I never read so I found a writer that at least read some of them.' That's the first warning sign that a film is in trouble.


( M for Mediocre at best )

This isn't actually brought on by the recent movie--I read through all the Sherlock stories last year, and since then I've been trying to track down other Sherlock stories.

I love Laurie King's Mary Russel series, and I've also read L.B. Greenwood's Case of Sabina Hall and Thistle of Scotland books, the Enola Holmes YA series, and am about to read Caleb Carr's The Italian Secretary and Michael Hodel's Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes.

Are there many more books I can find, or am I exhausting my resources? I'm looking for anything--as you can see, I don't mind if it's not just focused on Holmes. It could be a new character (as in Mary Russell or Enola Holmes) or any other character from Holmes canon, I'm looking for anything Holmes-related. _{Or fanfiction, if you've got something good to rec.}