Late Book Reviews...

So I have been reading a lot but have not reviewed books in a while so I thought I would review a few of them for you now. These will be a little shorter than usual but bear with me, I am so far behind. Today you will get to read about Thuderstruck by Eric Larson and Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Both were book club choices for this month and I enjoyed both. Plus both counted towards my book total for this year. I am currently at 3 books and 10 points (which will increase when I pick a category for Rebecca).


I really enjoyed this book. I am not one to fall into romance novels often but Rebecca is more than just a romance novel (it is actually called romantic suspense). The story was quick and very engrossing. I enjoyed the world DuMaurier creates for Mrs. de Winter and how the love between Mrs. de Winter and Maxim does not just die. I found Mrs. Danvers very unnerving but I now understand the reference and the whole story was fun and suspenseful. However, I did not enjoy the ending. It was to fair to end it that way. I wish to know more but the only way is to read the 'sequel' written at least three decades later by someone else. I hope to watch the Alfred Hitchcock version of the film this weekend with J and see what he thinks of all of it.

Thunderstruck was a slow starting book but one I feel into quickly. I enjoyed the crossing stories, which I know most people don't like, and I loved the science involved. I also really enjoyed the merging of the two stories at the end, with the pursuit of Crippen. I am still amazed how some inventions came about, for example this book chronicles the creation of wireless communication. Marconi was no scientist but his belief that it should work and his constant trial and error worked in his favor. He was like an engineer, who are always dear to my heart since I have so many in the family. The Crippen murder took longer to get going but once it got interesting the Marconi story got long winded, which made it good having the two stories overlap as they did. Overall I really enjoyed this book.

So to sum up I give Rebecca five bookmarks out of five because it is a great read and a classic that has lead both novels and film and Thunderstruck four out of five bookmarks because it did drag at points but is very good for mainstream non-fiction. Pick them up when you get a chance. You will not be disappointed.

Cal Academy... can I move in?

When I was a kid I loved the Cal Academy. I loved the stuffed animals (at the time I didn't know they were real... I just thought they were like the Disney ones) and could spend days roaming the halls. Well they closed it on my to remodel... which is cool but I am not as happy with the new one. Ok I still want to move in and live there but still.

The new Rainforest part is amazing and fun to go through. I am glad the folks made us wait in line for it but the only part with stuffed animals anymore is the Africa part and that is tiny. The other exhibits seem lacking to me and the living roof is cool but doesn't have many details of how it works or what is growing there. It just feels big and empty in parts... but I could so fix that if they needed! But I doubt they will ever come to me to fix it.

However, our advice is not to go when school is on break. J and I had no problems but everyone else was in line for days. It just can't handle the number of people who want to use it, which is sad. It is a cool place and I did get a membership so I will be going back but it is smaller and not as cool as I remember it. Oh well.... I guess I will have to get used to it. Still better than almost any other natural history museum I have been too (the one in North Carolina was cool through).

Under the Banner of Heaven

This month's book club choice was Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.

This is a book about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and a little background on the mainstream Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormons). The book provides a very well written account of the creation of the church that has the fourth or fifth largest following of all religions in the world. Being the only truly modern religion we know a great day about how it formed and it's background. The main portion of the book is devoted to a splinter group from the religion the FLDS who still practices polygamy. It also chronicles the murder and trial of the murderers the Lafferty brothers.

I only made it to page 84 and then I skimmed through most of the second part but never got to the last half of the book. It is an interesting story and I love the amount of research that must have gone into this. The book didn't hold my attention for long though. I am not a big non-fiction reader and really not true crime so take my review or leave it. I think Krakauer uses too many complex words to explain simple things and since I like to read right before bed this didn't work to my advantage. He made me think, which is generally good, but he made me think too much for the amount of effort I was willing to give this book. The only major problem I had was that I really do not agree with many of the practices of the FLDS and so I had a hard time accepting or even liking most of the people. I guess it is just a personal thing but some of their beliefs are very much against my own beliefs.

I give it two bookmarks out of five. It is just not my kind of book. I think it is worthwhile if you are willing to give it a full effort but it just didn't work for me.

A Wedding in December and my new book club

This was the first book for my new Nest book club. It is a great group of women and we had lots of yummy food and drinks. Not to mention all of the great conversations and fun meeting so many nice women. However, no one seemed to like the book. Maybe we didn't pick a good one this time but maybe next time will be a good one.

