Blind Side - Sandra Bullock (2009)

Blind Side tells the true story of how one woman and her family pick up a homeless young black man off the streets of Memphis and turn his life around.

Sandra Bulluck plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, the affluent wife of former MBA basketball player Sean Tuohy, played by Tim McGraw.

The Tuohys spot "Big Mike" walking down the road after they've all left the Christian private school that the Tuohy's children and Mike attend. Leigh Anne decides to take this 300-pound 17-year old black kid into their home for the night.

Mike was brought into the school as a charity case. A nearly grown foster kid that has bounced from house to house, his mother is a crack addict and his father is unknown. He thinks he has somewhere between 10-12 brothers and sisters but he is unsure where they all are.

So by the time Leigh Anne meets him, he can barely read and he is so shut down that he won't hardly talk.

Bit by bit, Leigh Anne works with Michael to show him that there is hope, there is love and there is family.

Beth: You're changing that boy's life.
Leigh Anne Touhy: No, he's changing mine.

Dead and Gone (2009) by Charlaine Harris - from the series that spawned "True Blood"

The only reason I don't despise this book is because I only paid $1 for it at a garage sale.

One of the books that spawned HBO's "True Blood" series, Sookie Stackhouse lives and works in a small town outside of Lafayette, Louisiana.

At the risk of sounding like one of her more uptight and judgmental enemies, she consorts with vampires, werewolves and fairies--clearly another class of people.

One of the most basic flaws that rubbed me through the whole book was her spelling of the name "Tray". It is bad enough when it is spelled "Trey" but to purposefully misspell it "Tray" is unforgivable in my mind.

Then all the vampire mythology is twisted and bended to the author's needs--a similar issue that I had with the Twilight series.

How can authors transgress 100s of years of established vampire and werewolf mythology to write this junk? All of a sudden a werewolf transforms not into a wolf but a border collie because it would be easier for humans to accept? Come on!

And these books are really grizzly. Very grizzly. Crucifixions, torture, sex. Which is okay, but the cover is very misleading and makes it appear to be a young adult book. I wouldn't let my young adult read them!

As I said, I am really glad I only paid a $1.