Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto by Eric Luper

Hello friends, it’s been awhile, I could lob some excuses at you, but I won’t. Just know I have some exciting things planned for here. So, let’s just get to a book, shall we? I picked this one up for the cover. I enjoyed that it featured an iPod, and a Classic iPod instead of the Touch model. This pleased me because it implied that this character had a lot of music, enough for a Classic (I have the Classic, so I’m being a little biased here. I’m not saying it means that I think I have more music than you, or are cooler than you. It’s actually quite the opposite. Basically, I have the big one so I can fill it up with crap I’ll never listen to. Listening to my iPod on shuffle is worse than Chinese Water Torture. But, I figured this book had something to do with music, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The book opens with Seth Baumgartner getting dumped by his girlfriend in Applebee’s. They really stress this, what’s the big deal? I love Applebee’s; the mention of it gets my taste buds watering for the Oriental Chicken Roll Up. It’s so delicious, plus Applebee’s is often featured in my favorite TV show Friday Night Lights. Anyways, I guess the point is he’s getting dumped in public. As if this weren’t bad enough, while he’s there he sees his Dad having lunch with a woman, and it’s not his Mom. Seth is pretty sure his Dad has a mistress. Upon returning to work at the mall after the breakup, Seth is fired. So, yeah, that’s a bad day. At least he could drown his sorrows in nachos, I’m just saying.

Seth decides to start a Podcast talking about his newly negative view of love. The Love Manifesto is born. I should also mention Seth’s mom is a very popular radio DJ. Seth decides to take a job at the local country club his family is a member of where his best friend works. I thought this book was surprisingly funny and it even had a little bit of a mystery in it. I loved Seth’s podcasts printed in the book; I just thought the music choices were a little random. I’m not judging them, I am not at all a music snob (I hate music snobs), I’m just saying I thought they were haphazardly placed. Which is fine, every person has a right to their random playlists, I have made some crazy mix CD’s. In college, my friend and I convinced our soccer coach to let us make the warm up CD, big mistake. It was the most bizarre mix of music anyone had ever heard. When I make a playlist, I’m not really thinking of the flow of music, I basically just scroll down my list with an “Oooh, love that song” or “Ah, takes me back to the old days”. That one was seriously odd. I still think it was better than the previous one which was just a loop of “Who Let the Dogs Out” (we were the Bulldogs). That was just embarrassing. Is there any music you think would have been better for Seth to put in his Manifesto?

No Comments »  

Do you have a favorite fairy tale? I think most of us do, and even if we don’t have a favorite, we can name a dozen without even thinking too hard. We know Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, and Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel. Most of us have heard these stories since we were little, and we all know how they end: Happily Ever After.

But, have you ever read some of the earliest fairy tales, the dark folk tales written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm? The Grimm brothers collected folk tales, and in the early 1800’s the brothers published a collection of some of the best ones they had heard. These stories were nothing like the happily ever we have today. Many of them ended pretty badly for both the hero and the villain. In fact, Grimm’s fairy tales were meant for adult readers, not children at all.

I have always loved fairy tales. Where else can the poor girl become a princess and the evil step-mother end up in rags? Fairy tales have a sense of good and evil, and Grimm’s fairy tales are the best. They are filled with darkness and magic- as are most of the best books!

One of the best things about the Grimm Fairy Tales is the use of magic. These stories are filled with magical objects: magic shoes, magic keys, magic spinning wheels, and magic potions. What if all of this magic was real?

In Polly Shulman’s book, The Grimm Collection, all of those magic items are real, and many of them are now available for loan at the New York Circulating Material Repository, if you are brave enough to make a deposit.

Elizabeth Rew doesn’t have many friends and her family doesn’t have a lot of extra money. Then, one day her teacher recommends her for a part time job as a page at the New York Circulating Material Repository she jumps at the chance. She thinks having a job will be a great way to earn some extra money, but also to maybe make some new friends. The Repository is like a library, but instead of just books, they circulate items- everything from tea sets to museum worthy clothing and costumes, but the best collection is the Grimm Collection.

Soon Elizabeth and her new friends are pulled into a mystery. Someone has been stealing from the Repository, and they are stealing from the powerful Grimm Collection. The Grimm collection houses the magical items the Grimm brothers collected along with their stories, and these items are full of powerful magic.

