Earth Day, Trolls and Demons

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.
- Stephen Hawking

~*~

So today is Earth Day. And it still seems that many people don’t care.

It’s easy to say “we need to do more,” easy to think “green is good” without doing anything about it. I know. I have been guilty of these. I am trying, though, to actually improve. I have been carpooling, and intend to learn about composting (we signed up for a class) so that we can get rid of our food waste in a more earth-friendly way. I recycle whenever I can and try to buy organic. I bring cloth bags to the grocery. There are other things I do or try to do, but those are the ones that I’m most consistent with.

What about you? What have you done to go green?

~*~

For the trolls, I’m not talking about nasty blog commenters like most bloggers are who mention trolls. I am talking about trolls.

These types of trolls. Otherwise known as kitty toys. I thought it had just been too long since Peekaboo had graced the blog.

~*~

And the “demons” is in reference to PERSONAL DEMON, a book by Kelley Armstrong that I read over the weekend. It was wonderful, and caught me up in it so that I spent most of Saturday reading instead of doing laundry or mending socks. (Another way to go green – fix things instead of throwing them out.)

So Personal Demon. It’s the 8th book in the ‘Women of the Otherworld” series, and is a blast. I greatly enjoyed reading it. Unlike some series, where the author tries to throw a little bit of each of the previous characters into every book, this one doesn’t have unneeded mention of characters that aren’t involved. Yes, there are nods to previous books and prior characters make an appearance when it makes sense. But it does make sense.

This particular book is the first in the series that has two narrators. Every previous book has been told from the first-person point-of-view from the female protagonist. This one also has a male first-person POV (and not the gal’s love interest) that was included because there were some elements to the story that can’t be told from her eyes. She would have no way of seeing some of the things that happen; instead of telling them second-hand, or fabricating a reason for her to be present, Kelley used dual-narration. I really like it. I think the narrating style works well. The story told by Hope (the gal) is truly only half the story; adding Lucas’ half really makes the book.

I don’t know that I would call this book my favorite in the series. Hope is not my favorite of the characters (though not my least favorite either) and so the book’s not quite the same as the books where I really connect with the narrators. Lucas, however, is a favorite, and so I love his sections. Even without this being my favorite, however, Personal Demon does make the short list of my favorite books from the past couple of years.