Gossip Girl - Cecily von Ziegesar

Okay.. I know this books aren´t on my original list but after watching some seasons of the tv show I became curious with the original story and when I see the beginning of a story I always want to know the end. (yeah.. I´m weird like that...haha) But when I started reading the books I was surprised to find that the novels are very different from the tv show but in a good way. There are so many things they explain in the novels and you get to know the characters so much better, for example in the tv shows they appear like this elite perfect bunch of teenagers that are always betraying one another and only interested in having fun but in the novels you get to know their imperfections. Now I´m so much sympathetic for Blair and don´t like Dan so much now haha. I totally hate his attitude of "Oh.. I´m so smart and I love to write depressing stuff all the time" and then Serena is also a very confusing character now.

But oh well, I´m very hooked up on it know and I´ll read the 13 books till the end. haha (Right now, I´m on the sixth book but it´s been really hard to get them on english and I only seem to find them in portugese... : ( You say, oh but who cares?? go ahead and read them on portugese! but NO!!! I like to read books on their original language so they are able to preserve their magic. haha) And I´m also reading another book that is not in the list but should be! I´ll tell you about that book soon!!! I won´t be able to update tomorrow because I´m gonna go out and eat "fiambre" in honor of all the spirits.

It´s like the best dish ever and you MUST TASTE IT!!! if you ever come to Guatemala. And I always have to battle to finish it. haha But it´s SO DELICIOUS!!! And by the way HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! (Today I´m in the mood of using caps all the time : ))

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Plot Summary: Mired in poverty, the student Raskolnikov nevertheless thinks well of himself. Of his pawnbroker he takes a different view, and in deciding to do away with her he sets in motion his own tragic downfall. Dostoyevsky's penetrating novel of an intellectual whose moral compass goes haywire, and the detective who hunts him down for his terrible crime, is a stunning psychological portrait, a thriller and a profound meditation on guilt and retribution.

Personal Opinion: A great phylosophical novel (which I love to read!) and it revolves around the life of a young student that dropped out of college. He is suddenly faced with a moral dilemma and in the way he tries to prove his theory that certain people have the right to kill to achieve some higher purpose and he often puts Napoleon as an example. The background for the novel is San Petersbourg... and... he is faced with many obstacles to escape his crime. He finds himsef in some kind of phylosophical battle with a police detective (I personally love that part haha). What I find more interesting is that somehow he doesn´t feel regret for his crime because he thinks he had a good reason. But then thanks to his sister and some other characters he finally realizes his crime and the he turns himself in to the police where they didn´t have any idea. I kind of don´t like the end but oh.. whatever...


Final Rating: 8/10

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

I had a hard time finishing this book, probably because I had so many things on my ming but here it is!!

Plot Review: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:

Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." … I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.

When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end.

Personal Oppinon: This is a very unusual book about a subject that is rarely mentioned in our today culture. I found the book very enlightening about the life of an intersex person. But that didn´t stop me from laughing at the book´s narrative of how the main character is omniscient and seems to know everythig that went through the minds of everybody even though the narrator wasn´t even present. This gives the story some kind of fantastycal touch. haha I also found very interesting the description of Detroit and how they suffered riots in the 60´s. This is a must read in american literature.

Final Rating: 7/10

Nana

I don´t know if you´ve heard of it but this has been my favorite manga so far. (It´s from Ai Yazawa of course...) But finally I decided to watch the anime. Actually, I´ve always wanted to see it but it´s just too long to watch and in my case it´s faster to me to just read the manga. I´ve probably read the manga twice and then randomly read my favorite chapters (so sad that she hasn´t finished the story). But what I like the most of all her mangas is the fashion. You can´t get enough Vivienne Westwood clothes in all her characters. haha

If you want to watch you can allways download it or do as I do and watch it from youtube. haha

Favorite Song!

  Kent - Thinner by lissofia

This is my favorite song right now, I just can´t stop listening to it. Btw, the new album of Hakan Hellstrom "2 steg från paradise" is out.

 CHECK IT OUT HERE!!!

19 - 21

Lately, I´ve been watching movies every waking moment of the day so I haven´t been able to read as much as I would want to. So I tought I could post a little something that I just found out. First, I haven´t told how I´m also addicted to reading shoujo manga by reading all the mangas that get into my hannds, maybe later I´ll tell you about my favorite mangas. But now I wanted to tell you how I discovered korean webtoons by reading this webtoon called "Pink Lady" that was cancelled. So I tried to find another webtoon and I found this one.

