Mary - Review "The Devil Wears Prada"

HEY PEOPLE

I was actually pretty excited to be reading this one. I’ve been eyeing it for a long time and now I finally had the chance to buy it and read it. It really wasn’t as good as I expected and the ending was unsatisfying. Allow me to elaborate.

ahhhh YEA, those are some SICK shoes. 

Andrea, fresh out of college, has ambitions to be an editor at the New York Times. She ends up in NY, living with her best friend Lily. She sends out resumes to all the magazines/newspapers and gets invited in @ Elais-Clark for a “chat” with the CEO of Runway magazine, Miranda Priestly, queen of the fashion world. Miranda Priestly is known as the “most important person” in NY high society, but she’s also the meanest. Long story short, Andrea gets a job as MP’s personal assistant. She’s told by everyone she meets that it’s the job “a million girls would die for.” As it turns out, it is, in fact, not the job “a million girls would die for,” but the job that “would kill a million girls.” This is, of course because MP turns out to be the boss from Hell. She’s rude, fires without a second thought and has an obessesion with scarves. She’s also incredibly vague. She gives orders like “pick up Madeline,” without ever specifying that “Madeline” is her French bulldog and is at the vet or where to find her or even where to drop her off. She demands that her employees dress/act/look a certain way, she’s snide and cruel. She’s impersonal and cold. Basically, she’s every horror story ever told  all put together and wrapped up in a white Hermes scarf.

MP

Okay, so far so good on the plot. Cliched? Yes. Enjoyable? Heck yeah!

She means business...

So, Andrea gets the job. And she works SO much that her bff turns into a raging alcoholic, her relationship with her bf is super strained. (She cheats on him, but he never finds out.) Anyway, in the end (spoiler alert) she tells Miranda to [expletive] off and gets fired, Lily gets into a car accident/coma and Alex (the BF) breaks up with her. So, she works for Seventeen magazine and then the book is over.

So, my main problem with the book is pretty obvious. It’s super incomplete. She never achieves her dreams, and she loses pretty much everyone who’s important to her. Oh, and she gets fired.

Poor Andy. 

HOWEVER, I have an even BIGGER problem with the book. All of the characters lack depth. They are ALL so one-sided, especially Andrea. All she ever does is WHINE WHINE WHINE. Honestly, at certain parts of the book, I felt like screaming “OHMYGOSH, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? BELLA FREAKING SWAN? STOP WHINING!”

NONE of the characters have dimension. Basically, she slapped them all with one trait and called it good. Alex is a do-gooder. Lily’s a woman of easy virtue who also happens to be a raging alcoholic. MP is a horrible boss, Emily (another employee) is paranoid/anorexic. And of course, Andrea is a whiny baby.

I expected SO much more out of this book. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not USUALLY a chick-flick kindof reader. Au contrare, my friends, I much prefer action and adventure. BUT, I usually like books about shopaholics, high society, etc. For instance, I LOVED “Confessions of a Mini-Shopaholic” and “The Nanny Diaries.” Both were amazing guilty pleasure reads. But “The Devil Wears Prada” was, quite frankly, weakly written.

It was enjoyable at some parts, but it’s not a book I’d really recommend unless you have nothing better to do, a phrase which here means “use this book only as an excuse not to trudge 3,000 miles through the dessert or drink toxic waste.”

PuhPuhPuhProduct placement! 

ALSO- the language of the book was atrocious. It’s like the writer had to include the f-bomb every other page. I don’t normally have a problem with that because cussing doesn’t “truly” offend me (I AM a teenager, after all….), but after a while it kind of felt like “Goodness, this author doesn’t have a very large vocabulary, does she?”

In conclusion - it's a guilty pleasure read that's not so pleasurable and is only guilty of being BORING. :) 

Mary - Review "Little Women"

Little Women

Rory, you are a classy lady. This was one of my all-time favorites as a child. It’s classic, it’s timeless, it should be on the shelf of every well-read lady (or gentlemen.) Furthermore, it’s Louisa May Alcott’s best work AND it’s based off of true events in her own life and the lives of her sisters. What’s not to like? Simply put, it’s a lovely book.

