Size Doesn’t Matter – A Review

Rating: 4 out of 5!

Heather Wells got her self a boyfriend of the name of Tad. Miserable though since his name is Tad, is definitely nowhere near the Cooper Cartwright, they have no similarities, he’s a vegetarian and has no TV. Miserable. But still happy. Add that to the possibility of her passing her first college course and her Dad finally moving out, she’s happy enough.

But as usual, such happiness are put momentarily on pause since she once again finds another murder and this time, it’s her boss. Shot at the head with the windows open. This time, the murderer is murdering for a very funny and odd reason that this crime might actually be called a joke.

Would she actually be a bride? Or should that gown on the cover be blood stained.

Following the life of Heather Wells on Size 12 Is Not Fat and Size 14 Is Not Fat Either, Meg Cabot writes the final installment of the series, putting an end to a never ending murder that Heather ends up solving and of her heartbreaks of the one she ever dreamed to marry, Cooper Cartwright.

This is a very late review and I just noticed yesterday that I forgot to review the book! I read this ages ago but since Meg Cabot has a very simple plot with a very simple writing, I still haven’t forgotten the facts and the feeling on reading the book.

Heather was hilarious. As well the many other things and the reason for the killing is on top of that. It was fun and pleasure to read. Just like reading the Harry Potter series, I felt sad knowing it’s going to end. I’m going to miss Heather as much I as would dearly miss the trio.

The Book of Tomorrow – A Review

Rating: 5 out of 5!

Tamara Goodwin was stripped off of everything she had once with the death of her father. She and her mother sold everything they ever had. Not only were they poor and living in Arthur and Rosaleen’s – her uncle and aunt – house, they had been stripped off of the power and will to move on and live. With the help of a very magical and mysterious diary that tells the future, Tamara uncovers the truth behind the lies she was taught to believe with and exposes secrets kept for years.

The Book of Tomorrow is another novel by Cecelia Ahern. It’s another fictional story dipped in magic.

Tamara is exactly like the girls usually seen in TV – spoiled and wild. She’s a girl I try not to be. It’s a common plot in a book: a young rich girl turned poor and homeless. What was good about it is how she changed and evolved intro somebody else, far different yet better. She started to think and reflect, she was helping her family move on and she realized how much she loved and appreciated her father despite his wrong decision and pride. It’s like in those sayings that tell how you appreciate something when it’s no where near your grasp anymore.

At first, you would guess that the book will teach her never to meddle with the future. But Ahern was realistic. You can never meddle with the future. Instead, the book taught Tamara to think of the consequences of our actions. As the end nears, I learned a lot along with her. I understood and will try to keep in my heart and never forget.

The book was trying to lead Tamara into something else too. At the first few chapters, I thought the book will drag and just when my eyelid were starting to droop, the book jerked my eyes open, alert and curious. I will not spoil the fun for you but let me hint, old secrets will be uncovered. And it will all start with someone – someone and her jealousy, lies, and too much loving. Just like a quote someone sent me, anything that’s too much, spills and is wasted. Imagine pouring water over a glass filled to the brim.

Cecelia Ahern never failed me so far. I think these ideas were not new but she introduced all of them to me – falling in love with an invisible person, acquiring the skill and knowledge of your anonymous blood benefactor, finding a place where all things lost end up, pills that can make you work at two places at a time, and now this, a diary that tells the future.

She’s a brilliant author with brilliant books and I am so happy she’s still young and no where near retiring.

According To Jane – A Review

Hearing voices on your head is not a good thing and it will surely earn you a visit to the psychologist. But if the highly praised and very famous Ms. Jane Austen talks to you through your mind, surely you’d be honored.

This exactly happens to Elizabeth Barnett, one very lucky and ironically, unlucky woman. With Jane on her side acting as the sister, the best of friends, and the mentor, Ellie goes through a lot of man hunting, high hoping, and painful break ups resulting to a very low fall back to loneliness with tears on her cheeks and a painful bum.

