Living a Life I Don't Know How to Live

I have been reviewing things lately. Here are links to those reviews.

For karenhealey's recent Reviewathon fundraiser, I reviewed
+ Urban Decay's Deluxe Shadow Box, Honda Shadows, Sons of Anarchy, D.E.B.S., and The Squad by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and
+ Hellcats, which Karen and I reviewed together in a conversation format.

I am reviewing The Vampire Diaries for Innsmouth Free Press again this season. Here are my reviews so far.
+ Lies and Lying Liars: Review of The Vampire Diaries 2.1: “The Return”
+ Carnivals and Boardwalks, Prime Hunting Grounds: The Vampire Diaries 2.02: “Brave New World”
+ A Howling Good Time: A Review of The Vampire Diaries 2.03: “Bad Moon Rising”

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I reviewed The Vampire Diaries 1.01 "Pilot" over at Innsmouth Free Press: Gossip Girl Gets Fangs? The Successes and Failures of The Vampire Diaries"

Excerpt: Basically, the trailers were exactly what I expected from a teen vampire show on the CW, but not really what I wanted after reading the books. This was exacerbated when I saw the still advertisements, in particular the one where the image was focused tightly on Elena’s face and one vampire had his hand around her throat and the other vampire stroked her cheek. Though it could have been a consensual display of dominance and violence, the image itself gave us nothing of that. Instead, it showed Elena helpless, on the verge of tears, and simply waiting for whatever fate was to become of her. I hated this as an advertisement in general, but in particular, for stripping Elena’s agency from her. When I read the books, one of the things that struck me was the way she actually acted: she didn’t simply wait for the vampires (or the boys, before she knew they were vampires) to come to her. She wasn’t a helpless victim, she fought back no matter what went on around her. With that stripped out of the advertisement, I worried the creators would strip it out of the show, too, because it wasn’t what the creators thought would attract viewers.

Originally posted at my website here.

As a part of The Vampire Diaries Week at Innsmouth Free Press, and to introduce me as the reviewer of TVD season one, my article "Pleasure and Pain: The Good and the Bad of The Vampire Diaries" is now available at IFP.

In it, I briefly review the first four books of TVD, talk about why I love horror, and mention The Lost Boys, my favorite vampire movie, quite a few times. I also talk about werewolves, because no matter how awesome vampires are, I love werewolves best of all.

Basically, I really enjoyed a couple of the books and I'm looking forward to reviewing the show. Innsmouth Free Press will be publishing my episode reviews a few days after each episode airs.