Kickon? Kickup? Kickme?

I'm wondering what the opposite of "kickoff" is... certainly not "kickon"... Well, the point is, after the move, and being a bridesmaid, and getting sick twice, I got rather tired of James Bond's frankly unhappy life. Sure, he enjoys great food, the occasional butt-kicking, and being a womanizer, but at the heart of it he's constantly surrounded by people he can't trust and when he does open up his heart, it gets broken. So I quit halfway through From Russia With Love. Another obstacle to my project has been the lack of James Bond films available at the library and local video rental place. I wanted to read-watch-compare and all I got was read-search-get disappointed. I will DEFINITELY pick it back up again someday, as Ian Fleming's writing takes you right into the heart of it, with details so vivid I'm curious to know if his books ever endangered his life for revealing enemy secrets! But for now, I'm going to try and read some happy things.
Of course, the first thing I picked up was a romance novel, but we can skip that one. Next I read Sweet and Deadly by Charlaine Harris. I was super needing of the Sookie Stackhouse books but I am on the wait list right now. So I read this instead, and of course, it is neither happy nor uplifting (what was I thinking) but it was adventurous, even if I did guess the killer I did not guess the motive, as it was out of left field. It was also quite interesting to read Harris's first novel, and to see how her style developed, not only by later incorporating the supernatural (Sweet and Deadly's villain is purely human) but how she matured as a writer and developed her characters later on, able to make them more likeable.
Also as of late I have been getting seriously into old film noirs about the supernatural. See my other blog about that!
P.S. If any of my friends are ever out shopping anywhere and see any Matryoshka Russian Nesting Dolls, please tell me where I can find some! (I really don't want to but them off ebay- shipping is nuts) I heart them.