I LOVED this book. I actually stumbled upon it putting books away in the library. I saw the title and immediately wanted to read it. Then I read the summary and I knew it was going to be great. It has a super cool library, magic, and some pretty awesome characters.

So, what do you think? Is magic real?

Would you like to work at a weird library that loaned magical objects?

If you could borrow any magic object from a fairy tale, which one would you want?

What fairy tale is your favorite?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

I tend to get obsessed with sad stories or tragedies in the news, which is mainly why I don’t usually watch it.  When the news covered the story about the polygamist community in Texas a year or two ago, I couldn’t find enough information about it. So when I read this book, I couldn’t put it down. It was an excellent insight of this belief and way of living from a young girl living it. I loved it and am still obsessed with it.

Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce

This book was surprisingly hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud throughout the story! Because really, who doesn’t love the TMNTs and a five year old sister that is obsessed crime?

Who out there hasn’t wished they were someone else? Don’t we all watch TV or movies and compare ourselves to the people we see on screen? I personally don’t know how many times I have thought to myself, “I wish I had her hair,” or “I wish I was taller.” This is something I think everyone does. Even the prettiest people we know have things about themselves they don’t love. I think insecurity is just a part of human nature.

I want to be Veronica Mars. I don’t even want to be a real person; I want to be a TV character (which, I doubt will be happening any time soon). This TV show was only on TV for three seasons, but it was super amazing. Veronica is a teenage private detective, and she is one super strong girl.

I doubt I will be turning into Veronica Mars anytime soon, but imagine you could change your looks with an operation. Trained doctors would put your brain inside the head of another body. You would still retain all of your memories, all of your personality and intelligence- but your body would be the body of someone else. All you need is a body donor and- POOF- you have the body you have always dreamed about.

This is basically what happens to Em Watts in Airhead, by Meg Cabot. Em doesn’t think she is anything special. She does well in school. She loves video games. She doesn’t really think all that much about the way she looks, except to notice that her best friend Christopher doesn’t seem to realize she is actually a girl. When her sister convinces her to attend the grand opening of the new Stark Megastore (think Best Buy meets Wal-mart), the last thing she thinks will happen is that she will be transplanted into the body of a teenager supermodel. One freak accident later and the body of tomboy Em Watts is gone- instead, Em wakes up in the hospital with a new body- the one that used to belong to supermodel Nikki Howard.

Em goes from your typical high school girl to the life of a working model. She’s still Em, but she can’t tell anyone. Instead, she has to pretend to be Nikki Howard. She lives in Nikki’s apartment and has to attend all of the A-List events Nikki is scheduled to attend. It’s a very different life than Em is used to living.

As cool as it is to live the life of a super celebrity, she has to give up her friends and her school. Her family knows who she is, but they can’t tell anyone, so she has to basically give up her family as well.

Can you even imagine waking up in someone else’s body? Even if you woke up in the body of the greatest looking person on the planet, would you want to switch? Whose body would you want?

For some more information on the book, or two read the first two chapters, check out the Airhead section of Meg Cabot’s website.

I just read some exciting news today. You may recall my first blog post was on a book called Huge by Sasha Paley. If you’d like to refresh your memory, you can check out the post here. Anyways, the book is getting turned into a series on ABC Family.  It starts Monday, June 28 starring Niki Blonsky of Hairspray fame.  I hope you check it out, I will be!

I love Shakespeare. I love the Theater. I was a huge drama nerd in high school, and that hasn’t really changed in the years since I graduated.

In fact, last weekend I was in a production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

So, when I see a book about a girl who lives in a theater with all of the characters from some amazing theatrical productions throughout history, I am pretty excited.

Plus, the cover is amazing.

Unfortunately, Eyes like Stars by Lisa Mantchev, was a way better idea than an actual book.

It probably could have been better, if there was a character like Origami Yoda, or Ben the Muppet.

Origami Yoda is based on a book called the Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelbeger. Of Course, this has absolutely nothing to do with Eyes Like Stars, but my nephew loves the book, so he made his own Origami Yoda. Origami Yoda came to see Romeo and Juliet, and he hung out backstage.

