This is going to be rough, but I promised to write this, so here goes . . .

Ten citizens of the U. S. wake up in a shipping container. They're wearing something akin to prison jumpsuits, and a collar. They have no idea where they are, they have no idea how they got there, or who anyone with them is. They are told that they have 10 hours to defeat 9 other teams, made up of people from 9 other regions (some single-nation, others geographic groups) to win $1 billion. There are a couple of vehicles provided for them, and a lot of weapons (that they have to figure out how to use). Oh, and those collars are equipped with C-4 in order to assure they'll comply.

Hunger Games meets the Amazing Race (or something). The Americans are all named Smith -- a sign that they're random nobodies -- and each team is full of equivalents -- Garcias, Suzukis, Ivanovs, etc. (these are not necessarily the names, I refuse to open the book again to check and see). Each chapter covers ten minutes or so of the ten hours they have to fight or die.

I did not enjoy a single moment of this experience. When I wasn't bored, I was offended. When I wasn't offended, I was discouraged by the writing. I walked away from each session disappointed and dreading returning to it. I'm not saying it ruined my life for a couple of days, but it sure made things unpleasant.

The "humor" (I think there were bits that were supposed to be humorous) was juvenile, puerile, and not funny. To say that the characters from various nations were walking stereotypes would be generous, more than one were also racist -- oh, and someone (a fairly educated character) described (presumably white) Australians as a "race." Which was news to me. One, I stress one of the Smiths came close to being more than two-dimensional and worth reading about -- no other characters (no matter their nationality) came close. The story as a whole makes 80's action films like Iron Eagle look subtle and nuanced. The author uses italics and all-caps to show emotion in dialogue, which should have been the first sign that I need to bail on the book.

The sex scene gives new meaning to gratuitous. I mean . . . ugh.

The fight scenes -- and there were many, just not as many as you might expect -- were decent, though.

I pushed on to the end because 1. I'd told the publicist I'd read this piece of garbage; 2. I was curious about the point of it all (and yes, you have to get near the end to find it); and 3. I wanted to see if there was anything redeeming to be found in the book. The results were, not surprisingly, disheartening. 1. I can't imagine that group will want to work with me again; 2. The point is . . . maddening, convoluted, and uninspired; and 3. Nope.

Don't. Just don't. If any of you have a time machine and would like to use it to stop me, leave a note in the comments and I'll give you a time, date and address.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel in exchange for this post from a publicist who will probably not appreciate this post at all. Sorry about that.

✔ Read a book that takes place in one day.

Sir Richard Kenworthy has less than a month to find a bride, and secure her hand in marriage. She can't really be an heiress or a diamond of the first water, because it's really quite imperative that she accept his proposal, no matter what. When he spots Miss Iris Smythe-Smith suffering behind her cello at her family's infamous annual musicale, he is intrigued. Very blond and pale-skinned, she should be unremarkable, but she's clearly good at playing her instrument, which can't be said for her other female relatives. He forces his friend Winston Bevelstoke to introduce him and becomes quite smitten, which wasn't really part of the plan.

Iris is surprised and not a little suspicious when Sir Richard seems so very taken with her. She's used to being overlooked and underestimated and spends most of her time out in society quietly observing others, quite content to rest among the chaperones and the wallflowers. Sir Richard flirts with her, he calls with flowers and insists on taking her for walks. He gives every impression of falling for her, but Iris can't help but wonder why his courtship seems so rushed. When he proposes after only a week's acquaintance, and compromises her with a kiss shortly after, she doesn't really have a choice but to accept him, but it's clear that he is hiding something and she's worried about discovering what it is.

Richard feels deeply guilty about forcing Iris into marriage, especially as after only a week, he has discovered that she is a much better wife than he could ever have dreamed of snaring with his whirlwind courtship. She's witty, clever, caring and loyal and clearly very forbearing of her family member's flaws and foibles, something he desperately hopes will mean that she might eventually forgive him, once she discovers the secrets that forced his hand in marrying her.

This is the fourth and final book in the Smythe-Smith quartet. It's by no means required that you've read any of the other books, although several previous Julia Quinn characters pop up for cameos or are mentioned, and your enjoyment might be increased if you know more about the extented romance universe in which Quinn sets her books. While I love most of her Bridgerton novels and her two latter Bevelstoke novels in particular (I also adore the running gag of the schlocky Gothic Sarah Gorely novels in her later books), her plots have seemed a bit on the overly melodramatic side in these last four books, and in The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, I think it got almost too much for my disbelief to willingly suspend itself.

