Danny Wallace is awesome.
Especially when writing with Dave Gorman (I ignored my now ex-boyfriend for 2 days reading that one).
This book reminds me of my brother in law. The way he gets creative with stupid things but will not be reduced in his manhood by others expectations. It's such a funny book. Sometimes I wonder whether he and his many friends that he calls either Colin or Steve actually talk to each other the way he writes in the book or whether it's slight creative licence ... but it pays off none-the-less.
I've got to finish off Friends Like These.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Monday, 27 September 2010
The Death And Life Of Charlie St Cloud
I almost always read the book before I see the film (my sister's keeper and the time travellers wife the current exceptions) so of course I had to read this one.
The start is really slow moving and kinda hard to read, but eventually it gets good. I could guess the storyline, but it was still one I liked, so that was okay. It just got a little weird in the middle, where Charlie and Tess get it on even though Charlie's trying to work out if Tess is dead or alive. Weird! I found myself laughing, and I get the feeling it wasn't a jokey book.
The format works well for a film script though. It'll go down well in cinema's, promise.
The start is really slow moving and kinda hard to read, but eventually it gets good. I could guess the storyline, but it was still one I liked, so that was okay. It just got a little weird in the middle, where Charlie and Tess get it on even though Charlie's trying to work out if Tess is dead or alive. Weird! I found myself laughing, and I get the feeling it wasn't a jokey book.
The format works well for a film script though. It'll go down well in cinema's, promise.
Monday, 20 September 2010
By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead
I saw this in my local waterstones for a while before I caved and bought it.
It's about this girl, Daelyn, who was fat in her youth and therefore bullied, to the point where she keeps attempting to commit suicide. She's slit her wrists, drank bleach and amonia (and therefore collapsed her trachea and damaged her vocal chords. For most of the book, she's mute) ... and she's still planning it. She's online all the time, despite her dad having a port into her computer. She finds this website called through the light which helps her plan her suicide, but her dad can't view the page too. I don't remember how they talked around that one, but hmmmm. Anywho, she sits at this bench every day and reads books while waiting for her parents to pick her up from school/planning her next attempt, and she starts talking to this guy called Santana, who it turns out suffers from Hodgkins Lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system, ie your glands) and she's fighting to die while he's fighting to live.
It's such a good book for the most part, Julie Anne Peters (the author) gets the tone spot on, informative without condescending or sounding like she's ticking boxes from a suicide pamphlet (hello, Ann M Martin) and you can empathise with characters and as the book carries on you start to see Daelyn have one or two doubts - especially when Santana shows her his video diary of his fight against HL. But then she ends the book with 'and I walked into the light' - she doesn't say if Daelyn changes her mind or not. I'm not morbid, that's a cop out. That's like saying 'it was all a dream'. I think she meant it to be a talking point - which way did you see Daelyn leaning to at the end of the book, blahblahblah ... but geez, the point of writing is to have some real point of conclusion. That book was like waiting for a chocolate cake for weeks to find out it was stale, or bad KFC. The expectation carries the entire way through the process but the end makes you feel frustrated. I would've liked to see a conclusion where either Santana and his family help Daelyn's family cope with their loss, or else a conclusion where Daelyn stays and tries to open up, slowly, to Santana. I mean, neither of those are a huge stretch of the imagination, since both were effectively happening throughout the book. Plus, her suicide method sounds dodgy - she has a neck brace she stops wearing by day 6, yet she expects to be able to lift a cinderblock onto herself while she drowns in the bath. I don't think so, the strain of the neck, back and arm muscles alone would make her give up before she lifted it. So would she rethink and invent a new way of killing herself, or would she give Santana a chance? Or would she manage it and then Santana pass from the cancer and they spend their time in the afterlife together?
I know I'm doing whatJulie Anne Peters wants. But I want to be sure, I hate speculation.
It's about this girl, Daelyn, who was fat in her youth and therefore bullied, to the point where she keeps attempting to commit suicide. She's slit her wrists, drank bleach and amonia (and therefore collapsed her trachea and damaged her vocal chords. For most of the book, she's mute) ... and she's still planning it. She's online all the time, despite her dad having a port into her computer. She finds this website called through the light which helps her plan her suicide, but her dad can't view the page too. I don't remember how they talked around that one, but hmmmm. Anywho, she sits at this bench every day and reads books while waiting for her parents to pick her up from school/planning her next attempt, and she starts talking to this guy called Santana, who it turns out suffers from Hodgkins Lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system, ie your glands) and she's fighting to die while he's fighting to live.