Ben is my Muppet. He was Romeo’s understudy in Romeo and Juliet.

Anyway, what this book needed was more fun, like Origami Yoda or a Muppet named Ben.

Unfortunately, it had neither.

What we do have is the main character, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith. Beatrice or Bertie who lives in the Theatre Illuminata. The theatre is the only home she has ever known. She doesn’t know her parents, and she has basically been raised by the Theatre Manager, Stage Manager, and the other back-stage managers of the theatre. The place is occupied by the characters or players from productions throughout the history of the stage.

Bertie’s best friends are fairies from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Knights Dream, and a pirate from the Little Mermaid. She also spends time with characters from other Shakespeare plays like Ariel from The Tempest, as well as characters from plays such as a Christmas Carol.

Bertie gets in lots of trouble with the Managers of the theatre and her shenanigans eventually cause the Theater manager to tell her she will have to leave. Because she isn’t a player, or a Manager, the Managers believe she doesn’t really belong in the Theatre, but she has never known any other home.

She comes up with a plan to stay in the theatre by becoming a director and staging a production of Hamlet set in Ancient Egypt. She gets in and out of trouble, mingling with different players while trying to direct her new venture.

I really loved this book in theory. The fairies are funny, and I personally loved intertwining references to Shakespeare. The ending is super disappointing. There is going to be a sequel, and that is obvious because nothing is really wrapped up. Mantchev left WAY too many questions unanswered.

Overall, though, the book fell pretty flat for me. I think it would be a great movie or stage show, but in book form, it just lacked depth.

Have you read it? What did you think? What things did you like, or didn’t like?

If you haven’t read it, what do you think of the idea? What is your favorite play? Would you like to be able to interact with characters from your favorite plays? Tell me what you think in the comments.

How to say goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford
I don’t think the cover does this book justice. It looks like a girly romance novel, but that’s not what it’s about at all. Beatrice’s family moves often and because of this, she has developed a guise for herself, Robot Girl. Robot Girl is cold and emotionless; I was automatically drawn to her because I get called cold and emotionless all the time! I prefer to think of myself as mellow and laid back, but whatever. Just because I don’t get all worked up doesn’t mean I don’t have emotions, I cry during Intervention all the time.

Anyways, Robot Girl is automatically drawn to the school misfit, Jonas. Can I just say I love that name? If I ever bear a child, it’s at the top of my list. Everyone at school calls Jonas Ghost Boy. Ghost Boy introduces Robot Girl to a late night radio show called Night Lights and it is fantastic! The regulars are so eccentric. It’s on at a very late hour, so it brings out all of the insomniacs, maybe I just liked them so much because I am often among them. The problem with my insomnia is that I can freak myself out pretty easily anytime after 1 a.m. I think I’ve said here before that I called 911 before on a leaf blower that I thought was a killer. What about you guys? Do you freak yourself out after a certain time? It’s crazy how a mind works in the middle of the night.

Beatrice learns that part of the reason Jonas is called Ghost Boy is because his mother and disabled brother were killed in a car accident, or so he thinks. He learns that his brother is actually in an institution and he enlists the help of Beatrice to try and free his brother. I just loved this story and I know you will too!

I realize this book isn’t actually about robots, but have any of you seen Astro Boy? Worst movie ever! Little bit of a synopsis for you.  Can I start by saying this movie is a kids movie? So, we meet little Toby, and adorable little boy. Toby follows his dad to work and gets eaten by a robot, yep you read that right. Toby’s dad is sad so he makes a new robot version of his son. This robot has all the memories Toby had. Well, Toby’s dad decides he doesn’t like this robot and sends him off. But, little robot Toby doesn’t understand why. He’s banished away to a junkyard, and forced to fight in robot fights in which one robot is destroyed. Oh, the worst part, his dad finds him again and takes out his core, which is basically his heart. I cried during that, I’m not emotionless! He does have a change of heart, but this is a kids movie! Ok, I’m done.

I really really really wanted to like this book.

Tanya Hurley’s book, ghostgirl is a book I have wanted to read for awhile now. The cover and packaging are amazing. It’s taller and thin. The cover has this silhouette of a girl inside a coffin shape with a pink banner reading “Rest in Popularity.” When opened, the silhouette reveals an image of a ghostly girl. It’s inviting and creepy at the same time.

