So a few weeks ago I sent out an email after talking to a few people who were interested in the idea of a reading group/book club and I got tremendous feedback, I think we are up to possibly 13 or 14 people, I am so excited.
I chose The Time Travelers Wife as our first read. I read it two years ago while I was in bed for our second round of IVF. I remember really enjoying it and I wished other people were reading it so I could talk about it with them. So I start this book group and I have Ward read the book and I got his feedback. And now, well now I am not so sure that I have suggested the right book to start our little group off on, but it is a little too late now I guess to worry with it. I am reading the book again and I still really like it, it fits me, it has things I can relate to, but the theme and language may be a little testy for a new book group.
Oh well, should make for an interesting discussion I suppose and that is I guess all I really wanted in the first place so I guess I should feel satisfied.
I mean I could have suggested Breaking Dawn!
-june
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
A Tear The Size of A Baseball
I've done it folks, finally! I have finished Breaking Dawn and I just knew that those related to me that finished it weeks ago would want to know what I thought (as if they didn't already know what I thought).
First let me begin by telling you that I don't usually read young adult or teen fiction but the Twilight series came highly recommended by my niece who is an avid reader with fairly decent taste. I do like to read and I like to have things to discuss with my far away family so I bought the first and second book (and got a deal on amazon).
I have never read any vampire stories and other than the New Orleans Vampire Tour we went on in 2005, I have never been all that into Vampire lore. But Twilight was OK, it wasn't the best book that I had ever read but I liked the love story entangled with this new concept of Vampires-vegetarian Vampires that is. So I began New Moon and I was less than impressed with the on and on ramblings of how sad Bella was at Edward's absence. While reading New Moon, Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book in the Twilight series was released. Both my sister and my sister-in-law were reading the series and at a much faster pace than I was. Only, and I really mean ONLY because they were reading the series and I have a desperate desire to talk about the books I read, did I continue through Half Moon to Eclipse. Eclipse was rather good, maybe my favorite book in the series. I was involved enough with the characters that I was beginning to almost care what happened to them and my eye rolling has dwindled down to about only once every chapter or so. I was well aware of the fourth book when I finished Eclipse but I just couldn't help but think-what else is there really to say or do?
So I started Breaking Dawn and it almost immediately made me want to stop. I could care less about the wedding details, this book really is written for teenage girls huh? I was about to get bored with the honeymoon when Meyers takes us to absurdity in her plot twist. I couldn't help but wonder if Meyers thought the plot was so twisted and unlike her main character that she decided to switch to another characters first person for 'Book 2'. I mean I like Jacob, I mean I really do, but I would have much preferred the books all be told from Bella's perspective. The pregnant Bella was too far a stretch for Meyer's to write I presume? That's fine, but lets edit some of these pages, does the pregnancy which doesn't last all that long, really have to take up so much of the book?
Then the baby, Renesmee? Let's look past her ridiculous name for a moment-oh wait, that is just too hard to do. Let me gasp, sigh, and roll my eyes. OK, back to my review. Jacob imprinting on Nessie (better name choice?). I saw it coming but how I wished Meyer's wasn't going to let me down in this fashion after the first two sections of Breaking Dawn had been such a letdown, but no, she goes through with it even though Leah was a better match in my opinion. I was hoping someone in the story could form a relationship the old fashioned way but I guess not.
I can stomach Bella's overcoming of most of the drawbacks to the newborn stage but Charlie coming over. Are you serious? If I wasn't so interested in just how bizarre this book could get, I would have stopped reading pages ago.
So I try to overlook most of the bad silly things that happen and look at the positives for this tale as I am investing a lot of spare time into this 754 page book that read a lot slower than The Deathly Hallows. Meyer's fits the pieces together pretty well. I like the supernatural powers and even the wolf twist, I was even managing to accept the imprinting scenario as were Edward and Bella when the book was winding down-slowly-slowly-slowly through the Volturi visit when what do I come across but Jacob crying a tear the size of a baseball, a BASEBALL. This was it. I must have read this sentence 14 times. A baseball. Really. Well, that really tells me how sad he was at the prospect of losing Bella. Baseball (come back eyes, don't stay back there).
