Boyfriends with Girlfriends is Alex Sanchez's latest entry into the Genre of LGBT teen fiction. It is about a guy(who is gay) and his friend who is a girl(who is Bi) meeting up with another guy(who is bi) and his friend who is a girl(who is gay) and their romantic struggles.
If you love David Levithan but wish he was Less Poetic, More Preachy, Less Romantic, More Sex-Obsessed, More Obnoxious, and Less Original then Boyfriends With Girlfriends is the book for you. I'm not sure I can explain to you the extent to which I do not like this book but I think I might be able to show you.
I stopped reading about a fourth of the way into the book after a scene in which one of the main characters sleeps with another boy, because he can. That's the only reason, he wants to see what it'd be like. I'm not even sure that the other guy was gay, it was weird. Their being in 7th grade makes it even weirder, more uncomfortable, and mo
re gratuitous. Call me sheltered and naive but I don't think that many or really any 7th graders serf adult websites and sleep with each other in the middle of school.
Essentially, all of the book that I read can be summed up by saying "Bisexuality is real" that is the whole point. The author keeps pounding the point and pounding the point and it gets really annoying after a while.
There is this one part where the girl(the one who's bi) is talking about how she thinks she's straight but she has crushes on girls all the time, had a romantic dream about a girl, and whatever. But she still thinks she's straight. But then she meets this girl(the one who's gay) and she's never felt this way before and things with her boyfriend start breaking down and IT"S LOVE AND IT"S BI, WHICH, BY THE WAY, IS REAL AND GREAT AND FINE AND WONDERFUL, IT"S LOVE GOSH DARN IT!!!!!
There is also the problem of the narration, which says Exactly and Explicitly what each character is thinking and feeling, there is no nuance. I am not a huge fan of flowery writing but I do enjoy a clever turn of phrase or a poetic observation, this book is bare bones, bare bare bones. "Character X sees Character Y walking towards him, "He's really cute, especially his ears and his nose" thinks Character X." is about the level of this writing. Levithan is a master of the phrasing. His books make you feel things very deeply and he can just come out with observations in his writing that just describe your whole life in ten words. Sanchez either does not or can not do that and the book suffers because of it.
When one is writing a romantic novel one must appeal to the romanticism and sentiment inside the reader, Sanchez simply doesn't do that. I could never really care about his two male heroes because they were 1) Total Clichés and 2) Obnoxiously written. Their dialogue physically hurts me and I don't like them really at all.
If you are looking for a book about Bisexuality(Which is Real and Great and Fine and Romantic and Did I mention it's Real?) and Homosexuality I would recommend Boy Meets Boy by Levithan(who I seem to keep talking about) which is everything this book is not:charming, romantic, moving, and well written.
1/4 Stars
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Book Review: The Rot and The Ruin by Johnathan Mabarry
Let me just say this up front, before I say anything else at all about this book, I have never read another Zombie book, I have never seen a Zombie movie, and I have never seen a Zombie tv show. This is, in fact, my first rodeo. So take that into consideration as you read the review.
Anyway, The Rot and The Ruin is a book about a boy called Benny who lives in a town called Mountainside which is a town that was set up after First Night(which is when the dead rose and started attacking people. Benny's brother, Tom, is the only member of his family still living and is a Bounty Hunter who's job is to hunt down reanimated family members for his clients. Benny does not like his brother because he feels that he(Tom that is not Benny) is a coward because years ago(on first night) he ran(with Benny) out of his house as their mother was being attacked by their father. All that Benny can remember about that night is his mother wearing a white dress with red sleeves screaming at them while their father dragged her back into the house. Benny instead looks up to a different bounty hunter called Charlie Pink-Eye. Eventually Benny has to get a job with Tom and discovers many things about the world.
This book is driven, primarily, by its plot and that is not necessarily a problem. Once this book gets its hooks into you it is(and I know that this sounds like a cliche) hard to put down.
But......Ah the characters and the writing. Benny, the main character, is not particularly likable and his romance feels a little forced(though his romantic interest is awesome) and his relationship with his brother is fairly ridiculous. Benny comes over as more than a little bit of an idiot. This brings me to the writing.
Now, this may(and probably will) sound very strange but....Mr Mabarry writes too much like me. The book felt like something I or some of my writing friends might write. And I believe that they are good writers but...if you are a published adult writer who is making(presumably) good money you should be able to write better than a 15 or 16 year old. I am not a fan of really dense writing(I view it as being normally self indulgent) but this is written very un-dense without being sparse. This reads like my book(which will return to Amazon very soon, by the way)and that is not really a good thing. It has a good and intriguing plot but it is really...for lack of a better word...surface level.
There are also serious problems with the characters and their relationships. For example the main romance happens after one character has said definitively that he does not want a relationship with the other character. The final confrontation with the villain happens like four times. They threaten him, he has a dramatic monologue about his beliefs and then....they do it again! And, I believe once more after that. When they finally kill him it is in the least satisfying way possible. I wanted that [Insert insulting name of choice] to die really bad throughout the whole book. And when he finally did it there was nothing. I mean, [slight spoiler warning] he gets hit in the head with a pipe. I wanted him to go down and I wanted it to be violent. Chop his head off or shoot him or something, but make it dramatic for God's Sake.
