So, my brother finished his latest art assignment, which I just had to share because I knew you all would get a kick out of it! Admit it, you would so read this novel!
Photo owned by Nicholas Jarrett
Have a wonderful day, everybody!
Love, Book Club Babe
If you’ve been living under a rock since 2012, you’ve probably woken up to find said rock covered in pink glitter and heart confetti, because today is Valentine’s Day. Many book bloggers have been discussing the best or worst romances in literature, but I’d like to talk about the sorts of characters that are totally swoon-worthy in novels, but I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole in real life:
The Age of Innocence: Nothing says danger like an affair with your wife’s cousin!
The Bad Boy/Girl
You’ve always been warned against them: the rough-around-the-edges type that will get you into trouble and break your heart. You wouldn’t bring them home to your parents, and that’s exactly their allure. Whether it’s taking you to that seedy bar on the back of a motorcycle or convincing you to get a tattoo, everything about them is exciting and a wee bit dangerous. Unfortunately, that adrenaline rush of passion only leads to equally explosive fights and breakups.
Heathcliff: Convincing women around the world to ignore red flags–like hanging your beloved’s dog!
The Angsty Outsider
Unlike the bad boy/girl, the angsty outsider might have a heart of gold. At least you hope so, because their moodiness is downright depressing. They blame their me-against-the-world attitude on their parents’ divorce, school bullying, or impoverished upbringing, and since they’re just so pitiful, you want to be the one to bring joy back into their lives. All that pressure to be their beacon of light will eventually drain you so much that you’ll abandon them–giving them yet another reason to believe the worst in people–or you’ll end up just as dark and gloomy as them. Misery sure does love company!
Missing: One glass slipper and one actual personality
The Prince(ss) Charming
They’re stunningly good-looking, intelligent, and kind-hearted. They have a lucrative job and a gorgeous home. They really listen to what you say and can always make you laugh. Perhaps their spare time is spent helping the elderly across intersections and taking in stray kittens. All your friends and relatives love them and are counting down the days until your nuptials. But…you want there to be a but. All this perfection is driving you crazy and feeding into your worst insecurities. You wonder what’s wrong with them, what’s wrong with you, until your paranoia sabotages the whole thing. Beware of people who never have bad hair days or get flat tires. They might actually belong in the next category…
Vampire love: When you want to kiss and kill someone at the same time!
The Mythical Creature
Vampires, werewolves, elves, merpeople, even zombies have been re-imagined in literature as lover material. I had no idea that blood-sucking and brain-devouring could be considered sexy but books have come a long way since Dracula. If monsters started appearing in our daily lives, here’s how it would play out: (1) Only you would know their secret, making you feel oh-so-special, until your loved ones start to wonder why your mate doesn’t have a reflection…or a pulse. (2) Someone spills the beans, and you spend the rest of your life keeping your mythical creature away from greedy scientists and rival demons. Don’t worry about it too much, as odds are, your life isn’t going to be very long anyway now.
Any other tropes I’ve missed? What’s a turn-off in books that would be a turn-off IRL? Sound off in the comments!
Rating: 1 out of 5
I’m about half-way done with Kafka’s The Trial, which keeps getting stranger and stranger. The gist of the story is that the protagonist has been accused of a crime that he doesn’t even know if he committed, since no one will tell him any details of his case. At one point, he complains about the incompetency of a few officials, only to find them being tortured while at work.
You know what else was torture? Having to watch the latest Twilight film.
Earlier this month, my younger brother, his girlfriend, and I were messing around and playing games when we decided to watch the movie, ironically, of course. We’d have a laugh making fun of the whole thing, and then I’d be able to blog about it for all of you.
I just want to say that I hope you’re grateful that I watched this horrendous movie, so you don’t have to. I apologize for the review being so late, since it debuted last November, but how can you muster up enthusiasm for a film that you know is going to suck?
