The return of V, the anticipated ABC series, just didn’t do it for me tonight. Well except for the last thirty seconds where Anna went all praying mantis on the sperm donor for her ‘army,’ sporting a row of angler-fish-esque fangs. Nasty!
Now I know that they have to build up for future episodes but come on, you can’t keep depending on that single shocking moment to redeem what was essentially a very slow and boring episode. Some good lines like Erica’s “If I have to cross the line to blow that bitch out of the sky, I’ll do it.”
But overall, maybe just a couple stars tonight. I expected a lot more tonight after the long hiatus. Disappointed, I won’t lie.
Wicked tells the story of how Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of the West, came to be – her birth, her school years, being roommates with the good witch, Glinda, at Shiz University, and how they both ended up in Oz. If you know anything about the book, you’ll know that it is an incredibly insightful story about politics and greed and clever machinations, and how environment can shape the purest intentions into something else entirely. It’s a classic story of “beauty and the beast” – why is the beauty automatically good while the beast is automatically evil? Does being different make someone a bad person? Can someone who is intrinsically good become evil due to influences outside of their control? Can you be forced to be something because of how you look or how you are perceived? In Wicked, the answer to the last three is yes, and the moral of the story is the classic – don’t judge a book by its cover.
I absolutely loved both girls in Wicked: The Musical. Glinda was charming, feather-headed, vapid, and over-excited about everything. She was hysterical – trying to teach “Elphie” how to do her signature hair toss. Lean back and toss toss! Hilarious! You couldn’t help not like Glinda despite her flaws, and you kept hoping that she would come through for her friend, Elphaba, despite the social pressure. She does in the end, but it’s too late…their fates are all sealed.
Elphaba was magnificent, trying to be so good and just getting the short end of the stick every time. All she wanted to do was to fit in, be loved, and prove to her family that she was worth something. It’s so interesting to see how someone can be shaped into something when they become cornered and have nowhere else to go (if you corner a cat, it’s going to scratch you). She has some funny moments too – her love/hate relationship with Glinda, trying to be more popular like Glinda, and falling in love (um, with Glinda’s boyfriend). I really connected with her and when she sang “Defying Gravity” I got goosebumps. It was heartbreaking to see her lose everything (her love, her integrity, her life) when she’d had so little to begin with. Whoever thought you’d empathize with the “wicked” witch who turned out to be not so wicked after all? Just goes to show – you can’t possibly know what makes someone they way they are.
I love how you learn the back-stories of the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, as well as the back-story of how the infamous jeweled shoes came to be before Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. After Elphaba tries to help her disabled sister walk by creating the magic shoes, there’s her classic line, “Oh, the injustice of it! What sort of person steals a dead woman’s shoes?” Gives a new take on Dorothy, doesn’t it?
I LOVED this musical and would see it again in a heartbeat. I would rate Wicked 4 and a half stars, it’s one of the best I’ve seen on Broadway (the half star deduction is for the male lead – he was completely overshadowed both in voice and stage presence by the strength of the two female leads, and he seemed way too Disney-prince-ish for the role). Other than that, it was wicked awesome!
I thought this was an ok episode but it didn’t draw me in as much as I thought it would have. It was a bit boring overall, and it seemed like a set up for future installments of the Vampire Diaries, especially with Pearl and Anna, as well as Isobel, Elena’s birth mother.
Melinda Clarke as Matt’s mother was interesting just from an expanded cast perspective but I’m wondering where they are going to go with it. Damon’s demeanor post Katherine is almost as bad as the old “nasty” Damon especially after what he does to Alaric at the auction. That was cold. I miss the bad boy with heart. The whole thing with Alaric getting staked felt overdone to me, especially when he wakes up and says his ring protected him (the one, his wife Isobel gave him).
After such a long hiatus, I expected a bit more but I guess they’re starting small and building from there. I didn’t really feel it this week.