While I had my suspicions about some of the things Richard was hiding back on his estate in Yorkshire, I doubt that many would be expecting the full extent of his plans, because that was some soap opera level intrigue right there. There is a lot of the witty banter and light escapism that Quinn is so good at, but when the plot gets as ridiculous as this one did at times, it does spoil my enjoyment somewhat.

Iris was a lovely heroine, though and it's always nice to see romance protagonist who isn't stunningly gorgeous (although there is happily a lot more diversity in the shape and appearance of heroines nowadays). She's learned to be happy with being a wallflower and loves her large and boisterous family, for all their flaws. She's clever and quietly wry, and very much wants to be a good wife and sister-in-law, as well as a capable lady of her own estate. She's flattered by Richard's attentions, but because he's probably the first man to ever really notice her, she is suspicious and with good reason. She's deeply upset when she discovers why their courtship was so sudden, even more so because while Richard was underhanded and deceitful, they also find common ground and make a connection and when the truth comes out, Iris is worried that the affection she believed her husband felt for her is a lie as well. Since she is well on her way to falling in love with him, she feels doubly betrayed.

It's thanks to Iris' calm and quiet competence that the melodramatic plot doesn't spiral completely out of control, though, as once she gets over the initial hurt, she sets about to sort things out. It helps that Richard in no way is a bad man, and the secrets that he's concealing are not of his own doing. He's desperately trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation, but goes about it in a staggeringly foolish way. Unlike in Lady Windermere's Lover, which I read last month, where I thought the hero's actions were pretty much unforgivable and the heroine should have run off with her husband's best friend, I didn't think Richard was undeserving of Iris. The romance part of the plot was sweet and satisfying. I just wished the major complication of the plot hadn't been quite so overblown. I still enjoy Julia Quinn's books, but she may be slipping off my auto-buy list if this trend continues.

Top Seven:

Autobiography by Morrissey

This book gets the #1 spot even though actually I haven’t finished it yet. I figure you can only read a book for the first time once and I want to savor it. My girlfriend keeps all three copies we own locked in a trunk so that I won’t tear through it.

It is so rare that I can include human interest in this list! My girlfriend reads one copy while the other lies in readiness.

Turn Around Bright Eyes by Rob Sheffield

I wrote a long review here. This is a memoir about karaoke and true love.

Ziggyology: A Brief History of Ziggy Stardust by Simon Goddard

The author has some odd ideas, and the first 90 pages are about kabuki theater and the origin of the universe, but this is a really cool book. The conceit is that David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona was like a real person taking over Bowie’s life. There are a lot of crazy coincidences that will blow your mind. My favorite parts were 1) when Bowie finally saw the Velvet Underground live and then met Lou Reed but it turned out it wasn’t really Lou Reed at all 2) everything about Marc Bolan; he is presented as David Bowie’s doppelganger who is trying to sabotage him. Also there are some very nice photos, and the book design is gorgeous.

The cover

Wired Up: Glam, Proto Punk & Bubblegum European Picture Sleeves 1970-1976. ed by Mary Blount and Jeremy Thompson

A collection of insanely cool &/or indescribably weird ‘70s album covers, beautifully laid out art-book style. The pages open flat. There are some interesting short essays and interviews too. A few well-known bands are included, but the criteria is just distinctive European album cover art from a time when people would buy records based on what the sleeve looked like. My girlfriend gave me this book for Chuannukah which was great because it was something I really wanted but never would have gotten for myself.

So my girlfriend has learned how to have lucid dreams, and the next frontier is for me to mentally send her a picture while she is sleeping, which we both know is impossible but it’s fun to try. I used an image from this book for one of the pictures. This practice is very restful for me because when I wake up in the middle of the night instead of worrying about one thing and another, I can just think, “Red background, two glam Asian girls with long hair in kimono-style minidresses and silver knee high go go boots, Ride Captain Ride.” Then sometimes I fall right back to sleep.

Bowie: Album by Album by Paolo Hewitt

I debated with myself over whether or not to include this because I haven’t really read it yet, just looked at the pictures, so I wasn’t sure if it counted as a book I’ve read. Last year I didn’t include David Bowie Styles in my Best of 2012 because I only looked at the pictures. But I decided that I did read this in a coffee-table-book kind of way, even though this is more than a coffee table book. It’s just lovely.

Calling Dr. Laura by Nicole Georges

Fun, touching, lesbian, Portlandish graphic novel about a young woman finding out that her father is alive even though her mother said he was dead.

