79 - Reading Riot no. 7 & 8

So... I've been pretty busy the last couple weeks. As you can probably tell due to my lack of posts... haha. I started out last week reading a WWII memoir, Unbroken, but I've unfortunately had to put that on hold due to lack of time! But that one will be the subject of a post in the near future. So, for last week I did a reread, and for this week I did a must-read.

I know you'll probably judge me, but last week's book was...

Breaking Dawn, by Stephanie Meyer. I am like all the rest of the country in that I have read all of the Twilight Saga. However, I'm going to be hipster for a minute and say that I read Twilight when I was 13, and it wasn't because anyone suggested it to me. I just randomly picked it up at the library, and then I suggested it to everyone else, and let everyone borrow my copy. That being said, I was 13. Cut me a little slack. After reading Providence, and recognizing many similarities, I decided to reread Twilight and realized that everything I accused Providence of (lack of character and relationship development) was true of Twilight as well. I just hadn't read it in such a long time, so I remembered it with my younger mind. I tried to reread the whole series, but I couldn't get past New Moon and decided just to skip to the one I've only read twice. (I like to reread books a lot...)

Breaking Dawn was the best one, I think, but the series still doesn't have much substance... and if you look deeper into its meaning, the messages are really quite terrible. Bella is only truly happy with herself after she's changed with Edward. She claims sex is the epitome of human life. (Edward does make her wait until marriage, but still.) Her codependent relationship with Edward advocates unhealthy relationships, almost making them desirable. From an analytical point of view, you could say that Meyer is trying, in a backward way, to say those things aren't healthy in the real world by placing her characters in a fantasy world... but I'd say that's stretching it a bit. ANYWAY. If you want to read a really funny and really true critique of Breaking Dawn, click here. (Sara showed me this a few years back.)

Now onto my second read. For years, people have been telling me to read this book, and this week I finally gave in and read it.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.

Ok, this book is a bit morbid. Well, more than a bit morbid. The whole premise is about an event in a dystopian world where children are in a game of Survivor. The winner is the last one alive. It gets pretty gory for a young adult read, but I actually really liked it. I kind of read it in one night... haha. It's very fast-paced, and the characters are very likable.

I was talking to my roommate, who read it just prior to me, and she was worried initially that it would be akin to Twilight in that it received a lot of hype for not a lot of substance. However, we both agreed that this book definitely deserves attention. The movie is coming out soon (a main reason for me reading it now) and my only hope is that the movie is a good reflection of the book.

I'm a sucker for love stories, but I loved this book because the main character, Katniss, is such a strong and confident person. Honestly, as long as I'm comparing the two, Katniss is everything Bella isn't. Bella is whiny with confidence issues while Katniss is strong, brave, and sure of herself. Katniss does her best to keep her humanity and her life in this cruel game that her government is forcing her to play.

I think this is a good segue read into more provocative books, such as Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 (both are books I love...) I would definitely recommend this book, for those of you who haven't read it yet. (I seem to be the only one I know who hadn't..) However, if you're not a fan of violence, I wouldn't let kids under 13 read it. My only complaint is the it ends very suddenly... good thing all of the books are already published and my roommate owns them! That's the nice thing about being the last person in the country to pick up a best-selling series...

77 - Reading Riot no. 6

Last week's book was a memoir, of sorts. I read The End of Normal, by Stephanie Madoff Mack.
(By the way... did you know that MLA changed their rules for citing novels? No more underlining... just italics. Weird, right? Anyway...)

As you may guess by one of the names of the author, this book is about how Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme of the century ruined the lives of his family. If you don't already know, Bernie Madoff was a Wall Street tycoon who stole billions of dollars from thousands of investors. Basically, he crashed the stock market in 2008. He's now in prison, sentenced to 125 years. His son, Mark Madoff, committed suicide due to the immense pressure and unhappiness caused by his father's actions, and this book is told from the perspective of Mark's wife.


I personally didn't know much about Bernie Madoff, except that he stole a lot of money. The media portrayed him is the Villain of the century, posting crazy pictures of him everywhere.

Obviously, this is photoshopped. Haha. 

I found this book to be very telling, and very heart-breaking. Mack describes Bernie and Ruth Madoff as being loving grandparents and a happy couple. It was so interesting to learn about the man behind the monster, so to speak. Needless to say, it was shocking for their entire family to learn of Bernie's dark side.

