Oh Snap!

Yay trash!! Like pure trash, even worse then the stuff that comes out of the UK, as US stuff is way worse. And for some reason, stuff based in LA to me, is like the worst of the worst. Girl is part of a huge Hollywood family and for some reason she wants to make it on her own, but still use her family connections at the same time. She is into fashion and most of the book is her story in trying to get celebs to wear her friends fashions at the Oscars and most of the book takes place the week before the ceremony. The good was the characters and the use of real people in such a fake way that actually worked for me. The use of fake film titles cracked me up on how fake they were. It's like the over-the-top-ness worked. I liked that the girl tried to make it on her own. My least favorite parts where that her family was such a huge part of Hollywood, yet she always seemed like she was struggling in some way or another, but of course, it always works out in the end. When she needed help, she had it, but when she didn't need it, it was nowhere in sight. A little annoying. The Girl also had major issues dating actors, which I think was sort of supposed to be the anchor of the story, but it totally wasn't. It was just another thing to try to make the character more interesting, but it was a little annoying.

Grade: C

This book took some getting into as it had soooo many characters and each character was the voice of each chapter. And then some characters and chapters only spoke once and it was like, what is the point? The gist of this book is the drunken rape of a girl at a private school by some of the older basketball players and who really is the blame? The girl is a total slut and if it was me, I would say it was her fault, that she brought it on, but since she was only 14 and some of the dudes were 18 and over, they are now at fault. Another story opens as well, which is the headmaster of the boarding school where all the kids go has an affair with the mother of another kid and the kid finds out and freaks out, drinks and takes part in this rape with some of his fellow basketball players. Because he is normally a good kid and doesn't want anything to happen, he goes for a walk in the snow and ends up dying and this ends up being the saddest part of the story. The headmaster character sort of reminded me of Matthew Broderick's character in ELECTION, kind of an ass and will do anything to further his career at the expense of everyone else.

Grade: C+

I loved this book! The first good book that I have read in a loooong time, and of course, it's a YA book! As much as I love YA books, they piss me off sometimes too, because they are sooo dwelling on teenage things which to me is sooo great over yourself already. But this book was really really good. A family is going for a drive and they get in a major car accident. The parents are killed on the scene and the book plays out that the daughter is sort of having an out of body experience. She is thinking back over her life weather she wants to live without her family, as her younger brother dies as well or if she wants to die with them. I didn't know what was going to happen as the author writes it out so well, you don't know which direction she is going to take until the last line in the book. Her life outside her family is great too, but she loves them so much, will it hurt to much to go on without them or should she just die with them? Since I liked this book so much, I am not going to spoil it here. It's less then 200 pages, so not worth it to buy, but definitely check it out of the library.

Grade: B

I saw a trailer for this movie and it looked super cute, so I took this book from the library before everyone else could, as that is what tends to happens to books that movies based on them when they come out. So I wanted to catch it all before the rush. Also, the chances that I get to this movie in the theatre is like nil, so I wanted to read the book before I rented this movie, whenever it comes out on DVD or on TV (the place I'll most likely, if ever, see this). ANYWAY.

Girl is stuck in her boring life and for some reason, decides she wants to spice it up and make everything in some Julia Child French Cooking cookbook. Hummm, what else happened. The making of the food didn't take up too much space in the book, I mean, especially by the end, I guess her and her husbands life was taken over by it as she rushed to finish it. Friends came and went in the story, as did her job which was working for some government agency that dealt with the victims of 9/11. By the end of the book she was getting media attention for the blog she was writing based on her cooking and that was something new and exciting, but luckily, she didn't get into it too much. Just enough to be interesting and not enough that you wanted to roll your eyes in sort of jealousy. This book definitely did not make me want to see the movie more, which is what I was sort of hoping it would. But it didn't.

Grade: C

Why did I think this book would be about airline gripping? It so wasn't. It was worse. A Dude talking about his life, boo hoo, while trying to fly from NY to LA to go to his estranged daughters wedding. Luckily the book was really short, so it didn't go on and on forever as some of these books do. I think also because it wasn't a real story that it didn't go on forever. God, what even happened. I mean, Dude just talked about his life, growing up in New Orleans with a manic mother and a father who wasn't jewish, but came to the US post-WWII to start a new life. Dude ends up with some women, they have a kid and don't stay together too long and she moves out to California and they really never see each other again until someone contacts him re: his daughters wedding and he wants to go and give her away, based on some promise he made to her when she was a baby. The mother isn't really thrilled about this. Whatever. Also, the story was told in sort of letter form, in a letter that the Dude is writing to American Airlines as he is stuck at the airport in Chicago on the way the wedding. It's a bit much.

