Lorelei's Book Reviews

Twilight

2009-06-19T22:11:00.008-04:00

As a rule, I avoid popular fiction. As another rule, though, I love teen fiction. However, when something's popular usually that means it's completely overrated. That's why it took so long for the peer pressure to wear me down until I finally got the first book, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. (I borrowed book one from a friend, so that I could keep a small part of my dignity, and so that I could keep my morals intact.)

Even though I went into this series with my eyes wide open -- knowing full well that it was written for teenagers, and that it was wildly popular -- the enormity of the emptiness still hit me pretty hard. I mean, there's really not much to it. Lots of clichés, lots of empty words (like my writing, I know), and lots of angst. With a series like this you are sure to expect some teenage angst, and the author does happily oblige. Personally I think the angst goes way off the deep end, though. Angst [What a fun word! Angst! Angst! Angst!] is one thing, but when you have to take a Xanax just to finish a chapter, that's pushing it a bit.

I'm not big into vampire books in general so I'm not sure how this series plays into the particular genre. Blood and gore are not my thing so I leave that genre to the die-hard emo amongst us. But anything that is this popular must have something going for it, right? RIGHT?

Book one did not hook me as quickly as I heard it hooked most. Maybe it's because my son told me if I ended up liking this series he would no longer have any respect for me (what little he may have had to begin with), or maybe it's because I knew how popular it is and the very core of my being rebelled against it simply for that. For whatever reason, I was not drawn in by the end of chapter one -- but that didn't keep me from reading it and wanting more. Kind of like watching a train wreck, you simply cannot turn away no matter how badly you want to. You have to watch it until its conclusion. You have no control.

One of the reasons I continued reading (even though I couldn't possibly have been less emotionally attached to the characters) was because of the fantastic quotes. Here are a couple of the ones that had me laughing:

"...the fabric clung to his perfectly muscled chest. It was a colossal tribute to his face that it kept my eyes away from his body."

and

"I didn't want to leave, but it was necessary. It's a bit easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty."

This girl sure knew how to pick friends. A vampire for a boyfriend and a werewolf for a best friend. How more believable could it get? Well, when we read fiction I guess we're not looking for believable so of course I just kept on reading.

I began to get emotionally involved by the end of book one, and the reason is because the main character openly begs to be turned into a vampire. What kind of idiot does it take to wish for such a thing? I wanted to grab this stupid girl and shake some sense into her -- and that's when I knew the needle was deep in my vein and there would be no turning back.

I flew through book one (Twilight) and book two (New Moon) pretty quickly, and then when it came time to start book three (Eclipse) the friend I had borrowed the books from suddenly was unavailable because her sister had a baby. Well, what's more important? Me, needing book three? Or her sister? Obviously me, but she seemed to think otherwise. I was left completely high and dry, without a fix on the horizon. I still refused to buy any of the books, so that wasn't an option. So I did what any self-respecting addict would do: I went on Facebook and put out the plea, asking who I could borrow book three from. Luckily a neighbor came through for me and I was able to pick up where I had unwillingly left off.

Then, when I had finished book three, I went back to my initial source and asked if she could lend me book four (Breaking Dawn). "Sure, sure, come over and I'll have it ready for you." I texted her all the way home from work (Yes, I'm guilty of DWT), telling her how far away I was from her house and such, but when I got there it was like a scene out of "Twilight Zone" (how fitting!). The lights were on but nobody was home. I banged on the door, I rang the bell, I kicked and screamed. (Just kidding, I didn't really ring the bell.)

So I got back in my car and drove to the bookstore and bought book four. There went my personal standards of conduct, my ethics, my morals... All out the window.

Of all the books, Breaking Dawn was the best. Meyer could have started with that last book, and then released the first three books years later -- Star Wars style. It felt like I had to rush through the first three just to get to book four, though it was worth the journey.

I know you're wondering how I'm considering this a book report when I'm not really telling you anything about the story. Well, what's there to say? It's a vampire story. I'm sure you can guess the rest. Vampires are cold and beautiful, werewolves are tall, hot and furry. I guess if Meyer had written it that way, it wouldn't have been four books and she wouldn't have made as much money.

After finishing all the books I decided that I already had compromised my morals so I might as well just give up entirely and watch the movie. No one seemed to own it in order for me to borrow it, so I got it on pay-per-view. Oh, if only I could take back those two hours (and $7) of my life! Please, I'm begging you, if any of you are considering watching the movie, do yourself a favor and don't. Do you remember watching after-school specials? the Twilight movie is like a horrible after-school special. About vampires. I didn't recognize any of the actors, the "acting" was horrible, the vampires (who are supposed to be beautiful) were nothing to look at. The movie destroyed the visions that I had formed in my head while reading the books. Seriously, it was bad. It seems I am the only one, however, to have this opinion of the movie -- so feel free to ignore me. Watch it at your own risk. If you've never seen gorgeous actors or great acting, you're sure to love it.

