Celeste - Virginia Andrews

Celeste included many of the same ingredients used to cook up all novels by Virginia Andrews; a crazy and or long lost parent/guardian and sexual/physical/mental abuse. How there is still demand for work by Andrews, I don't know. When Virginia Andrews died 25 years ago her death her family hired a ghost writer to continue publishing novels under her name. I'm sure many people will agree when I say enough is enough.

The plot for Celeste goes a little like this:

Celeste and her twin brother Noble live with their mother who is a little loopy. She believes in spirits and lives to please them. When Noble dies, Celeste's mother cuts her hair and makes her dress in boys clothes to try and keep Noble alive (shocking!). Celeste is so eager to please her mother that she plays along. That is until a boy moves into the house next door and finds out everything. This encounter has devastating consequences (of course).

Andrews dribbled on about the characters yet they still had no depth. Nothing that happened in the novel came as a surprise because I've read it all before. It was utter rubbish. I remember the enjoyment (and guilt) I used to get out of reading V C Andrews trash and thought it was exactly what I needed to get me through my husbands hospital stay, but I was wrong.

Celeste isn't even worth the time it took me to type this. But for all who may pick it up off the shelf and contemplate reading it, you have been warned.

And for all those who are interested, my husband is still pretty unwell but he's getting better. The doctors have found out what was wrong with him and have done everything they can to fix it. He is in the best possible place. I know that he reads my blog and when he's up to checking his emails again I want him to know that I love him.

Sam I Am

The Time of My Life - Cecelia Ahern

Seeing as I'm going to have a bit of spare time over the next week or two, I went to Dymocks and purchased a supply of books to see me through my husbands extended hospital stay (unfortunately some of them were Virginia Andrews, but I need something so trashy that it makes me smile). I'll read where I can and try reviewing them to keep my mind off of things. 

I'll start with a book I read over Christmas that I wasn't going to review until I got home from 4 weeks away. I don't know when we'll be home now, so I may as well get started. 

I started reading Cecelia Ahern when her novels became popular maybe 5 or 6 years ago. The first few were great (P.S I Love You, If You Could See Me Now, Where Rainbows End) but when I got to A Place Called Here I stopped reading. It was BAD. It's been years since I read anything she has written and when I was in Target (picking up very last minute Christmas presents) I noticed The Time of My Life and thought: it's time for a second chance. 

If you don't mind, I'll use blurb from the publisher (Harper Collins) for this one as I read it about 2 weeks ago.

'Lying on Lucy Silchester′s carpet one day when she returns from work is a gold envelope. Inside is an invitation - to a meeting with Life. Her life. It turns out she′s been ignoring it and it needs to meet with her face to face.

It sounds peculiar, but Lucy′s heard of this before. Anyway, she can′t make the date: she′s much too

busy despising her job, lying to her friends and avoiding her family.

It turns out that Lucy′s life isn′t what it seems. Some of the choices she′s made - and stories she′s told - aren′t what they seem either. From the moment she meets the man who introduces himself as her life, some of these stubborn half-truths are going to be revealed in all their glory - unless Lucy learns to tell the truth about what really matters to her.

From a big family dinner to an extraordinary work crisis, from chasing after a long-lost boyfriend to learning what home really is, Lucy Silchester has an appointment with her life - and she′s going to have to keep it.

Touching, warm, funny and poignant, Cecelia Ahern′s new novel explores what happens when you ignore your life.'

I'll be blunt and say the first few chapters almost made me throw it in the trash. I was filled with

disappointment. But I persisted and it paid off. I was so surprised. It wasn't a knock out, but it was very funny, thought provoking and pretty well written. The main character Lucy was very believable and it was hard not to like her.

After P.S I Love You and Where Rainbows End, Cecelia took her novels in a bit of a different direction and wrote stories that were a bit out there. If You Could See Me Now was the first of her books following this direction and she pulled it off. A Place Called Here is where I called it quits. But it seems she's got her groove back. I suppose I can't judge too much because I haven't read all of the books she's written, but these are my observations from what I have read. I may go back and try the others again. 

I would definitely recommend reading The Time of My Life. It was well worth it, and I'll be reading more of her work from now on. 

I have to shuffle my hubby back to the ward now for his night time tablets, so I'll leave it there. 

Until next time...

Sam I Am 

Heartbreak

My husband is in hospital. We don't know what's wrong yet and while I waited this morning to be let in to see him, I quickly typed this. It's not a poem or a story. It's just words. It made me feel better. I haven't edited it. It just came out and if there are errors, I apologise. It just doesn't seem to matter.

Heartbreak.

How do I sit beside my husband and watch him suffer? How do I take the pain away?

I watch his face screw up in agony and a knot of worry grows in my stomach. For an hour or so each day it seems like he’s getting better, but then it comes back and I’m devastated all over again.  What am I supposed to think when the doctors only give the worst-case scenario? Why don’t they give other suggestions to placate the doubt and anguish? It may not be true, but it may help him sleep at night.

In times like these I cant help but imagine your life without him. There aren’t words to describe what that feels like. Half of me would be taken away and I’d be left wandering, lost and lonely, for the rest of my life. I feel heartbroken and empty just thinking about it.

While he’s here I will not leave him. I am staying as close as I can. I stay in a room by myself on the 13^th floor of the hospital and I sleep on his side of the bed. Stupidly, it makes me feel closer to him when I can’t be by his side.

My best friend and husband lays in agony and I don’t know how to make him feel better. I want so badly to talk to him and tell him what I’m feeling, but I don’t want to make it worse. I feel like I haven’t taken a breath in 5 days. My heart has stopped and until I hear that he’s going to be ok, it won’t start beating again. 

Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson

The other night my hubby and I met with some of my best friends (and their partners) for our annual Christmas dinner. I couldn't think of anything I wanted more for Christmas off them than books, so I put my requests in a while ago. About 3 months ago I was contemplating writing a novel about depression as I have suffered from it on and off since I was 15, and in my research I discovered a book that screamed at me to be read. It was called Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and I asked Rach to get it for me for Christmas. She did. I have since moved away from the idea of depression as a theme for a novel, but that's not relevant. I may revisit it at another time.

Anyway, I had to take my husband to hospital 2 nights ago (he's fine now) and while we waited the agonising eight hours in emergency, I dug out Speak and started to read it.

Here is the blurb off the cover of the book:

'Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-school party by calling the cops, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know hate her from a distance. It's no use explaining it to her parents; they've never known what her life is really like. The safest place for Melinda to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she admitted it and let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have no choice. She would have to speak the truth.'

Oh. My. Goodness.

I haven't read a book this good in a very long time. I know what it's like to have a tough time at school and this touched me deeply. The way Anderson captured the internal and external voices of high school students (especially Melinda) was phenomenal and the way she wrote the book was superb. I love books that are written a little differently.

This novel covers some very important issues that plague children at school and have done so for a long time. It's even being studied at schools now I think, which is wonderful.  Speak was sad, dark, funny, and witty and had me captivated from the first word, to the last. It was amazing.

I won't be posting many reviews over the next 4 weeks or so due to Christmas/New Years festivities, but I am still reading and will post my reviews when the holiday season comes to a close.

Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!

Sam I Am

The School of Essential Ingredients - Erica Bauermeister

This book was the November/December pick for the book club that I attend. The name put me off straight away. I don't like to cook. At all. But, I expect that the other girls in the book club read what's on our list, regardless of their preferences, so I picked it up (12 hours before the meeting) and gave it a go.

The School of Essential Ingredients is about how Lillian, who has had a passion for cooking since a young age, decides to start a cooking school on Monday nights when her restaurant is closed. The book is split up into a portion for each member of the cooking school and explores how they came to find the school.

This book took me about 2 hours to read. It's quite small and, despite my prior reservations about the book, it's pretty damn good. After each characters' story I found myself disappointed that I had to move on to the next one and wishing I could read another 100 pages about each of them. It describes food in a way I had never read before and I even caught myself slowing down while I was eating to think about the flavours - me, who puts tomato sauce on everything. The book made me feel warm and fuzzy and I'm so glad that it was picked for our reading list.

Can't wait to see what books are picked for next year.

Sam I Am

When We Have Wings - Claire Corbett

When We Have Wings is set in a world where technologies and medicines have been developed to allow people (who can pay the right price) to have a set of wings attached. The novel focuses on the division between the fliers and people who cannot afford the procedure, or simply choose not to.

The book follows two characters: Peri, a nanny for a prominent flyer family, and Zeke, a private detective hired by the same family to find Peri when she disappears with their son Hugo. Zeke accepts the job completely unaware of what lies and conspiracies he is about to discover, and by the time he realises, it's too late.

I have been struggling with this review for days. There were parts of this novel that had me hooked, but generally, I didn't like it. The person who recommended this book to me basically described it how I did in the first paragraph and I was intrigued. It sounded like something I would love. But, they forgot to mention that it's essentially a mystery. Normally, I don't mind a good 'who done it', but I need to know before hand as it's not really my favourite genre. Now, it's not fair to judge the book based on what I thought it was going to be about, so I set my judgements aside and thought about it for what it was.

The detail that went into the mechanics of flight was amazing. It was thoroughly researched and very compelling. The ethics of genetic modification was always in the background and that interested me, as well as the issue of surrogacy. However, I found the characters very hard to get to know (especially Zeke).  I like to pick up a book and feel like I'm catching up with an old friend, but these characters left me exhausted and irritated.  I also grew tired of the constant description of the clouds and the weather while Peri was staying with a group who call themselves Audax.

The idea behind the book is wonderful and very original, but it just didn't do anything for me. I know loads of people will disagree, and that's ok.

Has anyone read When We Have Wings? What did you think?

Sam I Am

Divergent - Veronica Roth

Set in Roth's dystopian Chicago, Divergent is centered around Tris, a young girl who has turned sixteen and now must make a choice-like all other sixteen year olds-that will decide her future. She must select one of five factions to join for life. Each faction represents a different virtue: Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite and Amity. Tris struggles in the lead up to her decision as to whether she should stay in Abnegation with her family, or chose the faction she feels is calling to her. The decision Tris makes has devastating consequences and uncovers a secret that Tris must hide to save her life.

I set the bar pretty high for this novel. I read many reviews and opinions on it before I bought it. Did it live up to my expectations? It sure did. The story line was a little predictable and the character development needed a bit of work, but I didn't mind. Something about the book made me forget it's  flaws. Divergent was exciting, it was gripping and it was utterly fascinating! Keep in mind though, that this is a book for young adults-although that isn't stopping all the adults I know reading it. It was very easy to read and I found it very hard to put down-even to eat! Since reading The Hunger Games, I have become obsessed with dystopian fiction, so expect loads of reviews from that genre. I am so glad I read Divergent and I was so disappointed when I got to the last chapter. But guess what? There is a second book set to be published next year, and a third to be published in 2013. Happy days!

I'm currently reading When We Have Wings by Claire Corbett and I'll be reviewing it in the next few days or so if anyone wants to read along.

Sam I Am