One Line Movie Reviews

Rating: 2.5 stars

John Carter (2012): A bit cheesy, but fun for a Sunday afternoon movie.

3.5 stars

Dream House (2011): A real mind bender for me...I loved the ending!

1.5 stars

Footloose (2011): Some things should not be remade...the original is the best and greatest and this was a cheap imitation that left a bitter taste.

2.5 stars

Real Steal (2011): Meh in the beginning but ended on a really sweet note.

4.5 stars

Hugo (2011): Original, quirky, funny, and endearing.

*All images were pulled from IMDb.com

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Source

Amazon.com description: One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, Will Grayson crosses paths with . . . Will Grayson. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, and culminating in epic turns-of-heart and the most fabulous musical ever to grace the high school stage. Told in alternating voices from two YA superstars, this collaborative novel features a double helping of the heart and humor that have won them both legions of fans.

Funny, enlightening, exaggerated, painful, and full of heart. Those are my words to describe this excellent novel. You can't help but grow to love both Will Graysons and Tiny, the one who brings them all together.

Source

Here's another cover:

I think it might be from Australia due to the quote from Melina Marcheta, an Australian YA author. I think I like the U.S. cover better, though. It also fits the story better.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Source

Neil Gaiman takes the African god of mischief and mayhem, Anansi the spider, and takes him and his family into modern day. Neil Gaiman has an obsession with all things mythological, I think. This book is no exception. Fat Charlie (who's not fat) has always been down on his luck and embarrassed by his father all his life. When his father dies, he soon learns that his father was a trickster god and that his unknown brother got all the awesome god powers. His brother Spider comes into life and starts to mess it up even more. Spider moves in and begins to steal his fiancee, his job, etc. Fat Charlie decides to get revenge which ends up messing up things even more.

It's pretty light-hearted, for the most part. But I have a hard time with characters that get oppressed and oppressed for too long. Charlie didn't get redeemed til toward the end. And overall, I just didn't care a lot about the characters.

I love what Neil Gaiman's trying to do with his books. They make for some interesting stories, for sure. But I haven't been able to really get into his books, yet. I'm working on American Gods right now....

I read this for one of my book clubs and used a library copy.

Happy Love Day!

Source

Interesting factoid. St. Valentine's Day was literally a holy day to honor the Catholic saint Valentine and others as martyrs. It didn't start gaining its romantic connections until the tradition of courtly love came about (1000-1300 AD). By the 15th century it had finally evolved into an occasion for lovers to express their love to each other! 600 years later, we're still celebrating love in its many forms between friends and family, and lovers, as well as celebrating our love for humanity!

I plan on celebrating with my son Gabe by cutting out hearts and drawing pictures on them. We'll give them to his friends and his dad tonight! Maybe we'll even go out for a Valentine goody!

I think we'll go all out next year with some house decor and maybe even some baking of cookies and crepes! We'll see.

Recipe!

 Go read up on Cupid and Psyche and show some love today!

Source

Taft 2012: A Novel By Jason Heller

William Howard Taft pulls a Rip Van Winkle and wakes up 100 years later just in time for the 2012 presidential election.

I really enjoyed the premise behind this. I learned a lot more about President Taft. It was fun to see our country and century through his early twentieth century eyes. I also would love to truly have a legitimate third party in America. I think it really would balance the political spectrum out more.

The one thing I had a hard time with was the flow of the story. It feels like the author had an idea he felt passionately about and then used the story to further this. Thus the characters felt a bit two-dimensional.

But overall, it was a fun read and had a lot of insight. Yeah to Quirk Books for offering another fun story to the mix.

*I received this book from the publisher.

For more information visit the Taft2012 website.

Best and Worst of 2011

Happy New Year, everyone! Yeah to the wonderful books of 2011 and on to the wonderful books of 2012! Everyone's gotta do the list, so here are mine.

Here are my top five best reads of the year 2011:

1. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. It was one of the first reads of the year and it was enchanting.

2. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. A wonderful coming-of-age story.

3. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Perkins just had a way of making France and her characters come alive. Anna was fun and real, and the story was just adorable.

4. Hounded by Kevin Hearne. This was such an amazing surprise! An urban fantasy adventure that made me laugh, cry...maybe not cry, but lots of adventure, action, and humor that you won't want to miss. Go read it. NOW!