There are also problems with the continuity of the book. For example: One character is always telling the main character not to swear but then, later in the book, he begins to swear. Another character has a family member killed in a very brutal way and they are upset for like a page and a half. A different character would have died like three times but was always essentially unhurt.
The book is also very predictable, I saw X coming and thought "Oh I must be wrong, he won't do X" And then....HE FREAKING DID X. And then on top of that he did Y, which was just as obvious.
The ending was extraordinarily unsatisfying, starting with the climax and continuing on to the end. I want, not only more closure, but more...vindication. I wanted there to be a point, and there really wasn't. The book as a whole is kind of down on human nature as a whole.
One very good thing about the book is that he made the villains humans instead of Zombies. He made the point that you can't really blame Zombies for what they do. They can't control their actions. But humans can. I know that I'm right about this because the author states it. He is not a huge fan of subtlety
It was a fun read and I will read the sequel. But, I don't know, it could have been way, way better. It fit in with the common stereotype of "teen lit" being surface and unchallenging.
Anyway, The Rot and The Ruin is a book about a boy called Benny who lives in a town called Mountainside which is a town that was set up after First Night(which is when the dead rose and started attacking people. Benny's brother, Tom, is the only member of his family still living and is a Bounty Hunter who's job is to hunt down reanimated family members for his clients. Benny does not like his brother because he feels that he(Tom that is not Benny) is a coward because years ago(on first night) he ran(with Benny) out of his house as their mother was being attacked by their father. All that Benny can remember about that night is his mother wearing a white dress with red sleeves screaming at them while their father dragged her back into the house. Benny instead looks up to a different bounty hunter called Charlie Pink-Eye. Eventually Benny has to get a job with Tom and discovers many things about the world.
This book is driven, primarily, by its plot and that is not necessarily a problem. Once this book gets its hooks into you it is(and I know that this sounds like a cliche) hard to put down.
But......Ah the characters and the writing. Benny, the main character, is not particularly likable and his romance feels a little forced(though his romantic interest is awesome) and his relationship with his brother is fairly ridiculous. Benny comes over as more than a little bit of an idiot. This brings me to the writing.
Now, this may(and probably will) sound very strange but....Mr Mabarry writes too much like me. The book felt like something I or some of my writing friends might write. And I believe that they are good writers but...if you are a published adult writer who is making(presumably) good money you should be able to write better than a 15 or 16 year old. I am not a fan of really dense writing(I view it as being normally self indulgent) but this is written very un-dense without being sparse. This reads like my book(which will return to Amazon very soon, by the way)and that is not really a good thing. It has a good and intriguing plot but it is really...for lack of a better word...surface level.
There are also serious problems with the characters and their relationships. For example the main romance happens after one character has said definitively that he does not want a relationship with the other character. The final confrontation with the villain happens like four times. They threaten him, he has a dramatic monologue about his beliefs and then....they do it again! And, I believe once more after that. When they finally kill him it is in the least satisfying way possible. I wanted that [Insert insulting name of choice] to die really bad throughout the whole book. And when he finally did it there was nothing. I mean, [slight spoiler warning] he gets hit in the head with a pipe. I wanted him to go down and I wanted it to be violent. Chop his head off or shoot him or something, but make it dramatic for God's Sake.
There are also problems with the continuity of the book. For example: One character is always telling the main character not to swear but then, later in the book, he begins to swear. Another character has a family member killed in a very brutal way and they are upset for like a page and a half. A different character would have died like three times but was always essentially unhurt.
The book is also very predictable, I saw X coming and thought "Oh I must be wrong, he won't do X" And then....HE FREAKING DID X. And then on top of that he did Y, which was just as obvious.
The ending was extraordinarily unsatisfying, starting with the climax and continuing on to the end. I want, not only more closure, but more...vindication. I wanted there to be a point, and there really wasn't. The book as a whole is kind of down on human nature as a whole.
One very good thing about the book is that he made the villains humans instead of Zombies. He made the point that you can't really blame Zombies for what they do. They can't control their actions. But humans can. I know that I'm right about this because the author states it. He is not a huge fan of subtlety
It was a fun read and I will read the sequel. But, I don't know, it could have been way, way better. It fit in with the common stereotype of "teen lit" being surface and unchallenging.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Cd Review: Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
So I am suffering from insomnia and saw that Elfarmy posted a cd review so I thought I would do one too.
Billy Bragg, for those of you who don't know, is an English musician who started off in the 80s playing Punk music and later in his career would diversify his sound. But Brewing Up is from solidly in his punk period.
It says here: A nice angry punk rant about media bias to kick the album off. Even though this song was written in the 80s it is still frighteningly relevant. I mean "It says here that the unions will never learn, it says here that the economy is on the upturn" Seriously, that is scary.
Love Gets Dangerous: Don't listen to this one much, it's a little dull but not terrible.
The Myth Of Trust: One of Bragg's best vocal performances. He sounds as if he is near tears during this song. There is pain in the lyrics of this song and his voice perfectly captures it.
From A Vauxhall Velox: Another one I don't listen to often, again a decent song just not one of the stand outs.
The Saturday Boy: Ah Saturday Boy. What heterosexual male cannot relate to this song. A fantastic song about teenage love with some really clever lyrics such as "In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited". Beautiful, beautiful song. Many times have I listened to this song and mourned my love life.
