Books, Politics, Time Travel and Babies - but not really politics, no, not really

"... It was more than a smile; his face was transformed with the happiness that's reserved for those who are finally allowed to reach all the way up."

Pretty striking quote from Stephen King's 11/22/63. I read this book a while ago and was totally sucked in. For me, it was one of those books that you just have to read in one sitting. It was right up my alley of guilty pleasures literature - time travel AND historical fiction, BAM all in one. Plus that creepy Stephen King feeling that some big bad is lurking right around the corner.

When I told people how much I enjoyed this book, they shot back at me with criticism. People told me that 11/22/63 was Stephen King's anti whatever political agenda in print. To be far, I understand. The book is about John F. Kennedy's death and weather or not the main character can stop it through time traveling. There's going to be something political about it.

But when I read it, I just saw a capturing story. It's fiction, ya'll!  Even if it was intended as a political agenda, it's doesn't mean you enjoy it less!

Oh My GOSH I've missed reading. Have I mentioned my Kindle (paper white) ?? I seriously feel like a twelve year old that just walked up to a Barnes and Noble cashier with seven Christopher Pike books and my mom just said, "No, put three of those back," and I said, "But MAHHHMOM!"

No, that didn't really happen.

Ok yes it did.

Several times.

Like all the time.

Here, look at this cute picture of my baby.

Review: Regarding Ducks and Universes

Regarding Ducks and Universes by Neve Maslakovic

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came across Regarding Ducks and Universes while skimming book titles on my Kindle. It was $1.99 and involved multiple universes, which is right there at top of my guilty pleasure plots list (along with time travel). I indulged.

Felix Sayers is a culinary writer living in the San Francisco of Universe A. His dream is to one day write a mystery novel. He gets side tracked when he realized that there is, in fact, another Felix Sayers in the other universe, Universe B. Who is this other Felix Sayers? What is his life like, and most importantly, has he already written the mystery novel that our main character has been dreaming about? Felix travels to the other universe to find out for himself, but finds that people in Universe B are looking for him too and believe that he actually played a roll in the link between the two Universes.

This is not a perfect book, but it's pretty good. Chances are, not many people you know will have read it, which gives you something interesting to talk about. It's not a long, time consuming read nor is it a "brain break" book. It's different. And it feels like it only has a touch of science fiction to it, even though it involves multiple universes.

The strength of this book is the setting and the plot. They're both crazy! There are two universes that are almost similar, but different. They both have a San Francisco, but only one universe still has a Golden Gate Bridge. The other universe had to replace their bridge after an earthquake. Only one universe can make sourdough bread, the ingredients to make it don't exist in the other. It's enough to read the whole book just to see the differences.

However, the main character is an Eeyore. By that, I mean he hardly acts and he doesn't really react, just like Eeyore in the Winnie the Pooh stories. It makes his character unbelievable. Many of the supporting characters have lots of individuality and nuances, which somewhat makes up for the lack of it in the main character. It feels like the author relates better to Bean, the woman Felix meets when he crosses into Universe B and a character that plays a major role in the book.

Reviews listed the lack of explanation as a weakness for Regarding Ducks and Universes. I think the author tries to explain the link between universes throughout the book by having supporting characters provide helpful analogies to Felix. At a certain point, I started skimming these analogies. Although I don't want a full on explanation of this universe stuff, I would prefer a little more clarification at the beginning and less analogies throughout. Really, the analogies could be replaced with character development for the main character, Felix.

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Flash Review: Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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I had the brave idea that Book Club could read Eat, Pray, Love and then go see it in the movie theaters.  Of course, this was a while ago, when the movie was still in theaters.  So we set a date, gave ourselves a few weeks and finally met for dinner one night, with designs to see the movie afterward. That was the plan.  However, when we got to the theater, the movie was no longer showing. They stopped showing it the night before.  Sometimes this happens when you live in a town where the movie theater only has six screens, a broken AC and rotting seats.  So instead, we went to the bar next door at the bowling alley and played two games of pool.  Yes, I realize that last sentence makes me sound very "southern."  

Eat, Prat, Love was a good title for this book.  It could also have been called Italy, India, Bali.  We watch this woman find herself in Italy, She gets really "depressy" in India and she lets lose in Bali.  We are happy for her in Italy, bored by her in India and cheering her on in Bali.  In fact, I suggest you skip India all together; the book will be much more enjoyable. I got stuck on that part for several months, and in the end, it just wasn't worth wading through.  Italy and Bali, on the other had––very enjoyable. I just got a chance to watch the movie at home. I sat down, thinking I would have an urge to fast forward through India on screen as well, but they buffed it up a bit and gave it a little more oomph.

Do you like the shortness and sweetness of this book review? It's a new Flash Review, which is much less intimidating than a full recap/opinion review. And the type of book reviews I'll be writing for the foreseeable future.

