Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Title: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Author: Lynne Truss
Published: 2003
Read: Feb 2007
Number of pages: 204
Non-Fiction
Where I obtained the book: Barnes and Noble

How I discovered it: read the first one
My grade: B+

Just with an add of a comma, a panda who eats shoots and leaves and a panda who eats, shoots and leaves are two very different scenarios. In her book about punctuation,  Truss emphasizes that the comma and other punctuation marks are very essential tools when writing and how important it is to use them right! She has a strict, no-nonsense policy when it comes to using any kind of punctuation wrong. She sites an example as having seen signs with "Book's, DVD's, and CD's on sale!" many times. Of course this is wrong because the added apostrophes make the items possessive. 

Let me tell you, bad grammar and incorrect punctuation drive me crazy! The only time I think it's okay to let is slide is when someone is texting. It's a pain in the butt to have write correctly when you're texting, so I don't mind when people don't use commas or capitalization or spell things correctly then. 

However, there really is no excuse for everything else - ESPECIALLY when they know it will be read by the public. I once saw a sign that said "We're glad your here!" and it just made me cringe everytime I passed by it. We're glad your what is here? Really, if you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're" it's time to go back to first grade! 

Something I learned that I didn't know before while reading this book was the Oxford comma. This is the last comma in a list. The title of this book is Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but Eats, Shoots, and Leaves would be correct too and the comma after "Shoots" is called an Oxford comma. 

Sometimes I'll be uncertain about whether a comma goes or if I should have one at all, but for the most part I feel pretty I'm using them correctly. (I hope!) 

New Moon

Title: New Moon

Author: Stephanie Meyer
Published: 2006
Read: March 2009
Number of pages: 563
Fiction
Where I obtained the book: E-bay

How I discovered it: read the first one
My grade: F

After paying full price for the first book in the Twilight series (aptly titled Twilight), I decided I would not pay that much for the second book which was sure to be just as awful, so I got it off E-bay and I still probably spent too much for it! 

Here's a quick recap from the first book: Bella is in love with Edward, the vampire.

The good news about New Moon? Edward is absent for about 400 pages, so we don't have to deal with Bella talking about his "crooked smile" or his "rock-hard abs" or "perfect face" on EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. 

The bad news? Edward is absent for about 400 pages and all Bella does is mope around about missing him and how she can't live without him. Good lord, girl, stop being such a pansy.

Here are some eye-roll inducing lines from the book:

(Bella and Edward are watching Romeo and Juliet: The movie captured my interest, thanks in large part to Edward whispering Romeo's lines in my ear - his irresistible, velvet voice made the actor's voice sound weak and coarse by comparison. 

Seriously, I feel like I'm reading fanfic!

"Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars - points of light and reason. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire, there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the metero had fallen over  the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." 

::::gag::: and :::zzzz:::: And why is Edward so enamoured with an immature 17 (18?) year old girl? He's been around for at least over a hundred years, you'd think he go for an older, more sophisticated woman who's seen the world. Just saying. 

Okay, question...am I suppose to be rooting for Bella and Edward? Because when I read their scenes together, I feel nothing. I honestly don't care about them as a couple. Even though they make kissey faces and "gaze into each other's eyes", I don't feel like they are a couple. I don't get that arm, fuzzy feeling inside of me when I read about other couples that are well-written, well-developed and make sense. With Bella and Edward, I just feel...nothing. I think she has more chemisty with Jacob. At least with Jacob she got to know him and they spet a good time being friends beofre there was any attraction on her part. With Edward, it was just "OMG! He's hot - he's my soulmate!" I can't stand Edward. He's too perfect. He's so boring.

The book ends with Edward promising Bella that he'll make her a vampire after she graduates from high school. There's these bad vampires after her and the only way to save her it to make her a vampire or they'll kill her. Why the Cullen family can't protect her as a human is beyond me. There's this one asinine scene where she is taking a vote of the Cullen family on whether they want to join their familr or not and all but two of them are like, "Yeah! Become one of us! We want you to be in our family." Gee, how thoughtful of them to think of how her parents might react to their daughter becoming a vampire. And not to mention that becoming a vampire is a painful experience, I really don't think they have her best interest at heart. What a moron. 

House of Sand and Fog

Title: House of Sand and Fog

Author: Andre Dubus III
Published: 1999
Read: January 2006
Number of pages: 365
Fiction
Where I obtained the book: Borrowed from parents

How I discovered it: liked the movie, so decided to read the book
My grade: A-

Before this novel was made into a 2003 movie starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly, it was an Oprah book club selection. That was enough to make me not want to read it as I don't like people telling me what I should read, least of all Oprah. After watching the movie, which I thought was pretty good, I decided to read the book as my parents already owned it and I was looking for something to read at the time.

