Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

From the jacket: “When it comes to the laws of attraction, Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are lawyers who know the meaning of objection. A feminist to the bone, Payton has fought hard to succeed in a profession dominated by men. Born wealthy, privileged , and cocky, J.D. has fought hard to ignore her. Face-to-face, they’re perfectly civil. They have to be. For eight years they have kept a safe distance and tolerated each other as coworkers for one reason only: to make partner at the firm.”

My take: Ah! Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl passionately hate each other. Boy and girl have to spend lots of time together pretending to like each other. Boy and girl discover the passion was not hate after all. The end.

It’s a formula we’re all familiar with, but we always enjoy seeing how an author makes it his or her own.

Julie James does a good job with pacing and dialogue. And her main characters definitely have chemistry together. The story unfolds as the two of them discover that after eight long years as associates together, they will not both make partner as had been long assumed by everyone. Instead, only one would make partner, while the other will be expected to hand over his or her case notes and quietly and quickly disappear into the sunset. They’re neck and neck in their race, they’re told, and the final two weeks before the decision is made will determine the outcome. When asked to woo a potential client, the two nemeses will have to find a way to put their strong feelings aside to work together. And if they can do that, who knows what other crazy things will follow?

However, what I found eye-rollingly annoying was the story’s hook: Payton, a self-proclaimed feminist liberal vegetarian, finds herself spurning the nice guy public defender in favor of the guy who belongs to a sexist country club. I’m not saying that’s it’s not a valid choice — either in fiction or in real life — but just that it’s not one I find appealing — or sexy. And Payton is no Katharine Hepburn, able to make me love her characters even though all of her seemingly female empowering movies end with the traditional status quo untoppled.

I won this book and a gift card to Barnes and Noble in a contest at Stacy’s Place on Earth. It’s not my normal reading genre, but it was a convenient size for carrying in my bag on the metro and its story fit well with the read a few pages at a time type of reading my normal commute permits. Honestly, though, I liked it more than I expected to and found myself picking it up even at home. Worth a read if you have a few hours and want some book candy.

Pages: 291

This week’s Booking through Thursday asks:

Even though it’s usually a mistake (grin) … do movies made out of books make you want to read the original?

There are three situations where I have found that a movie inspires book reading:

1. The movie is coming out of a book I’ve been meaning to read but hadn’t yet gotten around to or that I know is based on a book that I’ll probably like. Usually I’ll hold off on seeing the movie until after I’ve read the book, which sometimes means it’s ages before I see the film. Running with Scissors was such a combination.
2. The movie was particularly good — and I’ve heard good things about the book. My recent foray into The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one such example. I’d also like to read Coraline, the movie of which I really enjoyed.
3. And the final category are movies based on books that I didn’t realize were books until I looked them up to do more research. The best (and possibly only) example I have is Helene Hanff’s 64, Charring Cross Road, a delightful epistolary story chronicling the author’s decades-long correspondence with a London bookseller.

How about you? Do movies ever inspire you to pick up a book — and are you usually glad you did?

Last week, I revealed you had correctly identified six of the ten quotes I gave you from some of my favorite books.

With some additional clues (some more clever than others, I admit), raidergirl3, Jenn, Rudi, and Grey Kitten correctly identified three more:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.” — The Eyre Affair

3. “The year began with lunch.” — A Year in Provence

9. “It was a dark and stormy night.” — A Wrinkle in Time

The only quote no one could identify:

7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”

My additional clue: When driving across the country to Tucson, you want to be very careful about picking up reptiles at rest stops. It just might change your life. [I later asked in the comments if capitalizing reptiles would have helped anyone guess, but the resulting silence suggests that no, that wouldn’t have been useful.]

The answer? The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.

Admittedly, the opening line of the story does not have much to do with the rest of the book, but I was hopeful that the reptiles bit of the clue might trigger your recollection of Turtle, who enters the tale during a rest stop in Oklahoma.

Thanks for playing along, everyone!

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

From the jacket: “All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds of a victory are grim. Kronos’s army is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, the evil Titan’s power only grows. While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Now it’s up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.”

My take: As the end of the Harry Potter series neared, a number of people mourned the fact that they’d never again have that amazing feeling of being able to crack open a new book in the series. I sympathized with the sentiment, even as I stood in line at midnight hoping for a fitting conclusion to a beloved series.