Movie Version

ALTHOUGH – it’s more of a children’s story than an adult novel, it’s still enjoyable for all ages. It’s a good “coming-of-age” book to give to younger children (11ish?) to get them to start transferring from the picture books and short chapter books into classics and real novels.

Movie Poster!

Character List (description and my own personal casting pick for each character)

Kiera Knightley 

Meg- eldest girl, practical, beautiful, smart, soft-spoken, well mannered, gets married to a strapping young fellow, makes a beautiful bride

Paloma Faith

Jo – writer/tomboy falls in love with Laurie and then out of love again, ends up marrying a kooky old man

Anne Hathaway

Beth – musical, tragic beauty, dies

Blake Lively

Amy – spoiled, beautiful, artistic, marries Laurie

Ryan Reynolds

Laurie – neighbor boy with a soft spot for the girls next door

Plot Summary – The girls and Laurie go on all sort of fabulous adventures, except Beth, who dies. Amy is lovely and eats limes, Jo works for a newspaper when she pretends to be a man, Meg is gorgeous and doesn’t really have a deep character, Laurie is a hottie and the mom and dad are nice old folks. Someone gets their foot stuck in a bucket of concrete and someone burns someone else’s hair. All in all, a funny, cute, clever book. MUST READ!!! :) <3

Mary - Review "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

Old-timey poster <3 VINTAGE FIND! 

Okay, so this one’s a classic. And it was written by a guy who was friends with a Hawaiian princess. And it’s a not-so-scary horror mystery. Very PG, cleverly done. What’s not to like? Maybe because I saw the Veggie Tales version first, I’m a little biased against it, but I honestly don’t ADORE this book. I wouldn’t mind “never reading it” but it’s not so awful either. It’s generally just a good book to check off the ‘ole list and be like “BING BAM THANK YOU MA’AM, GOT THAT ONE DONE.” It’s more of a book people read to brag about rather than actually, ya know, enjoy. (Which I’m told, is somehow the sole purpose of reading. Whatever.)

CREEPY!!!! 

So – basic plot summary:

A dude is all concerned because his friend is acting all weird. As it turns out, his friend is addicted to this personality-changing potion. He goes from “Mr. Nice Guy” to “Mr. Crazy Killer Dude,” with just the swallow of a potion. Anyway, the dude is trying to figure it out, but it’s too late and Mr. Nice Guy commits suicide. (I think…) I can never remember the ending. ;P

=O

Anyway, read this book if you need a classic for a book report, or if you honestly have nothing better to do. It’s not “OHMYGOSH – LIFE CHANGER!” but it’s also no “BEOWULF.” So, whatevs. Major props to Rory for FINALLY reading a normal books!

Cheers,

Mar

Mary - Review "Beowulf"

I have no idea what's happening here

It’s a book that

a)     Sounds insanely cool!

b)    Includes warriors and battles and giant monsters!

c)     Is written in pig-latin

I think they are either fighting or falling in love here

Let’s get something straight – I thought I would LOVE Beowulf. Until I read the first page. Then it was all downhill from there. Don’t read it unless you HAVE to, a phrase which here means “you have no access to Sparknotes.”

A crazy man is playing dolls. JOY. 

Beowulf is hard to understand, and that’s putting it lightly. Furthermore, the main character is a braggart and freakin’ annoying. He has virtually no flaws, so he’s impossible to relate too. And then he dies in the end, which was actually the only good part. He dies KILLING the monster though. Which, I know, only from reading Sparknotes, because the book was too hard to actually understand. Now, ya’ll might thing I’m being ridick, which is cool talk for “ridiculous.” Yeah, so I’m no Shakespearean professor. But, I DO read at a graduate school level, despite the fact that I’m only a sophomore in high school. (According to Lexile scores and, well, the books I actually read.) But even I couldn’t endure the wrath of the original translation of Beowulf. I’ve heard that there’s easier versions out there, so you might as well go for it, but Beowulf is about as coherent as a fast talking salesman on Black Friday.