Grade: C-

Ahh, classic, NY chick-lit. It doesn't get any trashier then this. This book had way too many charecters and the only thing that really connected them all was the building they lived in. It was really about two different families with like an assortment of other characters thrown in. Family #1 contained this simi-newly married couple and the Girl came from no where and wanted so much to fit in to high society that she did what everyone considered really stupid things and then just talked behind her back. She tried to live up to the first wives reputation so much that it ended up screwing her horribly and then she realized that she shouldn't be trying to live up to the reputation and when she was just herself, everything was fine and dandy. Also, the first wife wasn't as great as everyone made her to be. Family #2 contained a women who had horrible depression and a husband who cheated on her and had a "second family" whom he hated anyway and tried to get rid of, the women at least, not the kid. And then between both of these family there were two gossips who just talked shit about everyone.

This book took some getting used to to get into the flow as there were so many characters and you had no idea how they connected at the beginning. But by the end, you kind of hated no one, which was kind of nice.

Grade: C

A long coming sequel to another Weiner book, whose name is escaping me at this moment, which I read years ago and I liked, even if parts of it were a little far-fetched. Anyway, this book is about the Girl and her Daughter and told from their points of view, alternating chapters. The Daughter is in her bat mitzvah year and some of the ways she was written, just seemed a little old. Now if the Daughter was like 16, this book would have made more sense, but as a 12/13 year old? The dialogue was written the same as the Girl (old) and the situations were like so not 12/13. But since that age is such a changing year, I guess that is why the author picked it. But it was a little out of the Daughters league. The Girl parts were okay too. Not as funny as the first book, but still okay. Both girls, still with the daddy issues and there was a nice little twist at the end that I did NOT see coming and I won't ruin it here as I didn't mind this book too much. Don't run and buy, but for free, why not. This author also has a pretty good track record with stuff I like.

Grade: C

This book was huge news, what like a year ago? I had never heard of it and then when my sister came to visit me in NZ she brought it with her and I started reading it, but it took me forever to get like through the first 10 pages, I didn't understand what the big deal was with it at all. And I never saw it anywhere, so I never read it. But since I have been home, I decided to take it out of the library and see what the big deal was. I'll tell you what the big deal is with this book. NOTHING. It's chick-lit/travel lit (my two favs!) disguised as "real-lit". Half of this book is the Girl dwelling on how shitty her life has been the last few years and how spending months in Italy, India and Indonesia can solve her problems! Too bad most people can't live like this. My favorite story in the book is the one she told about some boy she met in Indo. about his deportation from America. That made me so sad. Otherwise, who cares! It's was a very "spiritual" book and I have none of that, so the India section was like so boring to me. And of course, there has to be a love interest, but he doesn't show up until like the last 50 pages and it just seemed too forced to me. Like a book like this has to have a love interest or it's not complete. Who cares!

Grade: C-

Very long for a YA book, where as usual, not much happens. Maybe it was just my copy on the length. This is the second book from this author that I have read on the subject on teen abuse, I wonder what that says about her. She has written on other subjects, but this is the 2nd one I have read on this. Hmmm. Girls mother leaves her and the state finds out and she goes and lives with her way older sister and her husband in their sort of richie life. She tries hard not too accept this, but boohoo, someone wants to give you everything, cry me a river!! She tries to go back to her old life, but once one thing goes wrong, she gives up and accepts the new, sort of. Her neighbor, Boy, becomes her friend and then boyfriend but when she finds out his dad hits him and she wants him to tell someone, he freaks out and they stop talking. Of course everything works out in the end and the Boy goes to live with his mother and we don't really find out what happens there. And Family is always changing, I think is one of the morals of this story. It was okay, but kind of long for what it was.

Grade: C

I have been seeing mentions of this book for years and I think they are making a movie about it too soon, so I put this on my list. Good lord, it was a weird book. Such a guys book too, which sometimes can be a little annoying, but this one actually wasn't too horrible. Weird, nerd guy announces that he loves some girl in his graduating high school class in his graduation speech and a whole night of debauchery ensues from this with his best friend and her two friends. Pretty much anything you have ever seen or read about in a grad night movie or book happens here. One good thing is that is was all over pretty quickly. I didn't like that it was written in third person and there were sooooo many characters I could hardly keep anything straight, but at the end, I was like, this book is okay. A little too guy-y for me, but sometimes that is good. I will not be going to see this movie.