According To Jane had a very simple message – to listen to your heart, not to someone’s else. Finding out what you truly wants is far different from feeling that you want this because someone raised such point. It makes a difference.You could listen and follow the advice but be able to recognize when its time to use your own understanding.

Jane Austen as a character is very entertaining as well as an author, voicing out her opinion in Regency Era language and expressing her distaste in antique cursing. In every advice and warning, Jane speaks words of wisdom and truth. It must have been really convenient to have Jane Austen guiding your sense.

One highly praised positive factor in this book is how relationships evolve and grow, how people grow up.

Ellie and her sister, Diana, for instance. Siblings tend to separate first, marking the one geek and the other the bitch. Then how they seek each other out as time elapses, needing, helping, defending each other – portraying the truth in my parents’ words that in the future, it’s each other’s company you will have.

Even before Mr. Darcy arrived in Ellie’s front steps, I knew this was coming. I knew his intentions. But I have yet to know how he is going to prove himself. Brant fashioned this modern Mr. Darcy from the Regency Era Mr. Darcy – the same haughty and arrogant manner we all recognize. There was certainly a hint of Pride and Prejudice in this book (which of course satisfied Laurel Ann, hence the 5 stars) enough to make us giggle with delight as we recognize the same man, the same action, the same words…

The modern Darcy and Bennett tandem beautiful enough to feed the hearts of Austen fans. It’s a love story we recognize, recycled, and will be much appreciated as the original.

Rating: 4.5 out 5!

The Undomestic Goddess – A Review

Samantha Sweeting is one of the best lawyers in Carter Spink and possibly could become of the partners on this prestigious law firm. But when she makes a very huge, elementary mistake, she runs away and ends up in the English countryside, dehydrated and suffering with a headache.

You think her life would end up miserably with some gruesome kidnapping but instead, she is welcomed into the Geiger’s abode thinking she’s applying as a housekeeper. Not knowing on how to cook, clean, iron or use the washing machine, Nathaniel the gardener offers her help through lessons from his own mother. She not only learns how to cook with her senses and manage the household chores but she is allowed a freedom she never had back in the city.

This book has confirmed my love for Sophie Kinsella. She pulled me into a world I wish I had.

Back here in the Philippines, you couldn’t see much parks or gardens that would bring you a feel of the countryside. I myself is a city girl and would always be but somewhere inside me, I would really love to spend my days in a simple house with open windows, letting the fresh air and flowery scent in.

As Sam sees beyond Cotswolds, I feel like I too was seeing what she was supposed to be seeing. More than that, Kinsella made me realize that I really want to bake and cook. I wanted to be taught by Iris. I want to go to Italy and enroll myself in a culinary class. I want to be in the vicinity of the kitchen with pans and pots, flour and baking tins, ovens and granite tops.

I don’t know what is in this book but when Samantha found out about the 5o million mistake, the setup, when she was now part, not just in, of Nathaniels world, and when everything is revealed toppling the perfectly arranged life of Sam, I felt like I too was falling down along with her. In short, this book pulls you. Or rather, it pulled me.

The Undomestic Goddess did not fail me. I could ignore the slight stubbornness of Samantha and how fickle minded she is.  There is so much beauty and simple joys described you too would feel elated.

Samantha, then lawyer, now housekeeper, is completely changed and is ready to give up what is in the past. The impact cooking, the countryside and it’s simple no-hurry lifestyle and most of all Nathaniel made on Sam’s life is so huge and profound it affected me.

I just don’t want to learn how to bake and cook. I want to excel in the kitchen.

I cannot miss pointing out that Kinsella placed fears on me too. I plan to take law and become a good lawyer but reading on how this deprives you of relaxing and contemplating your life and not the paper in front of you.. I got scared. Every six minutes in Carter Spink is recorded and costs 5o euros. You leave the office on 11 pm. You miss your birthdays. You get twitchy and tense. You check your BlackBerry every 30 seconds.