Island Of No Return: Ok, history lesson, in the 80s Great Britain and Argentina went to war over some islands in South America. It was a proper, major war between two strong powers. And Billy wrote this song about it and it is amazing. A perfect example of classic Bragg. One man, one guitar, politics, and ranting.
St Swithin's Day: Another great lost love song. "Thanks all the same but I can't bring myself to answer your letters, what was it all for?" Deeply, deeply moving.
Like Soldiers Do: An interesting song, also(in my opinion) about the Falklands War. The chorus(Our Fathers were all soldiers, shall we be soldiers too, fighting and falling like soldiers do) is well written and catchy. A good song.
This Guitar Says Sorry: Very, very strange song. I recently read the lyrics and found that there are only like 12 lines in the song. The refrain(The Love that we have is so important) really makes you think. Is it sarcastic or is it serious? We will never know.
Strange Things Happen: The last of the three that I rarely listen to, it's not that their so bad it's that everything else is so good.
A Lover Sings: Fantastic fantastic refrain. "Adam And Eve are finding out all about love" I mean seriously, that is clever. The song builds to the climax where Billy changes the lyrics to "Theresa and Steve are finding out all about love"
Bonus Disk Highlights
between the wars
Which side are you on
Talking Wag Club Blues
Won't Talk about it
World Turned Upside Down
Back to the old house
8/10
Billy Bragg, for those of you who don't know, is an English musician who started off in the 80s playing Punk music and later in his career would diversify his sound. But Brewing Up is from solidly in his punk period.
It says here: A nice angry punk rant about media bias to kick the album off. Even though this song was written in the 80s it is still frighteningly relevant. I mean "It says here that the unions will never learn, it says here that the economy is on the upturn" Seriously, that is scary.
Love Gets Dangerous: Don't listen to this one much, it's a little dull but not terrible.
The Myth Of Trust: One of Bragg's best vocal performances. He sounds as if he is near tears during this song. There is pain in the lyrics of this song and his voice perfectly captures it.
From A Vauxhall Velox: Another one I don't listen to often, again a decent song just not one of the stand outs.
The Saturday Boy: Ah Saturday Boy. What heterosexual male cannot relate to this song. A fantastic song about teenage love with some really clever lyrics such as "In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited". Beautiful, beautiful song. Many times have I listened to this song and mourned my love life.
Island Of No Return: Ok, history lesson, in the 80s Great Britain and Argentina went to war over some islands in South America. It was a proper, major war between two strong powers. And Billy wrote this song about it and it is amazing. A perfect example of classic Bragg. One man, one guitar, politics, and ranting.
St Swithin's Day: Another great lost love song. "Thanks all the same but I can't bring myself to answer your letters, what was it all for?" Deeply, deeply moving.
Like Soldiers Do: An interesting song, also(in my opinion) about the Falklands War. The chorus(Our Fathers were all soldiers, shall we be soldiers too, fighting and falling like soldiers do) is well written and catchy. A good song.
This Guitar Says Sorry: Very, very strange song. I recently read the lyrics and found that there are only like 12 lines in the song. The refrain(The Love that we have is so important) really makes you think. Is it sarcastic or is it serious? We will never know.
Strange Things Happen: The last of the three that I rarely listen to, it's not that their so bad it's that everything else is so good.
A Lover Sings: Fantastic fantastic refrain. "Adam And Eve are finding out all about love" I mean seriously, that is clever. The song builds to the climax where Billy changes the lyrics to "Theresa and Steve are finding out all about love"
Bonus Disk Highlights
between the wars
Which side are you on
Talking Wag Club Blues
Won't Talk about it
World Turned Upside Down
Back to the old house
8/10
Monday, December 27, 2010
Book Review Will Grayson WIll Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Will Grayson Will Grayson is written by two of YA literature's biggest superstars, John Green(Author of Paper Towns and Looking For Alaska) and David Levithan(Author of Boy Meets Boy and Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist). The book is written in alternating chapters each narrated by a young man named Will Grayson.
John Green's Will Grayson is straight and having boy troubles. David Levithian's Will Grayson is gay and having girl troubles. Don't ask why either of those make sense.
About halfway through the book the two Will Grayson's meet up with each other.
Now, as I said, this book is written by two hugely popular authors. John Green is renowned in the literary world for his YA novels and how good they are. David Levithian is less well known as an author but is an Editor for scholastic(he edited the Hunger Games Trilogy which proves that at least he has good taste). So, with two authors of such high stature writing it, how could this book possibly go wrong?
The answer to that question is two words long: John Green. Going into this book I had one problem with John Green, I felt that he had appointed himself the savior of YA Literature and saw it as his duty to push the envelope. Coming out of this book I have another problem with him, all his characters are the same. Seriously, Will Grayson is almost exactly the same as the main character from Paper Towns. I am not saying that Mr. Green cannot write, but he is, in my humble opinion, far inferior to David Levithan.
David Levithan is one of my favorite writers and he has actually saved YA Literature(namely by editing the Hunger Games). He writes his half very well but the book, aside from being unbalanced, is basically pointless. There is no reason for the characters to meet(though it was handled well) as it doesn't really do much for the plot. Really, nothing happens in this book. And Don't even get me started on the ending.