Pretty dayum sure that's Angelina Jolie. In Beowulf? Don't be fooled. 

Rory, you must have the patience of the saint. This book sucks.

XOXO,

Mar

P.S. WATCH THE MOVIE! I hear there's lots of cute actors + Angie Jolie!!! :) <3

Mary - Review "Anne Frank"

Anne Frank

Okay, I’m going to start out by saying that this is “one of those books.” It’s a book that sits on the shelf of every well-read person, but is rarely actually read itself. Which is a shame, considering it’s one of the greatest literary treasures in our world. It’s one of those books that schoolkids roll their eyes at and log into Sparknotes instead of actually cracking open the spine. What a pity. I read this book on my own because I’m a Holocaust fanatic. I don’t know what I find so morbidly fascinating about it, but I love Holocaust literature. This book is so incredible, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually a REAL LIVE DIARY written by a REAL LIVE GIRL. (Well, in this case, a dead girl, but you get the idea.) It’s smart, fresh, funny and very endearing. She has crushes and secrets and favorite foods. She has fears and hopes and broken dreams. She’s a brilliant writer and you can see the character transformation as time progresses. She starts out as silly, flirty and a little ditzy and by the end of the book, we’re left in awe of our sophisticated, serious and beautiful young woman and our hearts are broken when her narration is cut short and we read in the back cover that she died.

<3 her

I love this book. I don’t care what my peers say or if they think it’s weird. I think Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most amazing books ever written. Every girl loves secret diaries and this is one you can read. So, don’t let this be “one of those books.” Please, in honor of Anne, read it, enjoy it and recommend  it to others.

XOXO

Mary 

Mary - A list of everything I'm reviewing before January!

1.       Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

2.       Beowulf

3.       Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)

4.       Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

5.       Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)

6.       Othello (William Shakespeare)

7.       Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

8.       A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

9.       Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

10.   The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

11.   The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)

12.   The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Victor Hugo)

13.   The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

14.   The Nanny Diaries (Emma McLaughlin)

15.   To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

16.   Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

17.   The Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum)

Read all these before. 

So, I'll be posting reviews before 2012. ENJOY! 

Mary - Review "Wicked"

Glinda and Elfie!! <3 I used to want to be Glinda....*Sigh* lost dreams...

Under further review, there are 182 books, not 187 books to read. Close enough.So, after reviewing Rory’s booklist, I have discovered that I have actually read quite a few of the books located therein. So, instead of RE READING (cuz, ya know, that’d be a drag!) I think it’d be best to simply just type up reviews from memory. (Which, might not be the best place, considering that I can’t remember whether or not Fahrenheit 451 was about fires or books or the future or dancing monkeys and turkey butt.) But, I’m gonna dive into it best I can. Books I can only half-remember, (*cough* Fahrenheit 451 *cough*) I’ll probably-most-likely re-read. Cuz’ ya know, I DO like reading. :) First review comin’ up will be “Wicked.” I read it last year and…erm, it’s a doppelgänger for trouble.  (Doncha just love the word “doppelgänger?”)

Defying Gravity !

Anyhoo, being the literary snob that I am, I praised the book whole heartedly for several months until my mom’s BFF read it and was like “OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME! THIS IS A DIRTY BOOK!”

This of course caused my mother shame and as a result the book was ripped up before my eyes and thrown into the garbage. (Um, like literally. My mom ACTUALLY tore the pages out and threw them in the kitchen trash can in front of me. No, I’m not kidding and YES, it was painful to watch.)