Obviously, though, I took it to heart. Although I was an early fan of The Lightning Thief and read the second book as soon as it came out, I slowed my pace down when I found out the Percy Jackson series would only number five. I didn’t read the third book until several months after it came out and the fifth book was imminent when I read the penultimate novel. But then I stopped. Sure, I’d periodically scan the library shelves to see if Book 5 was available, but I didn’t put in a request or anything like that. I just didn’t want to have the series end.

However, when I went to hear Rick Riordan speak this spring, he mentioned that he was working on a related series of books destined to take place at Camp Half-Blood. Knowing that even if the main story about Percy and Grover and Annabeth came to a conclusion that I didn’t have to leave the world behind made it okay to read the final book. Plus, my friend Shelley’s son, Daschel, told me that it was excellent. If you can’t trust an 11 year-old boy on the matter, who can you trust?

I picked the book up a couple weeks ago when I saw it at the library and have been saving it for a day when I had the time to immerse myself into Riordan’s well-crafted world. I packed it to take to the beach Saturday and finished it up Sunday afternoon before the concert.

It did not disappoint.

Filled with all the familiar characters from earlier in the series, we join Percy as he frets about how to stop Kronos — who’s taken over the body of demi-god Luke — before the Titan (the gods around before the now-familiar Olympic Greek gods took power) is able to return to full strength and destroy Mount Olympus and Manhattan along with it. A prophecy foretelling doom and a mission gone awry suggests the Oracle may just have known what she was talking about. Now Percy must embark on the most dangerous of all his quests — into the realm of Hades — in order to lead a hodgepodge army of demi-gods and woodland spirits attempting to prevent the ultimate destruction of the Olympic gods.

And if that’s not enough, the nearly 16-year old must figure out who he likes more — fellow demi-god Annabeth, daughter of Athena, or mortal Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who can see through the Mist that prevents most humans from seeing the supernatural.

It’s going to be a rough couple of days for Percy. But as Dasch promised, it’s so worth it.

Pages: 400

So last I left you, we had ten quotes from books I love.

You have correctly identified six of them:

2. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.” The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

4. “Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder.” The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

5. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” To Kill a Mockingbird

6. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

8. “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow…” Anne of Green Gables

10. “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, he was splashing … enjoying the jungle’s great joys … when Horton the elephant heard a small noise.” Horton Hears a Who

Well done, Jenn, raidergirl3, RandomRanter, and Allegra!

This leaves us with four quotes, at least three of which I bet many of you have read. These are the four I expected there would be the most challenging, so let’s see if anyone can get them if I offer a clue:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.”
You’ll think about this quote the Next time you get sucked into a good book.

3. “The year began with lunch.”
Spend some time with Annie and Peter near the Mediterranean. The food is excellent. The house is a bit of a mess. Watch out for the pastis.

7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”
When driving across the country to Tucson, you want to be very careful about picking up reptiles at rest stops. It just might change your life.

9. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
There is a thin line between religion and science, and another between life and poetry.

I don’t usually participate in the literary-themed Weekly Geeks meme/carnival, but for a change I thought I would this week. Not coincidentally, this week’s challenge invites you to go back through the archives and pick a previous challenge to fulfill.

I have chosen Trivia Time, which asks participants to:

So take a moment, don’t stress about it all, and write down five to ten questions that pop into your mind. You could center all your questions around a particular theme or genre, maybe something in which you specialize. Or ask questions about one certain book. Or teach us about your favorite author through your questions.

You could do really easy ones that you know we’ll all get or really hard ones that will challenge even the best of us.

Once you post your questions and add your link here, be sure to go around and answer the questions posted by everyone else. Remember, no fair Googling! At the end of the week, don’t forget to do another post with the answers to your questions.

And most importantly, have fun!

Below you’ll find the first lines of ten novels books [one of these, while fiction, is not a novel] I particularly like. Some are quite easy, but I think others may pose more of a challenge. Your job is to guess the books (without Googling, remember!) and leave your thoughts in the comments:

1. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.”
2. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.”
3. “The year began with lunch.”
4. “Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder.”
5. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”
6. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
7. “I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”
8. “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back int he woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through the woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.”
9. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
10. “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, he was splashing … enjoying the jungle’s great joys … when Horton the elephant heard a small noise.”

Good luck!