Tag Archives: entertainment

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A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey…. Stuff (The Here and Now)

For Prenna, having the cute, nice and very smart and funny guy at her school like her isn’t a good thing. In fact, it could be her death sentence for both her and the boy. After all, she is from the future and is most likely carrying diseases that no one has immunity to, and as long as she is in the strict community of time travelers who track her every move, she has to watch her back to make sure she doesn’t disappear like others in her community who fall a little out of line. But when she receives information that could change the future from the hellish place she left to a place better, she knows she has to act, and hopefully save the boy she loves.

Definitely a good book. I liked all of the main characters as well as the plot. I also found it really relevant to what’s going on today, and what could happen if we keep destroying the environment. However, like most time travel stories, I get super confused easily. While this book kept the time-wimey stuff (my apologies, Stephen Moffat) to a minimum, some things still didn’t make sense to me. How did her father get that drawing when Ethan hadn’t given it to him? Are we supposed to infer that Anthony Balthos gave him the drawing? This was particularly frustrating because I really wanted Prenna’s dad to pull some sort of miraculous resurrection but instead there’s an incomplete explanation for the mystery of the drawing. And how did Anthony get the drawing in the first place? In the future he came from none of that had happened, so Prenna didn’t come back in time. There were a few others, but these were the most confusing. It’s hard for me to follow different and intersecting realities at once, so if someone can explain how this makes sense, then please, leave a comment ;-).

All in all, a fun read. Does it make the top ten books I’ve read this year? Probably not. This might not be in the top ten I’ve reviewed on here. But it’s definitely worth reading, for both the action-packed plot and the forbidden romance between Ethan and Prenna.

http://www.indiebound.org/book/

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Elixir by Hilary Duff

On January 12, 2001, the first episode of Lizzie McGuire was aired. After that, Hilary Duff was the teen celebrity every teen should wish to be. After being a TV and a movie star, as well as making several albums, Duff never resorted to drugs and alcohol. In fact, she has done a lot of charity work, including Blessings in a Backpack, an organization dedicated to giving children proper nutrition when they would otherwise not get it. Definitely not the typical teen celebrity.

So it should come as no surprise that she would write a book.

Elixir doesn’t have an original concept. It’s about an immortal man falling in love with the reincarnation of his fiance century after century and enduring the pain of watching her get murdered over and over. However, it is well written with a style that tends to alternate from humorous to dark easily and gradually. But her main character, Clea, is a little too contradictive to be realistic. She’s a photojournalist who loves her job and can see poetry and magic in the scenery around her, and she can be fascinated by the human emotions she captures with her camera. But she is very skeptical of mythology- like the Elixir of Eternal Life for instance- even after seeing the wonder in the world around her and having a father who believed in mythology like fact. Her disdain for myths and magic seems out-of-character and poorly judged on Duff’s part.

Aside from Clea’s flaw, the characters are well-planned and they interact with a great chemistry. Reyna, Clea’s best friend is especially lovable with her romantic view of the world and the way she can see an adventure- and a hot guy- at every turn. Her protectiveness of Clea as well as her ability to guess Clea’s feelings just shows how close the friends are.

Hilary Duff definitely has writing talent. With some more experience, she can easily be an exceptional writer.

Elixir is for teens who like romantic fantasy and the idea of immortality. 

You can find Elixir here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/

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Fiction vs. Fact: Rules of Reality

I got into a debate with some of my friends over the Maximum Ride series. They didn’t like it because the science is totally unrealistic. I tried to argue that that didn’t matter because Maximum is so awesome and that’s why it was so good, but they couldn’t see past the science. Look, I know the story is unrealistic. I mean, it’s about kids with wings. And gills. And the ability to not collapse under extreme physical pressure, among other things. And I guess the physics and biology are stretched a bit. But this doesn’t mean the stories aren’t bad. The action’s good, the characters are hysterical, and I still think it’s amazing how well Patterson can write the voice of a fourteen year old girl. Isn’t that enough to look past unrealistic biology and and physics? It is for me, anyway. After all, it’s a story.  Fiction goes by a different set of rules than reality. Glee, Veronica Mars, and Degrassi are not realistic high school experiences, but that doesn’t mean teenagers don’t like them. We don’t turn to fiction for reality, we turn for fantasy, whether that’s magic and dragons, car chases and guns, or Mr. Darcy. So where is the line of reality drawn? For me, it’s when the story contradicts itself. For instance if a book says vampire die from sunlight, but then four chapters later a vampire is walking around in the sunshine and there’s no explanation for it. Or with movies based off books. The book already sets the reality. For the movie to be good it has to follow the same rules of reality. Should we get the facts right, even if it might compromise the story, or ignore facts and write the tale?