In the interest of fairness I will say that John Green handles romance well and he put in some funny scenes involving the school play(a subplot which I thoroughly enjoyed). He also put in some cool band references as he has done in at least one of his previous works(Billy Bragg was referenced in Paper Towns). But, as I said, his main character is the same as his Paper Towns main character.
This Year David Levithan has another collaboration coming out called Dash and Lilly's Book Of Dares which is far far far superior.
Three and a Half stars out of Five
One final note, many months back I posted some lyrics on this blog that I had co-written(called If Lightning Strikes) and Elfarmy commented saying that it reminded her of a scene in this book. I read the scene and she was right. So props to her for noticing.
John Green's Will Grayson is straight and having boy troubles. David Levithian's Will Grayson is gay and having girl troubles. Don't ask why either of those make sense.
About halfway through the book the two Will Grayson's meet up with each other.
Now, as I said, this book is written by two hugely popular authors. John Green is renowned in the literary world for his YA novels and how good they are. David Levithian is less well known as an author but is an Editor for scholastic(he edited the Hunger Games Trilogy which proves that at least he has good taste). So, with two authors of such high stature writing it, how could this book possibly go wrong?
The answer to that question is two words long: John Green. Going into this book I had one problem with John Green, I felt that he had appointed himself the savior of YA Literature and saw it as his duty to push the envelope. Coming out of this book I have another problem with him, all his characters are the same. Seriously, Will Grayson is almost exactly the same as the main character from Paper Towns. I am not saying that Mr. Green cannot write, but he is, in my humble opinion, far inferior to David Levithan.
David Levithan is one of my favorite writers and he has actually saved YA Literature(namely by editing the Hunger Games). He writes his half very well but the book, aside from being unbalanced, is basically pointless. There is no reason for the characters to meet(though it was handled well) as it doesn't really do much for the plot. Really, nothing happens in this book. And Don't even get me started on the ending.
In the interest of fairness I will say that John Green handles romance well and he put in some funny scenes involving the school play(a subplot which I thoroughly enjoyed). He also put in some cool band references as he has done in at least one of his previous works(Billy Bragg was referenced in Paper Towns). But, as I said, his main character is the same as his Paper Towns main character.
This Year David Levithan has another collaboration coming out called Dash and Lilly's Book Of Dares which is far far far superior.
Three and a Half stars out of Five
One final note, many months back I posted some lyrics on this blog that I had co-written(called If Lightning Strikes) and Elfarmy commented saying that it reminded her of a scene in this book. I read the scene and she was right. So props to her for noticing.
Monday, June 14, 2010
In which I am filled with a righteous anger
I love Agatha Christie and I love the theater so when a friend of mine told me that NC State was performing three Agatha Christie plays over the summer I was very excited. My excitement was in no way lessened when I went to see the first play, A Murder is Announced. I loved most things about it, and I would probably give it Four Stars out of Five(the missing star is due to the fact that I didn't like the way the detective was played and thought that the villain was played in a very obviously creepy way).
Yesterday I went to see what I thought was Death on the Nile, one of Christie's classics with her greatest detective Hercule Poirot. I walk in to the theater with two friends who are also Christie fans and we sit down and wait for the play to being. The set is fantastic and we get pretty good seats so we're feeling pretty good. An announcement comes to turn off cell phones and the play begins.
It starts off well with most of the actors doing pretty well. And then, and then the victim enters. The basic plot of Death on the Nile for those who don't know is that this rich young woman(Linnet)'s best friend(Jackie) is getting married and she(Jackie that is not Linnet) asks Linnet to give her fiancee(Simon) a job. Linnet does so and Simon ends up breaking up with Jackie and marrying Linnet. Jackie as one might assume is less that happy about this and begins to stalk Linnet and Simon as they go on their honeymoon in Egypt. One night on a cruise ship Linnet is murdered in the very way that Jackie had wanted to kill her earlier. However Jackie cannot have done, so who did? It's up to the world famous detective Hercule Poirot to figure it out before anyone else is killed.
Yeah, so here's the problem the play was not Death On the Nile, no it was Murder on The Nile. In Murder on The Nile World famous detective Hercule Poirot is replaced by random clergyman Cannon Something-or-other. Yeah I can't even remember his last name even though I saw it last night. In the book it makes sense for Poirot to handle the case, as he's actually...you know... a detective. In this play the authorities on the ship seem to be totally incompetent as the clergyman is also a suspect, in fact in the book he(or rather the character he's based on) was one of the prime suspects for the murder.
Also, Jackie, poor poor Jackie. By far the most interesting character in the novel. However in the play well.....how about I use an example? The night of the murder Jackie is in the Saloon of the ship and is totally drunk. She is yelling at Simon and finally pulls out a gun and shoots him in the leg. This is a very dramatic scene that is Jackie's crescendo it's when she just can't take any more. It's a very dramatic scene in the novel. So how does the actress playing Jackie in the play decide to play it? By yelling a non-stop string of words at a very high pitch with no inflection.
It was both painful and hilarious. I don't know why that actress got the role but she was really really bad, I'm sorry I really hope her mom isn't reading this but I gotta call it like I see it.
Anyway, to some up this play was bad. And I mean bad. Add to the fact that the main actress couldn't act and that they got rid of the detective in a MURDER MYSTERY a terrible script and you will never have a good play.
