Category Archives: Book Review

Book Review! Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

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Oh my goodness – this book! Amazing! This novel was recommended to me by a family friend so it’s not a book that came from my book list unfortunately, I really need to start working on that, but still a great read none the less. My only gripe was with some of the story line choices at the end, but I’ll get to that eventually.

Plot:
This story follows a family through their matriarch’s battle with fitting in and how through a series of wild events she ends up missing. The family has to come together to figure out what happened to her and how to bring the family back together.

Initial Thoughts/Characters:
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is classified as a “Missing Person/Mother & Daughter” story. I was somewhat skeptical because the daughter in the story, Bee, is barely a teenager and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to relate to the “plight” of today’s teenager. Wow, was I wrong! Bee is smart, sassy, and very mature for her age. She’s a lot more outspoken than I was at her age, but I definitely can identify with the way she stands up for herself and the relationship she has with her mom. Some of the altercations she gets into I can see myself getting into now as an adult, so at first I was a little thrown off that a child was getting into them, but in the context of the story it works.
I also adore Bernadette. For better or worse I see quite a lot of myself in this character. She means well but is eccentric and that leads to anti-social tendencies, not because she isn’t friendly or kind, but simply because she doesn’t wanna put up with other people’s shit. Like myself, she’s known for wearing her sunglasses at all times and drives a car that Bee refers to as “The Princess & the Pea” because it’s such a bumpy ride – much like how my car is named “Little Indy” after the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

Overall:
These characters were extremely well crafted. You can tell Maria Semple put a lot of time and effort into creating her story. Each character is complex and 3 dimensional. The dialogue flows easily like a conversation between people you’d see every day.
This story kept me highly engaged. I couldn’t put it down. While some parts were slower than others, others literally had me yelling out loud, “Holy shit! I can’t believe this is happening!” However, then the story got really fantastical. I was slightly disappointed because the start of the story seemed so real and I felt such a connection to it but once it started to wrap up everything became so far from reality. At that point it started to feel like a typical fiction story where everything wraps up perfectly and it’s the happiest of endings for the main characters, not really reality.
Despite my distaste for the wrap up of this novel, the journey to get there was beyond exciting. I would highly recommend “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?”.

Favorite Quotes:
“The smallest [boat] has 150 passengers, which translates into me being trapped with 149 other people who will uniquely annoy the hell out of me with their rudeness, waste, idiotic questions, incessant yammering, creepy food requests, boring small talk, etc. Or worse, they might turn their curiosity toward me, and expect pleasantry in return. I’m getting a panic attack just thinking about it. A little social anxiety never hurt anyone, am I right?” – Bernadette (pg. 10)

“There isn’t assigned seating at the dining room, and they have tables for four. That means the three of us can sit down and if we pile the extra chair with our gloves and hats, nobody can sit with us!” – Bernadette (pg. 42)

“Maybe that’s what religion is, hurling yourself off a cliff and trusting that something bigger will take care of you and carry you to the right place. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel everything all at once, so much that you think you’re going to burst…I felt so full of love for everything. But at the same time, I felt so hung out to dry there, like nobody could ever understand. I felt so alone in this world, and so loved at the same time.” – Bee (pg. 199)

Have you read this novel? Based on this review, do you have any interest in picking this up? Please let me know in the comments!

Book Review! The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Posted in Book Review, Books, Review, Sunday Book Club by
Courtesy of goodreads.com

Courtesy of goodreads.com

As a huge Harry Potter fan, I was nervous yet excited to read other J.K. Rowling novels. I was a bit disappointed that this was so far down on my reading list, but fate stepped in & a family friend gave it to me to borrow, so that immediately bumped it to next on the list! I had somewhat high expectations but I didn’t know exactly what I was expecting, after all, this couldn’t be another Harry Potter, but I figured the writing would still be excellent, despite hearing from my mom, the person that lent me the book, and another family friend, that this novel was complete and utter rubbish. Without further ado…

Plot: No spoilers here. To spoil this book would take a post that would undo the fabric of the internet because it would be so long. There are about 8 million characters in this book, and they can be hard to keep track of. I ended the book only mixing up two couples still, which I think is pretty good, as I had everyone else, their looks and their backstory, pretty much nailed down.
At its core, the book revolves around a small town, the people that inhabit it, and what happens to them when a major member of their community suddenly passes away. This book deals with sex, drugs, death, professional malpractice, and all sorts of other sordid, depressing topics and only ends semi-happily. The stories revolve around teenagers, their parents, and their grandparents, but there are no real main characters. Each character bounces from page to page, sometimes Rowling wouldn’t full on reveal that the characters were interacting, she’d be telling the story of one character & say, for example, “A small boy watched from the corner of the room, frowning”, then in another chapter she’d say, “Robbie stood in corner, frowing” & it was up to you to realize, “Ooohh hey! He’s the small boy from that other chapter!” Not all of these references mattered, but it just solidified that they were from the same town and in each others lives, even if THEY didn’t realize it.

