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elisacp's reviews
81 reviews
Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous! by Rory Freedman, Kim Barnouin
2.0
You'd think I would love this book, since it's a diet book (ka-ching) that is really a manifesto about why one should be a vegan (appealing to 5% of the population.
But it's so negative in tone and approach that I didn't really love it at all.
But it's so negative in tone and approach that I didn't really love it at all.
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
4.0
Gilbert is a wonderful, evocative writer with a good sense of humor and a way of sketching out characters, so they seem quite alive.
Except for the two men she left behind. We don't get to know either her ex-husband or her ex-boyfriend well at all...which she manages to make seem as though it's out of kindness and deference to their privacy.
A very quick, entertaining read.
Except for the two men she left behind. We don't get to know either her ex-husband or her ex-boyfriend well at all...which she manages to make seem as though it's out of kindness and deference to their privacy.
A very quick, entertaining read.
Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood by Hollis Gillespie
2.0
Considering how much I like blogs, you'd think i'd like this book more, since it's really a series of "posts", most just a couple of pages in length, telling a variety of clever anecdotes about Gillespie's life.
But I found it a bit tedious after a while and started skimming through the stories to hasten my way to the final page. Lightweight stories such as these are perhaps better suited for the online medium...where you can skip around easily, where comments can provide an opportunity for conversation, where there's more context and chronology.
This book only confirmed the fact that I am NOT one of those people who can't wait for the next David Sedaris essay collection :)
Full review in my blog:
http://homepage.mac.com/elisa_camahort/iblog/C1023857155/E20071230100326/index.html
But I found it a bit tedious after a while and started skimming through the stories to hasten my way to the final page. Lightweight stories such as these are perhaps better suited for the online medium...where you can skip around easily, where comments can provide an opportunity for conversation, where there's more context and chronology.
This book only confirmed the fact that I am NOT one of those people who can't wait for the next David Sedaris essay collection :)
Full review in my blog:
http://homepage.mac.com/elisa_camahort/iblog/C1023857155/E20071230100326/index.html
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
3.0
This book lost me about half-way through. I read it all in one day, laid up with the flu, so it definitely propels you along. But i wound up disappointed. The primary set of stories it started out following was abandoned for a second set of stories, and I found myself wanting to return to he abandoned characters and their unfulfilled storylines.
I don't get why the author chose to construct his novel in this way, and it made me lose patience a bit.
I don't get why the author chose to construct his novel in this way, and it made me lose patience a bit.
Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky
3.0
I wish I had quite the rapturous response to this book that many have had. I expected to relate to it very closely. My own mother was born in France in early 1940 after her parents fled Czechoslovakia. They also fled France at right around the time of this novel, eventually making their way to the U.S.
Unfortunately at some point I felt the book focused only on petty people and the small picture.
It is a clear-eyed, spare look, which has its virtues, but I would have preferred a bit more emotional heft. The heft there is is provided by knowing Nemirovsky's fate.
Unfortunately at some point I felt the book focused only on petty people and the small picture.
It is a clear-eyed, spare look, which has its virtues, but I would have preferred a bit more emotional heft. The heft there is is provided by knowing Nemirovsky's fate.