I am going to see the final play in this series in a few days and I am really looking forward to it and I am really hoping that I just saw an off night for "Murder" on the Nile.
NC State Theater Fest 2010
A Murder Is Announced: 8/10
Murder on The Nile: 4/10
Spider's web: ?/10
Yesterday I went to see what I thought was Death on the Nile, one of Christie's classics with her greatest detective Hercule Poirot. I walk in to the theater with two friends who are also Christie fans and we sit down and wait for the play to being. The set is fantastic and we get pretty good seats so we're feeling pretty good. An announcement comes to turn off cell phones and the play begins.
It starts off well with most of the actors doing pretty well. And then, and then the victim enters. The basic plot of Death on the Nile for those who don't know is that this rich young woman(Linnet)'s best friend(Jackie) is getting married and she(Jackie that is not Linnet) asks Linnet to give her fiancee(Simon) a job. Linnet does so and Simon ends up breaking up with Jackie and marrying Linnet. Jackie as one might assume is less that happy about this and begins to stalk Linnet and Simon as they go on their honeymoon in Egypt. One night on a cruise ship Linnet is murdered in the very way that Jackie had wanted to kill her earlier. However Jackie cannot have done, so who did? It's up to the world famous detective Hercule Poirot to figure it out before anyone else is killed.
Yeah, so here's the problem the play was not Death On the Nile, no it was Murder on The Nile. In Murder on The Nile World famous detective Hercule Poirot is replaced by random clergyman Cannon Something-or-other. Yeah I can't even remember his last name even though I saw it last night. In the book it makes sense for Poirot to handle the case, as he's actually...you know... a detective. In this play the authorities on the ship seem to be totally incompetent as the clergyman is also a suspect, in fact in the book he(or rather the character he's based on) was one of the prime suspects for the murder.
Also, Jackie, poor poor Jackie. By far the most interesting character in the novel. However in the play well.....how about I use an example? The night of the murder Jackie is in the Saloon of the ship and is totally drunk. She is yelling at Simon and finally pulls out a gun and shoots him in the leg. This is a very dramatic scene that is Jackie's crescendo it's when she just can't take any more. It's a very dramatic scene in the novel. So how does the actress playing Jackie in the play decide to play it? By yelling a non-stop string of words at a very high pitch with no inflection.
It was both painful and hilarious. I don't know why that actress got the role but she was really really bad, I'm sorry I really hope her mom isn't reading this but I gotta call it like I see it.
Anyway, to some up this play was bad. And I mean bad. Add to the fact that the main actress couldn't act and that they got rid of the detective in a MURDER MYSTERY a terrible script and you will never have a good play.
I am going to see the final play in this series in a few days and I am really looking forward to it and I am really hoping that I just saw an off night for "Murder" on the Nile.
NC State Theater Fest 2010
A Murder Is Announced: 8/10
Murder on The Nile: 4/10
Spider's web: ?/10
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Book review: This World We Live In
Okay, so, I love me a good post-apocalyptic book, and the Dead and The Gone By Susan Beth Pfeffer was a good one. The basic premise of the book and it's companion book Life As We Knew It is that an asteroid smashes into the moon knocking it closer to the earth and thus screwing everything up. Life As We Knew It was about a family that lives in a small Pennsylvania town. The Dead and the Gone(which was way way better) was about three kids living(and dying) in New York City after their parents go missing.
In the third book in the trilogy, the newly released This World We Live In, things are getting a little better for the family in Pennsylvania when the two surviving kids from the Dead and the Gone show up. Shockingly the older girl from the first book and the boy from the second book fall in love within twenty pages. Who could have possibly expected that? Two protagonists falling in love with each other? Totally unheard of!!
Before the Dead and the Gone people arrive the book is a generic disaster survival book and then the Dead and Gone guys arrive and it becomes Twilight.
There are many problems with this book but I have three main ones. The first and most important is the way the book treats Alex, the main character of the Dead and The Gone. In the Dead and the Gone he is a heroic character who looks out for his two younger sisters in a terrible situation. In this book he is a suborn, fanatically christian, overly romantic, moron. He consistently tries to leave the small town in Pennsylvania where he and his sister are happy and relatively safe to got to a monastery for really no reason whatsoever.
My second problem is the way the various romances that occur in the book are portrayed. They all happen basically overnight, one literally does happen overnight. Early in the book the brothers of the girl from Pennsylvania go to the river to fish and one of the brothers meets a woman who is being beaten up by a guy(what that was all about is never explained) and the brother tells the guy to stop hitting her and then he(the brother) marries her the next day. Okay, yeah. So that gives you a little taste of what was wrong with this book.
My third problem is the ending. I don't want to ruin it for you, but I will if you don't stop reading now.
Still Reading? I will ruin it?
Will you stop reading already?! God almighty!!
Okay here is what happens in the end, the protagonists decided to go away to a "safe town" where there are still hospitals and schools and such with some of the family members, leaving the rest behind for no real reason. Then a tornado hits the town. Killing one of the group and paralyzing the sister. The female protagonist kills her to put her out of her misery. And then she writes(did I mention that the book is told through her diaries? Well they are.) that the world is bad, her life is bad, in the end everyone is going to die, there is really no hope, so she's going to go hang out with Alex. And they all lived happily ever.
But it's all okay because she learned life lessons from those who have died.
