Princess Izzy and King Dork

I don't write about books too often in this blog since I've got an entire website and another blog devoted to that very topic. But I finished King Dork last night and it's a thought-provoking little book. Princess Izzy and the E-Street Shuffle I finished earlier in the week.

I like King Dork. A lot, actually. It's a book that kind of defies description though. I'm not sure how I'm going to review it. It's kind of like...say a parent/author comes proudly wheeling in their newest offspring. "Isn't she a beauty," they gush. And rightly so. But you're looking at this baby and you notice that the poor sucker's head is a little bigger than it should be. Or maybe a little lopsided. And you're thinking, well, everyone thinks their baby is the prettiest baby out there, but that baby...hmmmm but then you look closer and actually, that big head on that baby kind of goes. It's distinctive. Interesting. Perhaps the kind of baby that you'd like to get to know, versus one you'd just kitchey-coo at and forget all about the next day. But this -- this is a baby you won't easily forget. This is a baby with some intriguing stuff rattling around in that big head. You'd just bet on it.

Anyway, I liked it. Good book. I'll put together an actual coherent review for the website instead of that baby drivel.

Now, for Princess Izzy. I'm not sure I'm going to review that one for the website. It isn't a bad book, but I didn't particularly care for it. It was hard to -- you'd think, from the cover and the back copy, that -- hey, this is a book about Princess Izzy and her crazy, dizzy life and the love(s) of her life -- but you'd ultimately be wrong. No, it's a book written by a possibly jilted woman who's husband was possibly murdered or possibly not. A character who you quite easily guess who it is, even though they spend half the book pretending to be all un-biased (snort). Even when they are complimenting someone, they aren't. It was just hard to care about any of the characters, since they all might be adulterers or murderers or just plain stupid but then again they might not. Maybe they're just misunderstood. And the authorial presence hinges everything on circumstance but never actually asks. Because they'd rather not really know. You know, in case it isn't what they want. But ultimately, as a reader, I finally just didn't care. I just wanted it to all be over with so they could all go back to self-congratulating themselves and influencing fashion in bad ways.

Bah.