On Rock Stars: A Review of What The Librarian Did by Karina Bliss

I bought this book after first being introduced to Karina Bliss and her excellent writing style via a bookclub chat on Here Comes the Groom. I really wanted more of her intensely heartfelt contemporary romance, and it's a shame that I've put off reading this one for so long.

Devin has spent the last seventeen years of his live living the rock star dream--fame, fortune, unlimited sex, and lots of booze. But his health wasn't holding up so well, and he's started to feel a sense of ennui toward the lifestyle, so he quits the public life and moves to New Zealand to attend college. There he meets a delightfully buttoned-up librarian named Rachel, who has no clue who he is and doesn't really care. Still, there's an attraction between them that's unlike anything either of them is used to. But Rachel is hiding a seventeen year old secret of her own.

One of the things that Bliss is good at is taking a premise that sounds miserably cheesie and make them work, so that the reader is invested in the story and the characters. I didn't think I'd like the whole washed-up rocker plotline, but I actually found Devin very real and sympathetic. The banter between Devin and Rachel is witty and sexy, the chemistry great.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the secret adoption plot was not half as saccharine as you might think. Mark is introduced as a friend and protege for Devin. I liked that Devin took up an older brother sort of role so easily.  Mark undergoes a remarkable amount of development in a small number of pages.

My one complaint for the book is that Rachel is a bit too uptight and judgemental for my taste. Too much the cliched librarian you'd expect her to be. She converses in random factoids, forces books on people, and wears conservative clothing. Quite dull and at times annoying, though she does have some great backbone to make up for it.

Overall, if your looking for a quick contemporary with a big emotional punch, this is a good choice. 4 stars.

Miscellaneous Monday: Why Librarians are Caffeine Addicts

While I'm in training to be a mad scientist (or the heroine of the next great dystopian novel, one of the two) I have to have a day job, like everyone else. Except in my case it's a night job, and it's in the college library.

Essentially, I babysit the circulation desk from 6 to midnight (1am during finals week). I make sure that books are discharged and in their place, printers are full of paper, and students don't have massive panic attacks. Now I'm sure your thinking "God, that sounds boring. I can see why you need the caffeine." And I suppose, to anyone else, that would be boring. But in truth, I spend 30-40% of my shift reading or doing homework, which (for me) is not such a bad way to pass time. It's the other 60% that makes coffee an absolute, non-negotiable necessity. 

For anyone out there that doesn't realize this: Librarians have graduate degrees. It actually takes a decent amount of time and effort to learn the skills necessary to take on all of the responisbilities therein, and guess what? I have NONE of those qualifications. But I'm behind the desk, so students assume that I'm a librarian and that I'm dying to help with their last minute research projects. It's not that I don't want to help. I really do. But I'm not trained to do more than punch key words into search engines and cross my fingers.

Here's what a typical conversation looks like for me.

Patron: "I'm doing a research paper on jaguars. Can you help me find stuff?"

Me: "I can try. What are you looking for, specifically?"

Patron: "Umm, just, like, history of jaguars."

Me: *Typing* "Do you mean the car, or the animal?"

Patron: "Huh?"

Me: "There's a car called...never mind. Here are the titles I get when I type in 'jaguars' and 'history'."

Patron: "Oh! No, I am looking for the car!"

Me: *add 'car' to search* "Okay, here's what the results look like now. We have four books, two of them are here in the library. Do you want help finding them?"

Patron: "Umm, no...do you have, like, internet sources? I need journals and stuff."

Me: "I can help you look through the data bases, but it sounds like you really need to talk to a research librarian. Can you come back tomorrow, between 8AM and 6PM? I can make an appointment for you."

Patron: "My paper is due at 8AM!"

Because of course it is. And then I get stuck playing this same search and fail game until the patron concludes (correctly) that I'm not going to be able to do anything for them that they wouldn't be able to do by themselves on their home computer. I hate feeling even a teensy bit responsible for someone else's failing grade. The whole process is exhausting. So it is this fact that has me sucking down caffeine.

To all you real librarians out there, I have so much respect for you guys. I don't know how you put up with these shenanigans full time.

Happy Monday!