Thoughts: The idea that the people in the town didn’t really realize they were all connected brings me right into what I thought about the story. I think that’s really the message Rowling was trying to tell, that we’re all connected and everything we do touches the people in our community. One action or non action creates a string of events that can help or hurt someone further down the line. These people were mostly busy trying to tear each other down, they didn’t see how they were hurting their children, so the kids acted out, and didn’t realize how their actions would change the course of the futures around them. I think most of the characters thought they were doing the right thing. No one was particularly despicable to me or particularly likeable, they all just seemed like really real people. Stupid teens, gossipy old ladies, victims of unhappy lives. There were a few characters to root for, but you knew it was either going to end sadly, or way too bubble gum happy, neither a very satisfying ending, but for me, I’d choose realism any day.

One important topic I’d like to touch on was brought up by someone that read the book before me and referred to it as “pornographic” and thought the Rowling was trying WAY too hard to make the book adult, to the point that the material was disgusting & the reader could barely get through the book. Hmm…I’m not sure what other books this person is reading, but I have to disagree wholeheartedly! Yes, there’s sex, but it’s barely graphic! At most it’s like, “He got on top of her and the bed began creaking”, there’s no description of the acts or anything!
This book kept me thoroughly entertained, I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up most of a night trying to figure out what madness would happen next and what would happen to these characters. They characters themselves don’t really touch a place in my heart that made me care for them, but I guess I was looking at it from more of a writer’s perspective, like, where would Rowling take these stories next!? Yes, this is much different from Harry Potter, there is no magic here, only the cruel real world, but there is light at the end of this tunnel too. Despite the death and destruction caused by these characters, Rowling manages to show that there is good in everyone, we just have to look for it, and sometimes, help bring it out.
One other thing, the way this book is written is very visual to me, I could definitely see this as a movie & with Rowling’s history, that’s a very big possibility. It was funny though because I kept imagining certain characters as the Dursleys or students of Hogwarts, as portrayed in the Harry Potter films. Guess my imagination wasn’t working too hard on this one :/

Overall rating: B.

Book Review! Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon

Posted in Book Review, Books, Disney, Review, Sunday Book Club by
Courtesy of Goodreads.com

Courtesy of Goodreads.com

I’ve already read another of this author’s novels, “Godmother. The Secret Cinderella Story”, which focuses on the fairy godmother from “Cinderella”. That book is DARK & I LOVE it! I generally always enjoy grown up books about fairy tales, “Beastly” & “Wicked” come to mind, but “Godmother…” is just beyond excellent. Not for the faint of heart, it’s pretty dark and sometimes confusing, but definitely worth reading. I loved “Godmother…” so much, I immediately put most of Turgeon’s other books on my list of books to read. “Mermaid…” intrigued me because I’ve always been fascinated by mermaid lore, and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” is one of my favorite movies, Ariel is my 2nd favorite princess 🙂 (Belle is the first!) I started this book with really high expectations, but sadly they weren’t quite met…