However, that isn't the focus of the story. Mark Madoff and his suicide is the culminating event in all of this. Mack tells such a poignant tale of love and loss, especially when conveying how her children felt after the death of their father. I think it was very brave of her to write this book. I can't even imagine how hard writing it must have been, let alone experiencing it. My heart goes out to her and her family; they are still in the midst of the healing process. Honestly, it's something that they will probably never get over completely.

I can't imagine losing my best friend to suicide. Mark was her best friend, her husband. And he honestly thought that killing himself was the best thing for everyone. I also can't imagine what kind of person does what Bernie Madoff did. Mack describes Bernie as being an excellent compartmentalizer, and he must have been in order to hide his criminal life for so long.

If you're looking for some sobering literature, this book will definitely fulfill that need.

Mack put pictures of her previous life in the book, and that was when it truly sunk in to me that these people are real. Mark Madoff was a real person, and he took his own life just last year. It's easy to get swept away in the story and think that they're just characters. I highly recommend this book.

Mark and Stephanie with their daughter, Audrey 

Bernie Madoff, Ruth Madoff, Mark Madoff

Stephanie and Mark on the night they got engaged

Stephanie and Mark with daughter, Audrey, and son, Nicholas

73 - Reading Riot no. 5

This week, I read Beautiful Disaster, by Jamie McGuire. Same author as the Providence series.

This book is definitely more mature than the Providence series, but the quality of the writing is better. I finished this book the same day that I started it. It could still be classified as teen fiction... I'd probably put it in that in-between stage. Not quite adult fiction and not quite teen fiction.

It's about Abby Abernathy, a college freshman from Wichita, Kansas, who wants to put her life as far away as possible from her past. However, she meets and befriends Travis Maddox early on in the year and soon realizes that he is exactly what she's trying to run away from. Her feelings conflict between wanting to run away from her past and giving into her deep feelings for Travis. 

I don't really know how to explain why I loved this book so much... I guess I liked that Abby and Travis' relationship wasn't perfect. Both of them needed work but they still needed each other. Maybe their relationship was unrealistic and unhealthy at first, but the love was perfect love. 

The moral I got out of this story was that you don't always get to choose who you fall in love with. Sometimes it can be the person you least expect. But that doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. 

There are a couple quotations from the book that I found particularly poignant. 

[Abby talking to her roommate.]
"It's dangerous to need someone that much. You're trying to save him and he's hoping you can. You two are a disaster."
I smiled at the ceiling. "It doesn't matter what or why it is. When it's good, Kara... it's beautiful." 

"You know why I want you? I didn't know I was lost until you found me. I didn't know what alone was until the first night I spent without you in my bed. You're the one thing I've got right. You're what I've been waiting for." 

I love the concept of a beautiful disaster. It's what life is, right? Life is never perfect. You never remember everything you need to, you never say all the right words, you never  ace all of your tests, you never make everyone happy always. Everyone has baggage and everyone has problems. But love? It doesn't matter if it's crazy, mellow, frustrating, nonsensical, or disastrous. If it's truly love for both people, not just infatuation or lust, it's always beautiful.

71 - Reading Riot no. 4

I know it's already Wednesday, but my book for last week was the sequel to Providence.

Providence book no.2 -- Requiem

As I'd hoped, this book was more well-written than the first one in the series. The premise of this sequel centers around the book that Nina and Jared gave back to Shax, a demon from Hell. (Remember -- Jared is a guardian angel.) It involves a prophecy and ancient bloodlines and all sorts of supernatural/religious plot twists. The ending of the book was a bit anticlimactic, but I almost feel like McGuire used this book as a set-up for the third one, which is due to be published in the next year.

These books are fun, quick reads if you're interested in stories like that. I don't regret reading them, but I won't be buying the actual book. (The e-book at the Kindle store was only 2.99 I think.. maybe only 1.99. I don't remember. But it was super cheap! Probably reflects the quality of the writing....)

68 - Reading Riot no. 3

Last week's book: Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen.

This book was really interesting, actually. It's akin to The Notebook in that the main character is in his nineties and remembering his life. His name is Jacob Jankowski. During the Depression, Jacob was at Cornell finishing up a degree in veterinary sciences when he's told that his parents were killed in a car accident. Too distraught from the tragedy, Jacob runs out of his final exams and happens upon the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth by jumping their train. One thing leads to another and he becomes the show's veterinarian. Most of the book is dedicated to his time with the Benzini Brothers travelling group.