Rumored to be a potential trilogy (what isn’t these days?), Clash of The Titans looks like it will be one of the first of the pre-summer blockbusters. The trailers all look absolutely action-packed, with amazing special effects. With viewings in 3D, it really looks like it could be something special. I have high expectations, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but I don’t think this film will fall short, unless of course the plot somehow doesn’t measure up to the cinematography (entirely possible). Rotten Tomatoes has it at 72% which is always a decent sign. Stay tuned for my review.
After a long hiatus, the Vampire Diaries return on March 25! I’m not entirely sure where they are going to take the story now that we know that Katherine is not in the crypt and is somewhere in Chicago. My guess is that Damon is going to lose it and go on some kind of rampage (love bad, naughty Damon) which we know will be exciting, and I am really hoping to see some more of Katherine…especially in a Katherine versus Elena showdown. That would be cool. I like to see the viciousness of Katherine’s personality especially because Elena can be very blah as a character. Despite my hopes, I’m betting that any pre-dawn meeting between those two won’t happen until the season finale – way too big of an event.
Check out the CW‘s trailer, and check back for my review of the episode on Thursday.
I started reading Shiver and immediately loved the language. I loved the lyrical and descriptive sentences, as well as the fact that it was based on two points of view, both Grace and Sam. That held me rapt for about the first twenty pages. However as the story progressed, I found that I didn’t love the multiple points of view as much as I thought I would have, primarily because it’s in the first person. It was very difficult to keep track of who was speaking…ie., who was the “I” in that particular chapter. It got confusing at times, and I found myself having to go back and check the chapter title.
In many YA books, we expect writers to have some unique plot definition or twist – in Maggie Stiefvater‘s vision for Shiver, werewolves change into wolves when the temperature becomes warm. Though more or less believable, it still seemed very thin to me and was never explained enough so that I was satisfied or fully convinced. I found it odd that the wolves could change from a blast of air-conditioning. Just didn’t seem plausible.
The relationship (the driver of this novel) between Grace and Sam was far too bland for me, and I found myself skipping through their later interaction because it just became too boring. Ok, I get that he loves her and he’s shy and sensitive, and she loves him (and has always loved him), but it just dragged and dragged and dragged at times. It also just seemed like it went from watching each other furtively in the woods for six years after the attack to being in love, so there was very little relationship development which translated to very little reader/character connection. There seemed to be very little tension between Sam and Grace at all.
I found myself flipping the pages with Sam and Grace mooning over each other to get to the action scenes and find out what was happening with Beck. Now he was an interesting character! I would have loved to have known more about him, and also get a little more dynamic between him and Grace…sort of ex-father figure and new love interest. Who where the three people he turned and why did they want to be turned? I also liked Isabel a lot – she seemed to have far more spark and dimension than Grace. I wanted to see more of her, and loved that she was so feisty when she was out looking for Sam in one of their barns.
Another thing that annoyed me was that Grace’s parents were far too absentee without enough explanation. We have no rational explanation as to why they were the way they were. I mean, at least make something up – maybe Grace was secretly adopted or maybe when she got bitten, they pulled away from her, or something. It seemed too far-fetched for them to be as distant as they both were, almost as if they were written in just because you know, you can’t have a sixteen year old living in a house on her own.
I also thought that the reason that Grace never changed in a werewolf after being bitten (because she was left in a hot car by her clueless father) was far too flimsy. It just didn’t hold much weight because it needed to be explained better. I mean first of all, what kind of parent leaves their kid in a car, no matter who clueless they are? What was it about the heat that made her remain human? And as far as that leading to meningitis to induce a fever as a cure, I don’t even have words for that. It’s just not fleshed out enough. After the meningitis vaccine, why does Jack die? And why does Sam live? It just didn’t make sense, or wasn’t explained clearly.
Other unresolved plot questions: Why does Sam only get a few years while Beck had over twenty? Why exactly can’t the werewolves live in a warmer climate? Why did Sam shift to human when he got shot? Why did Olivia want to so much to be a werewolf?