Plot w/SPOILERS!:
Lenia, our little mermaid that longs to be part of the human world and have a soul. Unfortunately, she’s not even allowed to be on the surface, except on her 18th birthday. She breaks all the rules and saves a handsome sailor from drowning and of course, falls in love. She brings him to shore, but realizes that without legs, there’s not a whole heck of a lot she can do. Fortunately…or unfortunately, Lenia is able to mentally connect with a nearby girl and tells her to save the man. Lenia leaves, all the while thinking of ways to get back to her love.
Margrethe is the other woman, Princess of the North, keeping a secret identity and being hidden at a convent due to threats of war from the South Kingdom. After hearing Lenia’s mental message, she saves the man, who is revealed to be the Prince of the SOUTH, but oh well, she’s already in love with him.
Lenia, meanwhile, makes a deal with a sea witch…I’m sure you’ve heard this before…trading her fins and voice for legs. She must marry the prince because then he’ll give her part of his soul and she’ll become human. If he marries someone else, Lenia dies. She swims back to shore, the princes finds her and pretty quickly they become…uhm…close. This is where the book starts to take a more adult turn, womanhood’s being broken, sticky wet sheets, that sort of thing. The sex isn’t graphic, but you definitely know it happened. Lenia is stoked because her mom never warned her that nobody buys the cow when they can get the milk for free so she thinks sex means love/marriage, but the rest of the court is giggling because they know there’s no way the prince is gonna marry some random mute.
Margrethe, meanwhile, is also plotting how to get back to her love. She decides the best way to do that is to arrange a marriage with his family, thereby forcing their love and peace between the kingdoms – a true politician!
The prince is pissed that his father agrees to the marriage especially because LENIA IS PREGNANT! Margrethe has moved into the South Kingdom, and at first doesn’t recognize Lenia but finally does after spying on her while she talks to her mermaid sisters who have worked with the sea witch to come up with a plan to make Lenia a mermaid again. All she has to do is spill the Prince’s blood on her legs and she’ll be able to come home, good as new. Of course, Lenia refuses. With the wedding day upon her, Lenia is desperate to have her child see the light of day so she forces an early labor then heads to the ocean to die. Margrethe is horrified at the consequences of her actions and in an act of pure genius, spills SOME of her blood on Lenia’s legs because now that she and the prince are married, their blood and souls are connected. Lenia turns back into a mermaid, able to rejoin her family, while Christopher and Margrethe raise her daughter, start their own family and live happily ever after. THE END.

Thoughts:
While I loved the way this book was written, this story just didn’t get as dark as I wanted it to. I think if I had read this first then followed with “Godmother…” I would have thought this was an excellent book, but because I was comparing the two, “Mermaid…” was just good. This book was more true to the “twist on the classic” format. It simply told the original Hans Christian Andersen version of “The Little Mermaid”, but with Turgeon’s spin, as opposed to “Godmother…” which told the story of completely different characters and changed pretty much everything except the basic idea of “Cinderella”. I plowed through this book waiting for her to reveal that the story was really set in modern times, or Margrethe and Lenia were the same person or something dark and twisted! Sadly, no. Don’t get me wrong, great story, great writing, just not what I was expecting.

Lenia was a sad character. She’s that dumb friend that has sex on every first date she goes on and can’t understand why she doesn’t have a boyfriend. However, the prince WAS sending her some pretty mixed signals. At first he’s like “You’re fine – let’s do this. Hey btw, there’s this other girl, she saved me, I dunno who she is, but I love her. You’re cool with that right?” but then almost overnight he started telling her he loved her and wanted to marry her, but oh whoopsie, his father won’t allow that. I’m not sure the prince was really outraged by his arranged marriage because he wanted to marry Lenia instead, or because he didn’t want to be told what to do. Also, I generally dislike when characters fall in love at first sight, especially if it’s one sided, but hey! – that’s fairy tales!

One of my favorite parts was when Margrethe has realized who Lenia is and she kind of confronts her about being in love with the prince. All along Margrethe thought Lenia brought the prince to her, as some sort of gift, or sign from God that she should love him and bring peace to the kingdom, so she doesn’t understand why Lenia is pregnant with his kid. I LOVED that Lenia quickly puts an end to that delusion and straight up just shakes her head in confusion like “Uh, no, I never said any of that, you were just supposed to save him because you had legs, then leave him alone”. Naturally, this makes Margrethe feel like a complete idiot because now she’s broken up this relationship and condemned her friend to death. I feel like in a typical story, Lenia would have been really self sacrificing and demure and said something like, “Oh yes, of course sweetie, I only wanted the best for you”, while holding back tears because she’s about to die because this other girl got the message wrong. Nothing I like better than characters who respond like real people!

The ending of this book was kind of disappointing because it ended with happiness (I know that sounds bizarre, but I was expecting it to be darker), but I did enjoy that Margrethe solved my ago old irritation with the plan that turns the Little Mermaid back into a mermaid by spilling the prince’s blood. Why does everyone always think it has to be ALL the blood? Perhaps in the original version she’s told she must “KILL the prince”? I’m not 100%, but I’ve always wondered why she couldn’t just take a little blood, which is exactly what Margrethe does, despite the fact that marriage in no way connects two people’s blood, but I understand it’s symbolism being taken literally.

I would be really interested to know if Turgeon believes the things she writes about marriage based on personal or religious beliefs, or if she just thought the idea of souls/blood connecting when two people are married sounded romantic. I appreciated that the daughter ended up being the soul that Lenia wanted so badly, referencing the idea that children we leave behind will always be a piece of us and therefore we live forever in our bloodlines. She may not have gotten that soul that would let her live forever in Heaven, but now she’ll always have a bloodline out there somewhere, children that will always have a connection to the sea, long after Lenia herself becomes part of it. DEEP. Hopefully that’s the idea I was supposed to take away from the story.