It's such a good book for the most part, Julie Anne Peters (the author) gets the tone spot on, informative without condescending or sounding like she's ticking boxes from a suicide pamphlet (hello, Ann M Martin) and you can empathise with characters and as the book carries on you start to see Daelyn have one or two doubts - especially when Santana shows her his video diary of his fight against HL. But then she ends the book with 'and I walked into the light' - she doesn't say if Daelyn changes her mind or not. I'm not morbid, that's a cop out. That's like saying 'it was all a dream'. I think she meant it to be a talking point - which way did you see Daelyn leaning to at the end of the book, blahblahblah ... but geez, the point of writing is to have some real point of conclusion. That book was like waiting for a chocolate cake for weeks to find out it was stale, or bad KFC. The expectation carries the entire way through the process but the end makes you feel frustrated. I would've liked to see a conclusion where either Santana and his family help Daelyn's family cope with their loss, or else a conclusion where Daelyn stays and tries to open up, slowly, to Santana. I mean, neither of those are a huge stretch of the imagination, since both were effectively happening throughout the book. Plus, her suicide method sounds dodgy - she has a neck brace she stops wearing by day 6, yet she expects to be able to lift a cinderblock onto herself while she drowns in the bath. I don't think so, the strain of the neck, back and arm muscles alone would make her give up before she lifted it. So would she rethink and invent a new way of killing herself, or would she give Santana a chance? Or would she manage it and then Santana pass from the cancer and they spend their time in the afterlife together?
I know I'm doing whatJulie Anne Peters wants. But I want to be sure, I hate speculation.
The Fame Factor 2
I finished the book. I wasn't impressed.
Somehow she gets out of an ironclad contract and can still perform with her old band?
She's had this chemistry with her replacement guitarist the whole book and all she got was a peck?
I don't know, the whole thing was meant to feel like Zoe came full circle, the grass wasn't always greener, blahblahblah ... but it didn't feel that way. It was still what Zoe wanted, when Zoe wanted ... I could see Polly's message but it didn't feel like Zoe had learnt anything. She was right back where she started at the end. So what was the real point? She crammed the happily ever after into the last 2 chapters, which makes me think she'd gone on so long making Zoe's life crappier and crappier that she made some crap up on the spot and hoped for the best in the last 5/6 pages.
I hate books that make me feel this unsatisfied.
Somehow she gets out of an ironclad contract and can still perform with her old band?
She's had this chemistry with her replacement guitarist the whole book and all she got was a peck?
I don't know, the whole thing was meant to feel like Zoe came full circle, the grass wasn't always greener, blahblahblah ... but it didn't feel that way. It was still what Zoe wanted, when Zoe wanted ... I could see Polly's message but it didn't feel like Zoe had learnt anything. She was right back where she started at the end. So what was the real point? She crammed the happily ever after into the last 2 chapters, which makes me think she'd gone on so long making Zoe's life crappier and crappier that she made some crap up on the spot and hoped for the best in the last 5/6 pages.
I hate books that make me feel this unsatisfied.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
The Fame Factor
This is a continuation of my main blog, but this is where I plan to write about books I'm reading, the things I take from them etc.
I'm reading one right now, the Fame Factor, by Polly Courtney. She was in a band that played violins and cello's to pop music, though I can't remember which band they were.
Her book's about this girl, Zoe Kidd, who leaves her job because she can't stand paperwork and leaves her band to sign with Universal because they don't want her band and she fights with her parents and sister and seems so headstrong when dealing with everyone in her life who matters. But then the record executives are like 'wear a pink sparkly catsuit with huge holes cut everywhere and pose provocatively' and she's all 'yes sir, yes sir, can I go on stage yet?'
I'm sure it's based on Polly's experience, but seriously, this main character's meant to be smarter than her sister, who's a defence attourney in a high court, but she can't see how much she's being used? Something seems off in that aspect.
I still have 7 *short* chapters to go ... but I can't warm to Zoe. Sorry.
I'm reading one right now, the Fame Factor, by Polly Courtney. She was in a band that played violins and cello's to pop music, though I can't remember which band they were.
Her book's about this girl, Zoe Kidd, who leaves her job because she can't stand paperwork and leaves her band to sign with Universal because they don't want her band and she fights with her parents and sister and seems so headstrong when dealing with everyone in her life who matters. But then the record executives are like 'wear a pink sparkly catsuit with huge holes cut everywhere and pose provocatively' and she's all 'yes sir, yes sir, can I go on stage yet?'
I'm sure it's based on Polly's experience, but seriously, this main character's meant to be smarter than her sister, who's a defence attourney in a high court, but she can't see how much she's being used? Something seems off in that aspect.
I still have 7 *short* chapters to go ... but I can't warm to Zoe. Sorry.
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