5. Looking For Alaska by John Green. This is a modern classic. Heart-breaking, but it asks a lot of questions and doesn't have easy answers.

Top Two worst books...(pretty good year if I only had two!)

1. Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Too much preaching along a semi-decent sci-fi back drop...annoyed.

2. Jane: A Modern-retelling of Jane Eyre by April Lindner. Started off great and then got bogged down by literally transferring every detail of classic story to modern-day. DID NOT work.

Hope everyone enjoys a wonderful year of reading!

A Little Break and Figuring it Out

Source Image

I've been pretty sporadic in my writing this year. I started this blog 2.5 years ago so I could express my love of books and movies. Starting this blog has been a life-changer for me, literally. I want to thank everyone I've met blogging these last couple of years. You are amazing and you have inspired me. I've been able to converse with authors and review their books. I've been able to participate in reading challenges, book giveaways, book tours, write guest posts, review movies, etc. It's been amazing! Thank you all for letting me in to your lives and your world of books.

But right now I'm kind of in a rut and need to take a break. I want to revamp the blog and get it organized and figure out how I want to get it going again.

I may write a post or two like I've been doing but I felt like I wanted to take an official leave of absence for a tiny bit (though I am reviewing a Quirk Book in January...). I hope I'll be back soon rearing to go soon! Thanks for reading my humble little post from time-to-time.

Source Image

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and New Year as well! Oh, and happy reading!

One Line Movie Reviews

1. The Kids Are All Right (2010): A touching story on how an unorthodox family keeps it together.

Rating: A-

2. Stake Land (2010): Vampire zombies ravage the land...bloody and weird.

Rating: C-

3. The Ledge (2011): Love, philosophy, religion, and tragedy all rolled into one.

Rating: B+

4. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004): Lots of action, conspiracies, and zombie mayhem!

Rating: B

5. Resident Evil: Extinction (2007): A little cheesier, both in action and dialogue, than the first two.

Rating: C

6. Horrible Bosses (2011): Crazy funny, so much so that my drink sprayed out my nose!

Rating: B

7. MST3K: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (1997)(1964 for original movie): The Mystery Science Theater team is the only thing that keeps this one funny and witty!

Rating: (B+ for commentary and F for actual movie)

8. Luther (2010): (BBC TV show) The victim sometimes die, a sociopath can have a heart, and yeah this is a fantastic TV show.

Rating: B+

9. Capitalism: A Love Story (2009): Heart-wrenching stories but it didn't sit well with me since he uses emotion rather than facts and logic to persuade.

Rating: C-

Monday Movie Meme- All About Cars...

This week’s Monday Movie Meme (hosted by Madlab) invites participants to "give me some that you like where a car is one of the central characters in the film." So let's think of the cars!

1.  Christine (1983): A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.

2. Transformers (2007):  Shia LeBeouf gets a yellow mustang that can transform into a robot. Bumble Bee was the coolest transformer, well any character, period in that movie.

Zombies Vs. Unicorns by Holly Black & My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

Part of Velvet's September's Zombies Event!

Genre: young adult, zombies, fantasy
FTC Disclosure: borrowed from library
Published: 2010
Pages: 415
Content: zombie violence and unicorn mayhem.


Summary: The best darn humorous zombie and unicorn anthology ever!


Funny. This is an anthology of stories on zombies and unicorns (separate stories). Holly Black is a unicorn fan and Justine Larbalestier is the zombie lover. They both have little dialogues at the beginning of each story describing why respective story beats out the unicorn or the zombie! They're both very witty. The stories are each unique, and some are funny and some are violent. You just never know what you're going to get. One has a unicorn farting rose-smelling farts, one has zombies as everyday Joes.


I loved me some unicorns as a little girl but now that I'm older and "mature," I love me some brainzzzz ;) So go team ZOMBIE!!!!!


Rating: 4 stars

Genre:  paranormal, urban fantasy, zombies, mystery
FTC Disclosure: bought from Smith's
Published: 2011
Pages: 310 
Content: Lots of zombie brainzzzz and lovin'.

Summary: Surprisingly awesome rendition of zombie lore, humor, and crime fiction!

The cover alone made me wanna get it! It's just awesome. And the story does not disappoint. Angel is a white trash loser. Pain killer addict, lives with her abusive dad, and can't keep a job...til she wakes up in the hospital with a poor memory of how she got there and a desire for brainzzzz. All she gets is a note that says go to the morgue, you've got a job, along with a some bottles of brain goo.