This book is by a popular author but this one is not her best work. The book is written from three different points of view and has two sub stories (one that is actually related) and a main story that mostly consists of character development with a little lite plot. The premise is that an unlikely group of high school friends comes back together to celebrate the wedding of two of their friends who have finally reunited after all of these years. Ok sounds good. Now throw in some back story about a high school tragedy and compare it to a modern day one. Not to mention tons of marriages falling apart, more affairs and infidelity than I can shake a stick at, and mixed with lots of back story on each character since they were in high school. Oh and did I mention the side story that has NOTHING to do with the main story, but it more interesting than it? I think now you get my drift. This was a poorly written book with a few good parts but not enough to recommend it. Read some of her other books if you want to give Anita Shreve a try but this is a bust.

Because of the weak plot and over abundance of superfluous details I give this book one book mark out of five. It is interesting to see some of her other work if you are a fan but please avoid this if you are not out for forcing yourself to finish books. Now on to try and finish another book club book for tomorrow night, wish me luck!

Fallout 3 Review

So I am not a gamer, in general terms. I play video games sometimes, like Viva Pinata and mystery games. Jason loved RPGs (role playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons). He has been away from the XBOX for a bit but new games come out for Christmas and he had enough credit at the local video game store to gt a new game early. His choice? Fallout 3

To be honest, I don't usually like these games but this time I do. I am not playing it but instead I am helping him with it. I read over the maps and info online and then help him get to where he needs to go. I also help him make choices so he doesn't mess up his karma (he always wants to be all good). It is a gory game... a really GORY game. If you can get past that it is really kind of a cool concept. We are about to try and get the dog which should change the game a lot for us. It has a huge map and will take a long time to finish, which is the best part. Yes this is now taking up my free time that I should be writing and reading during but still... I love bonding with my hubby!

I give Fallout 3 five controllers out of five! It is a great game if you like RPGS. I just hope our next game is this fun!

Ghosts of Eden

I decided to pick up a scary book for Halloween from the library. This was on the display and they didn't have the one other people in one of my book clubs was reading. This looked interesting and was. It is a short read and it only took me two days to read. At first it was very scary, a haunted house with evil, maybe even violent, ghosts. The main character was likable and had a horrible past. As she tries to release the ghosts from "the Serpent" she encounters many of the ghosts of the town as well as her neighbor with Down syndrome and his teacher. They are all destined to deal with "the Serpent" and the battle part as well as the actual haunting in the house is great. I had a hard time putting it down. However, part of it just didn't work for me. This may be a spoiler but oh well... "the Serpent" is an alien trying to take over a planet his race created. He is ancient and angry. I think the alien part is too much. I didn't need the history of him or what he was... the lack of info would have been better. However, i loved the description of the ghosts and how they died. I loved the movie 13 Ghosts because of the background given to each ghosts character, and it was similar here. The reason the main character is "the Impure" is just not enough though. She should have committed something worse to be considered that. I also appreciate how she made it historical with the legendary fire but it just took much away from it. The scariness was lost with the fire and that was sad... and the ending was a little too happy!

All in all a good scary book with some very gruesome parts. I might read it again some day but skip the parts about the aliens and the fire. I give it three and half bookmarks out of five.

Scary movies that aren't so scary

As a tradition Jason and I rent scary (or what he hope will be scary) movies to watch while we carve our pumpkins. This year was no different. Last years movies gave me nightmares for a week and that was the best part. However, this year did not work out so well.

The first one, my pick, was Suspect Zero. I have always loved crime movies and TV shows (especially Law and Order the original!!). I had heard of this when it came out and it sounded great. It was in the horror section so I thought, "Why not?" We watched most of it but just couldn't bring ourselves to finish it. It was very slow and a little disjointed. It was graphic and a little disturbing and the idea of a serial killer without any pattern and who kills tons of people without remorse is creepy. Also the idea of being able to see other people through their minds is creepy too. However, these two creepy factors where not enough to carry a story. The acting was not great and the story was a little disjointed. I didn't want the hero to succeed and I didn't care about catching the bad guy. A little gory but not worth renting.