But I won’t hold back on law. Who knows Kinsella is lying?

Just the same, you shouldn’t hold back on this book as I assure you I am not lying. Cross my heart and hope to die. ♥

Rating: 4 out of 5!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – A Review

Juliet Ashton is a successful writer in need of a subject for a book. As letters from unknown people arrive in her doorstep, she is introduced to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  She meets new friends through hand written letters. She learns about the German Occupation in the Channel Islands and the stories of bravery and pain and suffering of the German soldiers, the Islanders, the Todt workers, and of a woman named Elizabeth McKenna.

Reading the book transported me into a world I never experienced and I hope I will never live to see. Shaffer and Barrows is the perfect duo to create the perfect characters and you know when the characters are perfect when to you, they seemed real.

As I try to reorganize my mind, I cannot think of a good start to describe this book perfectly. I think, I cannot give a review able to bring justice to such a book. Reading it was life feeling the wind pass by. A very quick read that didn’t seem like I needed some deep thinking. It’s a book that requires just a deeper feeling and understanding. Reading about war is not like eating pie. I doubt you could eat right after even.

The Society is a group of people with such odd combination of personality. With the letters they send to Juliet, I could understand what pushed her to take a boat and ride to Guernsey, see they island and the people itself – the stories that are about to be told, the experiences of the people in the Occupation, the Society itself. I believe Juliet finished her book splendidly. If she can write such humorous and entertaining letters, how much more a whole thick book? Now, that would be easy as pie.

There were more pressing points that I couldn’t get out of my mind. The German soldiers were pitiful and I think, I pitied them more than the people. As the Red Cross ship arrived and unloaded the heaps of boxes containing food supplies and all thing important, they never stole or took away anything for themselves but instead scraped whatever flour or sugar that may fell on the ground with their spoons. They killed cats and dogs or steal on vegetable gardens or knock for food. Everything was scanty.

One of the characters stood out among others and that was Elizabeth. She was so brave that I doubt my confidence already. If she was a real person, she would be part of history just for her courage. Do you have one? She stood up for people she barely knows, for people she can ignore or leave behind but she did not. Can you do that?

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society may be about the Occupation but it wasn’t gruesome or violent as you would think. The suffering told and described clearly might want you to look away for a moment but you couldn’t put the book down. Shaffer started the book well and Barrows ended it with magic. You would think the book may drag, confusing, or uninteresting but it wasn’t.

It all started with letters, turned to friendship, then a closer relationship, and ended in what else? Marriage. Romance didn’t take the center stage here but for me it did. It was something so unforgettable, asked in a the most odd way and ended most beautifully.

I shall keep this sacredly.

Rating: 5 out of 5!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – A Review

I am utterly disappointed. In the book cover, Logan Lerman is facing somewhere else and not facing me where I could lust over his face and tuck this book under my pillow. Aside from that, the book is as mighty as Zeus’ lightning bolt.

Percy Jackson was so much more than a dyslexia and ADHD patient, transferred six schools in six years. He’s a half blood – half god, half human, son of Poseidon, god of the Sea. Now this information comes as a shock and isn’t as luxurious as it sounds. Zeus threatens war. His lightning bolt was stolen and Percy, son of Poseidon who Zeus recently had an argument with, is the prime suspect. Given the deadline until the summer solstice, Percy must retrieve the lightning bolt from the real thief along with Grover, his protector and half goat and Annabeth, daughter of Athena.

Book one is jam packed with adventures, riddles and puzzles to solve, and gods, goddesses and monsters to defeat – Minotaurs, the Furies, Medusa, Ares – to name a few. It’s like opening door after door until you open the last one and find yourself talking to Hades, god of the Underworld. A step by step quest not at all easy if this was not fiction. It’s super coated of all things amusing – from the title chapters, the gods and goddesses and their habits, the world of Olympus, the demigods, Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan’s humor.