Grade: C

A Kinsella story, so you know what you are getting, pure, decent, solid trash. This book kind of reminded me of the tv show SAMANTHA WHO? where the girl wakes up and she is not who she remembers she is. But a little different. The book opens to the Girl hitting her head and then in the next chapter she is waking up and we are first meant to think that she is just waking up after this incident but really it's three years later and she has forgotten the last three years, since the first time she hit her head and a lot has changed since then. On the surface great husband we are meant to love at first and then hate (but actually he's not that bad at all), super high powered job and all new friends. It's not until the end of the book that we find out why this all happened, which was actually a pretty good device. I didn't like the guy who she was having an affair with all that much, he was written a little creepy, but I don't know if there was another way to write someone like that. The book almost ends with them not getting together (YAY!) but then it changes (blah) and yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.

Grade: C

I got this book back in 2003 when I was in London and really liked it a lot and it was one of the few books that I never sold because I knew someday I would want to read it again. I thought about it a lot when I was in Australia and I was excited to read it when I got home. And I finally did! Like a dork I am, I got out my guide book from Australia and followed the authors travels around the country, even though a lot has changed since this book was written and then the guide book (I don't have the latest edition) to now. I had been to about half the places the author talks about and he does a pretty good job describing them, which is why I think I saved this book and wanted to re-read it. It starts in Cairns and ends up in Darwin and takes the longest route ever to get there, most of it which is off the main backpackers trail, which I liked a lot. He goes from Cairns, to Alice, down to Port Augustus, over to Perth and up to Broome and all the parks to Darwin. He wants to find the "real" Australia and in reading it and talking to people, I don't think he realized that he is talking to the real Australia. People are raciest and it's hard to find aboriginals, just like it's hard to find Indians in America. This is the book that put that in prospective for me, that the Aboriginals in Aus are just like the Indians here in America and I kind of got off my wanting to go to Australia and learn about them-kick, which I realized I didn't really care about knowing about the Indians here and sort of felt bad about that. I like books that make me realize stuff about myself that I didn't know before. It comes about so rarely! It's not that I know much about myself, it's just most of the books I read are crap.

Grade: B-

A co-worker from NZ gave me this book like a year ago as a going away gift (holy hell!) and I finally got around to reading it now. The cover isn't too attractive and I guess I wanted to bring it home with me, so I never read it in my travels because then I know I would sort of have to trade it for something else. And while, it was sort of boring, I am glad I waited because now I want to send it to my friend Jess who sent me a book in NZ when we were both there. Dude comes to NZ after "the great war" because he has nowhere else to go and finds all sorts of work up and down the country, but mainly on the North Island. He makes friends, but as it is in this time, no one really sticks around. He has "relations" with the Maori wife of one of the farmers he works for and when he tells the wife that he is leaving, she freaks and wants to go with him. The husband finds out and the farm hand actually ends up killing the farmer and running away. He hides for a few years and then runs into the wife later and sort of freaks and leaves the country to go back to Europe.

It's an old book and it was written like one, but actually one of the better NZ books I have read. Good luck finding it at a book store/library in the US, but I am sure they have it in NZ.

Grade: C+

I know this book is on my list, but I just randomly grabbed it off the shelf at the library. Totally a subject up my ally, rich people trying to get their kids into hoity kindergartens in NYC. But there was a lot going on otherwise in this book. High-Powered career Girl gets fired and catches her husband having sex with the person who replaced hers' husband. She gives him the keys to the street asap and we hardly hear about him again. Good! She freaks out because she can't afford her million dollar lifestyle anymore but somehow makes do. She and the kids move to the lower eastside (crappy!) and totally downsize their lives as she starts up this business. We hardly need to cry for her though because the building she moves into seems nice, she gets her kids into a really good public school (oh the horrors!) and her best friend is like married to the richest guy on the island. She has some lovers, who are all lame and the kids she tries to help, the parents are pretty much all nutters in some way. Of course, the author tries to have some variety between them, but seriously, anyone who can pay like $10,000 to get their kid into school is nutty in my book. There were some like other side stories, but like nothing really came about from them. Essentially, the only reason her business took off is dumb luck on all sides.

