Wordless Wednesday

Stillwater, Minnesota

Between Friends, Debbie Macomber

I have always thought that the phrase "women's fiction" was somehow a slight (or not so slight) put down of the kind of stories that women find enjoyable or meaningful.  While it is certainly not a universal fact that all women like to read stories about family, relationships, and friendships, it is certainly true that much of the fiction marketed to women as women's fiction is just that.  I have mixed feelings about the type of novel that is labeled "women's fiction".  Like any other genre, some is better written and more literary than others.  On the spectrum from serious literature to fluff, I find myself most comfortable on the more literary end.  The titles on the fluff end tend to feel a bit too much like a Lifetime Movie to me-trite, easy platitudes or oversimplified stories about complex issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, or family dynamics.

Sadly, my book club's November pick, Macomber's book Between Friends, falls a little too far to the fluff end for me.  The epistolary novel is tells the story of two women, wealthy Jillian and her poor friend Lesley, who become friends as children and maintain that friendship throughout the trials and tribulations of their lives.  While I don't have a problem with an epistolary novel in theory, in practice I find they often do more "telling" than "showing".  Telling a story through a series of letters and other documents relieves the author of the need to actually develop characters, evoke feeling through setting or events, or write intelligent, meaningful dialogue.  This book felt like a novel written in hearsay-there is little immediacy to the events, which I think takes away from any emotional impact.  

I was also disturbed by how stereotypical the characters lives were.   Lesley, the daughter of an abusive alcoholic, goes on to marry an abusive alcoholic after he gets her pregnant.  Because she is a devout Catholic, she stays with him "for the children", and refuses to use birth control, ending up with three more children before she finally decides enough is enough.  Jillian, the daughter of privilege, rebels in high school by falling in love with the gas jockey with a heart of gold-who just happens to get killed in Viet Nam, clearing the way for her to go on to the pricey private school and career as a lawyer that she was destined to have from the start.  I can't cite too many other examples, mostly because I couldn't finish reading the book, but suffice it to say that I was unimpressed.  One of the women in my book club reminded me that in the 1950s and 60s there were some women exactly like Lesley and Jillian.  My response to her was, "I can acknowledge that without wanting to read a hole book about it."

  My best friend has one other major complaint, which I share.  Somehow these two women from Washington state, one of whom has only a high school education and rarely leaves her hometown, are connected to every major event in American life for 50 years.  My friend called it "Forest Gump" syndrome, after that charming movie about mildly retarded Forest and his many brushes with greatness.  Difference is, on screen it worked.  In this book it just seems contrived.  All in all, I'm pretty sure I will not be reading a Debbie Macomber book again any time soon.

My Thoughts on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

I am sure many of you must have known the storyline and what happened in The Twilight Saga, thus I am not going to brief on the premise and instead share with you what I thought of the movie when we watched it a few days ago. Due to the school holidays, the cinema was quite packed but still Breaking Dawn: Part 1 would attract its fans everywhere no matter whatever the circumstances are.

Unlike the previous installments, Breaking Dawn: Part 1 covered more on the emotional than the action part as we see Bella and Edward got married and had their honeymoon at a beautiful exotic place in Brazil. There are many romantic scenes of the newlyweds being together and how Bella reacted in her new role as Edward's wife (and by the way, I loved her wedding dress!). In fact, I felt the first part of the movie was moving on quite slowly because it focus too much on the above.

The action (and drama) finally began in the second part where we see Bella having difficulty in her pregnancy stage and that her appearance and her overall health deteriorate. Bella looked frightening in her pregnancy stage as she always looked pale and haggard. Her body frame reminds me of those who are anorexic except that her protruding belly tells otherwise. And as for the birth scene, it wasn't horrendous as I had anticipated, but then considering that this movie is PG-13 I figured by showing traces of blood is suffice to tell the whole delivery process.