The book was a bit dry for me at first, but after about a quarter of the way through it picked up. I'll be honest, I only wanted to read it because I haven't seen the movie. If I know that a movie is based on a novel, I try to read the novels first. Everyone who did see the movie told me that it was really good, so I was excited to read the book. It was a little bit predictable, romance-wise, but I liked it because the romance part wasn't the main storyline.

Basically, I liked this book. I didn't love it, but I very solidly liked it. I definitely want to see the movie.

I would say the book is rated PG-18. There was a lot of swearing (a lot of the F bomb) and one particular circus act was... inappropriate. So, Sara and Kim, I wouldn't recommend you read this book. Haha.

62 - Reading Riot no. 2

Week two: accomplished.
After Christmas, I went a little crazy with the more adolescent-type books. Dash and Lily and this book were both read on my new Kindle, and books can be pretty cheap at the Kindle store. Also, teen books fast reads and usually still entertaining since I am still technically a teenager... I figured that since I'm currently (STILL) in the middle of a Tale of Two Cities AND I haven't finished the last 200 pages of my summer re-read, Anna Karenina, it's probably a good idea to stick with simple reads if I start any new books.

Yes, I am aware of how often I used the word "still" in very few sentences.

This week's book: Providence, by Jamie McGuire.

This book is about a college freshman, Nina, whose father has very recently passed away. Immediately after his funeral, she shares a cab with a random stranger (Jared) who seems to show up everywhere after that. Being a teen fiction novel, it was pretty clear how it would play out. Boy and girl fall in love, they're in love, something gets in their way, they get back together in the end. But I don't want to spoil it for you... Also, in the summary of the book we discover that Jared is actually (dun Dun DUN!) Nina's Guardian Angel, and their love is quite frowned upon. Whilst trying to juggle her love for Jared, her deceased father's uncovered secrets, and a friend who wants to be more than friends, Nina also fights for her life! There is action, adventure, love, and divine intervention.

Ok, this book was pretty cheesy. And pretty predictable. Also, the story is STRONGLY reminiscent of Twilight... even down to the girl wanting to have sex really badly while the boy is against it for his own reasons. It was entertaining enough, but the beginning was rather slow for me. I found the dialogue kind of dry and not realistic. Nina and Jared seemed to fall in love without any sort of background whatsoever. After one date, Jared began calling her "sweetheart". I just don't think that's very real, and the author didn't account for enough space in the book for the romance to grow. Most of Nina's relationships in the book felt like that. Her friend who wants to be more than friends, Ryan, is strangely protective of her and claims a close, intimate friendship as opposed to Jared, whom she "barely knows". The funny thing is that Nina met Jared BEFORE she met Ryan. At least in Twilight, Bella and Jacob had a legitimate friendship and bond grown. Heck, Stephenie Meyer gave them an entire book. Mostly,  I just think the author rushed the connection between her characters and it weakened the credibility of the relationships between them. Up until the last quarter of the book, the plot seemed a bit forced and there wasn't very much intrigue. If there was a question, it was usually answered right away. It left really no room for guessing, which is one of my favorite parts.

The book was only 2.99 on the Kindle store, and I (perhaps rashly) bought the second book in the series for 1.99 before I had read Providence. It was better by the end, so I'm hoping Requiem will be a bit better as well.

As for my new blog series and New Year's Resolution of reading a book a week, Reading Riot is a success as of week two! What will be next week's book? You'll just have to wait and see :)

56 - Reading Riot no.1

Part of my New Year's Resolutions: to read one book a week. The series will be called Reading Riot, and this is week one.

I read this book:

Yes, it is a teen fiction/kind-of teen romance novel. I have guilty pleasures, and that genre happens to fall right in that category. However, I have no shame in sharing this book because I thought it was great.

The premise of the book is a red Moleskine notebook that a teenage girl leaves in a bookstore for an unknown teenage boy to (hopefully) find and complete the challenge written inside. The girl is Lily, and the boy is Dash. Two 16-year-olds looking for an adventure during a particularly boring Christmas holiday in New York City. Over half of the book is dedicated to Dash and Lily finding new, unique ways to pass the notebook back and forth.