Grade: C

This book was unlike the rest in this series. And not in a good way. I didn't like the format at all. The past books were written in first person, which is probably my favorite way of writing and this was written in third person, Plus, it kept jumping back and forth from the views of Jess and Marcus. And I don't like Marcus anyway, so it was blah to me. And it took place over like a 2 day period. All the books keep getting shorter and shorter. What even happened. Jess is on her way to the wedding of her high school friends and gets stuck at the airport and Marcus is returning from building houses in Naw'leans. They chat about the previous 3 years in which they didn't talk at all and I liked that part the best because it caught the reader up on what has happened to these characters over the previous years. Then they end up sharing a hotel room together while they wait for Jess's plane the next day. Like nothing happens! If it's possible, my least favorite book in the series. Here's hoping it's the last.

Grade: D+

Ah, the final. Talk about a tomb! This book was just awkward to read, my hand really hurt by the end just holding this book! To me, this book was split into 200 page sections, which is luckily, how I read it! Bell and Ed get married, go on a honeymoon in Brazil, she gets pregnant, everyone freaks out, she wants to keep the baby even though it's killing her, she is only pregnant for like month, the baby is born, Ed turns Bell into a vampire to save her, one of their enemies sees the kid and goes to tell the Voltauri because kid vampires aren't allowed or something, they all come from Italy to destroy the Cullens, the Cullens gather up all their vampire friends to help save the kid and badda bing, everyone lives. So much dwelling in this book! So much over thinking! I can see why people liked this book the least as Bell totally changed in character, so unlike her in so many ways. I didn't like the part from Jake's POV. I don't know why, I just didn't. His mind changed a lot from page to page and it didn't make sense. While I thought it was okay, they could have cut down at least 2-300 pages from this book dedicated to who the hell cares.

Wrap-up: I am glad I read them, but I am always glad I waited. I didn't miss anything and I doubt I'll read them again.

Grade: C

Yes, I have an addicted personality and I read things that I know aren't good for me, just because I have read the previous books. And lucky for me, I have the next book in my to-read pile already, even though I know it's not good for me.

Anyway, god, what was this book about? Don't I start everything with this? What is wrong with my memory lately? Unlike the previous books that take place over a year/summer/various years and summers, this book takes place, from what I understand over the time of like one, maybe two weeks. The Dude is now a 23 year old Princeton Freshie and the Girl is living with some friends in the Brooklyn sublet where she hardly works. In a preemptive strike, the Dude asks the Girl to marry him, even though they both want to break up with each other (FINALLY!) So she dwells on this for like a week before she tells him her answer (thank god, NO!). Stuff happens in The City with her life. My favorite is that she interviews for some job and doesn't get it! That like never happens in books, but I like how that played out because they weren't a very good fit anyway, so it would have been stupid for her to get the job. Her friend Hope, who is off scene in like every other book, is actually in this one, which was good. I liked that character a lot. And as usual, other shit happens. I am glad the Girl is finally growing up and she is finally growing out of her hang-ups with thinking she is so hot shit because she went to an "Ivy League School". Get over yourself.

Grade: C

This book started out okay. Meaning, I could follow what was going on, not that I cared. And then the chapters just jumped too much for me and I totally lost the plot like half way through and stopped caring. It took me like another week to finish this. It was about some Dude who has a shit life and steals some painting back that was his mothers from a museum, but they don't notice (makes no sense when I type it, but just trust me that it works in this book) and then the book like jumps back and forth from his miserable life to like stories about people from his past and his family and friends (?) or something from like a million years ago and you don't know how any of them are related at all. I am not going to grade this book because the second half of this book was like painful to read, I just didn't care.

Grade: N/A

Jeez, what even happened in this book? #2 left off with like two "cliff-hangers" on what could happen next and you know they are both going to be resolved within the next 2 books, but I wasn't sure which was going to happen next. It was the Victoria plot line. This book just dragged! The fight scene only took up like maybe one chapter and even that was over in like half the 20 page length. Oh boohoo, two boys like me! And one wants to marry me but I like hate marriage so much, that I will dedicate my life to him, but I will refuse to marry him. What the hell??? Too many like back stories in this book. I am so lame, I didn't even pay attention to the werewolf story. I couldn't keep anyone straight, there was like no point. Too much contradiction from Bel and Ed and lame boohoo-ness from everyone rounded out this giant turd.

Grade: C-

all my objectives today: met!

success.