However, fret not if you think this movie is geared towards the sentimental as there is still a tad small of a fighting scene between the werewolves clan and also between the vampires and the werewolves as well. It is also interesting to see Jacob's struggle as he not only have to see his beloved Bella got married to his nemesis but also to stand by her throughout the overall series. Even if you don't belong to Team Jacob, you couldn't help but to feel sympathy with the poor guy who have sacrificed so much for the sake of seeing Bella's happiness.

So what did I think of this movie? It was pretty romantic (yep, I am still thinking of the place where Bella and Edward went for their honeymoon) and I am sure this installment would satisfy a lot of female audience (the wedding/honeymoon as well as the part where Jacob took off his shirt during the opening scene) but it also left me wonder what would be in store in the last part considering the big premise (the wedding and the delivery of the baby) were already shown in this first part. Of course there is the confrontation scene with the Volturi but other than that I couldn't think of anything major would happen. That said, I still look forward to Part 2 as it is a closure to this Saga.

Wordless Wednesday (Minnehaha Falls #3)

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Minnehaha Falls #1

Minnehaha Falls #2

Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

I meant to choose a thriller but after reading a few pages, I decided I wasn't really in the mood for it so I changed my mind. Since I haven't been reading romance suspense for a long while, Linda Howard's Veil of Night is it.

~*~*~*~*~*

Her free arm slipped inside his open jacket and she grabbed a handful of shirt fabric, holding on for dear life. The side of her arm brushed against something very hard, and there was a very brief glimpse of leather before she made the startled identification of holster, followed by gun, then cop.

(Pg 3, Veil of Night by Linda Howard)

Blood on the Moon by Jennifer Knight

ISBN-13: 9780762441174
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
Published: August 2011
Format: Paperback, 416pp
Source: Personal Library

Vampires. Werewolves. There are absolutely too many books on these mythical creatures out in the market and while I feel it is great to have a wide range to choose from, I don't want to feel like I am reading the same story over and over again thus I think I am pretty choosy when it comes to books that featured such themes.

I first stumbled upon Blood on the Moon on a blog (I couldn't remember who) and the blogger stated that she enjoyed reading it. Intrigued by her review and the blurb as well, I picked up the book and I was glad to say it didn't disappoint me.

Faith and Derek are best friends for years and it is no surprise that they enter into the same college. Derek has feelings towards Faith but she didn't want to accept his love considering that he has cheated on her once and she felt that she would feel more comfortable being friends.

Enter Lucas, a mysterious classmate who seem to have this strange yet dangerous vibe around him. He intrigues her, and needless to say they feel attracted towards each other. It turns out that he is a werewolf and his pack has this mission of eliminating the vampires whom they believe have murdered several girls around the campus.

To complicate matters and to heighten the climax, Lucas has to face his ex-good friend and namesis, Vincent, who is a vampire and they had this feud centuries ago. There is a little history about their feud so I am not going to elaborate on that here.

Faith vows to find out more about Lucas and the mystery surrounding the dead girls, but instead of finding answers she finds herself being caught in between the old feud between Lucas and Vincent. It is also up to her to save Derek's life as Vincent uses him as a pawn to lure Faith out so that he could use that advantage against Lucas, knowing that they have a thing for each other.

As mentioned before, I was glad that Blood on the Moon didn't disappoint me. Initially I was worried that it would bear some resemblance to the Twilight Saga, but after reading a few chapters I realised that my worry is superfluous. Although there is a romance drama (as expected), the heroine knows what she wants right from the beginning so this story is very much about the chemistry (and telepathy?) between Faith and Lucas, as well as the feud between Lucas and Vincent. Oh, there are also some intense moments about Derek being a pawn so all these add up to my reading pleasure.

As for the characterisations, I have to say they are well described but I regret to say that among all of the characters, only Lucas stood out from the rest in my opinion. Vincent makes a great villain, but his role is limited considering that there is a twist to the plot in which I wouldn't want to disclose it here. And as much as I liked Faith and think she is brave when confronting her personal demons, I think part of her weakness lies with Derek as she wouldn't want to end their friendship but yet she felt she couldn't trust him enough. A dilemma, indeed.