Changed for good

Just for the record, I think Gregory Maguire has BRILLIANT descriptive skills, but yes, the book WAS raunchy and sort of gross and a LEETLE morally flawed (okay, so it was straight up morally offensive) so I’m obligated to tell you NOT TO READ IT. I was told “NOT TO READ IT” by all my marvelous friends. However, I have what we may refer to as “insatiable curiosity” and so, heck, that only made we want to read it more!  And I started out and it was like “WHOA, THAT’S, UM, REALLY CRASS” and I was like “DUDE, I’M FOURTEEN, I CAN HANDLE THIS!” But then my mom’s BFF went all beserk and my love of Wicked is no more on account of it’s kindof a “bad” book. Now, I want ya’ll to realize that it’s a book about “forgiveness.” So yes, Elfie does all sorts of bad things (*cough* has an affair *cough) but in the end she learns the greatest lesson of all. (That is, you can be forgiven.) But then I think she screws it up by committing suicide. Then again, my memory of the book is a little blurred, so I can’t remember all the way. Anyway, the writing in this book is BRILLANT, but the content, not so much. Mom’s BFF eloquently described it as “literary porn.” I wouldn’t go so far as to label it thus, but it’s WAY too offensive for most tastes (including mine, actually, now that’s it’s matured.) Maybe it’s because I’m a sanguine and naturally very sensual that I didn’t see any harm in reading it, but now that I look back and think about it, I’m like “OHMYWORD. THAT WAS BAD. VERY VERY BAD.”

Here, have a hat! 

So, don’t read it. Rory, you sicksick child. Here’s a plot description though:

Once upon a time, a chick who’s married to a preacher has an affair with a HUMAN (the Wizard of Oz!) and the baby ends up being green because human + munchkin = genetic mutation. Anyway, Elfie (the wicked witch is born) Her sister is born as well and is handicapped and eventually becomes the wicked witch of the east. Anyway, Elfie goes to school, a bunch of stuff happens, Glinda shows up, and I can’t really remember the rest of it, except that Elfie has an affair with a prince who gets turned into the scarecrow and she rescues a baby lion who turns out to be the cowardly lion and a kid drowns in a well and Glinda’s stalker-boyfriend gets turned into tin because the wicked witch of the east has a crush on him. Also, there’s lots of bizzaro sexual things popped in there and some drugs and weird crap. Imagine that whole thing + random XXX rated chapters and you haveeeeee WICKED!

LADY GAGA IN WICKED! JK. It's a scene from the Emerald City. 

So, yes, the book isn’t something you should read. The PLAY, on the other hand is my most favorite p lay in the WHOLE WIDE FREAKING WORLD. So, everyone go see THAT! It’s very PG and I can’t remember anything offensive in it whatsoever. It’s also got an amaaaaaaazing soundtrack. *YES, IT’S A MUSICAL!!!!!!!!* I lovelovelovelovelove the play Wicked. It’s nothing like the book except a few important things like names and places and dates and such. You’ll love it.

Anyway, Rory’s an idiot for reading this book, I was an idiot for reading this book and Orlando Bloom was an idiot for getting married to that one Victoria’s Secret model. I guess everyone DOES makes mistakes…

DUDE. THIS WOMAN IS THE BOMB. I WANT TO BE HER SOOOOO BAD! 

Mary - Rory Gilmore Booklist

So, I've researched and found a complete and accurate Rory Gilmore booklist (it even has season by season references!) so I'm posting it on here and until further notice, it's what I'll be using. My goal is to read all of them by 2013. I don't think I'll be able too, considering there's 187 books, total, but I've already read a few, so this might actually work. Here are the books:

             1984  (George Orwell)

             A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)

             A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)

             Mencken Chrestomathy (H.L. Mencken)

             A Month Of Sundays:  (Julie Mars)

             A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)

             A Quiet Storm: A Novel (Rachel Howzell Hall)

             A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)

             A Separate Peace (John Knowles)

             A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [Betty Smith]

             American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)

             Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

             Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

             Atonement: A Novel (Ian McEwan)

             Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy)

             Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel (Dai Sijie)

             Bee Season: A Novel (Myla Goldberg)

             Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)

             Beloved (Toni Morrison)

             Beowulf

             Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

             Brick Lane (Monica Ali)

             Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

             The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Eudora Welty)

             Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems (Edgar Allan Poe)

             Cousin Bette (Honoré de Balzac)

             Crime and Punimensht (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

             Daisy Miller (Henry James)

             David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)

             Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)

             Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)

             Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

             Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)