I do not recommend this, but I do recommend the Dead and the Gone.
2/5
In the third book in the trilogy, the newly released This World We Live In, things are getting a little better for the family in Pennsylvania when the two surviving kids from the Dead and the Gone show up. Shockingly the older girl from the first book and the boy from the second book fall in love within twenty pages. Who could have possibly expected that? Two protagonists falling in love with each other? Totally unheard of!!
Before the Dead and the Gone people arrive the book is a generic disaster survival book and then the Dead and Gone guys arrive and it becomes Twilight.
There are many problems with this book but I have three main ones. The first and most important is the way the book treats Alex, the main character of the Dead and The Gone. In the Dead and the Gone he is a heroic character who looks out for his two younger sisters in a terrible situation. In this book he is a suborn, fanatically christian, overly romantic, moron. He consistently tries to leave the small town in Pennsylvania where he and his sister are happy and relatively safe to got to a monastery for really no reason whatsoever.
My second problem is the way the various romances that occur in the book are portrayed. They all happen basically overnight, one literally does happen overnight. Early in the book the brothers of the girl from Pennsylvania go to the river to fish and one of the brothers meets a woman who is being beaten up by a guy(what that was all about is never explained) and the brother tells the guy to stop hitting her and then he(the brother) marries her the next day. Okay, yeah. So that gives you a little taste of what was wrong with this book.
My third problem is the ending. I don't want to ruin it for you, but I will if you don't stop reading now.
Still Reading? I will ruin it?
Will you stop reading already?! God almighty!!
Okay here is what happens in the end, the protagonists decided to go away to a "safe town" where there are still hospitals and schools and such with some of the family members, leaving the rest behind for no real reason. Then a tornado hits the town. Killing one of the group and paralyzing the sister. The female protagonist kills her to put her out of her misery. And then she writes(did I mention that the book is told through her diaries? Well they are.) that the world is bad, her life is bad, in the end everyone is going to die, there is really no hope, so she's going to go hang out with Alex. And they all lived happily ever.
But it's all okay because she learned life lessons from those who have died.
I do not recommend this, but I do recommend the Dead and the Gone.
2/5
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Alice In Wonderland Review
So I just came back from watching Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Now I will say this up front: I love the cast. I mean how could you make a movie with Johnny Depp, Michael Sheen, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Christopher Lee, Timothy Spall, and Crispen Glover not be great?
Let me tell you how, get the worst script you can find and then tell the actors not to actually bring anything new to the characters. For the first time I can actually say that Tim Burton really did not direct this movie well. I think the whole "Oh look what we can do with CGI" phase is now over because of a guy called James Cameron made a movie that had the best CGI ever and everything will seem bad in comparison.
The acting in this movie was not bad exactly, but it was so safe. I mean Johnny Depp played basically the same character he played in Pirates of the Caribbean. He did well as Jack Sparrow because it was so out there and by the third movie the role was getting a little old and annoying. The Mad Hatter took about half a scene to get old and annoying. I have yet to see a version of Alice In Wonderland that I like, which is a little unsettling as I'm in a play version of the book. Also the way the dress sometimes shrunk and stretched with Alice while other times it did not. The Ending was also terrible.
The writing for the beginning of the movie was just terrible. All the characters just basically said what they were thinking and feeling. The scriptwriter didn't even try to make Alice's suitor sympathetic. In fact, the scriptwriter didn't try to make any of the "bad" characters sympathetic. The Red Queen got on my nerves really quickly and Knave was just kind of weird.
On the plus side Anne Hathaway was great as the White Queen and Mia Wasikowska was very good as Alice, she succeed where the previous actresses who have played Alice failed, she made her sympathetic and not annoying.
In short it was a boring, deeply strange, and safe movie. It was highly formulaic when you strip away the odd characters you have hero hates real world, finds weird one, discovers that he/she is the hero of a prophecy and meets a wise old man, he/she doesn't think that they can fulfill it, friend of hero is capture by villain, hero rescues friend, hero escapes to good guy's hideout, hero stills doesn't think that they can do it, mentor tells hero that they can and then dies, hero fights bad guys, hero wins, hero decides to leave the wonderful world where they have been staying and goes back to the far inferior real world solely because it is the "real world"(why can't the nice world be real and the bad world be fake, who decides that one is real and the other isn't?), Hero turns life around and becomes happy, peppy song plays over credits. Tim Burton, you done us wrong this time and what's with Alice not telling her sister that her sister's husband is having at least one affair? What message does that send to your daughter? And while I'm talking about your daughter and messages that are sent to her from this movie, why does Alice have to have a romantic relationship with the Mad Hatter, why do movie heroines always have to have romantic relationships? It's so messed up.
Let me tell you how, get the worst script you can find and then tell the actors not to actually bring anything new to the characters. For the first time I can actually say that Tim Burton really did not direct this movie well. I think the whole "Oh look what we can do with CGI" phase is now over because of a guy called James Cameron made a movie that had the best CGI ever and everything will seem bad in comparison.
The acting in this movie was not bad exactly, but it was so safe. I mean Johnny Depp played basically the same character he played in Pirates of the Caribbean. He did well as Jack Sparrow because it was so out there and by the third movie the role was getting a little old and annoying. The Mad Hatter took about half a scene to get old and annoying. I have yet to see a version of Alice In Wonderland that I like, which is a little unsettling as I'm in a play version of the book. Also the way the dress sometimes shrunk and stretched with Alice while other times it did not. The Ending was also terrible.