And, I don't even want to talk about the ending, which is totally a cliffhanger! I tried to google for the sequel title and its release date but couldn't seem to find it but I am hoping that the wait wouldn't be long!

Wordless Wednesday (Minnehaha Falls #2)

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Minnehaha Falls #1

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs.

Here's what I received:

1) The Beach Trees by Karen White (from the publisher)

2) Silence (Hush, Hush Saga #3) by Becca Fitzpatrick (bought from The Book Depository)

What books came into your house last week?

A Book Lover's Dream-or Nightmare!

Here is but one of the many reasons that I love Stephen King as an author-who else would think to write a horror story about the Kindle, for the Kindle?  OK, I suppose it could seem a little gimmicky, but it works!

UR is a novella about Wesley Smith, an English professor at a mediocre college in a small town in Kentucky.  After a vicious fight with his girlfriend over his reading habits, he buys a Kindle out of spite.  Sure that his purchase will be a passing fad in his reading life, he begins searching for titles.  What he finds astonishes him-the Kindle seems to have access to alternate realities where his favorite authors lived longer, and wrote MORE BOOKS!  Or they died when they were "supposed" to, but wrote DIFFERENT BOOKS!  Seriously, what else could a reader ask for but hundreds of new titles in millions of alternate realities from their favorite authors?  You could do nothing else but read for the rest of your life and never get through all of them!  Which is exactly where I thought the story was going.  King does a good job with obsession-I thought that this would be a return to Needful Things.

But not only does the new Kindle let you download titles from alternate realities, it also lets you check out the New York Times, and the local news.  Difference is, with the local news, instead of getting alternate versions, you get the future of the reality you live in.  And what Wesley sees in his future is too terrible to contemplate.

This is King at his short story/novella best.  He sets the scene, develops a character seamlessly, and moves you right along.  I was so intrigued by the whole idea of the Ur alternates.  Of course, anyone familiar with King's Dark Tower series knows that the Ur references the various levels of the Tower, and I was not surprised when the low men showed up to punish Wes for his paradox infraction.  But you don't have to have read the 3600+ Dark Tower books to appreciate and enjoy UR.

Movie: Re-cycle (鬼域)

Directed by: The Pang Brothers
Starring: Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou, Siu-Ming Lau, Rain Li
Release: July 2006

As mentioned in my previous post, I had the intention of doing a mini-reviews post on In Time and Re-cycle but in the end I had written more than I had expected for In Time so I figured I may as well do an individual post for each film.

Re-cycle was released in 2006 and though it had intrigued me at that time, I didn't get to watch it in the cinema. And then the time just rolled and I had forgotten about this movie until last weekend, my husband asked if I am keen to watch this on screen so of course I said yes.

Author Ding Yan attains her fame through her debut romance novel and during a press conference one day, she stated that she would like to try her hands on writing a paranormal and she had even thought of the title. Her statement has intrigued the press as well as her readers and they believe that she would once again take the literary world by storm through her writing skills.

However, Ding Yan (played by Angelica Lee) faces difficulties when writing the story initially. To complicate matters, her ex-lover wants them to be together again and this further adds stress to her already chaotic mind. She tried several attempts in writing the story but most of the drafts ended up in the bin.

Then she began to sense something is not right at home; first she would see shadows late at night and thereafter, she would find strands of long hairs in the bathroom but the most terrifying experience is finding strange things began to happen as what she has written in her deleted drafts.

One night while taking the elevator, she encountered a mysterious old woman and a little girl. One thing leads to another and the next thing she knows, she finds herself in another dimension where the wasted lands are and the supernatural beings that roam there. While finding her way out of the ghoulish land, she finds her young daughter whom she had aborted eight years ago and through her assistance, she needs to find her way back to earth or risk stranded there forever.