In Half Blood Hill, where half bloods train and strengthen their skills, they are grouped in cabins depending on who your father or mother is. As in the case of Percy, he stays alone in cabin three as the only son of Poseidon. This reminds me of the houses in Hogwarts which I sorely miss.

Percy’s mother married a man who stinks and plays poker all day, drinking beer and decorating the house with litter. She put up with this man in order to cover up the strong scent that Percy has as his father is one of the Big Three. This reminds me also of the beautiful Lily Potter who sacrificed herself for her son.

Not that I have a suspicious point to raise. Moving on.

An idea from the book caught me and my attention.  As they stayed for the night in the forest littered with beer cans and all things plastic, Grover can’t help but complain how we human littered the world, how there are less stars visible at the night. The article I read on Yahoo! News comes into mind. How the sky was amazingly clear and pristine blue when all flights were canceled due to the volcano eruption. I remember also the times whenever my Dad and I would travel to the country side of the Philippines and I could clearly see the bare part of the mountain hill, just brown when it’s supposed to be green. I can’t help but think that I’m one of these sort of people.

As Percy, Annabeth and Grover travel through the Underworld, Charon explain how human littered the River Styx with broken dreams and shattered hopes. After all, all things dead and broken end up in the Underworld.

My curious mind can’t help but wonder, could hell be littered with such sad things too?

In the movie, the director made changes to the plot and though some are in the negative opinion on these changes, I am not part of this percent. One of these changes is the obvious pair up of Annabeth and Percy when in the book I could see no love signs. I tried to look for it but I found something else.

Poseidon’s love for Percy’s mother was true and pure as the pearls under the ocean.

“Poseidon call you a queen,” I (Percy) told her (Percy’s mother). “He said he hadn’t met a woman like you in a thousand years.“

. . . .

She wiped a tear off her cheek. “You sound so much like your father,” she said. “He offered to stop the tide for me once. He offered to build me a palace at the bottom of the sea. He thought he could solve all my problems with a wave of his hand.”

Calling a woman a queen is old school but this line made it feel so special. I think I could call my Mom a Queen.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is another book I wish to display beside our Harry Potter series. It deserves a place such as that. I’ll cover it with a plastic cover so after I reread it for the 50th time, it would still look okay. This is not just about adventures. There’s such things as family and making decisions, weighing options that almost weighs the same. Love, friendship, family. Bravery and wisdom.

It’s a good thing that Percy has a very interesting life to entertain me for a period of four books.

P.S Forgive me if this is long. It might be because right after I put the book down, I opened my laptop and clicked New Post. Understandable.

Rating: 4 out of 5!

Can You Keep A Secret? – A Review

Emma Corrigan is faced with a very big problem. She blurted every single embarrassing secret of hers to a stranger she barely knows, sitting beside her in an airplane experiencing turbulence. So, is that a problem?

Yes, when those secrets include G-Strings and Barbie bedspreads.

Not knowing who this man is, she goes on with her life, about to move in with her boyfriend, Connor, and working for a big company until she learns that the very man she talked to was the same man who founded Panther Corporation – Jack Harper, the big boss.

Sophie Kinsella once again impressed me with such a novel.

When Jack delays his flight and stays for more than a week in London, Emma knew something was up. Jack asks her out. Not so surprising. Dating with the boss, keeping the reason as to why she broke up with Connor, and preventing herself from blurting out to the entire office where she was last night is a hard task.

But in every date, Jack always have emergency calls and meetings, cutting their time together. He can’t tell her what these calls and emergency meetings are. To Emma, a relationship is a two way lane. When Jack knows everything about her, she knows nothing about him. Plus, he exposes all of this on a TV interview! A happy tale seems to end in a sad sad ending.