I’m not insulting it because I hate Twilight. In fact, I read the series in 2007, the summer before my freshman year of college. I gobbled up the first three novels before Twilight’s adaptation even premiered, because I’m such a sucker for romance. This is embarrassing to reveal, but I also went to the midnight release of the fourth and final novel Breaking Dawn.
And that’s where my hatred of Twilight started. If you don’t know the story, let me sum it up for you: Bella is madly in love with vampire Edward and wants to consummate their relationship, but Edward, being the old-fashioned guy that he is, wants to wait until they’re married.
You mean to tell me you couldn’t make a better dress with this movie budget?
So at 18-years-old, Bella marries Edward, then they jet off together on a tropical honeymoon. They finally have sex, which is a rare feat between a human and vampire, because vampires normally kill their lovers due to their bloodlust.
And because she didn’t think she could get pregnant by a vampire, Bella didn’t concern herself with contraception. She becomes impregnated with a hybrid baby, which develops rapidly and is essentially destroying her from the inside out.
I hope you learned your lesson, Bella…
As if this story couldn’t get any more self-righteous, Bella and her vampire family fight about whether to abort the baby, but Bella decides to keep it and realizes that drinking blood helps the situation a bit. When she finally goes into labor (her father-in-law’s a doctor, conveniently), Edward is forced to turn her into a vampire before the baby breaks all her bones and kills her.
That’s where “Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1″ ends. Director Bill Condon decided to copy the “Harry Potter” series and divide the last installment into two films, the second of which will be released this November. Thus, I gave this movie only one star not just because it sucked, but because the book also sucked.
I’ll admit that I’m a socially liberal feminist, so I did not appreciate how author Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism influenced Breaking Dawn. I felt like it was a poorly-written glorification of teen marriage and parenthood. Instead of throwing her whole life away for a guy, why couldn’t Bella go to college, find a steady job, and meet someone who doesn’t have anger and control issues? That wouldn’t be nearly as popular with the Twihards, but I question the values supported in this series and their effects of these impressionable fangirls.
Besides the dangerous piety, the movie was just plain boring. There was absolutely no reason to split this story up, because there simply wasn’t enough action to warrant it. This film drew out the wedding, honeymoon, and pregnancy to excessive lengths–two hours to be exact. I’m afraid that all movie adaptations of books will imitate the “Harry Potter” strategy (“The Hunger Games” is already on board with the idea), whether it’s needed or not. Hollywood should care less about profits and more about creating an engaging finale.
All in all, “Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1″ was dull, slow, cheesy, melodramatic, and accompanied by an obnoxiously loud and annoying soundtrack. It deserves its 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not to mention, I watched it after the Kristen Stewart cheating scandal broke it, so her romance with her co-star/now-ex-boyfriend Robert Pattinson was not very convincing. That’s not saying much, since Stewart’s acting abilities were never convincing.
The only Stewart that Robert Pattinson needs!
I’m sure that I’ll watch Pt. 2 when it comes out on DVD, just to be rid of this overrated series. It’s sad that I was such a huge supporter of the books before the bandwagon exploded, but this last novel completely ruined the saga for me.
However, there is a silver lining. Meyer must be aware of how much Breaking Dawn sucked, because she’s changed the ending for the last movie. It’s going to be super awkward to watch Stewart and Pattinson make their rounds on the talk shows for publicity amidst their real-life drama, but who knows? Maybe their characters will be obliterated in some sort of freak accident.
Here’s to hoping, anyway.
It’s been a lazy Saturday for me as I finish grading my last 20 papers and passing time until my Skype date with one of my bffs. I’ve been surfing the net for giggles, and while I’m currently obsessed with Clients from Hell and #whatshouldwecallme, I found these infographics on BookRiot.com. They all deal with the idea of Katniss, Hermione, and Bella faced with paying rent, so if you enjoy YA heroines, then you’ll like these!
Katniss from The Hunger Games:
Hermione from Harry Potter:
Bella from Twilight:
Note: All these images are credited to dr b at Book Riot. If you want to reblog, give credit where credit is due! Please and thanks!
You know, if fantasy’s dying, then Sean Bean is out of a job!