Peeves aside, my favorite thing about this book was unequivocally the imagery. Maggie Stiefvater is an excellent writer and creates a world that is so visual that you get drawn right into the middle of it, even if you don’t want to. I loved that about Shiver. Her writing is rich and evocative. That acknowledged, I really did not connect with either of the main characters. I felt that both Grace and Sam felt too transparent. Sam, who should have been so strong and fierce, just seemed weak to me. I did not like him as a male protagonist at all. Beck and Isabel were more my style.
Overall I would rate Shiver 3 stars. As many other reviewers have said, fans of Twilight will enjoy this story, especially younger teen readers.
Hello peeps! Sorry about the delay on posting – we got hit by the storm this week in New York and only got our electricity back last night! So lots of catching up happening right now. Luckily, we weren’t hit by any trees but it did suck not having access to any electronics – sad commentary on modern times but a definite eye-opener!
Did get some more writing done and penned the outline to my fourth novel – this one’s a little more literary. Am about 2000 words in. So time well spent.
Based on the book by Cressida Cowell, How to Train your Dragon is an engaging story about a boy called Hiccup who struggles to fit in with his tribe of viking dragon-slayers. He meets a a dragon who challenges him to think differently about dragons and see the world from a new point of view.
Rotten Tomatoes rates How to Train your Dragon at a whopping 91%. Always a good sign to be high on the tomatometer! Watching the trailer, it was definitely more reminiscent of Harry Potter flying on the hippogriff as opposed to Eragon flying on his dragon. I can see this film as one of those feel-good, triumphant, fist-pump kind of movies. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
My review of The Shack is a complete breakaway from the core material of this site. It’s not fantasy, although some would believe that it is. It’s not young adult, although its appeal could be a generation spanner. It is fiction, although could very easily be based on anyone’s all-too-real truth. I was so completely moved by this book that I couldn’t not offer it a few lines of mention on this blog.
Let me preface this by saying I am not a religious person. However, I am a spiritual person and I do have what I believe is a very personal relationship with God. I grew up in a multi-religious household, and have always been open to all beliefs. What struck me about The Shack was that it’s just one man’s story and how he deals with the tragedy in his own life, yet at no point did I feel like I was being preached to. Many of the concepts discussed were ones that I agree with fundamentally.
In summary, The Shack is the story of a man, Mack, abused by his father as a child, who loses his 6 year old daughter during a camping trip to a serial killer. She is killed at a place nicknamed “the shack” in the wilderness. Two years later he receives a note in the mail from his long dead father to meet him at the shack, and it’s signed “Papa,” his wife’s name for God. Despite his obvious shock and fear, he goes to confront his past and to meet “God.” Written within the framework of a dream (he falls asleep and wakes up), Mack does indeed meet God, all three in fact – the father (Papa as a black woman), the son (Jesus as a Middle Eastern man) and the holy spirit (Sarayu as an Asian woman). For me to clinically attempt to explain what transpires next could not possibly do The Shack justice. Suffice it to say that Mack asks all the questions (all the ones you’ve ever had about love and loss and pain and forgiveness) and gets some pretty deep (and mind-mushing) answers.
The language was captivating and the imagery, rich. Despite the book being so full of thought-provoking content, the language helped me to move through it as I would any other book. I found myself crying, smiling, nodding my head, and connecting with this book in so many unexpected ways that I was surprised. It gets a hold of you and doesn’t let you go until the very end.
Here’s an excerpt that blew me away:
“Creation has been taken down a very different path than we desired. In your world the value of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system, whether political, economic, social, or religious – any system actually. First one person, and then a few, and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of that system. In one form or another this lies behind every struggle for power, every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The ‘will to power and independence’ has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal. [...] It is the human paradigm, [...] it is like water to fish, so prevalent that it goes unseen and unquestioned. It is the matrix; a diabolical scheme in which you are hopelessly trapped even while completely unaware of its existence.” The Shack, page 123, 124.
I don’t usually read these types of books, outside of the occasional C.S. Lewis, but I am glad that I did. It is a difficult book to read but at the very least, you will walk away if anything with a greater understanding of spiritual perspective. The message is so broad that anyone can connect with some part of it. For me, funnily enough, that single line about The Matrix made me smile – it was the perfect metaphor.
