Bayou Bytes Blog

I stumbled upon The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels after putting down several other titles in frustrations. I had never heard of it and went in with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.  The Wisteria Society is an organization of some of England's most proper and courteous women. They also happen to be pirates. With houses that use an ancient Latin incantation to fly about.  It is absurd and wonderful. Cecilia is a junior member, raised by her aunt and the other Wisteria women, she hopes to be promoted to senior member soon. When Ned Lightborne shows up, admitting he's been hired to kill her, she is delighted. Surely having been deemed important enough to assassinate will prove her worth to the Wisteria Society.  But when the villainous pirate captain Morvath shows up and kidnaps the Wisteria ladies, Cecilia is forced to team up with Ned in order to infiltrate Morvath's flying fortress and rescue her society.  This was a delightful read. It's a charmin...

So Meddelin Chan accidentally killed her blind date. In self-defense, but still. Now, at 3AM, her mother and three aunties crowd around the kitchen table planning how to get rid of the body.  They have a solid plan set out. But it will have to wait until after the huge wedding their company is working in the morning. So they set the body to chill in one of the aunt's cake coolers, where it can wait until safely after the ceremony.  But when one of the baker's assistants sends off the wrong cooler, the Chans find their corpse at the wedding venue. They'll have to scramble to keep the body secret and make sure the biggest, most important wedding the Chans have ever taken on is a success.  And it doesn't help that Meddelin's ex-boyfriend, the one that got away, happens to be at the venue. She'd love to reconnect with him, but he really does show up at the worst possible time... This was a delightful read. It was funny, touching, and absolutely a little harrowing wa...

The Orsk furniture store is an Ikea rip-off in Cleveland, Ohio. It has a gigantic showroom, full of furniture with unpronounceable names arranged in a maze that will trap you for hours. Also it's haunted.  The first thing to know about this book is that the physical copy is stunning.   Hendrix was so committed to the knockoff Ikea concept that the book perfectly mimics an Ikea catalog. With a slightly disturbing furniture arrangement on its glossy cover, it's the exact dimensions of the real thing. The book opens to a map of the Orsk showroom and includes illustrations of relevant furniture pieces at the beginning of each chapter.   This is another story that toes the line between comedy and horror. The odd occurrences happening in the Orsk showroom after dark are classic haunted house moves, but they're combined with the horror that is working a retail job. The main character faces not only vengeful ghosts, but also coworkers who are...

 Framed spoons. There are framed photos of spoons all over the apartment set in the cult classic so-bad-it's-genius film The Room. The framed spoons are in the background of nearly every shot with a table, and that's because the art department wasn't allowed to replace the stock photos. Tommy Wiseau, the writer-director-producer-star of the film, wanted to hurry up and film the movie. The entire set was purchased directly from a thrift store's window display, and the art department had been concerned about the set looking as bare (as intended, in its former life.)  How does Tommy Wiseau have the money to almost single-handedly fund this film? Even by the end of the book, no one really knows; all author (and Room co-star!) Greg Sestero can do is take some educated guesses. Tommy Wiseau is a cipher; he's an unstable, unfailingly earnest and optimistic pistache of someone who bought the American Dream for 19.99 plus shipping and handling. His famous line from The Room-...

 Death has always taken pride in his work, but he has way too many unused vacation days. When HR tells him he needs to take a year off, Death isn't really sure what to do with himself. Thus begins, Death Wins a Goldfish , an odd but lighthearted story, where Death takes the year to learn about himself and try new things.  This is a story told almost entirely in illustration, so it's an incredibly quick read. But that's no reason to overlook it. Being forced to take a year off gives Death time to learn what he really values in life. Though I loved this book when I first read it in 2019, the mandatory shutdowns we've been through this year may lend new light to the story. Many of us found new hobbies and passions when we suddenly found ourselves with more free time when the pandemic began.  If you're interested in Brian Rea's endearing story of Death's year-long vacation, you can find it here !

Written by the iconic actor who played Westley, this behind the scenes account is filled with Elwes' memories of being on the set of The Princess Bride .  As You Wish  looks back at how Elwes got involved in the project, how he met the other actors, the technical aspects of filming, as well as antics on set. The book even includes a section of photos from set. It's a nostalgic and touching account of his experiences, and I would recommend re-watching the movie after  reading this. It was satisfying, and in some cases impressive, to re-watch the scenes Elwes described after reading his tales.  Originally published in 2014, this book is a must-read for Princess Bride fans. 

This paranormal fantasy follows Marie Winters, who has just died in an unfortunate chair-related incident. After her death, she is greeted by a peculiar looking alien named Xel. As a social worker at the Department of Spectral Affairs, Xel is tasked with helping ghosts reconcile their pasts and happily pass on. The problem is, Marnie has no particular ties to people or places. With no one to haunt and nowhere to go, Xel pulls some strings at the office and hires Marnie as the Department's new intern. Suddenly Marnie is going on missions, decoding alien languages, and squaring off against terrifying department heads. Riesbeck delivers a sweet and whimsical story, with engaging and beautiful illustrations, but she also delves into heavier topics. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Marine had withdrawn from society because of her depression. And in order to pass on, she'll need to confront it. Though the story stays lighthearted throughout this first volume, Marnie...

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero Cantero's  Meddling Kids  is an obvious but decidedly off brand take on Scooby-Doo. He uses the familiar dynamic of four kids and a dog who fight crime as a foundation for a whole new story. The group spent their childhood summers in Blyton Hills, a sleepy mining town, catching elaborate and incompetent criminals. It was always a man in a ridiculous monster mask. Until it wasn't. Here the similarities to Scooby-Doo end. In the summer of 1977, the kids got in over their heads. They managed to pull a mask off another criminal and send him to jail, but they've suffered severe psychological repercussions from that last fateful case. Now it’s 1990 and the kids are all grown up. Kerri (Velma), got a degree in biology before her anxieties got to her. Now she bartends and is plagued by constant nightmares of that night. Andy is our Daphne, who joined the air force before ending up in and subsequent...

There is something to be said for reading books that are not the most currently published.  You pick up a book, read it, LOVE it, and then wonder 'Where was I when this came out?!'  You then start to wonder what else you're missing out on: next thing you know, you have spent hours looking for books by that author and then checking out others that are similar to that book.  You have embarked on a whole new literary journey.   Death: A Life  is that book.  I was laughing until tears ran down my face, was fascinated by the underlying facts throughout the book, and was overall delighted. Courtesy of goodreads.com Published in 2008 to apparently no fanfare, Death: A Life is everything you could possibly want from a satirical novel.  It is simply the autobiography of Death.  Born to neglectful parents, Satan and Sin, Death has a sub par childhood in his home, Hell.  His family eventually emigrates to Earth, where they proceed to help usher...

Courtesy of goodreads.com Oh, the classics. We read them because they were perhaps revolutionary for the time period, thus we are enlightened by the antiquity yet still taught by the applicable lessons in them. Or we read them because our mean high school teachers forced us to. One of those commonly required authors is William Shakespeare; he wrote seemingly endless amounts of fodder for future English classes. Yet, one man saw greatness in a particular Shakespeare play. He saw the potential for humor, gore, smack talk, smut, and an endless amount of sarcasm in  King Lear ... he saw his eleventh literary creation, Fool . Fool is the story of Pocket, King Lear's court jester. Pocket is a witty, highly intelligent, manipulating, kind, crude, sweet man, who is subtly the voice of reason in Lear's crumbling kingdom and family. Fool follows the original King Lear story line... and that's about it. The characters are much more richly detailed, their interactions mo...