Yesterday E. D. Kain posted on TheAtlantic.com, “Fantasy’s Spell on Pop Culture: When Will It Wear Off?” an article about how the booming success of fantasy books and adaptations in the last decade might soon come to a slow-down, if not an actual end. How will authors and producers top the fame of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Twilight, and the recently acclaimed HBO series “Game of Thrones,” based on the novels by George R. R. Martin?
I believe that the answer regarding fantasy’s future is deceivingly simple: Those who only enjoy the movies are more likely to grow tired and bored with similar releases, but true fantasy fans will always be ready to support both the classics and the next big thing. I have not read/seen Game of Thrones, (I hear great things about the series, though!), but I’m familiar with all the others I listed and then some. Everybody goes through phases with their interests, as I progressed from animal novels like White Fang to fantasy sagas like His Dark Materials to chick lit like the novels of Sophie Kinsella.
But fantasy is something that I always return to, eager and enthralled by worlds much different than our own. I admit that I love fantasy more than sci-fi (because I prefer elves, magic, and sword-and-bow warfare over robots and aliens any day), but both genres represent escapism. Kain is right: Fantasy has gone mainstream. Fans are no longer just the mouth-breathing, D&D playing nerds in their moms’ basements. But that stereotype to me is offensive, as if all the “cool” fantasy fans will abandon the genre as soon as it gets too popular, like some sort of literary hipsters.
There are hardcore comic-books fans that will still get giddy over the latest Spiderman and Superman comics, no matter how many movies they remake. The same applies to fantasy: some fads like vampires and werewolves will come and go, but the genre will continue to grow and thrive as long as the true fans keep reading…and writing. The bestsellers of this decade have made fantasy-writing even more of a challenge. We shouldn’t be looking for a Harry Potter replacement, but a story that breathes new life and excitement into the genre. And those stories are out there, just waiting to be discovered…
So what are your thoughts? Has fantasy hit a dead end, or is it just getting started? Which stories prove promising, and which ones are just overrated? And perhaps most importantly–what IS fantasy? Has the genre grown and evolved, or have all the crossovers diluted what constitutes true fantasy? Let me know!
Image via Wikipedia
Rating: 5 out of 5
I know that I may be late on the bandwagon, given that Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games was published in 2008, but since the film isn’t going to be released until March 23, 2012, I figured better late than never, right?
And boy, I was not disappointed. Usually, I can sense a bestseller right away: I read the Twilight saga over four years ago after hearing all the buzz, and I recommended it to my friends way before the first movie came out. Now, I’m not here to compare the two series in depth, because I haven’t read Collins’ sequels yet, but looking at the first novels of each series, I would say that The Hunger Games trumps Twilight in terms of writing prowess and originality, but Twilight still wins in the romance department (since Gale wasn’t physically present in The Hunger Games to make a true love triangle). But unless the next two books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, suck as hard as Breaking Dawn, I tentatively award The Hunger Games trilogy the winner of recent YA bestsellers.
But enough of vampires and werewolves. Time to talk about Panem, the post-apocalyptic North America that is broken up into 12 districts (the 13th being completely destroyed during a past uprising). In order to keep the common folk down, the Capitol has created the Hunger Games, an annual event which requires a boy and girl (ages 12-18) from each of the 12 districts to fight to the death on live television. The protagonist, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, volunteers to take her 12-year-old sister Prim’s place as the tribute from District 12. The baker’s son Peeta Mellark is also chosen, and the novel follows their struggle to stay alive in an arena where if the other children don’t kill you, starvation, killer wasps, and other surprises will.
Greek myth lovers will notice the resemblance to the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which inspired Collins–as well as the author’s channel-surfing between a reality competition and footage of the Iraq War. Both inspirations are highlighted, as fantasy, rivalry, and violence merge. I was as grossly captivated by the Games as the citizens of Panem were, and I felt the same mixed feelings of victory and guilt as Katniss did whenever another tribute died. The writing is suspenseful, the scenes action-packed, and the message powerful and haunting.