             Eleanor Roosevelt (Blanche Wiesen Cook)

             Ella Minnow Pea: (Mark Dunn)

             Emma (Jane Austen)

             Empire Falls (Richard Russo)

             Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton)

             Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door 2007:(Rick Steves)

             Extravagance: A Novel (Gary Krist)

             Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

             Fat Land: (Greg Critser)

             Flowers for Algernon

             Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

             Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)

             Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut)

             Hamlet (William Shakespeare)

             Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

             Holidays on Ice: Stories (David Sedaris)

             How the Light Gets in (M. J. Hyland)

             How to Breathe Underwater (Julie Orringer)

             Howl (Allen Ginsberg)

             Inherit the Wind (Jerome Lawrence)

             Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)

             Just a Couple of Days (Tony Vigorito)

             Leaves of Grass (Walt Witman)

             Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)

             Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

             Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens)

             Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

             Living History (Hillary Rodham Clinton)

             Lord of the Flies William Golding)

             Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)

             Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)

             Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Simone de Beauvoir)

             Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

             Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)

             Monsieur Proust (Celeste Albaret)

             Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)

             My Lai 4: Seymour M. Hersh)

             My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru (Tim Guest)

             My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult)

             Nervous System: (Jan Lars Jensen)

             New Poems of Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson)

             Night (Elie Wiesel)

             Dawn Powell: Novels 1930-1942 (Dawn Powell)

             Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

             Old School (Tobias Wolff)

             Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist)

             On the Road (Jack Kerouac)

             One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)

             Oracle Night (Paul Auster)

             Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)

             Othello (William Shakespeare)

             Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen)

             Please Kill Me:  (Legs McNeil)

             Property (Valerie Martin)

             Pushkin: A Biography (T.J. Binyon)

             Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)

             Quattrocento (James Mckean)

             Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Azar Nafisi)

             Rescuing Patty Hearst: (Virginia Holman)

             Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

             Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin)

             Sacred Time (Ursula Hegi)

             Sanctuary (William Faulkner)

             Savage Beauty: (Nancy Milford)

             Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Laura Hillenbrand)

             Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)

             Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)

             Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)

             Small Island (Andrea Levy)

             Snows of Kilimanjaro+Other Stories (Ernest Hemingway)

             Song of the Simple Truth: (Julia de Burgos)

             Songbook (Nick Hornby)

             Speak, Memory (Vladimir Nabokov)

             Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Mary Roach)

             Swann’s Way (Marcel Proust)

             Swimming With Giants:  (Anne Collett)

             Sybil (Flora Rheta Schreiber)

             A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

             Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

             Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

             The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)

             The Art of War (Sun Tzu)

             The Awakening (Kate Chopin)

             Th Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

             The Bielski Brothers: (Peter Duffy)

             The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

             The Code of the Woosters (P.G. Wodehouse)

             The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)

             Curious Incident of  Dog in Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

             The Devil in the White City: (Erik Larson)

             The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe)

             The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)

             The Fortress of Solitude (Jonathan Lethem)

             The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

             The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)

             The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

             The Group (Mary McCarthy)

             The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)

             The Holy Barbarians (lawrence lipton)

             The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Victor Hugo)

             The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)

             The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar (Robert Alexander)

             The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

             The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 (Gore Vidal)

             The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

             The Little Locksmith: A Memoir (Katharine Butler Hathaway)

             The Lottery: And Other Stories (Shirley Jackson)

             The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

             The Manticore (Robertson Davies)

             The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)

             The Meaning of Consuelo (Judith Ortiz Cofer)

             The Metamorphosis (Ovid)

             The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer)

             The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)

             The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)

             The Nanny Diaries (Emma McLaughlin)

             The Opposite of Fate (Amy Tan)

             The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

             The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)

             The Portable Dorothy Parker (Dorothy Parker)

             The Portable Nietzsche

             The Price of Loyalty: (Ron Suskind)

             The Razor’s Edge (W. Somerset Maugham)

             The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)

             The Rough Guide to Europe 2006 (Various Authors)

             The Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum)

             The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

             The Second Sex (Simone De Beauvoir)

