Just Finished Reading: Naked Lunch

Ok...wow! This was a strange book to read. This book doesn't really have a plot or a storyline, but is a combination of a bunch of different little stories. I didn't realize that at first so I was getting confused. Once I realized that though, this book was a lot easier to read. My favorite part was probably the part with the mugwump. That or that great section about the man who taught his asshole to talk. While reading it it seemed really familiar to me, and then I realized that it was in David Cronenberg's film version of Naked Lunch. That movie isn't really an adaptation of this book, however. Instead it just has a few elements from this book and other books of his as well as some aspects of William S. Burroughs's real life. Anyways, reading this makes me really interested in his other books, so I'm going to have to check them out.

Just Finished Reading: Catching Fire

This book really threw me for a loop. I figured that some sort of rebellion against the Capitol would start, but I just could not believe that Katniss and Peeta would be thrown back into the Hunger Games arena. I thought for sure that something would happen to stop the games from happening, but nothing did, and it was just like the first book all over again with Katniss trying to save Peeta. This book was definitely a page turner because I finished it in no time. Now I am REALLY curious about what happens in the third book now that District 12 is gone. I'm really hoping that we see more of Gale. In this book and The Hunger Games he seems more like a minor character and the focus is always more on Katniss and Peeta. I want more Katniss and Gale! I guess I'm just going to have to buy the third  book and see....

Just Finished Reading: Oryx and Crake

This is the other book that I bought with my Barnes and Noble gift card. It just shows how expensive books are...I had a $30 gift card and I was actually $5 short with this book and The Hunger Games. Thats why I usually get my books from Amazon. And if you spend $25 or more you get free shipping....so thats always good. Anyways, I loved this book. I've been wanting to read it since researching for my presentation on female science fiction writers for my Women Writers class. The way that the story is told is really interesting. It starts out after everything has happened and then slowly tells everything that led up to it. It starts with Snowman, who takes care of these lab made people that he calls the Children of Crake. We find out that Crake is not a god, but was his scientist friend who made them. My favorite parts of this book were when Snowman/ Jimmy was thinking about Oryx, the woman he loved. He became obsessed with her since seeing her in a kiddie porn video. That is pretty creepy, but he doesn't actually meet her until she is an adult. Oryx is a very interesting character because she always laughs off Snowman/ Jimmy's concerns about her and her past. She has had this pretty traumatic past, but she just shrugs it off like it's no big deal.

Just Finished Reading: The Hunger Games

I don't normally read YA novels, so I was going to wait to see this in theaters. But, everytime I watched the movie trailer I just became more and more curious about this book. So..I used my Barnes and Noble gift card that I got for Christmas and I bought this book. I literally could not put it down. I started reading it one night and got about 1/4 of the way through and then I read the rest of it the next morning. Now I am just super excited to see this movie! I think that Jennifer Lawrence will be great as Katniss. As soon as I become a little less poor I plan to buy the other two books in the series and read them as well. I will never descriminate against a story just because it is a YA novel ever again. Actually...that is probably not true.

Just Finished Reading: The Fall

I have been without working internet for the past three weeks, so that is the reason for the lack of posts. Over my Christmas vacation I read three different books, with the first beeing The Fall, the second book in the interesting Del Toro/ Hogan vampire trilogy. With this book we get more creepy vampires with their long stingers coming out of their mouths. The most interesting character in these books is Setrakian, an old vampire hunter. In my mind I picture him as Christopher Plummer. It was cool learning more of his backstory in this book. This book also ended with a bit of a cliffhanger with Eph's ex-wife (who is now a vampire) having his son... I guess I'll have to read the third book to find out what happens next...

Just Finished Reading: He, She and It

I had to read this book for my sex and culture class, and I found it really interesting. In class we discussed whether or not Yod should get his wish and be recognized as a citizen. I was basically the only one in my entire class who thought that he shouldn't. I had to get out my nerdness and explain how cyborgs being recognized as citizens could lead to a robot apocalypse and to humans being obsolete.

Just Finished Reading: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

I've never really read any erotica before, but I thought that Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty Trilogy looked really interesting. To be honest, I really didn't find this book all that sexy. It is about this kingdom that takes royalty from other kingdoms and uses them as sex slaves. The prince of this kingdom wakes Beauty from her sleep (with his penis) and claims her as his personal slave. I have a tendency to picture myself as characters in books that I am reading and I had to stop doing that with this one. Beauty has to do some really humiliating and degrading thing in this book. I just wish she wasn't so submissive. If it were me I would just run away, regardless of how handsome the prince is. I also thought that this book was like two separate books. The first part was all about Beauty and the prince, but the second half is all about another slave named Prince Alexi. I plan to read the other two in this trilogy, so hopefully the second two will be better.