The Lost Daughter by Mary Williams

A memoir about growing up poor in a chaotic, neglectful family while her Black Panther father was imprisoned. One bright spot was going to a posh summer camp run by Jane Fonda. Mary confided in Jane Fonda about how she had been sexually assaulted, and Jane Fonda adopted her (in every sense except legally.) Mary had many adventures including working in Antarctica and running a non-profit for Sudanese “lost boys,” and then finally reconnected with her biological family. I felt there was something missing, a sense of the writer being able to sum up her whole life so far and say what it was all about, but I didn’t really care because it was interesting.

What Else?

Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road From Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas

Kid pays off his college debt in three years by working in grim conditions in Alaska, then decides he can get through grad school with no debt if he lives in his van, and learns what freedom and autonomy really are.

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

There was always some mystery surrounding Hainey’s father’s death, so Hainey finally decided to use his journalistic skills to uncover the truth. 

American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics by Dan Savage

You don’t have to agree with Dan Savage on everything to like this book. The parts that I remember best are when he has the head of the National Organization for Marriage over to his house for dinner so he can debate him, and the heartbreaking part when his mom dies.

Next Up: my favorite part! Best of 1913, and bonus 1813 and 2113!

Have I mentioned how handsome my cat is?

Top Ten:

Homeland by Cory Doctorow

Sequel to Little Brother. Whistleblowing, kidnapping by government agents, peaceful protests aided by technology, nerdy activism, the “War on Terror,” and Burning Man. This book is perfect. Very brief review here.

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler

You don’t see a lot of YA memoir. This one is really terrific. About a boy growing up in a strict fundamentalist Christian family. Turns out, he’s gay. That sounds a bit ho-hum, but Hartzler tells his story in a really nuanced, compassionate, and funny way.

Proxy by Alex London

In my review, I said, “Think M.T. Anderson's Feed meets Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron, with some queer content thrown in.” In a world just like ours (only more so), a few are super-rich and everyone else is in debt they can never pay off. When the rich break the rules, their proxies are punished for them. What happens when a Patron and Proxy meet? I realize that this summary makes it seem kind of porn-y, but it’s not.

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales (Author’s original title: “Last of the Famous International Party Girls,” then “My Suicide Playlist.”)

Elise has been bullied at school forever and is getting quietly desperate. Then she stumbles upon a secret nighttime warehouse dance party and meets dreamy Char (short for “DJ This Charming Man”), who teaches her to be a DJ. Elise’s life is completely transformed by music and meeting people who. . . it’s not that they don’t care about being cool, they just have a wildly different sense of what being cool means.   

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I kept reading reviews of this book, and the synopsis always made me say, “Feh.” But after encountering so many rave reviews, I decided to try it, and I loved it. Let’s see if this synopsis makes you say “Feh.”

It’s 1986, in Omaha, and the story is told in alternating viewpoints. Eleanor’s life is awful because her abusive stepfather won’t allow her to have things like toiletries and new clothes. Because of the above and the fact that she’s fat and has a kooky sense of style, everyone at school thinks she’s a freak. Park, who sits next to her on the bus, thinks so too, but over time he lets her read his comics over his shoulder. Then he notices she has Smiths song titles written on her notebook, but it turns out that she’s never actually heard the Smiths because of course she has no cassettes. This is the most depressing thing Park has ever heard, so he makes her a tape. True love blossoms.

This book kind of has everything because it’s nerdy, it’s sexy, it’s sad and it’s uplifting. Also mostly it seems like stark realism but there’s one pivotal thing that the abusive stepfather does that in the context of the novel is creepy, but when you compare it to real life, it’s like, wow, if only real abusive adults would leave it at that and not do the actual stuff they do. So it’s kind of a mix of realism and wish fulfillment. The writing is so strong that it actually made me question one of the core elements of my being: the fact that I hate the Joy Division song “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Eleanor and Park describe this song so lovingly and make it sound so awesome that I thought, “Hmm, I must be wrong.” But no, I still don’t like it.

Also, there’s a the lack of diversity in YA and it’s very rare to have an Asian/biracial protagonist (Park is Korean and white) especially in a love story, so that was cool.

Darius & Twig by Walter Dean Myers

Two friends, a writer and a runner, have big ambitions, but it’s hard to get by in Harlem where they live. Walter Dean Myers is a national treasure—no, he’s a treasure for the whole planet.

