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__ceecee__'s Reviews (414)
I would rate this 2.5 stars at the most. I'm really sorry, SEP. I still love you. Hope you won't hate me.
Maybe it's my cynical side dominating, but "true love" like Francesca and Dallie's is just...a fantasy. I know that romances like SEP's are meant to be a culmination of a woman's fantasies, and meant to be indulged in. I guess this week just was not the week to read a romance. Not even this month.
Francesca was born rich and beautiful, and raised to believe that all you needed in life was to remain beautiful. But all it's done is cause her trouble. She doesn't understand the concept of real life, so when she suddenly becomes a pauper, she has no idea how to go on. Conned into starring in a cheap vampire movie, she lands in America, where, after walking out on her shooting, she meets Dallie on the road. The two don't like each other, but the physical attraction is undeniable.
[I'll have to expand on the plot later]
In short, though, there were lots of storylines, and jumping POVs, some of which we could have done without. SEP has created this perfect world with flawed characters, which I should have loved, except I'm such a Scrooge nowadays. It was too perfect. Or maybe I just didn't want to read a love story involving a lot of gorgeous people. It's like the only people who can have such happy endings are the good-looking ones. Now isn't that a blow to me.
It could have been better without all those sub plots. Only at the end did I really feel giddy with all the fluff, and actually laugh at their antics. Having read a lot of SEP, I get the feeling that she writes better with every new book, and Fancy Pants is one of her earlier works. She really gets better and funnier as time goes by. SO if you're reading this, and haven't read SEP yet, do try [b:Breathing Room|373607|Breathing Room|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329101171s/373607.jpg|1434730], or [b:Match Me If You Can|73089|Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6)|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327154923s/73089.jpg|2617385] or [b:Natural Born Charmer|73064|Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7)|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308742575s/73064.jpg|1615880] or my personal favorite : [b:Ain't She Sweet|373606|Ain't She Sweet|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348293825s/373606.jpg|2538].
Maybe it's my cynical side dominating, but "true love" like Francesca and Dallie's is just...a fantasy. I know that romances like SEP's are meant to be a culmination of a woman's fantasies, and meant to be indulged in. I guess this week just was not the week to read a romance. Not even this month.
Francesca was born rich and beautiful, and raised to believe that all you needed in life was to remain beautiful. But all it's done is cause her trouble. She doesn't understand the concept of real life, so when she suddenly becomes a pauper, she has no idea how to go on. Conned into starring in a cheap vampire movie, she lands in America, where, after walking out on her shooting, she meets Dallie on the road. The two don't like each other, but the physical attraction is undeniable.
[I'll have to expand on the plot later]
In short, though, there were lots of storylines, and jumping POVs, some of which we could have done without. SEP has created this perfect world with flawed characters, which I should have loved, except I'm such a Scrooge nowadays. It was too perfect. Or maybe I just didn't want to read a love story involving a lot of gorgeous people. It's like the only people who can have such happy endings are the good-looking ones. Now isn't that a blow to me.
It could have been better without all those sub plots. Only at the end did I really feel giddy with all the fluff, and actually laugh at their antics. Having read a lot of SEP, I get the feeling that she writes better with every new book, and Fancy Pants is one of her earlier works. She really gets better and funnier as time goes by. SO if you're reading this, and haven't read SEP yet, do try [b:Breathing Room|373607|Breathing Room|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329101171s/373607.jpg|1434730], or [b:Match Me If You Can|73089|Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6)|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327154923s/73089.jpg|2617385] or [b:Natural Born Charmer|73064|Natural Born Charmer (Chicago Stars, #7)|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1308742575s/73064.jpg|1615880] or my personal favorite : [b:Ain't She Sweet|373606|Ain't She Sweet|Susan Elizabeth Phillips|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348293825s/373606.jpg|2538].
Weird, illogical, goofy and crazy, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger is hilarious . It's just the kind of book which tickles my funny bone because it's just so, well, strange .
Your school consists of 30 stories, each story with only one classroom, and the elevator only goes up but never down. Wait, don't forget that there's no nineteenth floor but you could swear you can hear cows from there.. Your dentist is a hypnotist, and your substitute teacher has 3 nostrils. God, I just loved the craziness of it all.
Each chapter is a vignette, but some come together to form a story. It's okay if you didn't read the first 2 books, I think it just added to the hilarity. And you know what, amidst the goofiness of it all, there was something sweet and something profound inserted in between the pages, which is the kind of thing I admire in Louis Sachar's works.