Can You Keep a Secret? is the second novel I have from Sophie Kinsella. It’s a treat that had me wishing for more. I want to know more about Jack. I want a sequel. But when was this book published anyway? Long long time ago and I have read it just now. A shameful confession for such a good book. Kinsella didn’t bore me. Nor did the story dragged. Jack was in the right place and at the right time. The events that took place were ingredients that Emma needed on her lacking life.

This book makes me ponder though, is keeping a secret lying?

You and I have secrets. Sometimes, secrets are best not told. People share their secrets. You share your secrets to somebody else. Keeping a secret and controlling one’s self could be a difficult job for others. When you expose the secret which wasn’t yours to tell, you break friendships.

But in this case, secrets brought two people together, broke them apart, and brought them together again, this time stronger.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5!

The Lovely Bones – A Review

This book spoke to me. It narrated a story so brutal, yet so enchanting.

Susie Salmon was raped and murdered at a very young age. She arrives in heaven in possession with everything she wished and dreamed. But nothing is perfect. Does that include heaven? She thinks so. Her family is not in heaven. She can witness everything from up above – her real killer, Mr. Harvey acting without any guilt, without any trace. But nothing hurts more than seeing her family grieve and break apart – how her mother chose adultery as a way to forget her, how her little brother slowly turned his heart to stone, how her sister tries to be strong, and how her father tries to cope with the devastating truth, turning the lights on just in case she comes back.

She meets the other girls Mr Harvey killed.  She watches souls from every corner of the world leaving their bodies. Up there, you watch people love, cry, and die.

Heaven to me was a place with no sorrow, no pain and no hunger. It’s where you find what you didn’t get and what you lost back in Earth. It’s where you go back to your Creator. It’s where you watch over your loved ones.

It never came to my mind that heaven would be imperfect. I can feel the frustration of Susie as she just watch and sit doing nothing, how she would very much like to point out where exactly she was killed. What strucks  me the most is when you see your loved one about to die. Should you be happy for your gain or for the loss of those left in Earth? How would I feel if placed in such a situation?

In Heaven, you also wait, just like in Earth. You wish, you pray, and then it’s answered. You wish, you pray, that someday, your family would live painlessly and perfectly happy in heaven. Things happen. The winds take its course. It’s like what Mom said, just continue tugging God’s sleeve, endlessly praying until he gives in and answers your prayers – just like any parent.

The Lovely Bones is a very beautiful story that I loved and doted till the last page. Susie’s murder wasn’t that much interesting to me. What entranced me more is the idea, the concept of Sebold’s Heaven. Sebold writes beautifully, piercing words like a stab of a knife – sharp and painful. The book took long, it dragged, but I was gripped by her writing more than the story that I didn’t care much how odd the ending is. The feelings that death brought to the Salmon family was something I cannot overlook. There was so much supressed pain. So much bravado in Lindsay, Susie’s sister. Yet, so much weakness in her mother.

The story starts with hate and anguish but ends with love. It reminded me of a certain line from Harry Potter after the death of Dumbledore:

Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.

This I will never forget.

Rating: 4 out of 5!

At the end of the book, there was a sneak peek of chapter one of another book from Alice Sebold, The Almost Moon. It was about a daughter who killed her mother who had Dementia. She prepared her mother, washed her and tried to make her look pleasing and then suffocated the old lady. I know it sounds brutal and brutal just seems to be the right word for Sebold’s novel, but I would like to read it. Just sharing, in the hopes that you’d read with me.

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either – A Review

I was taken aback by how Size 12 Is Not Fat was written. How Meg Cabot, author of Princess Diaries, wrote a mystery and that I bought a book I thought was romance. I was more surprised with how I’m actually loving this series, most especially the second installment which, to me, is my favorite.

This time, interesting thing arises and as each one unfold, I fell in love with Meg Cabot and more with Heather Wells. Murder takes another level in the Residence Halls – the head cheerleader’s head is found inside the canteen’s cooking pot. Suspecting one of the wealthiest and oldest fraternities in the college, trouble takes a different, more dangerous route to find Heather.