At the end of the book, when Mack “awakens,” in a strange twist that gives everything a shivery sliver of truth, he is able to lead the FBI to where God had shown him where his daughter’s never-recovered body had been hidden by the killer. Um, freaky indeedy.
Stupid reekfish! Arrggh. Spent thirty minutes of wasted time bobbing that stupid floating lure up and down in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I even went as far as to Google “how to catch reekfish.” Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Anyway, the short answer for those of you who don’t have an incredibly savvy 5 year old of your own to do the dirty (er, fishing) work for you is…jerk the Wii remote up just as you see a fish swim for the hook. You don’t have to wait for the lure to bob below the water. Once you see a fish swim to it, jerk up and hold it there even when you see FISH ON. Keep holding the remote up or you’ll lose the fish!
Then you change into the wolf and sniff it to learn a new scent. Then on to the Yetis and some Olympic-style downhill ice-boarding!
Hooray! New novel finished! At this point as per my last post, it’s still in Anne Lamott‘s words a “shitty first draft” but at least it is done. Now for the hard part…as in editing the “crap” out. At 107,000 words, it’s pretty lean as far as YA novels go these days, but that means I can tweak without worrying about having way too many words.
Rule of thumb for YA novels is about 100,000 words for you would-be YA writers, or so I’ve been told by a slew of agents my first go-around.
So what’s this novel about? Yeah…I think it’s time for a hint. It’s about the apocalypse. Not 2012 style, more Lord-of-the-Rings-in-hell style. Pretty cool stuff – I’m excited!!
Angels are back. Ok, well maybe they never left but they are certainly becoming more popular these days. In fact, people are going as far as to say that angels are the new vampires. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The last two books I reviewed were about angels or fallen angels to be precise, Hush Hush and Fallen.
In the Sunday New York Times this week, there’s a book review of Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology. She writes about fallen angels, called the Nephilim – children of fallen angels who took mortal wives. This idea is not by any means new. It appears in the bible – Genesis 6 says “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” This single line is the source of many books – for authors searching for that next tragically damned hero. (Yes, I am totally one of them.) The idea is to take something old or known and develop a fresh slant on it – making it unique and fresh. The hero searching for redemption who ‘changes his stars’ will always be appealing, only now, darker is better.
According to the article, Trussoni’s version of the Nephilim or “Famous Ones” are “nasty, selfish creatures who live in opulent apartments. Gorgeous, sensuous and wealthy, they are jealous of humans and vindictive toward God, cold to one another and rude to their servants, who belong to lesser angelic orders.” Very intriguing concept. In Fallen, the war is between ‘good’ fallen angels and ‘bad’ fallen angels. In Hush Hush, the fallen are doomed to walk the earth in bodies that can’t feel except for two weeks out of every year.
No doubt there’s going to be a slew of books on the market of this ilk. It’s a paranormal tsunami. Still, I don’t see anyone complaining about the deluge – bring it on. People just seem to want more.
Fallen by Lauren Kate was an interesting read. I devoured it from start to finish in a few hours. I have to admit that I was completely drawn in by the writing and the characters, particularly Cam, the “other” love interest. I did think that the whole big plot twist/angel discovery was revealed a little too late – it seemed to be building forever, but overall, I enjoyed the pacing and the story. At times, I found myself wondering at believability, but then I just let myself enjoy the book instead of over-analyzing it to death while reading it. Over analysis comes later.
Brief synopsis: Luce is a girl who falls in love every seventeen years with an angel, Daniel. Problem is, every time she falls for him (and he her), she dies. Only to be reincarnated seventeen years later. Sent to a reform school (she’s a suspect in a murder case with a boy from her last school who burns to death in a fire), Luce meets Daniel again, and immediately feels a connection. He, of course, pushes her away, which only makes her fall harder for him. Cam, another boy at the school tries to charm Luce because he wants her for a still unidentified reason – last page of the book, “I just want her. You know why.” Dammit, no, we don’t! And we want to know! Anyway, I digress. This time though, when Daniel kisses her and they fall in love, she doesn’t die (because she’s been born and raised agnostic, hence, loophole). If she dies, no reincarnation. With the help of a friend, Luce discovers the truth about Daniel – he is an angel, a fallen angel, and that they are in the middle of a cataclysmic war between “good” fallen angels and “bad” fallen angels.