While I think the premise is nothing new, what really made this movie stands out is the atmospheric setting and the stunning visual effects of the other dimensions (see below).

Personally, I feel many of the horror movies out there focus too much on the shocking effect (which I think is natural) and neglect to portray more of the messages (or morals) which may be hidden behind those effects. Re-cycle may seem to be a tad weak on the plot but the good thing is it gives the viewers something to ponder on the abortion and the environmental issues (hence the title?).

And finally, the ending may perplex some viewers but I have to say I quite liked the twist and that it stretch the imagination.

Zoli, by Colum McCann

Colum McCann finds the world to be a dark, seedy place where nothing good can last.  At least, that's what I think he feels after reading or trying to read two of his books.  Last year I read Let the Great World Spin, as a part of my effort to read more male authors, and more literary fiction.  Reading that review now, I can see that my feelings on McCann's writing are very similar now, having tried unsuccessfully to read his novel Zoli.

Here is what Amazon has to say about the plot of Zoli,

 A unique love story, a tale of loss, a parable of Europe, this haunting novel is an examination of intimacy and betrayal in a community rarely captured so vibrantly in contemporary literature. 

Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embraced by the Gypsy people and savored by a young English expatriate, Stephen Swann. 

But Zoli soon finds that when she falls she cannot fall halfway–neither in love nor in politics. While Zoli’s fame and poetic skills deepen, the ruling Communists begin to use her for their own favor. Cast out from her family, Zoli abandons her past to journey to the West, in a novel that spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe.

Sounds like a sweeping tale of love and transcendence, doesn't it?  Instead, reading it felt like being sunk into a dark, bleak  world where even the most beautiful, innocent things were tainted by something cold and dreary.  At first I was drawn into the world of the Roma in eastern Europe during the early 20th century.  I knew that they had been persecuted, but I didn't know a lot about their traditions or culture.  But eventually I began to feel weighted down with all of the misery of the place.  I suppose that was probably purposeful on McCann's part.  After all, the Roma were persecuted, and we are talking about the start of the Soviet Union and the cruel grip of communism here.  But nothing, and I mean nothing, that I read seemed to speak to the transcendence of the human spirit.  Even the love story was bleak, and felt strangely unemotional.  It is not that I am adverse to reading melancholy, haunting, tragic books.  I read and loved The Road, and found the triumph of the father's love despite the complete destruction of the world to be meaningful, even if the events of the novel themselves were bleak.   A Thousand Splendid Suns is one of my favorite books, and it is undoubtedly tragic and heart-wrenching.  But even within the horror of living as a widow or a battered wife in Taliban Afghanistan, there were moments of tenderness, or beauty, or light.  Not so with McCann's books.

Maybe I am being slightly unfair, since I didn't finish the book.  Maybe the page after I finally gave up started a trend showing something, anything positive in the human experience.  Sadly, I couldn't take the unending dreariness long enough to find out.

Wordless Wednesday (Minnehaha Falls #1)

Minnehaha Falls is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Movie: In Time

Directed by: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser

Release: October 2011

I watched In Time with my husband last week as part of his birthday celebration. Truth be told, In Time was our last minute decision as the time slots for other movies were either not right to our schedule or they were shown later in the evening. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining movie although I have to say the storyline seemed to be a little far-fetched to my liking.

It is Year 2161. Genetic alteration has allowed humans to stop aging at 25 years and in order to avoid the issue of over-populations, the state of currency is being replaced by a system they called 'living time'. Each individual has a running time line which is 'etched' onto their arms and in order to pay for their necessities as well as for survival, they have to earn more time through labour and/or other means (i.e. stealing time from others). The people are divided by social classes and the poor will live in the ghettos of Dayton while the rich will live in the luxurious New Greenwich.

28-year-old Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake) lives with his 50-year-old mother in the ghettos. One day, he witnessed a gang fight in a bar which involved a mobster boss and a man named Henry Hamilton who has a hundred years on his clock. Will helps Henry in the escape and needless to say, he became the target of the gang too.