The really cool thing about books written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is the two parts are written by separate people. Not only that, they don't even know how the story is really gonna turn out because they just email the chapters to each other as they write them sequentially. It makes the story and characters more real, in my opinion.

The likelihood of most of the events in the book actually happening is slim. However, the characters felt very real to me. Dash and Lily are two VERY different people, but sometimes it happens that way. Different personalities are attracted to each other all the time. Dash has a very large vocabulary and knows about most things. Lily is a naive idealist who is the youngest in a very large extended family. Personally, I found both characters very likable. To some, Dash may have come across as a tad condescending and unrealistic with his use of large words, but I disagree. He's not the kind of person trying to be condescending, he just loves words. And he means well throughout the book, not trying to make anyone feel inferior. As for his use of the words all the time, he has a nightly ritual of finding a new word to love in his dictionary... I think with a habit like that, it's very realistic for him to have a vocabulary like that. Haha.

Basically, I was sucked into this book. It's only about 250 pages, but I read it in less than a day. It was a very easy book to read, and I found myself wishing there was more. I thought the ending was perfect. Plus, VERY limited swearing and no sex! Like I said, teen fiction is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. So if you're not into teen fiction, you wouldn't like this book. But it was very well written (in my opinion). David and Rachel did a fine job, yet again. (See also Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. That one's a bit more PG-13, though.)

10 - The Way I See It #2: Proving His Talent Through Song and Dance

Recently, I went to New York for a week on vacation. Now, I am a theatre-lover and watching a musical or a play is one of my all-time favorite things to do.

Also one of my favorite things: Harry Potter.

Now imagine my excitement when the one and only Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter since I was 9) was starring in a musical on Broadway. If you can't imagine it, I was VERY excited.

Having been involved in theatre for a long time, I have to say I'm pretty hard to please. Not only with theatre, but with singing too. For my whole life my oldest sister has been the best singer I've ever known, so she set the bar pretty high. It's very rarely that I'm impressed with singing, and I hate to admit that I'm kind of a snob. Haha. I also know good acting when I see it, and I know bad acting when I see it, and before I went to New York I hadn't been to a professional live theatre performance that I'd really been impressed with in a long time. Even Wicked at Capitol Theatre was really good but that was the performance that the actress who played Elphaba left a little to be desired when she sang Defying Gravity.

Having said that, I really enjoyed watching Harry Potter sing and dance.

What I was the most impressed by was the dedication that was clearly shown in Daniel Radcliffe's performance. I could tell that he worked really hard on the singing and the dancing and his character, and it really paid off. He's not so famous yet that he would get hired through his name alone. And being Harry Potter for all of his acting career thus far, he had to do a lot to prove to the world that he CAN be something other than Harry Potter. And he didn't have to be naked with a horse to do it. (Even though he did that already.)

I can really tell that he deserved this role because I saw Chicago in New York also, and Christie Brinkley was Roxie Hart. She's a famous supermodel who used to be married to Billy Joel, for those of you who don't know (I didn't know who she was.) She DEFINITELY got the part through her name. Because her singing, acting, and dancing were not up to par. I was really disappointed because I feel like  casting directors should know better. And it just seems unfair to me, casting her and not someone way more talented, just because she was famous.

 But this a critique on How to Succeed, not Chicago.

It was fun, entertaining, and captivating. I was not bored during this show even once, and when it was over I wanted to watch it again. Someone once told me that you know a show is good if you come out of it singing a song. And I have been those songs for a month and a half since I saw the show. And as far as the singing goes, if an actor didn't have the best voice, they definitely made up for it with their character. Like Wally in the clip above. And John Laroquette. He's not a singer, but he proved that he deserved his role just as much as Daniel Radcliffe did.

I saw five shows in New York, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my favorite one. In 1994, Matthew Broderick played Daniel Radcliffe's role on broadway and that just made me like it even more. Haha. I love Matthew Broderick.

I only love good theatre. I don't give standing ovations unless they are deserved. And as soon as the curtain call started, I was on my feet.

I didn't give a standing ovation for Christie Brinkley.

6 - The Way I See It #1

So my sister showed me a blog that her friend had a few years ago and I thought it was really cool. It was her friend giving reviews on things that she'd seen, read or whatever. She had food, books, movies... she gave a really funny review of Breaking Dawn. (Click here to read it.) And I'm going to copy her. Not for my whole blog, but just occasionally as a post when I've seen or read something I found noteworthy.

So. My first critique.