First let me begin by telling you that I don't usually read young adult or teen fiction but the Twilight series came highly recommended by my niece who is an avid reader with fairly decent taste. I do like to read and I like to have things to discuss with my far away family so I bought the first and second book (and got a deal on amazon).
I have never read any vampire stories and other than the New Orleans Vampire Tour we went on in 2005, I have never been all that into Vampire lore. But Twilight was OK, it wasn't the best book that I had ever read but I liked the love story entangled with this new concept of Vampires-vegetarian Vampires that is. So I began New Moon and I was less than impressed with the on and on ramblings of how sad Bella was at Edward's absence. While reading New Moon, Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book in the Twilight series was released. Both my sister and my sister-in-law were reading the series and at a much faster pace than I was. Only, and I really mean ONLY because they were reading the series and I have a desperate desire to talk about the books I read, did I continue through Half Moon to Eclipse. Eclipse was rather good, maybe my favorite book in the series. I was involved enough with the characters that I was beginning to almost care what happened to them and my eye rolling has dwindled down to about only once every chapter or so. I was well aware of the fourth book when I finished Eclipse but I just couldn't help but think-what else is there really to say or do?
So I started Breaking Dawn and it almost immediately made me want to stop. I could care less about the wedding details, this book really is written for teenage girls huh? I was about to get bored with the honeymoon when Meyers takes us to absurdity in her plot twist. I couldn't help but wonder if Meyers thought the plot was so twisted and unlike her main character that she decided to switch to another characters first person for 'Book 2'. I mean I like Jacob, I mean I really do, but I would have much preferred the books all be told from Bella's perspective. The pregnant Bella was too far a stretch for Meyer's to write I presume? That's fine, but lets edit some of these pages, does the pregnancy which doesn't last all that long, really have to take up so much of the book?
Then the baby, Renesmee? Let's look past her ridiculous name for a moment-oh wait, that is just too hard to do. Let me gasp, sigh, and roll my eyes. OK, back to my review. Jacob imprinting on Nessie (better name choice?). I saw it coming but how I wished Meyer's wasn't going to let me down in this fashion after the first two sections of Breaking Dawn had been such a letdown, but no, she goes through with it even though Leah was a better match in my opinion. I was hoping someone in the story could form a relationship the old fashioned way but I guess not.
I can stomach Bella's overcoming of most of the drawbacks to the newborn stage but Charlie coming over. Are you serious? If I wasn't so interested in just how bizarre this book could get, I would have stopped reading pages ago.
So I try to overlook most of the bad silly things that happen and look at the positives for this tale as I am investing a lot of spare time into this 754 page book that read a lot slower than The Deathly Hallows. Meyer's fits the pieces together pretty well. I like the supernatural powers and even the wolf twist, I was even managing to accept the imprinting scenario as were Edward and Bella when the book was winding down-slowly-slowly-slowly through the Volturi visit when what do I come across but Jacob crying a tear the size of a baseball, a BASEBALL. This was it. I must have read this sentence 14 times. A baseball. Really. Well, that really tells me how sad he was at the prospect of losing Bella. Baseball (come back eyes, don't stay back there).
Baseballs aren't really huge, unless you have tears the size of them. Then they are just ridiculous. I would have cried from laughing if I didn't feel so inferior to these large, perfectly rounded tears of Jacobs. I am being insensitive, aren't I? Oh well, I can't seem to help myself.
Anyways, I had to get that off my shoulder. The book ended OK, I would have liked to have seen an actual physical confrontation between the Voturi and the rest of the vampires but I will take the ending she gave us. Hoping that it is the end.