I have very few complaints, other than the pacing was slow at times and some of the tributes’ deaths were anti-climatic. Overall, though, it was an excellent read and worthy of all its fame. Now I’m like every other fan and putting a lot of faith in the movie, which as of now, the cast and alleged PG-13 rating are making me nervous. The kids were dirty and emaciated, and the fights were brutal, and I would hate it if a bunch of Hollywood heart-throbs watered down this gritty story.
It's called the "Hunger Games" for a reason, guys! (IMAGE CREDIT: JEFF RIEDEL AND EW)
I’d love to start reading Catching Fire right now, but I have to pack for a much-needed beach vacation! I won’t be blogging over the weekend, but if you’ve read The Hunger Games, let me know what you thought of it, and you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, it’s not too late! With Harry Potter finished and Twilight coming to an end, this series will be the next big thing–trust me!
Rating: 2 out of 5
I just finished Overbite, Meg Cabot’s sequel to Insatiable, in which she attempts to bring originality to the vampire romance world. I always imagine the two books as a direct response to the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, but both suffer from weak female protagonists emotionally chained to their overly-possessive vampire lovers.
The plot of Overbite is pretty simple: Meena Harper knows when people are going to die and has fallen in love with Lucien Antonescu, the vampire son of Dracula. However, in order to save her fellow New Yorkers, she’s teamed up with the demon-hunting Palatine Guard and her other love interest, vampire hunter Alaric Wulf. She’s torn in this triangle as tourists are mysteriously going missing and an old ex-boyfriend-turned vampire-attacks her. The Palatine suspect that Lucien’s behind these events, but if it’s not him, who is it?
I’ve read almost every single one of Cabot’s books, both adult and YA, and although Insatiable contained some sex, this one didn’t and seemed no different from her YA series. Cabot fans will complain that Overbite does not have enough romance and drags on to get to the action. The so-called plot twists were predictable, but usually I forgive Cabot for that because her writing is so entertaining. However, Overbite felt stale and melodramatic: how many times did I need to be reminded that Lucien–Lucien Antonescu–was a vampire, the prince of darkness, and the most powerful demon in the whole wide world?
We get it, he’s strong…but that doesn’t make the guy impressive. Unlike Twilight, in which you forgive Edward for being such a jealous, stubborn boyfriend, Lucien is petty and cruel. If you weren’t rooting for Alaric before, you definitely will now. The ending of Overbite almost makes up for a lackluster beginning and middle, as well as gives the impression that there won’t be other sequels–the first time I thought, “Good, because I really wouldn’t want this to continue.”
Overall, I absolutely love Cabot’s other work (including The Princess Diaries, Queen of Babble series, Runaway series, and her newest YA novel Abandon). I know that she can do better than Insatiable, and much, much better than Overbite, so I’ll keep buying her stuff. I recommend Cabot, but unless you’re obsessed with vampires, try something else of hers.
Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass
So I’m going to a local casino with a friend this weekend, and that got me thinking about Forbes’ Fictional 15: the richest people who never existed. Those with literary origins include Carlisle Cullen from the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, Artemis Fowl from his namesake series by Eoin Colfer, Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, and Chuck Bass from the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar.
So who would be the best gambling buddy? Smaug would never actually share its wealth and most likely burn everyone to a crisp. Carlisle could be very persuasive in getting my competition to lose, but a sparkly vampire would probably be more of a distraction to others. Chuck Bass is certainly rich, but if he looks anything like his TV counterpart Ed Westwick (*swoon*), he would be a major distraction to me.
Therefore, the winner: Artemis Fowl! Not only is he loaded with gold, both human and fairy, he is also a teenage genius. A world-champion chess player would have no problem with a little blackjack, making him the perfect wing-man.
But alas! Their fortunes will only exist on the page, and I will have to fend for myself…it’s just fun to fantasize, right?
Know of any other sugar daddies or dragons that Forbes forgot? Who would you want by your side at the high-rollers’ tables?