With all the problems that she has – she’s trying to build a relationship with her father, she’s growing inch by inch with the good steaks her father is cooking, Jordan keeps on bugging her to attend his wedding while on the other hand, she’s dreaming of a wedding with Cooper, juggling such a crazy life would be nerve wracking. But Heather Wells will manage.

These are why I fell deep into a hole with this book, and more. Not am I only getting used to Meg Cabot’s writing (with the help of my sister’s explanation, I managed to get through the end of the book which is worth it by the way), but I am loving Heather like she’s loving Cooper. Heather was a pool of madness and humor.

What I was looking for in Size 12, I found in Size 14. It’s as if Meg Cabot was in the best condition, inspired mood while writing this book. I cannot forget the scenes I imagined in my head as I laughed at the writing on the wall. How surprised I am when I found out Gavin’s feelings. The tickling feeling when I knew who Reggie was. The regret that I hated the first one before. The sadness because I cannot buy the third installment until next month!

Meg Cabot is just so good at making a crucial situation so funny. I couldn’t not love her for that!

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either is like the Belgian chocolates Mom sent us, or the bread I just tasted a while ago. A treat I  must try  agian and again. The next time I saw Size Doesn’t Matter on the bookstore, I grabbed it without hesitance and doubt. I just knew Meg won’t fail me. Nor will Heather!

Rating: 5 out of 5!

I have returned to my old layout because it seemed redundant to have the book’s title on my entry title, the book cover, plus the book title above my rating. It’s simpler this way!

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet – A Review

“The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet” by Colleen McCullough

Rating: 3 out of 5!

How do you define a sequel? This book is a sequel of the beloved and famous Pride and Prejudice. As we all know, it ended in a happy note, Darcy and Lizzy finally together and every scratch and bumps sorted out. If I were to make a sequel of this book, should it also be happy or a little more sad? This book just happens to be a latter and I admit that I am quite surprised with the new turns of events and also that many doesn’t like this book as I did.

Mary Bennet is free of the shackles she’s been tied into since her birth. Her inferiority with Lizzy and Jane, the insecurity and everything that would come to mind of having a very unfair share of beauty is no longer around. Her tooth and face fixed, her mother and father dead, all of her sister’s married, she is left to her own and decide which path she will take. It so happens, that in this story Mary is not a goody two shoes as we thought while reading P&P.

Influenced by a very powerful character in the name of Argus, a journalist who talks of the illness and poverty of the other side of England and of the ignorance of the government, she sets off to find independence. She meant no husband, just herself, the money she is bestowed with and her plans in publishing a book about the same topic as Argus. Do you know where she ends up? In a cave. Now, how rad is that?

I read Laurel Ann’s review of this and she found it to be disappointing while I found it otherwise. I had an open mind while reading this book. The story was entirely different. Just as LA had pointed out, Mary was no longer the Mary we knew. Fitzwilliam was a heartless, cold, unloving man, just waiting for a chance to get rid of his wife’s stupid family, and most cruel to the heir of Darcy properties. Elizabeth’s marriage wasn’t what she imagined it to be. Jane has become a birth machine. Lydia is still a drunken woman, weeping and mourning after the death of Wickham. Kitty, boring. All four sisters took their own, different and strange ways.

So you ask, why do I like it? Maybe it’s because of the stupidity that it portrays that we all went through. The marriages that are broken and shattered which in reality, are marriages that happen anywhere. The love that could spring and bloom from the most unbelievable situations. A poverty that was described in the book which I often see here in my own poor country. The beauty after a storm.

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet isn’t the story at it’s best but how it was told, how it ended and what happened is amusing and attention grabbing enough for me to give it a rightful 3 stars. To me, McCullough just wrote a whole different story with characters from Jane Austen’s book. I know my review cannot prove my point nor can it persuade you to read the book. A book must have its own well-wishers at least. Book reviews are opinion of the reviewer and so we will never agree nor disagree unless you read it.