And now that I've openly admitted to liking the Twilight book(s), I don't know how I'll ever get back the respect of my son. I hope he'll still put me in the nice nursing home, instead of in a back room of a dilapidated trailer where there's just one TV and the only thing it shows is Twilight, over and over and over again.

If You Want to Write

2009-03-16T20:09:00.008-04:00

I read a lot of books, but I can't write about a book I've read unless it moved me in some way. Sometimes (a lot of times) it's negative movement, but every once in a while I read something that moves me in a positive way and I am compelled to write about what I've read. I don't necessarily write to inform; I write more from the need to cement into my brain whatever it was I've read.

I bought this particular book from Border's (which, coincidentally, is my favorite book store because they sell those chocolate balls at the cash register), in the "writing" section of the store. I had never seen the writing section before. I don't know that it's new, it's just new to me. Once I found it I could have easily sat there all day soaking in all the books on writing and spelling and grammar. Not picking them up, mind you, but just sitting there looking at them on the shelf. When you see an orange tree, sure it's nice to pick off one of the oranges and eat it, but it's sometimes more pleasant just to sit back and enjoy the orange tree for what it is -- for its inherent beauty. This section of the bookstore is now my orange tree.

The reason I picked this book up is the same reason why I enjoy little mom & pop restaurants over the big chains: I like finding diamonds in the rough. I like to make my own mind up about something before I hear someone else's opinion on it. Not that my opinion is more important than anyone else's, but I like to be able to make up my own mind on things without influence from other sources.

The author is the late Brenda Ueland, who passed away in 1985 (when I was a Sophomore in high school). I really don't want to sound mean, but it's not my fault that their choice of picture of the author inside the front cover is a spitting image of Ebenezer Scrooge. They show her younger self, in 1938, and then her age-93 self, and I swear she looks just like Scrooge. Hopefully if she saw me say that she would laugh and agree.

I've never read anything by this author before, but evidently she was a prolific writer in her time. I'm only halfway done with the book so far but it's already irritating me. I was hoping for specific insight into how to write better, but so far all it's doing is depressing me because I'm not Sarah McShane (a pseudonym Ms. Ueland bestowed upon one of her [obviously favorite] writing students).

Sarah McShane worked a full-time job and still found time to write about mundane life when she got home. She had no confidence, ego, or writing education, and it's because of this that the author holds her in high-esteem. She put many excerpts of Sarah McShane's writing in her book, which reads a little like Little House on the Prairie in its simple manner.

I want to be able to write like that, too, but evidently I'm too educated. I use "big" words sometimes, and I can't think "simply" because I'm too caught up in all the things I've been taught and criticized about in my lifetime. How do you possibly let go of all that and just write without ego? Without thought?

I know one way of doing that is to write in a place you know no one will ever see -- so you don't feel influenced by the potential criticism you may get. When you have to think about the audience you're writing for, you can just assume immediately that your writing will not be simple and truthful and full of heart. The only way to ensure that is to make yourself your only audience.

I like the book; I appreciate the author's desire to give hope to people who want to write but who think they cannot; I agree that we all need to let go in order to be better writers. But at this point I feel like I'll forever be stuck in the middle between the mainstream/popular, educated writers who will always be far above me and the uneducated, "simple" writers who tell stories best. I will always be neither.

The Writing Diet

2008-12-13T11:39:00.004-05:00

The Writing Diet, by Julia Cameron, is a crock of crap. "When you get hungry, write about it instead of eating."

I tell you what I'd write: "Hey, I'm hungry -- so I'm going to go eat. The End."

Rollback

2008-12-13T11:31:00.012-05:00

Rollback, by Robert J. Sawyer, is a SciFi book and SciFi books are always good (Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorites), and I had high hopes for this one. It ended up being "ok" but nothing to write home about, so to speak.

I thought the writing was really juvenile (I know, like I'm one to talk) and it just seemed forced most of the time. He also seemed to use the book to voice his own opinions instead of letting the characters speak for themselves.

The idea of being able to use technology to turn back the clock is exciting, but the characters were flat and boring and the writing style was just too forced.

Great idea; bad execution.