On the good side of things, I absolutely loved Lauren Kate’s writing – it was fluid and descriptive, and moved so synchronously with her dialogue that it kept me turning page after page. I loved her descriptions of the angels in the end. It was wonderful to read and very evocative. I also thought all of her characters were believable and real, from Cam and Molly to Penn and Gabbe. As the main protagonist, Luce was interesting, bright, and funny (though a little lovesick at times). I liked that she was hesitant sometimes but decisive at others. She’s a decent heroine that teens/tweens will be able to identify with.
On the flip side, while a decent story which I enjoyed reading, Fallen had a lot of holes which made it lose some of its grasp on me. The “shadows” that followed Luce were cool. They reminded me of the shadows in the movie, Ghost, that took evil souls away. I wanted to know more about them other than they were called “Announcers” or “Gossips. The demonic version of a clique of high school girls.” That description completely undermined the ominous feel of them throughout the book. Just made them suddenly less than. In the book Daniel also said, “They look bad, but they can’t hurt you.” That didn’t quite ring true with one of them pushing Luce down the stairs in the library. So that just didn’t add up.
Secondly, what was with the fire with Trevor in the beginning – that wasn’t even explained. Neither was the one in the library at Sword & Cross. I mean, was there a reason it happened? Was there any connection between the two fires? Did Luce start them? The shadows? That was something that drew me in but wasn’t properly explained – and it’s a key scene in the beginning. My other big question was why would all these fallen angels congregate at this reform school? That felt contrived, and it trivialized a lot of the story for some reason.
The battle scene at the end also felt quite flat for me – there was a ton of build-up, and then not much after that. The twist with Miss Sophia was a bit predictable, and Daniel’s very timely entrance to save Luce at the end from certain death, was a little cheesy. It just started to feel way too puzzle-perfect, like it was all about tying up loose ends instead of the plot coming to a true head. Also, what happened with Cam? I mean, he’s a bad fallen angel but I just didn’t understand his motives, like what drove him? Why did he want Luce? Who was the mysterious guy he was with at Parent’s Day?
Lastly, while the take on fallen angels was interesting, i.e., having good and bad ones, they’re all still fallen which typically means bad. It would have made more sense to me if the good guys weren’t actually fallen but were real angels fighting against ones that were. The cliffhanger ending with the handshake between good fallen angel, Daniel and bad fallen angel, Cam didn’t do it for me at all. Way too “read-my-next-book!”
I am finding a lot more faults in my post-review of this book than I did while reading it. I don’t want this review to come across as negative because Fallen was a good read, and I enjoyed it. I just had a lot of questions toward the end because I was so drawn into the story and so involved because of the good writing, that a lot of things didn’t get resolved to my satisfaction. It just had way too many unanswered questions, and in the end, too many flaws outweighed the really great writing.
Avatar took six awards at the annual VES (Visual Effects Society) awards, but according to the NY Post, this Sunday may be a “Blue Sunday for Avatar Fans.” Despite the fact that Avatar has been snubbed by many other pre-Oscar awards, I still have hope that it will get the recognition it deserves at the Oscars. You will remember my last post regarding Zoe Saldana not being nominated for her role as Neytiri (yep, still upset about that one), well I find it funny that despite them calling her role in Avatar not true acting, that Avatar was not nominated in the “animation” category in the Oscars. So which is it then? Animation or not? The truth is – there’s a gray area. It’s a hybrid that breaks new ground…especially in the area of recognition.