The writing for the beginning of the movie was just terrible. All the characters just basically said what they were thinking and feeling. The scriptwriter didn't even try to make Alice's suitor sympathetic. In fact, the scriptwriter didn't try to make any of the "bad" characters sympathetic. The Red Queen got on my nerves really quickly and Knave was just kind of weird.
On the plus side Anne Hathaway was great as the White Queen and Mia Wasikowska was very good as Alice, she succeed where the previous actresses who have played Alice failed, she made her sympathetic and not annoying.
In short it was a boring, deeply strange, and safe movie. It was highly formulaic when you strip away the odd characters you have hero hates real world, finds weird one, discovers that he/she is the hero of a prophecy and meets a wise old man, he/she doesn't think that they can fulfill it, friend of hero is capture by villain, hero rescues friend, hero escapes to good guy's hideout, hero stills doesn't think that they can do it, mentor tells hero that they can and then dies, hero fights bad guys, hero wins, hero decides to leave the wonderful world where they have been staying and goes back to the far inferior real world solely because it is the "real world"(why can't the nice world be real and the bad world be fake, who decides that one is real and the other isn't?), Hero turns life around and becomes happy, peppy song plays over credits. Tim Burton, you done us wrong this time and what's with Alice not telling her sister that her sister's husband is having at least one affair? What message does that send to your daughter? And while I'm talking about your daughter and messages that are sent to her from this movie, why does Alice have to have a romantic relationship with the Mad Hatter, why do movie heroines always have to have romantic relationships? It's so messed up.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Okay, let me just get this out in the open to start with. I like the Twilight Saga, I actually went to this movie because I thought it would be good. It wasn't. Let me explain.
Okay first, this film was doomed from the beginning as the book that it was based on was a very internal book, there is really no action to speak of and what the book is about is Bella's mental attachments to Jacob and Edward. A movie can't really have most of the action take place in a person's thoughts, so they movie was of course going to not be as good as the book. But there is absolutely no excuse for it to be this bad.
The many terrible casting mistakes which were hidden behind the masterful directing of the first film, called just Twilight and I strongly recommend it, is now way too apparent. Mr. Pattinson may have a great following among the female fans, but his acting is, at times, painful. Watching him struggle through some lines from Romeo and Juliet at the beginning is unbearable.
I have to say though, as both of the lovers, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, are both doing the same thing with their acting I assume that it was because they were told to do it by the director or, alternatively,she saw in the first movie that Mr. Pattinson can not act so she started matching his acting style to make it look intentional. I have no idea why Mr. Pattinson has become such a teen idol, as he is neither talented nor particularly good-looking, and he seems to have no understanding of the character he is playing.
And that is one of the places where this movie, and in some ways the last one as well, falls short of the books, the character of the male romantic lead. In the book he is not as brooding as Mr. Pattinson decides to play him as, also, and this is what really bugs me, is that in the books Edward has a sense of humor which is non-existent in the film. He never seems to have any emotions other than brooding confusion.
Also, and I apologize for hitting on Robert Pattinson so much, he won't say his freakin' lines!!! All he does is insert pauses into places where there should be no pauses! It makes the already bad script worse. It becomes just comical when he says things like "I left so you could have a normal life" with several pauses insert into it.
There is also a lot of blatant attempts to appeal to the teenage girl market with most of the male characters walking around shirtless for most of the movie. In the first scene where a werewolf, who has obviously been pumping some iron(played quite well by Taylor Lautner), rips of his shirt for no particular reason, it is the first time for this movie but by far not the last, the cinema exploded in what was either laughter, which I was participating in, at the sheer stupidity of the moment or cheers at Mr. Lautner's ability to work out or take steroids, whichever.
The movie itself dragged, focusing to much on the dull elements and not enough on the interesting bit. The pace was so slow that one might very well fall asleep during the film, as one of the guys who went with me to see it almost did 4 times.
One last point, there is way way too much kissing. One passionate kiss at the end can be much more powerful than the 5 or so kisses that occour in this film. Actually there was an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel in which the lovers never kiss. It felt like the filmmakers knew what their audiences wanted and gave it them, disregarding the fact that it killed the movie. They knew that all the kissing was out of character, they knew that all the shirtless men didn't really make sense to the plot, but they did both of those things anyway.
However my favorite character, Alice, is played very well by Ashley Greene and Michael Sheen is terrifying as the King of the Vampires. Dakota Fanning is also very good as Jane one of Mr. Sheen's minions.
2/5 Stars
Okay first, this film was doomed from the beginning as the book that it was based on was a very internal book, there is really no action to speak of and what the book is about is Bella's mental attachments to Jacob and Edward. A movie can't really have most of the action take place in a person's thoughts, so they movie was of course going to not be as good as the book. But there is absolutely no excuse for it to be this bad.
The many terrible casting mistakes which were hidden behind the masterful directing of the first film, called just Twilight and I strongly recommend it, is now way too apparent. Mr. Pattinson may have a great following among the female fans, but his acting is, at times, painful. Watching him struggle through some lines from Romeo and Juliet at the beginning is unbearable.
