A few good books… and a question about the current editing standards.

If you’ve read my first So You Don’t Know Me, But… post, then you know that I’m a big fan of Felicia Day!  So, of course, I had no choice but to read her memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost).

Wait… I didn’t actually read the book (it’s too pretty and I don’t want to hurt the pages).  I listened to it on Audible.  If you have Audible, I definitely recommend the audio version!  Since it was her voice reading to me directly in my ear (that sounds so weird), I feel like I got more out of the book than I would have if I had actually read it.  (Plus… I was able to do other things while listening, which is always a bonus!)

So let me just tell you…  if you aren’t already in love with Felicia (yes, I’m on a first name basis with her… no, she doesn’t know who I am), then you will be after reading this book! She’s always funny but this book let’s you see a side of her beyond that…  And if you have no idea who Felicia Day is, you should still read this book, because there’s a little bit of weird in all of us… and it’s time we all embrace that.  🙂

One of the best things I got out of this book is sharing it with my teenage daughter!  She also thinks the world of Felicia Day.  This is one of those books that can help teenage girls (especially the introverted anime & video game loving ones like my baby) lift their heads a little higher, be proud of who they are, and give them the confidence to pursue their dreams.

I always looked up to Felicia and all that she’s done for females in the gaming and online world (plus she’s super funny and I like to laugh), but I now have an even deeper respect for her and all she struggled through to get to where she is.  It’s crazy how someone who has accomplished so much, can still be so humble and insecure!

One of my favorite parts of the book is where she talks about her World of Warcraft addiction.  This is definitely something I can relate to, having battled my own bout of WoW withdrawals on multiple occasions!!

Want to know more about Felica Day? Check out her blog by clicking here.  Learn more about her book by clicking this.  And you can catch up on her videos right….  there.  And if you’ve never watched The Guild, then you need to leave my site right now and not come back until you’ve seen it.  (You’re welcome…. trust me, you’ll thank me later.)

Ok…  so for those of you who aren’t watching The Guild right now, I have another recommendation for you!

LT Vargus contacted me on Twitter one day and let me know I could check out the beginning of her book, Fade to Black, on Amazon for free…  actually, she threatened to drink some poison…  anyway…  I got the book, saved her life, and the world is blessed for it!

Fade to Black is only the first book in the Awake in the Dark series written by Tim McBain and LT Vargus.  I went ahead and got the edition with the first 3 books.

A bit of advice…

DO NOT BUY ONLY THE FIRST BOOK!  I finished Fade to Black in a day…  I literally couldn’t make myself stop reading it and got nothing else done!  When you finish book 1, you’re going to want to immediately read Book 2 – Bled White.  So if you have a busy day and think you’re just gonna sit down and read a little bit… don’t do that to yourself.  Flip through a magazine or something… cause this isn’t the book to do that with.

So here’s the back cover description:

Dying violent deaths over and over again totally blows.  Loner Jeff Grobnagger has learned this the hard way.  Every time he has a seizure, he dreams that a hooded man strangles and kills him.  He runs.  He fights.  He hides.  No matter what he does, his efforts end in a pretty bad case of death.

But when someone tries to kill him in real life, he realizes that what happens with the hooded man isn’t just a dream.

Who is the hooded man?  And who tried to kill Grobnagger in real life?  His quest for answers leads to a missing girl, cults obsessed with astral projection, an arcane puzzle sphere, an evil book, a private detective named Louise, and a mustached man named Glenn that makes ‘the best martini you’ve ever tasted.’

Yep.  If it weren’t for all the horrific deaths, Jeff Grobnagger would be having the time of his life.

I think I laughed more reading this book than I have ever laughed reading anything, EVER!   Even if you’re not into paranormal reads, you’re gonna want to check this out… if for no other reason than for the laughs!

Honestly, this is one of the best fiction book purchases I’ve made in a long time.  Being an introvert myself, I could really relate to Jeff Grobnagger.  His thoughts about going out and having to deal with people and crowds…  those have been my thoughts!  Then he’s thrust into this world where he’s constantly having to meet and deal with new people…  (I’m having a hard time not blurting out everything that happens…  you just have to read it.)

Still, this isn’t a book for everyone…

If you don’t like profanity in your fiction…  don’t buy this book.

That being said…  I, personally, cannot stand it when I read a book where it seems like characters are cussing just to be spitting out words.  I didn’t feel that way reading these.  Honestly, the characters are so well written that I can’t imagine the ones with potty mouths speaking any other way.  I think it would actually take away from the story and be less believable.

There’s only one other negative thing I can say (although really, the profanity thing wasn’t a negative… more a warning so you don’t buy a book you don’t want to read).  I’ve said this about every book I’ve read in the last 10 years…  there are some typos/missed words and some spots where “he said” or “she said” probably could have been left out.

Honestly, it’s not all that bad… I tend to spot every single mistake when reading someone else’s work (unfortunately, I seldom see it in my own) and it sometimes takes me completely out of the story.  The missed editing didn’t pull me out of the story world while reading these, so that was good.

On a separate note:  Am I the only person who has noticed an increased number of errors in the books published over the last 10 years or so?  I used to only see this in my fantasy/sci fi reads, but now it’s in EVERYTHING!  Maybe it’s because about 10 years ago one of the duties of my job was to find those types of errors, so now I can’t NOT see them?  I don’t know…  what do you all think?  (Don’t say anything about self-published or small press books being the worst, because I’ve read quite a bit of them that have FAR less mistakes than the books I’ve read from the big publishing houses in the last few years.)