This new type of film-making is called “performance-capture” film-making. As with traditional film-making, it’s the human actors that give life to the characters in Avatar. In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Steven Spielberg says, “I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation. It’s basically the actual performance of the actual actor, and what you’re simply experiencing is makeup.” That said, it certainly deserves some kind of recognition especially when we, as an audience, can connect with these actors/animated characters in a much similar way to how we connect with actors in traditional film-making.
Best actor nominee in The Hurt Locker, Jermey Renner, says, “Some movies are actors’ kind of movies and some movies are more directors’ movies. ‘Avatar‘ is a spectacle. It’s a beautiful experience, but it’s not really an actors’ kind of movie. It doesn’t really allow for an actor to truly tell a story. The director’s telling the story in that one.” I 100% disagree with that statement. Neytiri’s grace, grittiness, and raw emotion tell a story. Her entire tribe tells a story. Jake as human and avatar tells two distinct stories! In James Cameron’s words, it is completely an “actor-driven process.” I sincerely believe that Zoe Saldana should be recognized in her role as Neytiri, because I simply cannot imagine myself having the same connection with her if it were pure animation. Sigourney Weaver said it best, “Zoe played Neytiri with such strength, grace and force. If the audience realized just how much, they would have appreciated the performance more.” I certainly did. It’s time for the people who give out these awards to do so too.
The return of V, the anticipated ABC series, just didn’t do it for me tonight. Well except for the last thirty seconds where Anna went all praying mantis on the sperm donor for her ‘army,’ sporting a row of angler-fish-esque fangs. Nasty!
Wicked: The Musical
about everything. She was hysterical – trying to teach “Elphie” how to do her signature hair toss. Lean back and toss toss! Hilarious! You couldn’t help not like Glinda despite her flaws, and you kept hoping that she would come through for her friend, Elphaba, despite the social pressure. She does in the end, but it’s too late…their fates are all sealed.
I love how you learn the back-stories of the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, as well as the back-story of how the infamous jeweled shoes came to be before Dorothy in the 
I thought this was an ok episode but it didn’t draw me in as much as I thought it would have. It was a bit boring overall, and it seemed like a set up for future installments of the 
In many YA books, we expect writers to have some unique plot definition or twist – in 
believe is a very personal relationship with God. I grew up in a multi-religious household, and have always been open to all beliefs. What struck me about 
Stupid reekfish! Arrggh. Spent thirty minutes of wasted time bobbing that stupid floating lure up and down in 
up just as you see a fish swim for the hook. You don’t have to wait for the lure to bob below the water. Once you see a fish swim to it, jerk up and hold it there even when you see FISH ON. Keep holding the remote up or you’ll lose the fish!
In the Sunday New York Times this week, there’s a 
, another boy at the school tries to charm Luce because he wants her for a still unidentified reason – last page of the book, “I just want her. You know why.” Dammit, no, we don’t! And we want to know! Anyway, I digress. This time though, when Daniel kisses her and they fall in love, she doesn’t die (because she’s been born and raised agnostic, hence, loophole). If she dies, no reincarnation. With the help of a friend, Luce discovers the truth about Daniel – he is an angel, a fallen angel, and that they are in the middle of a cataclysmic war between “good” fallen angels and “bad” fallen angels.
Avatar
s, “I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation. It’s basically the actual performance of the actual actor, and what you’re simply experiencing is makeup.” That said, it certainly deserves some kind of recognition especially when we, as an audience, can connect with these actors/animated characters in a much similar way to how we connect with actors in traditional film-making.
he director’s telling the story in that one.” I 100% disagree with that statement. Neytiri’s grace, grittiness, and raw emotion tell a story. Her entire tribe tells a story. Jake as human and avatar tells two distinct stories! In James Cameron’s words, it is completely an “actor-driven process.” I sincerely believe that Zoe Saldana should be recognized in her role as Neytiri, because I simply cannot imagine myself having the same connection with her if it were pure animation. Sigourney Weaver said it best, “Zoe played Neytiri with such strength, grace and force. If the audience realized just how much, they would have appreciated the performance more.” I certainly did. It’s time for the people who give out these awards to do so too.