Continuing our current trend of starting book club discussions late, we’re truly getting this one in at the last minute! And since we also didn’t manage to get a post up about the book at the beginning of the month (hey, it’s July, things are busy!), here’s a little bit about Forget About It by Caprice Crane:

Jordan Landau is having a bad life. At twenty-five, she is attractive, smart, funny and talented. But all that doesn’t keep her mother from calling her fat, her boss from stealing her ideas, and her boyfriend from cheating on her. Day in and day out, she sits back and watches as everyone walks all over her.

Then one day while riding her bike, Jordan collides with a car door and is knocked clear off her bicycle. Coming to in the hospital, Jordan realizes she has a perfect excuse for a “do-over”, and she fakes amnesia in order to reinvent herself.  And it works! Finally, Jordan is living the life she always dreamed of – until the unthinkable happens. Suddenly Jordan must start over for real, and figure out what really makes her happy–and how to live a truly memorable life.

And now onto our discussion! Here are some questions that came to us while reading that we hope will help generate some discussion. As always, don’t feel like you have to stick to these topics, please feel free to bring up anything you wish to discuss as well!

1. Would you like the opportunity to forget everything and re-invent yourself?
2. How do you feel about Jordan’s trickery? Would you be able to pull it off?
3. At the start of the book, Jordan’s job is very unsatisfying, and she says she took it just to get her foot in the door. How many of us have done the same thing, only to end up stuck like Jordan? Did you ever take a job just to get the proverbial foot in the door? If so how long did it take you to move on?
4. Many of the characters in the story are negative influences on Jordan’s life (Lydia, Dirk, Mom, Sam). Do you surround yourself with people who positive or negative influences? Has reading this story made you reconsider how you let people treat you?
5. On page 20 Jordan says:  “Real life is a hell of a let down.” Agree? Disagree? Discuss.
6. When assessing how her life had changed since her first bout of ‘amnesia’  Jordan states: “Everything happened TO me… but nothing was ever my fault.” Many of us probably feel this way about things in our own lives. Are you the type of person who lets things happen to you, or do you take action? What could you do to improve something in your life by taking action?
7. After getting her memory back Jordan says: “You know that person about whom you say ‘When I grow up I want to be like her’? Well, now I am” Who is that person for you? Do you feel that you have lived up to that vision of who you want to become?
8. At the end of the book Jordan says: “Hating [my family] for not being who I wanted them to be was only hurting me.” I thought this was a brilliant revelation, and it got me thinking about my own attitude towards certain people. Is there someone in your life who this could apply to? If so, what good quality(ies) can you attribute to them? (No names necessary!)

Industrial Magic (Women of the Otherworld, Book 4)
by Kelley Armstrong

Another great installment in the Women of the Otherworld series! Industrial Magic, the 4^th book in the series is again told by Paige, but rather than focusing on her life and mission to rebuild the coven, Paige is thrown headlong into a Cabal murder case. Although she is wary of working with the Cabals, it gives her an opportunity to work with Lucas and get to know his family while helping out supernatural teens.  One small area aside, I found it to be a thrilling adventure, and was stumped by the murder case right up until the killer was revealed.

One of my favourite aspects of Kelley Armstrong’s novels is her amazing ability to create a supernatural world that is completely believable within the realm of our everyday lives. And this is the one area where I felt Industrial Magic did not quite live up to Armstrong’s usual standards. Without getting too spoilery, there is a portion of the story that involves a portal and I found that it ripped me out of the narrative and interfered with the ‘believable world within our own’ effect that I have enjoyed so much in the previous novels. But that was only a very small portion of the story, and the rest of it was as great as always.

Something I really loved about Industrial Magic is that we got to spend time with the Stonehaven werewolves as well as Paige and Lucas. I realized while reading these sections of the book that while I’ve enjoyed Paige’s stories, for me the heart of this series are the werewolves. That aside, I really loved the ending to this story and can’t wait to find out more about Paige’s decision to become a teacher and to discover how she and Lucas will work together.

It’s that time of year again… the time when the geek masses gather together in beautiful San Diego to show their love and appreciation for the wonderful world of comics. (OK, really the love for movies and TV has overshadowed the comics, but this here is a place for BOOKS folks!)

So, just in time for all our friends who are jetting off to SD for Comic-Con, we ask you What is your favorite Comic-Book?

I’m a little torn on this one, since Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 is my current fave, and it’s hard for me to put anything before Buffy, but I would have to say my overall favorite is the Runaways series, created by Brian K. Vaughn.

Here’s a brief description from Marvel:

The teens who became the Runaways found that some family secrets are bigger than others when they witnessed their parents, part of a cabal known as the Pride, murdering a young girl during a secret sacrificial ritual. Running away from their homes, the group banded together and began a journey of discovery, both of their parents’ origins and of their own inherited powers.

As is almost always the case, what attracts me to the series is that it focuses on a group of misfits, who band together and survive by supporting and protecting each other as a family when they have no one else.  Plus, they have super-powers, a cool dinosaur, and often make me laugh. It’s win, win, win!

So, before you catch that plane to San Diego, or get lost in the multitude of Comic-Con related news that will be flooding the internets, make sure to tell us What is your favorite Comic-Book?

This weeks Question of the Week is inspired by my recent vacation where I entered bizarro land and did absolutely NO reading the entire week! I don’t know if I’ve ever taken a vacation and not read at least a book or two while I was away.  So after my great reading hiatus, I  ask: What book have you attempted to read but never could get through?

Since I tend to force myself to suffer through books I don’t like there aren’t many books that I wasn’t able to finish. There are many that I could have put into that category if it weren’t for my insane need to finish everything I start, but the one book that I attempted to read many times and never finished was Great Expectations.

I know it’s a classic and all that, but I was assigned it two years in a row in school and I couldn’t get through it either time. It was a Coles Notes book report both times!

So my fellow book lovers, tell us which book you just couldn’t get through. (You never know… you might just save us some reading anguish!)

This weeks Question of the Week is inspired by our June Book Club book (The Book of Lost Things), and asks: What’s your favorite book about book/a book?

As you may have guessed by the title, The Book of Lost Things is heavily focused on books. While it isn’t my favorite book about books, it did remind me of one I really enjoyed, which was Inkheart.

Inkheart is directed at a slightly younger audience than I generally read, so I didn’t continue on with the rest of the series, but I still remember it as one of the best books about loving books and reading. Here’s an excerpt:

That night — when so much began and so many things changed forever— Meggie had one of her favorite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn’t let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and took it out. Its pages rustled promisingly when she opened it. Meggie thought this first whisper sounded a little different from one book to another, depending on whether or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her. But she needed light. She had a box of matches hidden in the drawer of her bedside table. Mo had forbidden her to light candles at night. He didn’t like fire. “Fire devours books,” he always said, but she was twelve years old, she surely could be trusted to keep an eye on a couple of candle flames. Meggie loved to read by candlelight. She had five candlesticks on the windowsill, and she was just holding the lighted match to one of the black wicks when she heard footsteps outside.

~ from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

And that’s just on the first page! The entire story is filled with so much love for books, that you almost want to go t your bookshelf and make sure your books are dusted and well looked after.

So, fellow book lovers, please share with us your favorite book about books!