Book Review: Tomorrow, When the War Began

So, I had to take this reading class in high school where all you do is sit there and read, then the last ten minutes of class, you write about what you read so you can prove to the teacher that you read something.  I wish all classes worked this way.

They had a full bookshelf in the classroom, so I just picked up one of those books.  It was John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began.  It's the first book in a seven or eight book young adult series called The Tomorrow Series.  I know, again with the young adult books!  But when I read this book, I was a young adult.  And I loved it.  It was my Harry Potter, before Harry Potter was written.  I breezed through probably four of the books, because they only had four of them in the classroom, but for some reason I never finished the series.

So a few weeks ago, I got the first one on my Kindle.  and then the second.  And now I'm reading the third book.  It's another one of those addicting little sets of books, except the characters are Australian and say Australian things and I even read the dialogue with an Australian accent in my mind.  Also, the first book was published in 1996, which I think was two years before Harry Potter, so it's not a "follower" series.  There's no witches or warlocks.  No vampires.

In the book, there is this group of high schoolers that goes camping in the bush, and while they are gone, their country is invaded and the small town where they are from is hit hard as a crucial part of the enemy's strategy.  Their families and neighbors are prisoners.  The book follows their actions after they realize there is a war in their own country.

The beginning of the first book is a bit slow, but it picks up when the war begins.  Also, there are several typos... At first, I thought it was because no one edited the kindle version, but I somewhat remember typos from the printed books I read in high school, although they may have just been the australian slang words that I didn't understand.  Despite the typos, I'm reading through this series like a hungry hyena.  

This whole time, I've been thinking "this book should be made into a movie."  Well, it was.  (Read the following sentence in a giddy little girl voice) It's a movie, it's a movie, it's a movie! But it's an Australian movie, so I just have to find it, somewhere out there.  I watched the trailer.  It looks like a bust, but I'm still going to hunt that sucker down and watch it.  Watch it like... like a... a hungry hyena.  What ever that means.  

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hello reader.  No, this book isn't something I cooked from my new rotation diet!  That would be the Rhubarb jam I made last night that seemed more like Rhubarb baby food, but not this book.  Yes, it IS part of the new content plan for the Food Fan Club. No... I don't want to change the title of my blog.  I'm still a food fan, just one in search of variety.

This is my first book review.  They will only get better from here... Enjoy!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Addicting" is right. "Couldn't put it down" would be even more right.

I recommended Hunger Games for a book club. Now, this is a very young book club, only having read one book before The Hunger Games. The first book, The Heretic's Daughter, was intense. I thought Hunger Games would be a lighter read.

I read about three pages and suddenly found a very familiar feeling, the same one I had when I started reading Twilight. Oh, this main character is young. I wonder how much older she gets throughout the series. Oh. OH! It's a young adult book! A YA BOOK!

I have no beef with the YA books, besides the fact that they always seem to suck me in before I realize they actually are YA books, but I started to feel somewhat embarrassed by my book selection. I purposely picked something less intense than The Heretic's Daughter, but this was totally different. I didn't know if the other people would like it at all. I envisioned them slowly nudging me out of the book club, maybe skipping my turn to pick books at first and then just not returning my phone calls, all because I picked a book they didn't like. The next morning, I emailed the book club, letting them know it was in fact a YA book and that if they wanted to pick a different book, that was fine with me. I was secretly still planning to read it.

The messages I got in return really surprised me though, because one girl said, "I've started reading it and it is addicting! Fun read for the beginning of the school year when things are crazy." Another said, "Randi said it was addicting so I don't think anyone minds :) I'm going to borrow her copy when she's done to take on my trip to New Mexico next weekend and I can't wait to start it!"

With my book club's go ahead, I sat down that night to read a few more chapters before bed. And I kept reading. And kept reading. And then it was morning and I couldn't stop thinking about Katniss and Petta, about The Hunger Games. The next weekend, I zoomed through both books 2(Catching Fire) and 3 (Mocking Jay) from the series. I was addicted to the plot. I wanted to know more about the characters. I was swept away with the chain of events.

By the time the book club met, me and one other person had read all three books, two others had finished book one and two and one was starting on book three. Everyone liked it, although we all admitted it had some flaws. First, the third book seems to have a "lazy" ending. All that time spent on those two main characters and at the end, they get summed up in a few nice, neat pages. Second, there are several pieces of summary that cover moments I would like to listen in on. We all agreed that those summary moments seemed like good montage moments for a movie. And then we moved on to the potential movie and who would play what role, etc. Of course, we would all go see the movies if they ever made them.

Another thing I noticed about this book, and maybe it was because of the neatly packaged ending, I don't find myself craving these characters anymore, not like with other series books where I want to know what happens next even after I've read the last book in the series.

That said, I still read the series in a span of two days. I still stayed up all night to finish The Hunger Games. I still enjoyed reading these books and would recommend them to most people.