Review: Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess

Such a Pretty Girl 

by Laura Wiess 

 Paperback, 212 pages

January 2nd 2007 by MTV Books 

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They promised Meredith nine years of safety, but only gave her three. Her father was supposed to be locked up until Meredith turned eighteen. She thought she had time to grow up, get out, and start a new life. But Meredith is only fifteen, and today her father is coming home from prison. Today her time has run out. 

REVIEW:

What's the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day? Yes, maybe 'some' of them have reformed, but what about the ones who haven't? Doesn't anyone realize that one 'touch', one 'time' will destroy a child's life ten times faster than a pack-a-day habit?

Such a Pretty Girl was disturbing and a very painful subject. The kind that makes one uncomfortable, as it should be. It is sick and sad but it is true and real problem among us. Child incest destroys the innocence of a child and leaves a ruinous future in its wake. The effects of it are devastating, profound and can last a lifetime.

Straight word: ordinary. There are many novels out there that deal with this kind of subject, and Such a Pretty Girl is like any of them. This book deals with usual issues, like rape, abandonment and incest. Despite being ordinary it’s not an easy novel to read, as reader will feel Merith's nightmare toward her father’s abuse and mother’s abandonment.

There are some that I liked in this book. First is the Merith's fascination on numbers (maybe the only thing that I like with the main character). And last, is how the author shows us various outcome of child behavior with same past experience. Like with Merith and Andy. One character finds strength and confronts her problem, while the other finds avoiding or escaping as a solution. Though other than that is plain and I didn’t feel hopeful at the end. I just felt beaten down by how cruel the world can be, and how sick and vile some people can be.

Review: Cruel Summer by Alyson Noel

Cruel Summer

by Alyson Noel

Paperback, 229 pages

May '08 by St. Martin's Griffin

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“This was supposed to be my best summer yet, the one I’ve been working toward since practically forever.  Now I’m being banished from everything I know and love, and it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Having recently discarded her dorky image--and the best friend that went with it--Colby Cavendish is looking forward to a long hot season of parties, beach BBQ’s, and hopefully, more hook-ups with Levi Bonham, the hottest guy in school. But her world comes crashing down when her parents send her away to spend the summer in Greece with her crazy aunt Tally.

Stranded on a boring island with no malls, no cell phone reception, and an aunt who talks to her plants, Colby worries that her new friends have forgotten all about her. But when she meets Yannis, a cute Greek local, everything changes.  She experiences something deeper and more intense than a summer fling, and it forces her to see herself, and the life she left behind, in a whole new way.


REVIEW:

1.5
This is the only book (so far) that I felt like giving up numerous of times! but I didn't.

Told entirely through Colby's letters, journal entries, and blog posts, this story is one of a girl's search for her identity and struggle to fit in. And this, like so many other young adult novels, is a great idea. I just wish I found Colby a little more likable. She's just so whiny. I mean, sure, teens are typically an unhappy and angsty bunch when things don't go their way, but Colby is more like a petulant child than an angst ridden teenager. It's obvious that she cares about the social politics of high school, like most of Noel's characters in her other novels, but I couldn't really bring myself to care about her.

 My view of Colby as little more than a whiny little girl is probably due in part to the format of the novel. Normally, a book that tells its story solely in correspondence gives the reader letters from both the main character and the people they spend their time writing to. Not the case here. Even when Colby emails people from back home at the internet cafe, we don't get to see their responses to her. Anonymous comments on her blog are the only voice other than her own in the whole novel. It makes for some very one sided conversations, and I don't think it works quite as well as if Colby was allowing the readers to see what other characters had to say.

 Now, none of this means the story is particularly bad. I know quite a few people who enjoyed it. The way the story was told just wasn't my cup of tea. If you want more interesting stories of teenage girls finding themselves in summer settings, I'd go for a Sarah Dessen novel instead.

Review: K-ON vol. 01 by Kakifly

K-ON vol. 01

by Kakifly

May 12th 2010 by Elex Media Komputindo

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It's been almost a year since the girls of the pop-music club started jamming together, but the start of the new year is no time to look back on their journey - it's time to recruit new members! Despite their inexperience, the girls' passionate performance at the entrance ceremony impresses first-year Azusa, a budding guitar player who can't wait to join. But she didn't expect there to be so much tea drinking in the pop-music club. Or cosplaying...When do they get around to making music?!

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It's Yui Hirasawa's first year in high school, and she's eagerly searching for a club to join. At the same time, Ritsu Tainaka, a drummer, and her friend Mio Akiyama, a bass player, are desperately trying to save the school's light music club, which is about to be disbanded due to lack of members. They manage to recruit Tsumugi Kotobuki to play the keyboard, meaning they only need one more member to get the club running again. Yui joins, thinking it will be an easy experience for her to play the castanets, the only instrument she knows. However, the other members think their new addition is actually a guitar prodigy...

Review: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Book ) by Anne Rice

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Book 1)

by Anne Rice

Paperback, 253 pages

Published

December 1999 by New Amer Library Trade

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From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,' the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him…as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her skillful pen, a compelling experience.


REVIEW:

HOLY SWEET SLEEPING BEAUTY what have they done to you?
I’m speechless, awe and of course disgusted at the same time.

One of the 'I bought it before I know it' book. Heck, the elegance of the cover and my curiosity brought me here. Oh and the beautiful line “...at once so light and yet so haunting...”
Yeah! Haunting indeed, only in a bad way!

I’m never been a big fan of Disney princesses. Well except to Mulan (is she one of "them"?) anyway, even if I’m not their big fan, I know the stories. Heck, we even theater play that in our school looonnggg time ago. Guess who’s the idiot princess was. Me! Oh, I don’t have a choice people. When you’re one of the tallest bamboo-like girls at our school surely you understand.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is a retelling of the Grimms’ classic fairytale "Sleeping Beauty", isn’t that so obvious? While all the fundamentals are there, the enchantment, the deep slept princess, the almighty prince who claimed Sleeping Beauty, these elements are taken and deeply woven into a whole new tale, far darker and far more disturbing.

I’m deeply curious what a very wholesome fairytale classic would be like if retelling it as a classic erotica. What would be the elements that will be taken and added? More on that kind of stuff. At first I’m just completely shock and the curiosity inside me build up 'harder' than I expected. Oh, Not that kind of hard. use your imagination guys. haha -I’m not going for the details, It’s just too censored to hear.

I didn’t said that I liked it because truth must be told, I am not. This is a kind of book that I might puke if reading it for about half hour or higher a day. There was a palpable excitement from the first half of the book until it goes unbearable (esp. the prince story) Good thing that I’m a bit of an open minded person and this book is written beautifully.
A.N. Roquelaure or aka just Anne Rice super graphic details caught me off guard and drag me to her vivid world full of haunting tale of princes and princesses happily ever after.

Well, there is something for all to appreciate.