I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“First World Problems” (2014).

“First World Problems is what Al calls a style parody.  This is a parody of the Pixies.  I can kind of hear it (especially in the riffs), but his Black Francis voice is somehow off (he’s usually so spot on with his mimicking).  But as it is basically a Pixies song, it is loud and quite rocking.  And, better yet, it’s really funny.

I get a kick out of the expression “first world problems” because why should that make a problem any less invalid, and yet, Al’s first world problems are outstanding.

I couldn’t order off the breakfast menu, cause I slept in till two
Forgot my gardener’s name, I’ll have to ask him later
Tried to fast forward commercials, can’t – I’m watching live T.V
My barista didn’t even bother to make a design in the foam on the top of my vanilla latte

The opening bass and the female backing vocals are fantastic, and as always, guitarist Jay West gets their guitar sound perfectly.  The video doesn’t scream Pixies to me (although it is very very funny).  In fact at one point he looks more like Iggy Pop than anyone else (except with a shirt on), but that’s okay, it still makes me laugh a lot.  Who knew Al was a fan of the Pixies?

[READ: July 10, 2014] Day of Doom

This is the first book by David Baldacci that I have read.  Baldacci is typically an adult writer who I know is quite popular and prolific (he has done some kids books too).  I very much enjoyed the suspense and thrill of this book, but I have to say I feel like he really does not write very believably for his characters.  There is a romance that is played off quite flatly, there is an act of contrition which I don’t think anyone would believe, especially not a family member, and the bad guys are just so bad they are cartoonlike.

These characters have been through seventeen books now, so we know them pretty well, and I hated to see them get smoothed so much here.  I also didn’t care for the way Amy’s love dilemma was solved fairly easily for her.  And I was really surprised by the body count in this book.

Four major characters were killed by the end of the book.  It’s pretty brutal and really takes the series out of the realm of kids book and way into the realm of YA.

So what all happens?  Well, as the book opens, Dan drinks the serum that he made last book.  He waits for something to happen but nothing does–that’s when Amy, who has snapped out of her funk, tells him that she has switched the serum–she doesn’t want him to drink it.  But he does have some saved just in case.  Amy gets the gang rolling again as they look up subduction zones–places in the earth where catastrophe can happen very easily (especially if you have a working Doomsday Device, which Vesper One does).

As the book moves along, the foursome travel to Washington D.C. to find a compass that Lewis and Clark used.  I have to quibble here and say that the book claims that the etching on the back of the compass was something that no historian could ever figure out?  Even though it was a North and West latitude and longitude?  That seems a bit much, especially since I recognized it immediately.  But evil Isabel Kabra was there before them and she seems to have done something with the compass that they can’t figure out.

In the meantime, the team back in Attleboro reveal that Vesper One is Riley McGrath–someone nobody has ever heard of.  And they also get a message from poor Phoenix who has escaped from the prison and is safely in a hotel in Washington State.  So Ian and Evan fly out to rescue him.

Meanwhile, the sky is turning different colors and airplanes are having a hard time flying–it seems that Vesper One is powering up the Doomsday Device.  How will the kids get from Washington DC to Washington State (where they believe the subduction zone and the prisoners are?).  They’ll go by train! (even if that means it will take an extra day).

Everyone loves a good train travel story and the back half of the book has a lot of fun with train travel.  I enjoyed it very much.  Because if the kids have to take a train, maybe some other people do.  And when a former traitor resurfaces, it really changes things.

The end, the culmination is as I said, rather violent (I was frankly shocked at how many main characters died), but it also rather viscerally satisfying.

Amazingly enough, the final page already sets them up for their next adventure (with a newspaper photo for our protagonists).  Will they never get to rest?

I’m ready to keep the excitement alive with the UNSTOPPABLE series.