I'm glad I did because it was a very intriguing story told from the point of view of two different characters - Kathy Nicolo (the Jennifer Connelly character if you've see the movie) and Colonel Behrani (the Ben Kingsley character). The writing style is also different as well as the tenses so it makes you feel like they are two different people. One was told in the present tense and the other in the past tense, which is something I've never seen done much in books. You either get one or the other. 

Kathy's house has goes up for auction and the Colonel and his family has moved in and she's  trying to get her house back. The novel takes you through a journey of the characters' lives. The ending is not one that is happy! 

The Time Traveler's Wife

Title: The Time Traveler's Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Published: 2003
Read: August 2010
Number of pages: 536
Fiction
Where I obtained the book: Christmas present

How I discovered it: was always aware of it, but didn't read it until it was made into a movie
My grade: C-

I was excited to read this book because I am fascinated by time-travel. I loved "Timeline" by Michael Crichton and the Back to the Future movies and the TV show, Quantum Leap. The premise for this book sounded interesting with one of the characters, Henry, being a time traveler and going back in time to when his wife, Clare, was younger and before they met in real time. The novel started out promising, but by the time I finished it, I felt greatly disappointed. The book is told in first person by both Henry and Clare. Now I wouldn't have any problem with this, except for the fact that both the tones of their voices are exactly the same. There is really no difference between the way they're written. Niffenegger  should have just stuck with Henry's POV and called it "The Time Traveling Husband". This book is over 530 pages, but it could have easily been condensed. There are many scenes that could have been cut as they don't move the plot along at all. These include the scene where Henry and Clare are playing their pretentious game they made up with their friends, a scene with Henry talking to two young teens about his thoughts on music, etc. There are better examples, but those are the first two I could think of. Also, what's the point of being a time-traveler if you can't change anything about your history? I can't remember if Henry really can't do anything to change his past, or if he just doesn't want to mess with it, but if he knows somebody he loves is going to die, why not try to warn them when he's older? There's this one scene and the day just so happens to be THAT day in 2001. It's early in the morning and Clare joins Henry who's watching TV and asks him if it's happened yet and he replies, "Oh, it won't begin for  a couple more hours." Okay, seriously, if you KNEW that terrorists were going to attack the country, wouldn't you call somebody to warn them? I'm not sure who they would call - the FBI? The airports? CTU? Now of course it would look suspicious that he knew this was going on and he'd probably be questioned and the book would take place in a parallel universe where 9/11  never happened, but that would have been a lot more interesting then the actual plot!  There's also the really creepy plotline where he goes back in time and sees his wife between the ages of 6-18. In all of these excursions, he's usually in his 30s, sometimes in his early 40s and finds himself attracted to Clare when she's 13 or older and has to remind himself that she's not his wife yet. It's very creepy and uncomfortable, especially when they have sex on Clare's 18th birthday when he's 41. Maybe people find this romantic because she eventually becomes his future wife, but I felt like I had to take a long, hot shower after reading that.  Don't read this book. And don't watch the movie.

PS, I Love You

Title: PS,  I Love You

Author: Cecelia Ahern
Published: 2004
Read: October 2005
Number of pages: 512
Fiction
Where I obtained the book: Barnes and Noble

How I discovered it: browsing through the aisles of Barnes and Noble
My grade: A

This novel is so charming and has a clever premise that I can forgive the amateur mistakes from first-time novelist Ahern (who was in her early twenties when she wrote this) such as over-using cliches and repeating lines such as "he/she rolled his/her eyes to heaven". Of course, while I mad admit the story was enjoyable and fun to read, let's face it: the fact that she is the daughter of the Prime Minister of Ireland at the time probably helped her a lot to get it published. She's since published a handful of books - I've only read one other by her and didn't particularly care for it. 

This book is about a young woman named Holly who lost her husband, Gerry, to a brain tumor and before he died, he left her ten letters that she is instructed to open each month for the rest of the year. Inside are tasks he gives her to do and he signs each one with 'PS, I love you'. She learns to cope without him and leans on her family and friend for support and becomes closer to one of her brothers she wasn't so tight with before. She does meet a new guy and you think he might be a new love interest for her. 

This book was made into a movie with Hilary Swank and it was okay, but you might like the book better!