(no subject)

I have finished reading Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, by Ransome Riggs.

Well, "finished". A few pages from the end I threw it down and declared, NO MORE.

The shame of it is that it's actually a pretty good book, and has a lot of interesting metaphor to offer. AND YET.

What I really enjoyed, actually, was the mystery at the start. It more or less opens with our teenaged hero and narrator, Jacob, witnessing his grandfather's horrible death from an attack by what Jacob thinks are wild beasts. His grandfather's last words are a cryptic set of instructions telling him to find a specific person and place. Jacob's quest to follow his grandfather's last wishes held my interest way more than what happened once he found what he was sent to find.

I really do think this mystery is the best part, so if you're planning to read the book and don't like spoilers, don't click the cut, where I've hid ( the rest of the summary. )

Anyway, the reason I eventually put the book down was that I realised it was not going to come to a conclusion; the book is very clearly aimed at a sequel, and I cannot deal with another entire book about the characters in this one. Plus it just gets ridiculous; they fight off one bad guy, then another bad guy, then the first bad guy again, AND THEN THERE'S A NAZI SUBMARINE, and I just couldn't. ARGH.

So...it's a good book, I'm glad athousanderrors recommended it to me and I don't feel like the time spent reading it was wasted, but I cannot cope with the idea of reading a sequel.

(Standard caveat: I am sure at least three of you are thinking, right now, "If you didn't like that book, try this one!" Please don't. I'm trying to kill my reading list. I know you love to recc books and I love you all for that, but please don't recc them to me right now.)

(no subject)

I have made....a plan. *echo effect*

The key to dealing with Mum when she's got hold of an idea and won't let go is usually to come up with a better idea, or at any rate what she THINKS is a better idea.

It's a plan I like anyway, thought admittedly it's not without its stressors. The plan is thus: the inheritance goes into a CD or some other form of investment (apparently with Chase my inheritance could make a total of three dollars in six months! But that's not important, what's important is locking it up for six months). I spend the six months it's marinating looking for a new job that is comparable to or better than this one, located downtown. I'm not super-optimistic about finding one; this company gives mind-blowing benefits and I'm not sure any other company would offer me a phone. Still, can't hurt to look, and I'd give up the free phone for another five grand a year in salary.

At the end of six months, if I have a shiny new job, I will start to hunt for new, mouse-free housing in the neighborhood I'm in now. If I don't have a shiny new job, I will start to hunt for new, mouse-free housing closer to where my company is moving, on the south side. Either way, the goal is to be in a new place by the end of October of this year.

*Girds for the fray*

This also reminds me, I've had a couple of requests in the last few weeks for a new Sam's Cafe Job Fair. The Job Fair is a chance for people with connections to direct fellow Cafe members to open jobs, and for jobseekers to post their qualifications and do a little networking from the safe confines of the internet. You can also ask for advice in your field or about getting employed, offer advice to others, and share your work experiences. You can check out earlier job fairs here, for an idea of what goes on.

DUST OFF YOUR RESUMES AND SHINE YOUR VIRTUAL SHOES -- I'm going to be posting the Job Fair this weekend at 10AM Central on Saturday. That's 8AM Pacific, and for those of you overseas it's 4PM Greenwich Mean Time, calculate for yourselves from there. Aussies, sorry, you probably get a little screwed. At least it'll be Sunday, not Monday?

PREPARE THYSELVES!