It has excellent graphics and you can find it HERE!. This great scanlation group has a lot of webtoons if you want to check them out. This one I told you about has all the clasic characteristics of a shoujo manga so tell me if you like it!

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Plot Summary: All children should believe they are special. But the students of Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, are so special that visitors shun them, and only by rumor and the occasional fleeting remark by a teacher do they discover their unconventional origins and strange destiny. Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, is a masterpiece of indirection. Like the students of Hailsham, readers are "told but not told" what is going on and should be allowed to discover the secrets of Hailsham and the truth about these children on their own.

Offsetting the bizarreness of these revelations is the placid, measured voice of the narrator, Kathy H., a 31-year-old Hailsham alumna who, at the close of the 1990s, is consciously ending one phase of her life and beginning another. She is in a reflective mood, and recounts not only her childhood memories, but her quest in adulthood to find out more about Hailsham and the idealistic women who ran it. Although often poignant, Kathy's matter-of-fact narration blunts the sharper emotional effects you might expect in a novel that deals with illness, self-sacrifice, and the severe restriction of personal freedoms.

Personal Opinion: Such a bittersweet story... But I must say that is worth reading. Specially for the strong feeling this book is able to bring. This tale really mesmerizes you and the main character sometimes reflects on some foolish customs normal people have and that she finds weird. The author also describes some places in England as the story unfolds that are really interesting to read. This book may be categorized as fiction but I think it is so much more. It left me spechless, I don´t know what else to say...

Final Rating: 9/10

(btw, there´s a movie coming out based on the book and I just found out about it. Can´t wait to see it...)

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

I just want to specify they are not in my formal reading list but I was alredy reading them before and I just ended the trilogy and tought you may fing the review of the book interesting.

Plot Summary:  Grade 7 UpûIn a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss´s young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining districts female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives. Collins´s characters are completely realistic and sympathetic as they form alliances and friendships in the face of overwhelming odds; the plot is tense, dramatic, and engrossing.

Personal Opinion: When I started reading this trology I honestly didn´t know what to think of it. For example, the book was definitely a page-turner but at the same time it entered the category of post-apocalyptic books. After all the book is very similar to "Death Race", "Fahrenheit 451" and other books in that category. Then I became more confused because it started to appear as a romantic novel. But then there was a lot of action and the main character showed her strong and rebellious personality. I must admit that even if sometimes the plot got a bit boring I couldn´t stop reading. In the next books you are able to see some changes in the modern bestseller plot, they might seem small but they show a great change at the end. In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading it and I didn´t get bored as I often do with action books. : )


Final Rating: 7/10

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

Plot Summary: Starred Review. Previous books such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood have established Murakami as a true original, a fearless writer possessed of a wildly uninhibited imagination and a legion of fiercely devoted fans. In this latest addition to the author's incomparable oeuvre, 15-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, both to escape his father's oedipal prophecy and to find his long-lost mother and sister. As Kafka flees, so too does Nakata, an elderly simpleton whose quiet life has been upset by a gruesome murder. (A wonderfully endearing character, Nakata has never recovered from the effects of a mysterious World War II incident that left him unable to read or comprehend much, but did give him the power to speak with cats.) What follows is a kind of double odyssey, as Kafka and Nakata are drawn inexorably along their separate but somehow linked paths, groping to understand the roles fate has in store for them. Murakami likes to blur the boundary between the real and the surreal—we are treated to such oddities as fish raining from the sky; a forest-dwelling pair of Imperial Army soldiers who haven't aged since WWII; and a hilarious cameo by fried chicken king Colonel Sanders—but he also writes touchingly about love, loneliness and friendship. Occasionally, the writing drifts too far into metaphysical musings—mind-bending talk of parallel worlds, events occurring outside of time—and things swirl a bit at the end as the author tries, perhaps too hard, to make sense of things. But by this point, his readers, like his characters, will go just about anywhere Murakami wants them to, whether they "get" it or not.

Personal Opinion: The plot at first sight doesn´t seem very interesting but the author has a way to describe things and carry the plot that is just amazing. I love some of the dark themes he touches but sometimes they can get a bit weird if you don´t understand the meaning of them. Personally I laugh at all the inside jokes he adds about many great author. You can also find mentions of great classical music and their composers so it´s really interesting in that way. The author also mentions some classical japanesse authors so it´s very educational. I loved some of the descriptions of the excentric characters and beautiful places, also the different ways they perceived life and how they changed some of this perceptions. But it´s just the first that comes in my mind because I´m pretty sure you can find more meanings in the mysterious words in this books.

Final Rating: 7/10