             The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Kidd)

             The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

             The Song of Names (Norman Lebrecht)

             The Song Reader (Lisa Tucker)

             The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)

             The Story of My Life (Helen Keller)

             The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

             The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

             Adventures of the Hunt Sisters (Elisabeth Robinson)

             Unabridged Journals (Sylvia Plath)

             The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)

             Time and Again (Jack Finney)

             To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

             Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (Ann Patchett)

             Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

             Unless (Carol Shields)

             Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)

             War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

             When the Emperor Was Divine (Julie Otsuka)

             Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee)

             Wicked: (Gregory Maguire)

             Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)

Wish me luck?

Mary- Back!!!

Hello, citizens of the planet Internet! Have you ever heard of the band "We were Promised Jetpacks?" I love them! Anyway, I was recently contacted by thrives of our readers (*cough* my art teacher and grandmother*cough*) who informed me about the severe lack of posting recently. NO WORRIES! I have excuses! I was too busy doing other things, like, for example, avoiding this blog! But for shizzle, peeps, my scecdule (a word I just slaughtered so badly I'm going to leave it that way) was all jacked up. Hence, no posting. And all y'all probs thought I FORGOT! The horror! (Okay, so I TOTALLY forogt. Be quiet, mom!)
Never fear though! I'm back and gaffer than ever! ( I typed "Badder" and autocorrect switched it. It sounded funny, so I'm keeping it. Laws of vocab, you don't own me!)
Kay, so, like Lorelai would say "Procrastinate till someone else does the job for you!"
Well, THAT tactic clearly didn't work, so I'm diving headfirst back in. I'm thinking Moby Dick? Idk. I'm gonna go over an online list of books she reads, cuz, there is no way in he'll (damn autocorrect again) I'm gonna sit though all those episodes and try to pick out book titles. :P
Sayonara,
(I'm assuming that means "goodbye?")
Mar

Mary - WWLR?

I'm sure you're all quite aware of the popular saying "What would Jesus do?" Well, in lieu of the blog, I have to ask "What would Lorelai read?" I know this blog is dedicated to RORY'S booklist, but I'm dying to know what Lorelai reads. I remember her attempting Proust when she was around Max Medina, but she didn't get through it. What kind of books do you think she'd read?

XOXO, MARBEAR

Mary- Updates! (Game Plan, Mencken and Nerdom)

Attractive author? YES MA'AM. Okay, so maybe just this picture... :)
(WHAT? Lorelai is a bad role model, what can I say?) 

So, after breezing through the first two books, I haven’t read anything in quite a bit. What’s the game plan, you might ask? I’m reading Mencken’s Chrestomathy next, but I have to wait for Rosie to get done with it first. I’m quite excited b/c Mencken is quite the man.

Fate. :)

(Random Fact – Lorelai’s middle name is “Victoria.” This makes sense, given that her parents were very uptight. However, Rory’s middle name is “Leigh.” Why “Leigh?”)

I want that t-shirt. 

          Anyway, Mencken’s Chrestomathy is written by Henry Louis Menken. He was born in 1880 and died in the mid-50s. He was an intellectual elite and an EXTREMELY good writer. I haven’t read the Chrestomathy yet,  but I printed out a book of his (BAD IDEA, IT WAS EXTREMELY LONG AND USED UP LIKE, TEN BILLION PIECES OF PAPER) and I’m absolutely in love with it. Granted, it’s right down my alley (it’s entitled “In Defense of Women,”) but it’s truly exceptional. I got through the first dozen pages or so and my reaction was: “OHMYGOSH, IF THIS GUY WAS LIKE, ALIVE AND NOT 150 YEARS OLDER THAN ME, I’D TOTALLY MARRY HIM.” Because his logic is positively impeccable and his verbs ALWAYS agree with his nouns, which, incidentally usually contain more than two syllables. (Sorry, I’m a nerd, I fall for other nerds. It’s like, the rule.)

           ^(READ: I AM BEING COMPLETLEY SARCASTIC HERE. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT NERDS FALL FOR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS FROM MOVIES WITH THE WORD “STAR” IN THE TITLE, NOT OTHER NERDS. DUH.)