The Colony

2008-12-13T11:26:00.005-05:00

The Colony, by John Tayman, is about the Hawaiian leprosy patients (and many non-leprosy victims) who were routinely exiled to Molokai for over a century, starting back in 1866. I really enjoyed this book's historical aspect.

I love biographies and this was like a whole bunch of biographies crammed into one book. What they suffered through was terrible and I'm glad their stories have now been told.

My main complaint about this book is that it wasn't written completely chronologically, instead jumping back and forth a lot which really confused me. I get confused easily.

The Pure Land

2008-12-13T10:28:00.005-05:00

I've read a lot of bad books in my time. With such a huge appetite for reading, I have no doubt I will run into many books that just don't do it for me. This was one of them.

The Pure Land, by Alan Spence, is one of the most boring books I've read in a very long time. It's a rather large book and I had high expectations simply because most of the books I've read on the Asian culture are really gut-wrenching and superb.

This one is about a man named Glover, who leaves Scotland for Japan as a young man and goes to make his fortune. The beginning starts out interestingly enough, but the more I read the more bored I got. I got so bored, in fact, that I couldn't even force myself to read the final 30 pages.

I have no idea how the book ends, and I can't say I really care.

I am Legend

2008-12-13T10:19:00.006-05:00

I bought this book because I had heard the movie was gory and I was thinking I could handle the gore more easily in book-form than in right-in-front-of-your-eyeballs-form. Actually I think that part turned out to be very true, since it didn't seem alarmingly gory to me.

Seeing Will Smith on the cover of the book made me anxious to read a story where I could picture him as the main character. It makes it so much easier to be able to put a familiar face and mannerisms and such to a book character, so that's another reason the book intrigued me. Very early on in the book, however, it was made very clear by the character descriptions that the main character is supposed to be an older, white, German guy, with "long blond hair and deep blue eyes." Um? That's when I started to get confused.

The book goes into great detail about his fight to stay alive despite all the neighbors who attack his house every night because they want to drink his blood. He's got a generator to support his electricity, he boards up his windows, he has a hot-house where he grows lots of garlic, he hangs up mirrors on the front door, he has a tattoo of a cross, he travels to Sears and the grocery store in the afternoons to do his "shopping," and he goes around from house to house every day with his homemade stakes to knock off as many baddies as he can while they're in their mid-day comas.

Then, at about 2/3rds of the way into the book, he's caught and ends up dying. Why the heck did I invest so much energy into this character only to have him killed off this late in the game?

As if I'm not already confused enough by the character switch, and then the main character dying after so much effort to stay alive, now I start into the next chapter of the book and it has absolutely nothing to do with the first 2/3rds of the book. I assumed it was separate horror stories or something but they're separated by chapter numbers, not different parts with different titles. The first one had some scary scene of some wooden doll that was alive and tried to kill a woman, and then the woman wanted to kill someone. I skipped over most of the end of that because it was just gross and scary and stupid. Then I skipped to the next chapter and it started with something like, "There were seven little girls all in a row..." and I said screw this, I'm not reading this crap. So I skipped to the end of the book and didn't see any familiar character names at all, and closed the book with a disgusted huff.

What gives with this story? Am I missing something?

The Butterfly Hunter

2008-12-07T10:18:00.002-05:00

I found this book at my favorite local used bookstore, Edward McKay's in North Raleigh. Books I might not normally buy seem more acceptable when they're really cheap (and when you have $50 worth of store credit to use). In this case, I think it was a wasted $8.

The premise is intriguing: Interview people who have found their occupational calling, and find out how they figured it out and what makes them tick. The problem is, I didn't care about the occupations or the people he chose to interview. They were so silly and out of my interest area that I wasn't even interested in reading about them.

I want to find out what my calling is, and reading about someone else who found theirs did not help me to find mine. To be fair, the subtitle reads, "Adventures of people who found their true calling way off the beaten path," so nothing in that subtitle would lead me to believe that reading this book would help me find my own path. Still, I was hopeful I would glean something from reading these other peoples' stories, but I really did not.

The book was mostly boring, though it started off very strong and interesting in the Introduction -- when the author, Chris Ballard, describes how he found his own path -- but goes downhill once you start reading the first chapter. He interviews a building inspector named Spiderman (literally, that's his real name), a guy who paints eye prostheses, a lady lumberjack, a model train expert, and I don't remember the rest -- though I have a sneaking suspicion that someone he interviews is a butterfly hunter. I stopped reading the book after the lumberjack. Although it's true that I'm probably built like a lumberjack, I'm not interested in being one.

This book's going back in the pile for selling back to the bookstore.