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Catching Fire Movie!!!

I don’t know about you, but I’m psyched for the new Hunger Games movie. I thought the first one did a great job with the books, and the books are, of course, amazing. Here’s a link to the teaser in case you haven’t already seen it. I thought it was awesome, and made the stupid mistake of watching it when in a public place. I’m sure I freaked people out by giggling like a maniac and jumping up and down, but it was late at night, I had just drank a couple cups of coffee and everything about the Hunger Games makes me really excited. I’m not crazy or anything. Anyway, the link:

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If You Like (Insert Book) Then You Like (Insert Music Artist)

It’s inevitable: If you like certain books, you’ll like certain artists. What? Doesn’t everyone know that? It might just be me.

Anyway, I’m matching up some famous books with bands and singers for the entertainment of all.

Twilight: Justin Bieber and One Direction

 

Fifty Shades of Grey: 303h!, Rhianna, and anything with a parental advisory warning

 

Harry Potter: Queen, The Wanted (Wait- let’s be honest- Harry Potter works with all)

The Hunger Games: Adele, Beatles

Maximum Ride: Pink, David Guetta

Stephanie Plum: Lady Gaga

The ABC Murders: Duke Ellington, The Viscounts

Pride and Prejudice: Mozart, New York Philharmonic Orchestra

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Page Turner: Beastly by Alex Flinn

When you have 172 ¼ books on your reading list as I do ( I count them now and then), you make it a rule not to read books twice until you’ve finished all the others. But for Beastly I had to make an exception. That’s right; it’s that good.

Spoiled Kyle Kingsberry is an ass. He has everything handed to him on a silver platter- his good looks, his father’s money, the title of school prince, and the hottest girl in school. Not only does he expect it, but he likes to rub it in the faces of everyone else. When a ‘Goth fat chick’ (his words, not mine) criticizes him in front of his class, he invites her to the dance as a prank. But the Gothic girl turns out to be a witch. You know the rest. His dad banishes him to a house in Brooklyn, he gets a tutor and has the maid. A druggie breaks in, and what do you know, he has a daughter that he’s willing to barter to escape jail time. The girl hates him at first but then her resistance breaks down, etc, etc.

I have a soft spot for Beauty and The Beast  already. You can see on my blog Lover’s Quarrel that I love the idea with both Beauty and the Beast and with Mine for Tonight. but Alex Flinn made it come alive again with a modern, yet still charming feel. There was plenty of humor, especially in the online chat group (support group for people and creatures who have undergone transformations). I could feel for Kyle even when he was a jerk because of how much he wanted his dad’s attention, which is essential for a love interest; your dislike for him can’t be too much to overcome, a mistake I’ve seen in other tellings of this story. The scenes between Kyle and Lindy (the junkie’s daughter) are sweet but not sappy, which is always a plus. Sap has never really done it for me. At the end, Flinn ties in how much Kyle has changed by him going back to his old school and showing how he can see through his friends’ fake smiles and how much he hated his old self. It’s an excellent story overall, and one that I’d definitely recommend to any teenage girl (or gay guy for that matter). Beastly is proof that classic stories can’t really be beaten to death when they are done right ;-).

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The Biggest Hollywood Butchery Ever

I have a great respect for Percy Jackson and the Olympians. They’re the only books I can’t read in public because people will think I’m a nutjob for laughing so loud at a book. But I do, because they’re funny, but still serious, and actually pretty accurate to the Ancient Greek myths.

But I hated the Lightning Thief movie. I consider myself pretty laid-back when it comes to liberties movie-making companies make (in the Disney post, I’m not complaining about the changes, I’m just telling people that they’re there). But they went too far in the Lightning Thief. Here are my biggest p)roblems with that movie:

1) They forget to mention the law that the Big Three aren’t allowed to have human kids. This is important because Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon are well-known man-whores and that shouldn’t have changed in the last few millenium

2) Persephone’s in the Underworld in the summer

3) They defeated the Hydra, something that doesn’t happen until book two

4) They had a map

5) They could use cell phones and Skype

6) They cut out most of the adventures in the book

7) They cut out Ares

This is just the tip of the iceberg about what was wrong with that movie. Like I said, a Hollywood butchery. And now they’re making the sequel to it, The Sea of Monsters. The only thing that makes this movie even remotely appealing, is that Nathan Fillion is playing Hermes. Hermes only had a small scene in the book, but apparently, in Hollywood, anything goes. Well, I guess all I have to do is wait to watch it. And who knows? Maybe with low expectations, it’ll be better than intolerable.