Breakdown, not Breaking Dawn

I wrote this review for my book club, so I thought I should publish it here as well. BTW, spoilers galore below. If you haven't read the book and will be mad at me for spoiling it, don't read this - although I think I may be doing you a favor, saving your time and $$$$.

There's something wrong with me

I have been reading Lipstick Jungle for the past couple of days (in the train) and I'm bored out of my mind. I'm on page 28 for crying out loud. I read 10 pages and fall asleep. I guess I'm getting tired of average Chick Lits. Perhaps Candace Bushnell's novels are better on screen than on paper, or was it just SATC that was good? I read One Fifth Avenue when it came out. It sucked.

Anyway, I've decided to move onto something a bit darker, such as the Carrie Fisher memoir. That's probably funny too.

Hey, what's the purpose of this post again? Just rambling... I know!

Run, Liesl, Run

My life has been so frantic. I have been working my butt off, planning T's 6th birthday party, having my mother as a guest and preparing to go away during the holidays.

I am so glad I've read a lot this year. I have no books in my queue, which is so unlikely...

So, how about "V", huh? I'm a little disappointed, not nearly as good as the original... It may get better, we'll see.

Harry Potter

My son and I started to read Harry Potter together. We just read a few pages every night before bed time. It's nice, he takes his shower, gets ready for bed and we read.

He has a lot of interest in reading. His teacher said that at 5 1/2 years old, he has the reading level of an 8-year-old.

We picked Harry Potter as a series of books to do. Plus when he's a bit older he can ready them all by himself. But we're pretty busy as it is now, there are quite a few to go, since we barely started the first volume.

The last post of the year

Wow, where did the year go? It seems every year goes by faster and faster.

This year was pretty rough. I spent most of the summer working my behind off, including weekends. I had to endure painful moments thinking of my grandmother's illness, and now my grandfather's. I lost my great-aunt a week after my birthday.

But there were good parts too. I joined a book club. I turned 30 (that was not so bad LOL). My not-so-little T turned 5 years old and is smarter than ever. I ran into my old friends during a trip to Brazil. I spent more time with my parents, especially my dad who now retired. I had my kitchen and powder room remodeled. My goddaughter came to visit. Yeah, I guess life is still good.

Then, there are books... I kept a new year resolution, I read more. I mean, a lot more. I started in February and slacked during my trip to Brazil, but even like that, I was able to read all of these (chronologically, last one on the top):

The Boleyn Inheritance (Gregory)
Marley & Me (Grogan)
One Fifth Avenue (Bushnell)
The Other Boleyn Girl (Gregory)
Married Lovers (Collins)
Blindness (Saramago)
The Constant Princess (Gregory)
The Opposite of Love (Buxbaum)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Gould)
The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd)
Nineteen Minutes (Picoult)
Jane Eyre (Bronte)
The Ivy Chronicles (Quinn)
The Friday Night Knitting Club (Jacobs)
Bee Season (Goldberg)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

Most of these were pretty good, but the worse by far was Bee Season. Ugh!

In 2008, I was also able to see more movies in the theatre than I had done in a while.

Madagascar - Escape 2 Africa
Blindness
The Dark Knight
Space Chimps
X Files: I want to believe
Mamma Mia
Wall-E
Kung Fu Panda
Sex & The City Movie
Nim's Island
Horton Hears a Who

The best movies I saw this year were Wall-E and The Diving Bell & the Butterfly (even though the latter is technically 2007).
The worst? The X Files!!!!!!!!!!! It let me down... And Tropic Thunder, another 2 hours of my life I've wasted...

Well, Happy New Year, everyone! Health, Peace, and $$$ in your pockets as well (cause we need it, right?). Here's a wish for better days!

Books

I love to read, I just haven't had read anything this past 2 weeks. Yes, I was focusing on my knitting, I know, but now I'm done with that ball of yarn and I should get back to my books. I'm just so tired that when I get to the metro, I end up sleeping (completely attached to my purse, of course, I am a carioca after all).

I've had some pretty good experiences with books this year. After I joined a girls's social and book club, I started rushing to finish the books before the discussions, and still have time to squeeze one more in.

Some of the good things I read this year:

- The Friday Night Knitting Club: chick-lit, and a must read. It tells the story of a single mom, Georgia. She owns a yarn shop on NYC and raises her daughter Dakota (who is mixed white/african-american). She has an older lady as a best friend, and with some customers they decide to hold a knitting club. It's very much about friendship, forgiveness, bonding. It will remind you of the hair salon on Steel Magnolias. There are some pretty sad parts too, so get the kleenex...

- The Ivy Chronicles: I picked it up for $4 at the Borders bargain bin - great find! Sooooo funny. Well, it wouldn't be if it were in real life. Ivy is a top-executive at a huge company who gets laid off under a few circumstances, and finds her husband cheating on her when she gets home (again, the circumstances are a must-read). So, her life is turned upside down and she has to move to a regular-person neighborhood with her 2 daughters, and then decide to become a consultant for private school kindergarten admissions. The stuff she goes through is just unbelievable. Including a dream date with a famous Hollywood star.

- The Secret Life of Bees: very touching book about a girl names Lilly who runs away from home and her abusive father. She wants to find out about the circumstances about her mother's death and the only clue she has is a photo of her Mom, a picture of a Black Madonna and the name of a city. The movie is coming out in October but the book is a must-read.

- Nineteen Minutes: it was a very hard book to read. It tells you the story of several characters but mostly focused on a boy who was constantly teased and bullied in school. He ends up being the shooter in a columbine-type school massacre. The book goes back and forth in time, so you must pay attention to the chapter headings. This book was wonderful in many ways, but what scared me the most was the fact that I did identify myself with the shooter in many, many ways. I'd think it would be a very interesting read for teachers, especially middle/high-school levels. Oh, and the author mentions the Wiggles 3 times in the book.

- Memoirs of a Geisha: I have not seen the movie, but the book is just too beautiful for words. I do have to visit Japan after that!