The paperback cover is as cool as the hardcover cover, and it shows the same great image from the title page of the hardcover edition.

The inside pages have fun filigree coloring outlines around the pages, and great silhouette cut-outs. The colors are all pink and black. It’s feminine, but still dark. The book itself is seriously a pink-punk rock work of art.

Then I saw the book on Ace of Cakes. The Charm City Cakes team created an awesome cake for a book signing.

You can see more fun images of the cake, as well as fans dressed as ghost girl characters on ghostgirl’s myspace or facebook pages.

So, you can see why I really wanted to like this book.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I had hoped.

The book tells the story of Charlotte, a quiet nerdy girl who is obsessed with being popular. She is so obsessed that her death doesn’t even deter her from trying to win the boy of her dreams.

It had some great lines, such as when Charlotte describes her death, “Dying was horrible enough, but to due in such a pathetic and stupid way…choking on a bear-shaped semisoft gelatinous candy was an indignity almost too much for Charlotte to bear. It would validate everything they’d always thought about her and confirm her worst fears about herself. She couldn’t even chew right.”

Overall, I found the story pretty boring. I didn’t care about Charlotte at all. Truthfully, I found her pretty pathetic. The other characters weren’t much better. Overall, I just couldn’t connect with any of them.

It was a quick read, and it had some fun moments. It’s worth reading, and I can see why ghostgirl has so many fans online, but it didn’t “wow” me like I had expected. I won’t be reading the sequel ghostgirl: homecoming.

What do you think? If you’ve read it, did you like it? What did you like about it?

I was actually a waitress for about 3 months. It was the longest 3 months of my life. I’ve never been more exhausted. I have such respect for servers now, and I think it’s a job everything should try once. Now, that being said, I was terrible at it! I once forgot about a table entirely, for over a half hour. Woopsies. Luckily, they were the nicest people alive and I didn’t get in too much trouble. I dropped trays of food (once on a man’s shoe), forgot to put orders in, tripped, etc… I didn’t get locked in the freezer, so that’s an accomplishment. One of my friends dropped a large milkshake glass on a woman’s head, which resulted in an ambulance call; at least I never did that.

I can still remember my worst day as a waitress, when I nearly had a mental breakdown, like it was yesterday. I had a table of about 12 seniors outside. Now, I love sitting outside, but I’ve never thought about the waiter’s take. It’s hard when you have a table outside, plus a few more inside, lots of running around. Anyways, the seniors were lovely people I’m sure, but the aides with them should perhaps thought twice before bringing them to this particular establishment. They were expecting the burgers to cost a dollar like at Burger King. I get this, I love a dollar burger, but this was not the place for this. As I was attempting to take their orders amidst the shock at our prices, each one of them had to tell me a 5 minute story before they would order. Meanwhile, my tables inside were wondering why I wasn’t back with the ketchup yet. As I went outside to refill drinks, I had to deal with comments like, “What, did you have to kill the cow yourself? Where’s my burger?”

Once I took them their food, I thought the job would get a little easier, maybe they couldn’t talk as much with food in their mouths. I was wrong, it was just more of “blakjdfodjgadkjk more ketchup”. By this time, the lunch rush was over, and my three tables inside and left me without much of a tip since I was terrible by their accounts. I was really hoping I’d make my money with the table of 12 outside. As I was clearing away their plates, one sweet lady reached out her hand and put a quarter into mine and said “You’ve done a great job sweetheart.” I actually found this a little touching; she probably thought she was doing me a favor. Now, I’m still thinking there is some hope at this point, they had two aides with them, they’ve got to know better. Nope, they did not. My entire tip for the whole ordeal was 25 cents. That was the day I reevaluated my career options.

In the novel, Hope was Here by Joan Bauer, we meet Hope who is a fantastic waitress. Hope is raised by her aunt and loving her life in New York City, when they are forced out and Hope’s aunt takes a job at the Welcome Stairways Diner in Wisconsin. Hope meets some interesting folks here, and before she knows it, she’s involved in a crazy political campaign. Do yourself a favor, and pick up this gem of a book, even if you weren’t ever a waitress.