Its humour isn't for everybody (one of my friends couldn't appreciate what made this book so funny to me), but I don't really care. I'm a weirdo and this book is for me.
Your school consists of 30 stories, each story with only one classroom, and the elevator only goes up but never down. Wait, don't forget that there's no nineteenth floor but you could swear you can hear cows from there.. Your dentist is a hypnotist, and your substitute teacher has 3 nostrils. God, I just loved the craziness of it all.
Each chapter is a vignette, but some come together to form a story. It's okay if you didn't read the first 2 books, I think it just added to the hilarity. And you know what, amidst the goofiness of it all, there was something sweet and something profound inserted in between the pages, which is the kind of thing I admire in Louis Sachar's works.
Its humour isn't for everybody (one of my friends couldn't appreciate what made this book so funny to me), but I don't really care. I'm a weirdo and this book is for me.
I can't get into Woolf's writing style. Life's too short, right? (I wonder when I'll be picking this up again)
There are other books beckoning.
There are other books beckoning.
I have got to stop finding books that seek to nourish my "intellectual" side. At this period of my life, I need hearty novels, not intellectual ones. Though if the novel manages to affect me emotionally and intellectually then that's a novel I need to find.
In the world of 1984, the Party controls the past, and thus, man. It's a world where the Upper Class stay high, and keep the power. I don't understand much how they did it, but they managed to make people believe in lies, even when they were so blatantly false - "doublethink". Their slogans:
Every move is monitored and any small suspicion of going against the Party, you are tortured and/or eradicated. It's a world where emotion is expunged, individuality is shunned, and children betray their own parents, and the parents are proud of them for it.
It's horrifying.
I'm rating this based on my enjoyment of the book, thus the two stars. Like I said, all this cerebral-ness just isn't my cup of tea lately.
For sure, I loved the ideas in this book. Winston Smith's struggle against the Party is relate-able and poignant. Thus his utter defeat in the end is frustrating, and generally speaks to all of us: If you don't want what happened to Winston happen to you, don't let it.
The world may not turn out exactly like in 1984, but at the heart of it - the hopelessness of man - just may be possible, or is possibly happening. In fact, when O'Brien said that the proles (or the Lower Class) will never revolt, I just about agreed with him. Isn't that's what's happening now?
Hope lay in the proles the Lower Class because they are the most numerous. But will they ever wake up? Will we ever achieve the Utopia?
I just came to realize how utterly satisfying my life is, to be able to write this down, read what I want to read, and learn what I want to learn. We still have freedom. We won't achieve Utopia. There will always be an Upper, Middle, and Lower Class. But there will always be humanity, too, and there will always be hope.
*2.5 stars. Great concept, brilliant ideas, but I didn't enjoy the writing.
In the world of 1984, the Party controls the past, and thus, man. It's a world where the Upper Class stay high, and keep the power. I don't understand much how they did it, but they managed to make people believe in lies, even when they were so blatantly false - "doublethink". Their slogans:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Every move is monitored and any small suspicion of going against the Party, you are tortured and/or eradicated. It's a world where emotion is expunged, individuality is shunned, and children betray their own parents, and the parents are proud of them for it.
It's horrifying.
I'm rating this based on my enjoyment of the book, thus the two stars. Like I said, all this cerebral-ness just isn't my cup of tea lately.
For sure, I loved the ideas in this book. Winston Smith's struggle against the Party is relate-able and poignant. Thus his utter defeat in the end is frustrating, and generally speaks to all of us: If you don't want what happened to Winston happen to you, don't let it.
The world may not turn out exactly like in 1984, but at the heart of it - the hopelessness of man - just may be possible, or is possibly happening. In fact, when O'Brien said that the proles (or the Lower Class) will never revolt, I just about agreed with him. Isn't that's what's happening now?
If there was hope, it lay in the proles
Hope lay in the proles the Lower Class because they are the most numerous. But will they ever wake up? Will we ever achieve the Utopia?
I just came to realize how utterly satisfying my life is, to be able to write this down, read what I want to read, and learn what I want to learn. We still have freedom. We won't achieve Utopia. There will always be an Upper, Middle, and Lower Class. But there will always be humanity, too, and there will always be hope.