THIS IS MYTHICAL. IT RARELY HAPPENS, BELIEVE ME. 

          So after his sheer skill had me swooning pathetically, I came to the odd realization that this man has very strange beliefs indeed. For instance, he’s extremely narrow-minded and is very snobbish in what he considers “music” and “art.” He’s highly opinionated and very catty at times. He’s also very skeptical/critical of the existence of God. He’s also a bit of a Nazi, unfortunately. (At this point, I concluded that marriage was no longer a viable option. I abhor Nazis. Sorry, but I was raised on Indiana Jones, what can I say?) [Ten billion nerd points if you understand the Indiana Jones reference. Did you know that it was the first time in a movie that they used that specific camera angle? Well, actually the second time, but it was the first time that it was a major motion picture. In fact, the reviews harshly critized the use of such blatant propaganda….(blahblahblah. I had more here, but I deleted it so your eyeballs won’t bleed. I could write a paper on that particular reference. But not now. I’ll spare you my geekiness and move one)]

<3 GEEK LOVE <3

          See how I get off topic? I’m truly pitiful. Anyway, the point was to give you a little author bio of Mencken. I’ve got quite the love/hate relationship with him at the moment. I wonder how Rory would feel about him? Thoughts? 

XOXO, 

Marbear

P.S. While I head off to write a thesis on Indiana Jones and Nazism, enjoy these pictures of H.L. Mencken looking irritated. . :)

GRUMPY-LOOKIN' FELLOW

He looks like he's depressed. Or constipated, you be the judge. 

Mary - Rosemary's Baby Part 2

Here's the poster for the movie version of the book

A review I have promised, and a review I shall deliver. :) (Classy ladies always keep their promises!)

So I guess it's time to face my fears...Er, or not.
Because honestly, Rosemary's Baby wasn't that scary. Yes, I had nightmares and there are some pretty disturbing images forever burned into my brain. But it really wasn't as bad as I expected.

This is what Rosemary looks like! (At least according to the movie version)

SPOILER ALERT FOR PRETTY MUCH THE REST OF THE POST! 

The story itself is exceptionally well-written. This guy is a FANTASTIC writer. I REALLY enjoyed his style. He had sort of a Hemingway approach, writing in quick sentences that made the action flow really well. You'd never be able to tell from the cover that it was "literature." (It's got the cheap paperback look of a trashy Wal-Mart romance.) However, as far as horror stories go, this one is a classic. :) (Written in the 60s, btw)

Rosemary in the Bramford

Religiously? This book was sortofkindof heretical. And blasphemous. HOWEVER, you have to remember that it's fiction. It was really interesting to see how they incorporated the Catholic faith. Our main character, Rosemary is a weak, fallen away Catholic who married a Protestant and doesn't practice her faith. So, she's perfect bait for the Satanists. (I loooooove how they showed that Catholicity is the exact opposite of Satanism. PERFECT parallel!)

Her neighbor (who is a witch!)

Rosemary is warned by her good friend NOT to move into the Bramford, which is an old Victorian apartment   building with a history of odd characters who have lived there. (Cannibalistic grandmothers, witches, occultists, etc) Rosemary ignores the advice of her friend and moves in with her egotistical husband, an actor.

She has pain from the baby

Rosemary meets a girl who lives next door and they strike up a friendship. The next day, Rosemary finds the girl's body smashed into the sidewalk and the police discover a suicide note. Rosemary meets the elderly couple who had adopted the girl and in sympathizing Rosemary gets to know the old couple. Both are extremely friendly. To make a long story short, they weren't really all that innocent and they were actually part of a coven of witches. They suck Rosemary's husband into their cult and they all conspire to get Rosemary pregnant with the child of Satan. Which, they eventually do and Rosemary has a bizarre pregnancy and eventually figures out that everyone's been plotting against her this WHOLE time and she goes crazy. And then in the end she ends up having the baby and loving it even though it was half-devil.