I have to say though, as both of the lovers, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, are both doing the same thing with their acting I assume that it was because they were told to do it by the director or, alternatively,she saw in the first movie that Mr. Pattinson can not act so she started matching his acting style to make it look intentional. I have no idea why Mr. Pattinson has become such a teen idol, as he is neither talented nor particularly good-looking, and he seems to have no understanding of the character he is playing.
And that is one of the places where this movie, and in some ways the last one as well, falls short of the books, the character of the male romantic lead. In the book he is not as brooding as Mr. Pattinson decides to play him as, also, and this is what really bugs me, is that in the books Edward has a sense of humor which is non-existent in the film. He never seems to have any emotions other than brooding confusion.
Also, and I apologize for hitting on Robert Pattinson so much, he won't say his freakin' lines!!! All he does is insert pauses into places where there should be no pauses! It makes the already bad script worse. It becomes just comical when he says things like "I left so you could have a normal life" with several pauses insert into it.
There is also a lot of blatant attempts to appeal to the teenage girl market with most of the male characters walking around shirtless for most of the movie. In the first scene where a werewolf, who has obviously been pumping some iron(played quite well by Taylor Lautner), rips of his shirt for no particular reason, it is the first time for this movie but by far not the last, the cinema exploded in what was either laughter, which I was participating in, at the sheer stupidity of the moment or cheers at Mr. Lautner's ability to work out or take steroids, whichever.
The movie itself dragged, focusing to much on the dull elements and not enough on the interesting bit. The pace was so slow that one might very well fall asleep during the film, as one of the guys who went with me to see it almost did 4 times.
One last point, there is way way too much kissing. One passionate kiss at the end can be much more powerful than the 5 or so kisses that occour in this film. Actually there was an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel in which the lovers never kiss. It felt like the filmmakers knew what their audiences wanted and gave it them, disregarding the fact that it killed the movie. They knew that all the kissing was out of character, they knew that all the shirtless men didn't really make sense to the plot, but they did both of those things anyway.
However my favorite character, Alice, is played very well by Ashley Greene and Michael Sheen is terrifying as the King of the Vampires. Dakota Fanning is also very good as Jane one of Mr. Sheen's minions.
2/5 Stars
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Single Reivew: For Your Entertainment by Adam Lambert
Okay, okay I admit it, I'm an Adam Lambert fan. I enjoyed his stuff on American Idol and I planned to buy his album when it comes out next month. However, when he released his first single, called Time for Miracles, I was a little disappointed. It was a very forgetful track that had very generic lyrics and sound. You can't say that about his new single.
It has very David Bowie's Fame feel and, I gotta say, it is weird as heck. To quote the very odd lyrics "Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet (bet ya thought)‘Ya fallen angel swept ya off your feet Well I’m about to turn up the heat (turn up the heat) I’m here for your entertainment"
I don't really like techno or odd lyrics, but this song is so catchy, strange, and totally irresistible I have to say this, Glam Lives Once Again!!! Adam Lambert has the potential to be the next David Bowie with all his oddness and catchiness(I think that's a word). I look forward to hearing Mr. Lambert singing a song written by P!nk in his album. I also look forward to the duet that he will have Lady Gaga. It looks to be a strange album, and I will love almost every second of it.
A few pieces of advice to Mr. Lambert before I go, the first and most important is, would it be too tough to write your own songs?!!!!! I mean seriously, all these pop stars apparently can't write their own songs, why is that? Does the ability to sing a Pop Song suddenly make them unable to write one? They don't have to be good, at least they will be "you".
4.9/5 Rock Scale 2/5 Lyrics Scale 5/5 Artist Scale.
It has very David Bowie's Fame feel and, I gotta say, it is weird as heck. To quote the very odd lyrics "Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet (bet ya thought)‘Ya fallen angel swept ya off your feet Well I’m about to turn up the heat (turn up the heat) I’m here for your entertainment"
I don't really like techno or odd lyrics, but this song is so catchy, strange, and totally irresistible I have to say this, Glam Lives Once Again!!! Adam Lambert has the potential to be the next David Bowie with all his oddness and catchiness(I think that's a word). I look forward to hearing Mr. Lambert singing a song written by P!nk in his album. I also look forward to the duet that he will have Lady Gaga. It looks to be a strange album, and I will love almost every second of it.
A few pieces of advice to Mr. Lambert before I go, the first and most important is, would it be too tough to write your own songs?!!!!! I mean seriously, all these pop stars apparently can't write their own songs, why is that? Does the ability to sing a Pop Song suddenly make them unable to write one? They don't have to be good, at least they will be "you".
4.9/5 Rock Scale 2/5 Lyrics Scale 5/5 Artist Scale.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Music Review, We Weren't Born to Follow by Bon Jovi
Yes, Yes, Yes!!! Finally, Jon Bon Jovi and his band are doing Slippery When Wet again, but without the cheesy synth. The lyrics send a message and the music matches it perfectly. This is one of the best Bon Jovi songs I've ever heard. After their strange foray into country music, it's nice to see Jon rocking out again.
Rock Scale: 4/5 Lyrics: 4.5 /5 Music Video: 5/5 Artist Scale: 4.7/5
Rock Scale: 4/5 Lyrics: 4.5 /5 Music Video: 5/5 Artist Scale: 4.7/5
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