I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BETTY LaVETTE-Tiny Desk Concert #61 (May 21, 2010).

Another peculiar Tiny Desk is this one from Betty LaVette.  It’s only peculiar because, for licensing reasons, they can only show one of the three songs she sang.

I don’t know much about LaVette, but I immediately loved her voice–rough and sultry and amazingly powerful.  The only song here is her take on “It Don’t Come Easy,” and it’s really great.

With only her voice and guitarist Alan Hill accompanying her, she manages to bring amazing depth to this song.

The other two songs were: “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” and “Nights in White Satin.”  While I’m not that interested in “Sun,” I would love to hear her take on “Nights.”

The notes say that at this time they don’t have the rights to play the songs.  It has been five years, and I imagine they are not really pursuing those rights any longer.

[READ: July 28, 2015] Curses! Foiled Again

Since I recently posted the Foiled review I had to run out and get the sequel (also on First Second books)

After a quick “Previously,” we get reintroduced to Aliera’s weapon and its glowing gem and we learn that Avery is beautiful on the outside but an actual troll within.   As with the previous book, the panels are all gray scale until she runs into the mystical beasties.

The problem with this book is that Aliera is mad at Avery for secretly being a troll (fair enough), but there is nothing he can do to get her to listen to him.  So it is actually rather tedious that for the whole book he keeps trying to tell her things but she refuses to listen.

Like that she is his liege lord and he is beholden to her (she saved his life in the previous book).  She thinks he’s lying and it takes way too long for her to test it.  He keeps following her around (in amusing ways, admittedly) and she keeps getting mad at him.

At the same time, all of her mystical creatures seem to have fled–they’re nowhere to be seen.  So she visits her cousin (who she calls Queen Furby) to find out what they should do about it.  Her cousin (who was a bigger part of the first book) is in a wheelchair and is a big time gamer.  She suggests that Aliera go back to the beginning (which in this case is Grand Central Station).  She does and is immediately grabbed by trolls.

Avery gets tossed in with her and we spend more time with her being mad at him and not listening to him (grrr).  Even as he helps her escape and leads her to safety she still doesn’t believe him.

When they finally get back to the surface they earn that her cousin and aunt were attacked in their home.

When Aliera finally opens up she is visited by someone who gives her some really good advice, but that still doesn’t stop her from leaping to stupid conclusions again.

The ending is pretty satisfying even if it does promise yet another book (and it has already been two years since this one).