The next one was Jason's choice. He had read some good stuff about Cloverfield. I was not very excited about this but we did try it. It is a typical monster attacks a big city (ie. NY) and causes much havoc. People die and the main characters probably will not make it out alive. The premise is good enough. Godzilla has always been popular and this should have worked. I guess part of the problem is that you don't care about the characters... they seem to privileged to us. The monster is also not the scariest. Yes it eats people and attacks people like nothing else. It is supposedly a baby though and we are supposed to feel bad for it as it is trying to deal with the world around it. All in all the way it was filmed, the moving between the past movie and the present, and the fact we already knew what the monster was ruined it for us. Interesting to see the concept of America's monster but not too scary. A little gory but not much of that either. Totally skip-able.

I, Mona Lisa

I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis was October's book for the nest book club (one of three I am participating in). I have not read a lot of historical fiction to this point so it was one of my first books. It is a little long (about 514 pages) but I didn't notice. It tells the story of the woman behind the famous portrait. Of course it is fiction but some of it is based in facts. I loved how descriptive it was. I could visualize the world Lisa lived in and imagine how limited her life must have been if it weren't for her independent spirit. The story has a lot of action and adventure with some romance but most of it is kept at bay. The storytelling is so compelling I actually mourned when one of the main characters was killed. Probably the best part was the description of the art world and the relation to one of my favorite artists, Leonardo di Vinci. I read it in a little over a week but probably could have made it through it faster if all I did was read. I think I will now go on to some of Kalogridis' other books, which I hope are just as good.



I would recommend this book to anyone. It is haunting but beautiful and really a very pleasurable read. I give it five bookmarks out of five. This is something I hope to own one day so I can reread it and pass it on to my children.

A Drity Job

I have been back at my favorite hobby, reading. I have read a lot of books over the last few months and thought maybe I should start reviewing them here. I have no idea who reads this (probably just me and my mom at times, sad? I don't think so) but maybe more people will if I add more to it. With that said this will be the first of many book reviews. I have already done movie reviews and I will also do restaurant, store, and trip reviews as time goes on. I guess if nothing else I want to chronicle my life as best I can at this point. Who knows, maybe my children will find this interesting one day.

So the first book is A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. This is not the first book of his I have read but the first I will discuss. The story is about a Beta male who finds out he is actually Death (or one of several deaths). His job is to collect souls of the deceased to pass on to other people, thus completing the chain of life. Whether or not you believe that souls get reincarnated it is a very interesting book. The way Moore describes a beta male was what drew me to it first. My husband is a self-proclaimed beta male and seeing how the personality can be mocked in the book helps me to deal with some of his more trying traits (namely that he never wants to try anything new... kind of irksome but I guess I can't blame him now). The location is also special to me as I have always seen SF as a cookie kind of place, like it could be it's own little world and the story is well placed there with excellent descriptions that make me want to go visit. I also enjoyed the unusual characters, from squirrel people to the Emperor of SF (which is much better than being the Emperor of Oakland ;). The story is a little long in points and does drag but it is worth it. Especially for the final scene of the fight between the deaths and Death it's self (who it is you will have to read to find out). This book also overlaps with two of Moore's other books which I think helps to sell the idea of reading the others.

I think this is a worthwhile read if you like fantasy (or slightly fantasy books). I give it four bookmarks out of five, for the excellent story but the slow parts did hurt it a bit.

City of Ember

Ok so Jason and I went to go see a movie this weekend. We wanted to see "Burn After Reading" but could only find it on the other side of the bridge (not worth an extra $4 personally). Therefore, we had to come up with another choice. The only one that we could agree on was "City of Ember" which is based on a YA novel of the same name. I have never read the book but it sounded good. Plus it was supposed to be funny. I mean Bill Murray plays a good-for-nothing mayor of a city under ground. It should have been good. So we went to see it and the first thing we couldn't get past was how similar to Bioshock it was. We both liked playing Bioshock but it was very disturbing. (Look at the link if you don't believe us). Then the story seemed very discombobulated in parts and was very contrived toward the end. It is good if you can totally suspend disbelief, which Jason can not do. I think it could have been good but did fall flat. Too bad! At least we had a romantic outing together.

Oh and I totally do not recommend this movie for kids unless they can handle dark and a little negative.