*2.5 stars. Great concept, brilliant ideas, but I didn't enjoy the writing.
3.5 stars It may not be a very well-written series. I can't say it's a satisfying end to a trilogy. It leaves more questions than answers, making me wonder how this could be the end. But I really did love Chloe, and the trilogy was worth reading for her. Ass-kicking heroine, check. Well developed love angle, check. What more can you ask from a YA novel? And did I mention that Chloe and Derek are the cutest?
5++ stars for the romantic development!
5++ stars for the romantic development!
I know I should at least give this 3 stars, or 4 stars. The prose was amazing as ever. But it was such a letdown, and I'm not feeling generous at the moment.
This is the story of Frankie Addams, a 12 year old girl at the end of the summer, about to attend her brother's wedding. I don't know about you, but I feel like Frankie was me when I was 12 years old. I was questioning my place in the world.
And Frankie, she did all sorts of things during her summer, but she couldn't help but feel that there was something missing. She was restless, and no matter what she did, it wasn't what she wanted to do. Then comes her brother and his fiance, and she falls in love with the couple. Finally, she sees this as an opportunity to leave her hometown and become a part of something, no longer alone.
I really liked Frankie's insights (see added quotes).
Perhaps this is my favorite quote of them all, because this was exactly what I was contemplating a while back. There are so many people in the world, in my hometown there's at least a thousand, and I will never know most of them. It leaves a queer feeling, that I want to be connected to these people.
But to tell the truth, I thought this was a growing up story. If growing up meant being disillusioned, then Frankie grew up in a most disheartening way. I felt that the book stopped abruptly, and I'm not a fan of endings where things were going great, but then it didn't and it just stopped. It was a 150-pages book, and I don't know why McCullers would just end like that. It's like she was even more melancholic than when she wrote [b:The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|37380|The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|Carson McCullers|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168914678s/37380.jpg|860196]. Look, I want to be inspired, not dejected. Where's the big epiphany? That life sucks? I was already aware of that.
And I guess my problem also lies in that I liked the melancholy that was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and by the time I read The Member of the Wedding I no longer wanted to read another melancholic novel. At least the former novel had redeeming qualities. The Member of the Wedding read too much like The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with only a "Mick Kelly" as the protagonist.
Sure, it's unfair to judge this book by its predecessor, but I can't help it. The Member of the Wedding is another novel about human isolation, and McCullers already succeeded with [b:The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|37380|The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|Carson McCullers|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168914678s/37380.jpg|860196].
This is the story of Frankie Addams, a 12 year old girl at the end of the summer, about to attend her brother's wedding. I don't know about you, but I feel like Frankie was me when I was 12 years old. I was questioning my place in the world.
"She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone."
And Frankie, she did all sorts of things during her summer, but she couldn't help but feel that there was something missing. She was restless, and no matter what she did, it wasn't what she wanted to do. Then comes her brother and his fiance, and she falls in love with the couple. Finally, she sees this as an opportunity to leave her hometown and become a part of something, no longer alone.
I really liked Frankie's insights (see added quotes).
"There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know."
Perhaps this is my favorite quote of them all, because this was exactly what I was contemplating a while back. There are so many people in the world, in my hometown there's at least a thousand, and I will never know most of them. It leaves a queer feeling, that I want to be connected to these people.
But to tell the truth, I thought this was a growing up story. If growing up meant being disillusioned, then Frankie grew up in a most disheartening way. I felt that the book stopped abruptly, and I'm not a fan of endings where things were going great, but then it didn't and it just stopped. It was a 150-pages book, and I don't know why McCullers would just end like that. It's like she was even more melancholic than when she wrote [b:The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|37380|The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|Carson McCullers|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168914678s/37380.jpg|860196]. Look, I want to be inspired, not dejected.
Spoiler
Killing off John Henry like that, and Frankie turning into plain Frances and just letting life pass her by.And I guess my problem also lies in that I liked the melancholy that was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and by the time I read The Member of the Wedding I no longer wanted to read another melancholic novel. At least the former novel had redeeming qualities. The Member of the Wedding read too much like The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with only a "Mick Kelly" as the protagonist.
Sure, it's unfair to judge this book by its predecessor, but I can't help it. The Member of the Wedding is another novel about human isolation, and McCullers already succeeded with [b:The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|37380|The Heart is a Lonely Hunter|Carson McCullers|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168914678s/37380.jpg|860196].