This morning my sister told me that Midnight Sun, the inteded fifth book told from Edward's perspective was leaked, or at least the first twelve chapters, on the Internet and so Meyers has decided to indefinitely end working on it. I can only think that you should stop while you are ahead and though this will mean less revenue for you Mrs. Meyers, it is probably the right thing. Stopping at Eclipse was probably best, but ending now, you know with your "THE END" page and all it's finality at the end of Breaking Dawn is respectable.
Friday, June 27, 2008
If We're Lucky
I am reading Anthony Swofford's memoir Jarhead. It is OK, but I like to look at Jake Gyllenhaal so I think I prefer the movie, but the other night when I was reading I came across this paragraph and it really struck home with me:
"While me mother worked on my iron-on, my father paid bills or wasted time inside his study, either unwilling to take part in the historic moment occurring in the kitchen or simply disinterested in the elite future his son might frasp, the USMC iron-on considered with the same paternal irony as Boy Scout camp and trumpet lessons and Little League, money gone and time possibly wasted but what the hurt, this is life, and life goes on and children live happily if we're lucky and raise them well."
So I really enjoy where Swofford is going at the end there, "children live happily if we're lucky and raise them well."
I think of all the things we want to do for our children, and with our children and even those silly romp and roll classes and I wonder if we should even be doing them, but here I find some solace that what's the harm? That maybe it;s time wasted but only if you look at it that way. I think I would rather think of it as cherished time, all of it, even the bad.
Coop is sitting up. All the time, for 45 minutes at a time. He won't fall over, instead he cries if he wants to lay down or change positions. And I am so proud and happy of this inevitable feat. I feel like my child is special and of course he is to me and all the people who love him, but really what is he doing that most other humans aren't capable of? In a few weeks he will be sitting up and it won't surpsise me and I will think nothing of it, but for now I think it is incredible. Reminiscent of all the smaller milestones prior and all the larger ones to come. In five more months he will be crawling and eating more foods and perhaps speaking words or even walking and sitting up will be rather small potatoes. Bailey is right behind him, just grasping the sitting up technique. And I think they are miraculous, and really they are.
And I don't want them to change and yet I want to see them conquer every obstacle before them and the two sides of me are at odds. But I know they most grow up and so I want them to succeed everywhere they turn and I want to be there behind them pushing and encouraging them. And of course I want them to be happy.
And maybe, if I am lucky...
They will be.
-june
"While me mother worked on my iron-on, my father paid bills or wasted time inside his study, either unwilling to take part in the historic moment occurring in the kitchen or simply disinterested in the elite future his son might frasp, the USMC iron-on considered with the same paternal irony as Boy Scout camp and trumpet lessons and Little League, money gone and time possibly wasted but what the hurt, this is life, and life goes on and children live happily if we're lucky and raise them well."
So I really enjoy where Swofford is going at the end there, "children live happily if we're lucky and raise them well."
I think of all the things we want to do for our children, and with our children and even those silly romp and roll classes and I wonder if we should even be doing them, but here I find some solace that what's the harm? That maybe it;s time wasted but only if you look at it that way. I think I would rather think of it as cherished time, all of it, even the bad.
Coop is sitting up. All the time, for 45 minutes at a time. He won't fall over, instead he cries if he wants to lay down or change positions. And I am so proud and happy of this inevitable feat. I feel like my child is special and of course he is to me and all the people who love him, but really what is he doing that most other humans aren't capable of? In a few weeks he will be sitting up and it won't surpsise me and I will think nothing of it, but for now I think it is incredible. Reminiscent of all the smaller milestones prior and all the larger ones to come. In five more months he will be crawling and eating more foods and perhaps speaking words or even walking and sitting up will be rather small potatoes. Bailey is right behind him, just grasping the sitting up technique. And I think they are miraculous, and really they are.
And I don't want them to change and yet I want to see them conquer every obstacle before them and the two sides of me are at odds. But I know they most grow up and so I want them to succeed everywhere they turn and I want to be there behind them pushing and encouraging them. And of course I want them to be happy.
And maybe, if I am lucky...
They will be.
-june
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