More Than This by Patrick Ness

This is no ordinary book. The really cool cover that has a tiny door in it led me to hope that might be the case, and then my dreams came true. As the book opens, the main character Seth drowns. Then he wakes up, in what seems to be his childhood home in England, but the whole neighborhood is deserted. Or is it? You can’t take anything at face value in this book. If you look back at my review (in Best of 2013: Fiction) of The Arrivals by Melissa Marr that has a somewhat similar plot, you’ll see that I questioned whether whether true conceptual originality is even possible. Well, this novel shows that it is, perversely because it plays with the tropes that we’re all so accustomed to. Is any of the stuff that happens to Seth even really happening? If that sounds annoying, well, it is. When I finished the book, I felt frustrated, because even though the story was delivering the true nature of reality (as follows: you have no idea what’s real), I expect a book to have a certain novelistic sense of closure and explanation because it’s not real life, it’s a book. But then I kept on thinking about this book for a long time so I decided that it was a very profound reading experience where a little bit of frustration was okay. Similar to the experience I had with The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann except that this book is quick and fun and easy to read and has a lot of action and also queer content.

Stealing Second: Sam’s Story by Barbara Clanton

Full disclosure: Barbara Clanton is a writer friend. I have read almost all of her books and enjoyed them all. This book is in a series about lesbian high school baseball players, and this is my new favorite in the series. Each book in the series is told from a different POV. This one is about Sam, a poor little rich girl who doesn’t have much of a relationship with her parents, but luckily she has a close friendship with her childhood nanny, who has stayed on as a sort of family retainer. Sam has a girlfriend Lisa who she’s very happy with but Sam doesn’t feel ready to come out yet. There is a big plot twist that took me by surprise. Brief review here.

Another 365 Days by KE Payne

Sequel to 365 Days. Basically a lesbian Diary of Adrian Mole. Fluffy and fun. I love the main character Clemmie’s daft ways and the fun British slang like “fit as the butcher’s dog.”

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

It’s not the plot that makes this book great. This is standard dystopian fare—teens living under evil regime must compete in a contest where only some will come out alive, &c. It’s just really tight and well-written and fun. A total page turner.

What else?

Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell

A girl’s first year in college seems doomed because all she wants to do is write slash fanfiction and her identical twin sister wants to individuate herself from her, but then there’s a dreamy boy.

Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

Companion novel/sequel to Impossible. A girl who has been trapped in a fairy realm is told she can leave, if she destroys her family.

The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

Victorian orphan and child FBI agent must foil evil time travel plot.

Thorn Abbey by Nancy Ohlin

A retelling of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, set in a boarding school (just like in New Girl, one of the 2012 retellings.) Has a cool supernatural element and twisty ending. 

The Culling by Steven Dos Santos

It’s that rarest of creatures, a gay dystopian YA novel! Teens living under evil regime must compete in a contest where only some will come out alive, plus queer content.

Shadows by Robin McKinley

Maggie lives in a world where magic is possible but forbidden. She doesn’t like her new stepfather because he has strange shadows that follow him around.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

I admire this book because it is the first YA novel that has two boys kissing on the cover. I think it was clever of Levithan to base the book on the true story of two guys breaking the world record for longest kiss. I esteem Levithan for promoting diversity in YA even further by having one of his seven gay male teen main characters in the book be Korean-American and another be transgender. And in theory I appreciate the idea of having the book narrated by a Greek chorus of gay men who have died of AIDS. Everything about this book gave me the warm fuzzies, except for the reading it part. To be completely candid, I was incredibly bored every single second I was reading this book and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It’s fair to say that I encountered this book at the absolute lowest point in my life (so far), and that may have something to do with my inability to jump on the love train for Two Boys Kissing.

In The After by Demitria Lunetta

Zombielike creatures have taken over the world but Amy has managed to survive for several years with a toddler in her fortress-like apartment. A chain of events leads her to a compound that’s safe from the creatures, but will this protected colony turn out to be a dystopia?

The Loop by Shandy Lawson

Ben and Maggie are forced to repeat the same two days that end in their deaths, over and over.

Moxie and the Art of Rule-Breaking by Erin Dionne

A girl gets involved in an art heist and treasure hunt in Boston. This book is actually Middle Grade (for pre-adolescents), not YA.

You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle

Along with four other kids, Justine is the subject of a series of documentaries (like the 7 Up series.) That was all very well and good when she was little, but now it’s ruining her life.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

A girl must travel back in time to kill someone. You won’t be surprised by anything that happens, but hey, time travel is always fun.

Tides by Betsy Cornwell

It’s about selkies! Also featuring eating disorders, transracial adoption, and queer content. Why do paranormal stories always involve a romance with a really creepy age gap?

The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The final (?) book in this series about what happens when the moon is knocked out of orbit, unleashing cosmic destruction on the earth.

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

Thriller about a girl who wakes up with amnesia and someone is trying to kill her.

Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Girl discovers sinister happenings at prestigious New York City ballet school. Full review here.

Next up: 2013 Non-fiction/Memoir

This is taking longer than I thought, so it might be a few days.