attempting obscurity
I mess around with writing, but deep down I'm pretty sure I'll never actually get published because I treat it like a hobby and not a passion -- I write when I have time, instead of making time to write.
When I read, I prefer YA sci-fi/ fantasy as my go-to fiction reads. I tend toward this genre because I read fiction as an escape from the daily drudge of life. YA sci/fi-fantasy usually has more upbeat/ hopeful endings, while adult fiction of any genre (except romance) tends to have more depressingly realistic endings. Sometimes I read romance novels, but I really prefer the type with plot/ character development between sex scenes, and I don't like having to hunt for them.
In non-fiction, I prefer history, biographies, psychology, gender studies, social/applied sciences, and law/ public policy.
Currently reading
The Dark and Hollow Places (Forest of Hands and Teeth)
It's a great concept and it's well written. I gave it the lowish rating because of a few things, and they're all kind of personal nit-picks, so I'm going to lay them out for you. If none of these issues bother you, then the book itself probably won't bother you.1) The end was kind of depressing. I'm sorry, I read my fantasy to escape reality. I don't mind a realistic ending, I really don't. But I like it to be at least upbeat realistic, and it was way too depressing. But then again, I don't think there was a way she could make it un-depressing. Hordes of the undead randomly wander the earth.2) There's a scene with an undead infant. Too small to even pull up or get out of the crib, it just kicks, thump, thump, thump. Very eerie and painful and all that. Just one thing: zombies aren't like vampires or werewolves. They don't bite to procreate, so to speak. They bite to eat. Procreating, for zombies, is a completely involuntary side effect -- it happens when their meal escapes. Following me here? If you are bitten by a zombie horde, it's generally accepted that you will be fed upon by them up until the point that you register as dead in their zombie-minds, which for some reason don't eat dead flesh. Now, if you manage to escape while still alive and mostly uneaten, but with some bites on you -- you are then infected. But children are almost always accepted to be food, because they're small and can't fight their way out. So . . . how did the infant survive with only an ankle bite? 3) The book takes place after the zombie apocalypse, which is great. Finally! Not surviving the zombie apocalypse, but they've survived are are living with the zombie deal. Sure, it's not the best existence, but life goes on. However, I found myself asking questions while reading the book that I never ask when watching the zombie apocalypse movies. Namely -- why zombies? Why, in our supposed search for eternal life, do we come up with zombies? Why not vampires? Why not soul-sucking things that hop from host to host? What's with the useless shambling undead host? They don't have any guidance or direction, they don't even have postmortem intelligence or immortality. Once their bodies have disintegrated, they're gone for good. I mean, as far as a bid for immortality goes, the zombie as an experiment seems like a huge science FAIL.I suppose it actually speaks for how intelligently written the book is, focusing more on character interaction and development than battling for life that I even ponder this question. If it was just another zombie gore-fest, I'd leave just as dumb and unquestioning as I leave a theater.
 - Carrie Ryan)