Overall rating: B

Book Review! Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

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Twelfth Night Oh Shakespeare, what can I say about you? First off, let me say, if you’ve seen the Amanda Bynes movie “She’s the Man”, you have seen a modern adaptation of “Twelfth Night”…and one of Channing Tatum’s first films. Congrats! But moving on…”Twelfth Night” is a gender bender star crossed lovers type story, basically the Shakespeare comedy format.
SPOILERS!
Olivia is a Countess who is in mourning over the deaths of her father and brother, leaving her in charge of her own destiny…and fortune and land and all that good stuff. Everyone is trying to get a piece of her, but she doesn’t want anyone…until she meets Cesario, who she believes to be a messenger from one of her admirers Duke (or Count) Orsino. What Olivia doesn’t know is…Cesario is really a young woman named Viola who happens to secretly be in love with Orsino. Viola has been separated from her twin brother Sebastian in a shipwreck, both believes the other is probably dead. She dresses as a man to gain employment from Orsino, but unfortunately falls in love with him and has to help him scheme for ways to win over Olivia.
There’s a side story involving some other characters, most recognizably Malvolio, that involves the characters playing a prank on Malvolio that ends with him being considered insane and getting locked up. Don’t fret, that ends well eventually.
The story wraps up rather quickly when Sebastian finds himself in the same town as Viola and Oliva mistakes him for Cesario. She proposes an engagement, which he agrees to despite the fact that he’s NEVER MET HER, guess she’s just THAT good looking. After a rather awkward encounter when Viola and Sebastian meet up again and everyone is confused as all hell, Viola explains that she’s a lady and in love with Orsino. They decide the best thing to do would be to have a joint wedding. The End.

Thoughts:
Typical rom-com shenanigans. No one is impressed. Didn’t hate this book, didn’t love it, read it just to cross it off my list of classics to read and I wanted to see how it compared to the movie. Honestly seeing the movie kind of helped me keep track of the characters because I assigned faces to them, yes, my imagination could’ve helped me with that too, but the movie characters took over. I was really depressed at the way the couples so easily agreed to switch partners. I can understand Viola and Orsino ending up together because at least they were confidantes/close friends, now it’s even better because he’s allowed to touch her junk! On the other hand, Olivia and Sebastian ending up together…what?! Come on, they’d literally never met. I don’t like it. Alright, overall rating – C.

Book Review! The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais

Posted in Book Review, Books, Review, Sunday Book Club by

One day I swear I’ll post stuff on this blog in a timely manner.

Courtesy of Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

This book came to me in the form of a Penguins Classic set, two stories, one book – couldn’t be more convenient! I didn’t really know too much about the story of “The Marriage of Figaro” other than that it was an opera, but “The Barber of Seville” is what “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is based on, so that’s what drew me to the first story since “Sweeney Todd…” is one of my favorite movies.

“The Barber of Seville”, hereafter known as The Barber, was really easy to get into. The similarities popped off the page for anyone who’s ever seen “Sweeney Todd…” It was pretty much like following along with the movie. Nasty old man wants to marry his beautiful young ward – she loves someone more age appropriate. Through elaborate schemes and plots the two young people get together and live happily ever after. Imagine that. There’s humor and some weirdness throughout the story, I can see why it makes a good, albeit, elaborate!, opera. See the movie as well if you really want to connect to this. Overall rating – C.

“The Marriage of Figaro”, a different story altogether. While I mean that literally, I also mean, it just simply wasn’t as entertaining as The Barber. The basic plot revolves around more schemes from Figaro and his impending marriage. I sped read through this just because I wanted to get it over with and move on to the next book on my book list.
Overall rating – D.

All in all, pick up this combo if you 1) have seen the stage shows of either of these stories or 2) are interested in classic literature. Otherwise, there’s really no value here for you.

Book Review! The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht – LATE POST

Posted in Book Review, Books, Review, Sunday Book Club by

This story has been on my book list for a VERY long time. It was recommended as additional reading in my Mythology & Folklore class that I took many many semesters ago & I finally got around to reading it about a week ago :/ Moving on…I LOVED my Myth/Folk class so I was super excited that this book had finally made its way to the top of my book list. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed.

