SIZZLING SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZA WEEK
Do you feel like you're watching a commercial for a used car lot with that title? Since I already sound like that I might as well go with it: So come on down to Krazy Angie's where everything must go (imagine me shouting that in a really annoying voice.) And come quickly for a one-stop shopping blog: You get stories and pictures about people you don't even know (can you handle the excitement!!), a book review, and I'm going to share with you some of my favorite summer recipes. Don't worry dear readers, the recipes are from my pre-allergy days so they actually taste good.
I missed the summer of 1979 by one week - because I show up when I feel like it and not a minute before - so unfortunately I don't have any hideous 70s pictures to share. But I have plenty of hideous 80s pictures to share.
Here I am in the summer of 1980. Life was good, all I had to do all day was lie around, eat, sleep, play with toys - the one downside was that the "Who Shot J.R." phenomenon was going on all around me and I didn't even get to be a part of it because my parents were mean enough to deprive me of the joy of watching Dallas - they had some crazy excuse about Dallas not being an appropriate show for babies. Little did they know that one day I would get to watch it anyway when it came out on DVD - Ahahahahaha. That's right dear readers, I had the last laugh on that one.
And here I am with my brother Chad in the summer of 1981. The summer of 1981 was when my brother and I made the very important and life changing decision to jump on the "I'm a Pepper" bandwagon. And as you can see, that couch did not get any better looking - there are some wounds that time doesn't heal and having a couch that ugly is one of them.
And now I'm actually going to talk about today's book (what a crazy idea.)
Today's book, "Most people think The Zone is an amusement park, but Candy Thompson knows it’s really a slave labor camp. What else would you call a summer job that requires a sixteen-year-old girl to set aside her whole social life for the privilege of standing out in the hot sun selling cotton candy? Still, there are perks—particularly the mysterious hunk in the Lone Ranger costume. Behind that mask are the most amazing eyes Candy has ever seen. Who is that masked man? But someone else is just as interested. And romantic competition isn’t the only problem. Besides being hard work, The Zone is eating up major time. How is Candy supposed to stay involved in church? Worse yet, will she lose her best friend, Tamara, who resents how Candy’s job limits their time together? This is NOT the summer Candy hoped for! But as she is about to discover, the summer of cotton candy will be the greatest summer of her life."
I actually did read the description of today's book. Well, actually I skimmed it . . . really quickly - which would explain why I didn't realize until I was 20 pages into it that it was Christian fiction. Oops. But that's okay, I can be biblical for a few hours, in fact before I started to lose interest in TV (which my sister insists is just a phase I'm going through) I was started to get addicted to the Gospel Music Channel. I realize how unbearably dorky that makes me sound, but I can't help it, every one on that channel is just so happy all the time that I find it oddly mesmerizing and I just can't seem to turn away. So I decided to just go with it and read the book anyway - and I was actually pleasantly surprised that the characters weren't as whitewashed as I had expected them to be - which is what my main complaint about Christian fiction usually is. I just can't relate to books that are filled with people who are practically perfect. The characters in today's book were still nicer than I am, but they had just enough sarcasm in them to make the book bearable and even somewhat enjoyable in places.
There were two minor problems I had with the book:
Here I am in the summer of 1980. Life was good, all I had to do all day was lie around, eat, sleep, play with toys - the one downside was that the "Who Shot J.R." phenomenon was going on all around me and I didn't even get to be a part of it because my parents were mean enough to deprive me of the joy of watching Dallas - they had some crazy excuse about Dallas not being an appropriate show for babies. Little did they know that one day I would get to watch it anyway when it came out on DVD - Ahahahahaha. That's right dear readers, I had the last laugh on that one.
And here I am with my brother Chad in the summer of 1981. The summer of 1981 was when my brother and I made the very important and life changing decision to jump on the "I'm a Pepper" bandwagon. And as you can see, that couch did not get any better looking - there are some wounds that time doesn't heal and having a couch that ugly is one of them. And now I'm actually going to talk about today's book (what a crazy idea.)
Today's book, "Most people think The Zone is an amusement park, but Candy Thompson knows it’s really a slave labor camp. What else would you call a summer job that requires a sixteen-year-old girl to set aside her whole social life for the privilege of standing out in the hot sun selling cotton candy? Still, there are perks—particularly the mysterious hunk in the Lone Ranger costume. Behind that mask are the most amazing eyes Candy has ever seen. Who is that masked man? But someone else is just as interested. And romantic competition isn’t the only problem. Besides being hard work, The Zone is eating up major time. How is Candy supposed to stay involved in church? Worse yet, will she lose her best friend, Tamara, who resents how Candy’s job limits their time together? This is NOT the summer Candy hoped for! But as she is about to discover, the summer of cotton candy will be the greatest summer of her life."
I actually did read the description of today's book. Well, actually I skimmed it . . . really quickly - which would explain why I didn't realize until I was 20 pages into it that it was Christian fiction. Oops. But that's okay, I can be biblical for a few hours, in fact before I started to lose interest in TV (which my sister insists is just a phase I'm going through) I was started to get addicted to the Gospel Music Channel. I realize how unbearably dorky that makes me sound, but I can't help it, every one on that channel is just so happy all the time that I find it oddly mesmerizing and I just can't seem to turn away. So I decided to just go with it and read the book anyway - and I was actually pleasantly surprised that the characters weren't as whitewashed as I had expected them to be - which is what my main complaint about Christian fiction usually is. I just can't relate to books that are filled with people who are practically perfect. The characters in today's book were still nicer than I am, but they had just enough sarcasm in them to make the book bearable and even somewhat enjoyable in places.
There were two minor problems I had with the book:
- During the scenes where the characters were joking around with one another it was never funny - but then most books are like that, I have yet to read a book where the characters are joking around and it's actually amusing. So, mental note to me: if I ever write a novel - which seems unlikely since I spent most of high school trying and never got past the third paragraph - no lame jokes should occur between characters.
- There was a little too much teen talk for my taste. Very few books/movies/shows that feature teenagers seem to get the dialogue right. There's usually way too much slang. I know that it's been a few years since I was a teenager (okay more like a decade) but I don't remember every third word out of my mouth being slang. Of course I was an odd teenager who wore dresses to school every day, read books with titles like Your Life is Your Message, and listened to Glen Miller and Louis Armstrong despite my Mother's protests to "Quit listening to that old people music, it's driving me crazy." But still, I don't remember other teenagers using that much slang either. Sometimes less is more. But the teen talk did start to disipate as the book went on, which was a relife.
Overall the book was okay, but not great, it didn't bother me to spend one day on it but I wouldn't want to have spend anymore time than that on it.
And now, as promised, one of my favorite summer recipes (because Krazy Angie never makes a promise she can't keep):
Spiced Summer Fruit Salad
1/2 cup honey (this can also be made with 1 cup sugar)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
4 peaches, sliced
1 pint blueberries
1 pint strawberries
In a mixing bowl, combine fruit and spices. Pour honey over mixture and gently toss. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before serving to allow flavors time to meld.
I hope you all enjoyed the first installment of SIZZLING SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZA WEEK. Join me tomorrow when I share a few pictures from the mid-80s (frightening). And in the meantime, I would love to hear about your summer memories dear readers.
