The Alchemist

Rich. Beautiful. Brilliant. It's amazing how a bestseller can so perfectly explain things about the Plan of Salvation and the purpose of life.

I Remember Nothing

I read this last week, and it was funny and cute. Nora Ephron wrote You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, and this funny little book. It's just a collection of personal essays and sort of memoir-ish, but it's mostly about funny things like how she doesn't remember anything--hence the title.

It takes like 2 hours to read, because it's big print and short, and it's the perfect book to read in the summer. I never like really sat down and READ, I would just pick it up for 10 minutes at a time while I was waiting for Chris to get ready to go somewhere, or waiting for dinner to come out of the oven--things like that. 

But yeah, it's just a cute, funny book that's super fast to read. It would be perfect for an airplane or the beach or something because there's not a plot or anything. Oh, and here's an excerpt. This is the first chapter of the book.



Bossypants

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this book around. The cover is really so gross. I couldn't handle looking at it.

The book itself, however, is very funny. There are a couple of F words, which is disappointing, but I thought it was really funny. It's sort of a memoir, but sort of just a collection of essays about different things in her life. Like there's a chapter about her dad, who sounded awesome. He was like a scary dad who everyone just respects the moment they meet him. And there's a chapter about starting at Saturday Night Live, and one about leaving to create 30 Rock, a chapter about her honeymoon cruise to Bermuda and how the ship caught on fire and everyone had to fly back to New York--stuff like that.

It was really fast, too. I picked it up from the library on Friday and finished it on Saturday. I probably spent 5 hours reading the whole thing. So it goes fast.

One of my favorite things about the book was the girl power-ness of it. I really liked that. She brings in little feminist elements throughout the whole thing, but my favorite part was when she talked about working at Second City, an improv group in Chicago. The improv group had a touring company, which toured, obviously, and a mainstage company, which put on shows in Chicago. The mainstage company had always been 6 people. 4 men, 2 women. When she was working there, they suggested that they change it to 3 men and 3 women. And the people in charge, whoever they were, argued that having an equal number wouldn't work, because there wouldn't be enough parts for all the girls. Tina Fey called this her first experience with the illusion of not enough. She was like, "Not enough parts? We're not doing Death of a Salesman. This is improv. We're making it up, it's not even real. Of course there will be enough parts." And for some reason that little experience was my favorite part of the book.

So yeah. It was good, it was fast, and I laughed out loud frequently. Excellent book by my favorite funny lady.

Wide Sargasso Sea

Don't read this if you don't know the ending of Jane Eyre.

So I heard about this book right after I finished Jane Eyre and I was really excited about it. As I heard, it was the story of Jane Eyre, but from the crazy Mrs. Rochester's perspective. And I LOVED Jane Eyre, so I was excited to read something from the other side. Obviously it's not a Bronte original, so it's not as if I expected it to just sweep me away, but I thought it would be good.

Not so much. Only the last like 15 pages of the book are set in England, at Thornfield. The rest is all about her growing up in the West Indies, and Mr. Rochester coming, and them getting married. Some of it is from his perspective, like him finding out from a guy in the town how her mom went nuts, etc. etc.

Some of the language and the descriptions of where they live are really beautiful, but a lot of it is just . . . I don't know. It's like it's trying too hard, maybe? That sounds mean, but that was what I thought.

And parts of it are kind of cool, like when she is little someone sets their house on fire in the middle of the night, and that really had a huge effect on her (obviously), so it was sort of a cool tie in to the ending of Jane Eyre, but also sort of not. It reminded me a little bit of a movie that is set in another time period and then they just happen to befriend Benjamin Franklin or Einstein or Rosa Parks--you know what I mean? Like it's sort of a cheap shot to bring in something you already know about to make the story seem more awesome.

It's pretty meh. I wouldn't really recommend it. The good thing though, is that it's short. It's like 190 pages of big print, it was practically like reading a Babysitter's Club book. It took me two lunch breaks. So it wasn't a huge investment of my time, so I didn't really mind that it wasn't awesome.