^^^^^The above notes were written January 10th, the last time I updated my blog. I’m so bad 😦 I’ve been so busy with College Program, applying/getting ready for Chapman, and just living life, blogging has fallen to the back burner.
Seeing as I read this book about 7 months ago, I unfortunately don’t remember too much of it – which I guess says something! Here’s what I do remember…the writing was really eloquent, very well done. The author is in her mid twenties, or at least she was when she wrote the book, so I was really impressed by her. The story was interesting, mysterious, kept me reading, EXCEPT, it draaaagggeeeddddd. The plot lines kept twisting and turning but there was no real resolution until the very last chapter and even then it felt very unsatisfying. I was not very pleased with the ending. I wish I could get into more specifics, but the story didn’t stick with me enough to be memorable.

Final verdict: READ IT! I know I said it wasn’t memorable, and the ending leaves you with questions, but all in all the writing is really well done and the story is interesting. Maybe you’ll find something in the ending that I didn’t see, or can’t remember!

Book review! Beastly by Alex Flinn

Posted in Book Review, Books, Disney, Movie, Movies, Review, Sunday Book Club by

Hi everyone,
Sorry I’ve been gone for so long, I was just in the process of moving from the Bay Area down to Southern California & I’m still somewhat adjusting & settling down so I’ve been REALLY busy. It’s taken me over four days to get this post up because I keep stopping & starting. :/ I’m not sure I want to reveal exactly why I moved down to SoCal for privacy reasons, but I’m sure as time passes I’ll end up talking about some stuff.

Anyways, I’m a HUGE fan of Beauty & the Beast, so any type of re-telling or story that’s vaguely associated with it, is going to grab my attention. That’s exactly what Beastly is! Also, they’ve made this book into a movie that’s yet to be released, although from the previews, it looks a LOT different from the book so that’s going to be annoying. I’ll still probably see the movie anyway just for comparisons sake.

Available for $8.99 at Borders. Pic Credit goes to: lafemmereaders.blogspot.com

Beastly is a modern day re-telling of Beauty & the Beast told from the Beast’s point of view. This book is a Young Adult novel so it’s geared mostly towards pre-teens and teenagers. Despite the fact that, in my opinion, it’s not really meant for someone my age to read – I’m 20 – for the most part I enjoyed this book for a bit of light reading. Haha, saying that makes me feel like Hermione, & if you understand what I’m talking about you totally ROCK! I’m not going to talk about the plot because probably everyone knows the story of Beauty & the Beast & if I get too detailed about the way the book retells the events of the stories then we’ll get into spoiler territory!

Pros/Cons: I liked the way Flinn wrote Kyle (the Beast). I felt like his voice was really honest & typical of a teenage boy. Unfortunately, I felt the complete opposite about the way Linda (Beauty…I liked the use of this symbolic name. Linda in Spanish means beautiful!) was written. Her voice felt very fake & forced. This is ironic to me because the book was written by a woman & usually women are better at tapping into their own gender. I liked how the story was sort of a mix of the original tale, plus the Disney version, & many other aspects from transformation stories. I feel like the author really did her homework when researching fairy tales. Another thing I really liked was the chat room sessions. I thought they were SO clever and a great way to incorporate other transformation tales & subtly encourage readers to read those other stories. I did think the ending of the book was kind of just thrown together/rushed. The rest of the book is paced very well so you aren’t getting too much information all at one time, but for some reason the ending felt like WHAM! BAM! LET’S TIE THIS ALL UP, GOTTA GET THIS BOOK FINISHED!! & yes, the twists are somewhat predictable, but that’s kind of hard to escape with a book that’s retelling an already popular story.

Rating: B+. For me, this book was just okay. You can’t really mess with the perfection that is the original story, so I didn’t anticipate this book being outstanding, but it was fairly decent. I can appreciate the author’s version of the story & the obvious hard work she put into it, but this book isn’t making it on my bookshelf. My bookshelf is home to the “A” grade books such as Wicked by Gregory Maguire, Home, a memoir of Julie Andrews’ early years & Spencerville by Nelson DeMille, just to name a few. I’m glad I read it & I may even go pick up some other books by Flinn, she has several other fairy tale remakes, just to see how she interprets/modernizes those stories. Also, at the end of the book there’s a little author’s note in which she talks about some of the books she read to help research for Beastly & they all sounded pretty interesting, so I’ll probably add those to my list of books to read. All in all, if you’re into fairy tales, go pick up this book & give it a try. It never hurts to read more literature, unless it’s Twilight. In all seriousness, it never hurts to add more literature into your life & we’re all entitled to our likes & dislikes 🙂

Let me know if you’ve read this book, plan on reading it, plan on NEVER reading it & your opinions. Tell me if there’s other books you’d think I’d like based on this review. Thanks for reading, stick around!

Love, Al-Leigh