Husband is stopping her from calling for help

Here's what I have to say about the book:
1) The ending was stupid. I wish the baby died. (Yes, I'm seriously PMSing right now, don't judge me!)
2) Rosemary is like, the most annoying name ever.
3) Don't take it seriously. The coven of witches is always "downing" Catholics and people should understand that a) they are the bad guys! so b) DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!

My favorite picture of her. :)

Overall, it was a pretty excellent book. Disturbing, yes, but exceedingly well written. I'd say it was better than the little match girl by far. :)
3/5 slices of cheese!

XOXO,
Marbear

Mary - Rosemary's Baby Part 1

Old movies ftw. :)

I am not on good terms with the genre “horror.” 

I’m the girl who is still scared of the dark at fifteen years of age. 

I’m also the girl who isn’t able to physically cross her bedroom in the dark. 

The girl who cried for two hours one day when she came to the conclusion that it was too late to wake up her parents to bring her a nightlight when her regular one went out? Yeah, that’s me.

Even though it frightens me, I'm brave! *nervous giggle*

Ugh. Who am I kidding? No matter how much I LIE to you people, the truth will come out. I AM A BABY WHEN IT COMES TO SCARY STUFF. Seriously. I can't handle fright fest or haunted houses or even PG-13 movies. (Well, that might be a slight exaggeration. But just a slight one. =P)

So yeah. All that stuff I crossed out, attempting to sound awesome? Well, it's true. (That I'm scared of the dark, not that I'm awesome. Well, I'm awesome too. Now I'm rambling. Somebody, please, for the love of Jupiter, shut me up.)

I was not excited about reading this book. In fact, I was QUITE apprehensive. However, I knew Rosie was going to read it with me and I figured that if I endured several years of group therapy, I might eventually recover. So, I decided to suck it up and read it. Besides, if Rosie was gonna read it, it wouldn’t be SO bad, would it? (At least I’d have someone to cry with and if I started shaking violently with convulsions of fear, I could always trust her to get up and call 911, cuz she’s older and therefore stronger-minded than I, the weak little sophomore.)

You can imagine the kind of effect I was certain this book would have on me. (READ: Pee running down my legs) However, I was courageous and boldly jumped into it. When I had gotten about halfway through, I decided to take a break. As chance would have it there was an email update from Blogspot, informing me that my compadre had made a post.

                Jkkljhunym787uu6ytrgfgftvbnm,jujhukjuyjhghg bhiop[oiuyterf.

^ Sorry, that was me, banging my head on the keyboard.

Rosie wasn’t allowed to read the book! (This is because her mother is quite sane and level-headed and smart, unlike me, who, with my suckish judgment, dived right in.)

So I figured, “Okay. I’m totally freaked out by this book, which I’m only halfway through. If Rosie’s not reading it, I won’t either.”

There were several problems with that statement.

1)      Rosemary’s Baby is laced with suspense.

2)      Suspense is a phrase which herein stands to mean “The fact that you will go insane if you don’t figure out what happens.”

3)      I was halfway through the book. 

4)      There was so much freaking suspense. 

5)      Even though I was already having nightmares about burning effigies of infants and cannibalistic old ladies, I absolutely had to find out what happened next. 

Note to self: Don’t evereverever start a horror book. Because then you will be inclined to finish it, no matter how horrific said horror book may be.

So, I was forced to finish it.

(Review still pending. I just wanted to share with you the story of WHY I read it. That’s not the actual review. The actual review is STILL coming, so hold your horses.)

XOXO, 

Marbear

I promise I'm not nearly  this hideous in real life. 

P.S. 

Anyway - a few preliminary facts about the book before the big reveal? 

1) It's not as bad as I thought it was

2) It's just as bad as I thought it was

3) If you value your sanity, don't stop halfway through it. Either read it or don't read it. 

4) Don't read it. 

5) Unless of course, you like peeing in your pants. Then, by ALL means, read on. ;]

Cheers to the freakin' weekend. I'll be back, my friends to let you in on the deep dark dirty of Rosemary's Baby.