So yeah. I am definitely not saying, "Go out and read it!" But I'm also not saying you should avoid it like the plague. If for some reason a time comes in your life where someone puts this book in your hands, and you have nothing else good to read, go for it. Then tell me if you liked it or not, because I was obviously not very impressed.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Okay, so I’m on a bit of a Salman Rushdie kick. I swear the next book will be by someone else (I’m actually really excited to get back to that next book, and I look forward to this insane semester being over so I can finally finish it).

Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Utterly delightful.

It is a children’s novel, written by Rushdie immediately after Satanic Verses while he was hiding during the fatwa. He had promised his son a children’s book, and it was an excellent medium to discuss what was going on in his life at the time.

Haroun, our hero, is a boy who lives in “a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name.” His father, Rashid, is a storyteller, the Shah of Blah. Unfortunately, something terrible happens to him and he loses his Gift of the Gab—Haroun believes this is his fault and sets off on a journey to try and restore his father’s Gift of the Gab. During his journey he discovers the importance and power of words and speech, as well as the power of stories. The question, “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” is asked repeatedly throughout the novel, and by the end Haroun finds the answer.

True to form, Rushdie’s writing is phenomenal. As it is a story about stories and language, he uses some excellent word plays (one of my favorites is when Haroun meets the Plentimaw Fishes in the Sea of Stories) and often repeats an idea many times in various familiar idioms. He also explores the importance of free speech very deeply, and even though it is a light-hearted children’s novel, it is clearly filled with adult themes.

I loved this book. It made me laugh; it made me happy. It sometimes felt like The Phantom Tollbooth, which is an excellent one as well. It reminded me yet again how amazing and important the power of language is. It is a wonderful story.

Five stars, definitely.

Matched

I recently finished Matched, by Ally Condie. I was referred to this book even before it came out by a friend of mine who is an elementary school teacher and so is more into the teenage scene. And anyway, she introduced it to me as a "Hunger Games type book" and told me to put a hold on it even before it was released because it would be a popular one.

And anyway, I'm glad I did, because I got it just a few weeks after it was released, and now there are over 250 holds on this book at my library.

The point is, it is definitely a blockbuster book, and also a very juvenile book, but I thought it was also pretty good. It is very Hunger Games-like (futuristic, corrupt/secretive government, etc.). It was a very quick read. It is the first book of a series, and the author definitely spent more time on the love story development in this book than they did in the first Humger Games book, but I'm a girl, and I don't mind that too much. Although I am excited for the next books to see if we get a little more action going on in them.

I don't have a whole lot more to say about this book, other than it is a fun, easy and quick read, and that if you haven't already heard a ton about it, I think you definitely will be hearing about it in the coming months, so just get on the band wagon now because you probably will eventually. :)

Rainbow Valley

I first must tell you that Anne of Green Gables is my dearest love. I think it might actually be my favorite book. Anne is my favorite book character ever. I want to be her best friend so bad. And I think we probably would be. BOSOM FRIENDS, hello! And kindred spirits. Both.

The point is, this book is I think #7 in the Anne series. She's all grown up and has 6 kids. And this book is mainly about them and some of their friends. Anne is present, of course, but she's just not as central to the book as she is in all the other ones. But somehow you still want to be her so badly. This book made me excited to have kids and be the best mom of all time, like Anne is. (Jeez, this is embarrassing. Good thing I feel comfortable with you peeps.)

Rainbow Valley is what her kids name the spot behind their house. Don't you love Rainbow Valley as a name? I guess when you grow up in a house called Ingleside and your mom is responsible for names like White Way of Delight, Lake of Shining Waters, and Dryad's Bubble, coming up with Rainbow Valley is no big deal.