Henry later transfers all his remaining time line to Will before committing suicide. Unfortunately, Henry's suicide alerted the resident police force who called themselves the Timekeepers. And this begins a race between the Timekeepers and Will as the latter makes his way to New Greenwich, where he encounters a beautiful 27-year-old Sylvia Weis (played by Amanda Seyfried). Sylvia is the daughter to time-loaning businessman and she is attracted by the enigmatic Will after he has beaten her father at a poker game.

In order to crash the time line system and to bring a balance between the rich and the poor, Will and Sylvia began to rob the time banks and other time loaning branches so they can distribute the time capsules to the poor while they are being hunted by the Timekeepers.

Although my feelings toward the storyline is lukewarm (I just couldn't picture a human's life being calculated and controlled by the time line), however I have to say this movie featuring the dystopian future is refreshing and thought-provoking at times (i.e. a reminder that time is precious and to make full good use of it, etc). Personally, I think the chemistry between Justin and Amanda was great, and although I am not a huge fan of Justin, I have to say he had grabbed my attention through his performance (he must be physically fit for this role as he always seemed to be on the run in this movie most of the times) and not to mention his cool, chiselled looks (I have to check out his previous movie, The Social Network that talk about the founding of Facebook and the resulting lawsuits).

On the other end, as much as I was taken in by Amanda's portrayal of a spoiled rich girl, truth be told I just had this mixed feelings about her robbing her father's bank though I know her and Will's intentions were good (I suppose I shouldn't connect her robbing as being unfilial towards her father and instead think of the deeds she has done as a whole).

I may not give this movie a 5-star rating, but it interested me enough that I wouldn't mind watching it again on video the next time around.

(Note: Initially I had wanted to do a mini reivews of two movies I watched lately - this together with a chinese horror, Re-cycle but it turned out that I'd written long enough for In Time to be considered as a mini review. Thus my review on Re-cycle will have to wait for another day. What movies did you watch lately?)

The Belgariad, by David Eddings

Earlier this fall I posted a review of Pawn of Prophecy, the first book in David Edding's fantasy epic The Begariad.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I think that it is high fantasy at its best.  It had the usual cast of characters-sorcerers, knights, princesses, and the like-but it was smart and engaging.  I also reviewed the second book in the series, Queen of Sorcery, which I thought was a very good next step in describing the quest to find the Orb of Aldur and defeat the evil god Torak.

I have since finished he entire cycle-including Magician's Gambit, Castle of Wizardry and Enchanter's End Game-and I am please to say that the epic story of Garion and his journey from scullery boy to King of Riva and champion of the west was every bit as fun and exciting as the first two books led me to believe.  Eddings did a great job creating characters that were at once universal archetypes of western literary fantasy and completely individual.  While there was never really any doubt of the outcome-this is a classic good v. evil story after all, and we all know how those come out-there were enough twists and turns to keep you guessing.

One of the frequent complaints about high fantasy is how sexist it can be.  The men are warriors, the women are witches or princesses.  Eddings addresses that issue head on, acknowledging in this male characters that those attitudes exists, but countering them with his female characters, who he shows to be every bit as resourceful, strong, and capable as his male characters.  Unlike Tolkien, who's female characters were very one dimensional, Eddings shows women to be an integral part of the world that he created, and each has her own strengths and foibles.  All in all The Belgariad is a fine example of good storytelling-gently flowing language, interesting turns of phrase, characters that are believable even when they are doing unbelievable things, and exciting action sequences that stir the blood and the heart.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs.

Here's what I bought and received from The Book Depository:

1) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (Can't wait to dive into this! I know it'll take me a long while to finish reading it since it's a chunkster!)

2) Bunheads by Sophie Flack

What books came into your house last week?

Wordless Wednesday

Minneapolis, Minnesota