It takes her a bit to figure out she's dead and a zombie but it's fun getting there. It's fun watching her change and get her life together. And she's a zombie!!!! Rowland's zombie world is just awesome. Zombies can be the good guys; they just gotta eat the brains!!! They don't even have to be fresh. Throw in a cute cop romance...and her trying to solve who made her a zombie and why people keep turning up with their heads missing. Only a mystery Angel can solve. Brainzzzzz.

So yes, go pick up this book. Go!!! Eat your brains first, though.

Rating: 4.5 stars

One Line Movie Reviews

1. Daybreakers (2009): An interesting take on the vampire mythology.

Rating: C+

2. The Wolfman (2010): Decent spin on the classic and a great one to start the Halloween season with!

Rating: C+

3. Hackers (1995): Cheesy, predictable, but fun little movie with a really young Angelina Jolie!

Rating: B-

4. Rango (2011): Surprisingly cute, strange, and loveable!

Rating: A-

5. Limitless (2011): If only everyone could take smart pills, maybe we could really save the world!

Rating: B+

6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005): Jolie and Pitt really do have chemistry!

Rating: B+

7. 300 (2006): Visually stunning, bloody with good action, yup, pretty good.

Rating: B-

8. The Conspirator (2010): Fantastic analogy about government and politics today; very insightful.

Rating: A-

9. Snatch (2000): Brad Pitt's unintelligible accent is definitely worth it!

Rating: B-

10. Kick-Ass (2010): Whoa! Way disturbing...

Rating: C-

Semptember Zombies 2011!!!!!

Velvet of vvb32reads is hosting Semptember Zombies 2011 from Sept 20-30! Come join her and others joining her for lots of zombie horror and goodness. I'll be having my own zombie sightings and reviews on Sept. 25! Click here for schedule and the zombie badge and schedule will be on the right side for future reference! Yeah!

The Iron Druid Chronicles (Hounded, Hexed, Hammered) by Kevin Hearne

Genre: Urban fantasy
FTC Disclosure: borrowed from library
Published: 2011
Pages: 289
Content: It's got blood, some language, and lovin!
Reason for reading: I saw the cover on Goodreads and knew I had to read it!

I just can't say enough how much I am loving this series. The first three were just released with three more early next year. Atticus is a 2500-year-old butt-kicking, smart, witty, and all around loveable Druid who is being hounded by all sorts of gods and their henchies for a magical sword he took a few hundred or so years ago. He has found a way to bind himself to an iron elemental which makes him really uber powerful when it comes to fighting demons, fey, demi-gods, and gods themselves. He also happens to have an agreement with his goddess the Morrigan, who has agreed to never take his soul...not that it'll stop another reaper from doing it...


Yeah, this is just one hilarious romp. Hearne knows his stuff, both historical and modern. He's up on the pop culture and has a lot to say through these wonderful characters. He combines elements of mythology, science, history, religion, everything into a fascinating world. In this world Thor is a big old meany and all the other gods hate him, Jesus likes beer and has a sense of humor. We also get to meet other lightning gods, Irish gods, Norse gods, Native American spirits and gods. Yup, it's all in here and it all meets together for one amazing and fun time. I can't recommend these books enough. Oh, and he has a wolf hound that he can talk to telepathically who thinks Genghis Khan got a bad rap...!


So yes, pick up these books and fall in love like I did!!!! Go...yes, go!


Rating: 5+ Stars!!!!

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Genre: young adult, paranormal
FTC Disclosure: bought from Walmart
Published: 2011
Pages: 348
Content: Some bloody bits. 

Summary: A mysterious island.

An abandoned orphanage.

A strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

One Line Review: A creative idea for a book with the old, weird pictures. 

Ransom Riggs is definitely creative and did a great job with splicing together a story from an old set of photographs.

But that also is somewhat why it's not quite a four star for me. The story seemed a bit contrived at times, which it was since he had to make stuff up to fit the pictures.

Also the ending was...lackluster. I was expecting something pretty big to happen and all we was something like if the Harry Potter series had ended with Harry walking into the forest to face his doom...I hope there's a second book because so much is left unanswered and in the air. If there's not one in the works? Shame on Riggs.

Overall, it was a fun and different read. I loved the crazy old photos and enjoyed his story telling.