The book is just about all their little adventures, and also their friends, the minister's kids. And typical of all the Anne books, by the end, you just love every single person in it. I think that's L.M. Montgomery's greatest strength, creating lovable characters.

Anyway, it's great. If you haven't read all the other Anne books you probably won't care about it quite as much, but it's just adorable.

Also, if you haven't read all the other Anne books, you must do so immediately.

Ok, that's a lie. You need to read Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island immediately. The others are less urgent. And actually, those are the only ones I read as a youngin, so that's probably why I like them best. I tried getting into Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne's House of Dreams when I was like 11, but I think I thought they were boring or something because she's all grown up, and the romantic tension with Gilbert was over. But as an adult, I love them, because they're about her as a wife and stuff.

So yeah. Rainbow Valley. Way cute.

Chains

Middle school book club success! I'm always happy to read books that have received the Scott O'Dell book award, I feel like you can't go wrong. This is a good young adult fiction book about slavery during the Revolutionary War. It was an interesting take, because usually you don't learn about those two things together, slavery goes with the Civil War. I also liked it because as a slave, the main character heard a lot from both sides of the conflict and really neither side truly supported what she really needed in life- freedom. I believe it's the first book in a series, and I liked it well enough to hopefully read the next one(s).

The Uglies Series

I recently read the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld.

This is what wikipedia has to say about it:
Uglies is a 2005 science fiction novel by Scott Westerfeld. It is set in a future post-scarcity dystopian world in which everyone is turned "Pretty" by extreme cosmetic surgery upon reaching age 16. It tells the story of teenager Tally Youngblood who rebels against society's enforced conformity, after her new found friends Shay and David show her the downsides to becoming a "pretty". Written for young adults, Uglies deals with adolescent themes of change, both emotional and physical, and dealing with the revelation that "some of what you’re taught isn’t true, your parents are flawed human beings and the world isn’t constructed for your benefit.” The book is the first installment in what was originally a trilogy, The Uglies series which includes Pretties and Specials and Extras.

This is what I have to say about it:
I liked this series okay. Obviously I liked it enough to finish the original 3 books of the series. I did not read Extras because I heard it didn't really have a lot to do with the storyline of the other books, and I was just done with reading these books for a while. Anyway the point is I liked the books. I would probably give them a 3 out of 5 stars rating. The thing I didn't really like about the book was all of the slang and made up words they had (i.e. "pretty-making" "bubbly" (which I realize is a real word, but Mr. Westerfeld invented a new definition for it) and others that I currently can't remember). Anyway, it bugged me to read those and to listen to them (I listened to the last 2 books of the series on cd, which also could have contributed to my hate of the slang and made up words because the reader was ANNOYING to the max) to the point where I have made it one of my new year's goals to start cutting slang and annoying words out of my own daily vocabulary out of fear of me causing this pain on the people that surround me. 

So yeah, overall 3 out of 5 stars. They kind of reminded me of The Hunger Games series, but were written a little too juvenile for me (which says a lot :) )

Before Green Gables

This was a fun book. It describes Anne's life before she reaches Green Gables. Because I am a sucker for all things L.M. Montgomery and I love spinoffs, I was very excited when I found this book. In some ways, it didn't disappoint - the details about Anne's early life give dimension to characters that were previously flat, almost villainized, such as Mrs. Hammond and Mrs. Thomas. You learn that Mrs. Thomas loved Anne's mom and that Mrs. Hammond has 8 children under the age of 4 (for some reason, I always thought there was more space between her "three sets of twins in succession"). You learn that Anne's mother was painfully shy and that Anne's father, unlike Anne, is very good at geometry.

However, this book was high on the cheese. There were many "cleverly insert perfectly correlating detail" moments. I think they were meant to make the book seem more believable as a true prequel to Anne of Green Gables but they just made it seem contrived.

Still, I enjoyed it and would recommend it, especially if you love L.M. Montgomery. 3 out of 5 stars. For more detailed rantings and ravings go to The Story Girl.