Just Finished Reading: Romeo and Juliet

I've been wanting to reread this for a while, so I bought a copy for $3 at this used book store. Of Shakespeare's works I have only ever read this, Hamlet, and MacBeth. Romeo and Juliet is by far my favorite of the three. A bunch of the lines from this play have become totally cliche now because of how much Romeo and Juliet has been done in movies, but I don't think that it takes away from how great this play is. I'm really curious to see how Hailee Steinfeld does as Juliet. We're so used to seeing older actresses play this part, and the only other movie I have ever seen her in has her playing a rugged southern girl.

Just Finished Reading: The Awakening

I actually finished this a while ago, but I kept forgetting to post about it. I actually really liked this book. I don't really understand what was so controversial about it though, I was expecting it to be a lot more scandalous. It is about a married woman who falls in love with another man. He ends up leaving, though, so he isn't even there for a majority of the book. When he does come back, all they really do is kiss and then he bails on her because he "loves her too much." I didn't see any reason why this book should have been banned. It isn't nearly as "scandalous" as a book like Madame Bovary or others like that...

Just Finished Reading: Damned

If there is a hell, and I was forced to go there, I would not want it to be like it is in this book. Hell just sounds gross. There are lakes full of semen and fingernail clippings all over the place.... Eeeeeeeeewwww!!!! So...this book is about 13 year old Maddy Spencer, the daughter of a movie star, who is sent to hell after she dies of a marijuana overdose (or does she?) I read this book in no time at all because I could not put it down. It is really funny and gross and interesting and what I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters is one of my favorite books.) I was kind of annoyed at the To Be Continued... at the end, but that just means that there's gonna be another one! Can't wait!

Just Finished Reading: The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb

This book is more drawings than actual comics. I love the ones that he did of these two girls that he went to high school with. My favorite parts in this book were probably the little comic strips of him and his daughter Sophie.

Just Finished Reading: The Lottery and Other Stories

I love Shirley Jackson, she is one of my favorite writers. Most book stories don't have her books, though which is unfortunate (and if they do it is usually just The Haunting of Hill House). So, I was really happy when I found this one at Barnes & Noble. It is filled with really cool short stories, with her most famous story The Lottery being the very last one. Some of my favorites were Charles, After You, My Dear Alphonse, The Witch, The Dummy, and of course, The Lottery.

Just Finished Reading: The Death-Ray

Drawn + Quarterly sure likes giant books. The Death-Ray and Wilson are both ginormous. Anyways, this is another great book by my favorite comic book artist Daniel Clowes. It is about a boy who finds out that he has super strength when he smokes cigarettes. He also has something called the Death-Ray, which makes things completely disappear. What makes this superhero-type character different is that he really has no ambitions. He does beat up bad guys for a while, but he ends up just becoming a miserable person. I thought that The Death-Ray was really fun to read, and the pictures were amazing. Of course, I am probably biased because I believe that Daniel Clowes can do no wrong...

Just Finished Reading: Salem's Lot

I have been crazy busy with school all month, so this book took me forever to read. This is the second Stephen King book that I have ever read, with the first being Carrie when I was 11 or 12. It is probably because I had been reading this book little by little for over a month, but I kept getting characters confused with eachother. I know that Ben is the writer, Susan is his love interest, Father Callaghan is the priest, Mark is the kid, Barlow is the vamp, and Straker was his helper. All of the other characters sort of melted in to one for me, though so I was getting kind of confused by the end of what was happening to who. I did like this book however. My favorite part was reading the description of Ben jamming his stake into Barlow. That was really cool.

Just Finished Reading: Confessions of an Actor

Laurence Olivier is one of my favorite actors, so I was really curious to read his autobiography. To be honest, while there were some interesting parts, it isn't really the most entertaining book ever. I love Olivier for his work in films, but he barely talks about the movies he made. He mentions movies passingly and mostly talks about his work on the stage. The only movies that he goes into any detail about are the ones that he directed, like Henry V, Hamlet, and The Prince and the Showgirl. The best parts were definitely the parts about his personal life. Like when he talks about how he wanted to get married so that he could have sex because he was raised super religious, so premarital sex was just a no-no. There are also some good tidbits about his relationship with Vivien Leigh.

Just Finished Reading: The Lady of the Camellias

Such a sad story. I HAD to read this book when I found out that two of my favorite movies, Camille and Moulin Rouge were based on the same novel. Well technically, Moulin Rouge is based on La Traviata, which is based on the novel. I mean, I noticed that they were basically the same story, but on Moulin Rouge's Wiki page, it says La Traviata and not The Lady of the Camellias, and I had never heard of La Traviata before. Camille and Moulin Rouge are actually a lot closer to each other in plot than they are to this book. While there are a lot of similarities, there are even more differences. I still really liked this book, and it kind of made me wish that I was a 19th century stage actress, so that I could play Marguerite. There was one particularily sexy scene where she goes to Armand's house after he sends her a cruel letter and she ends up stripping off her clothes in front of him. Hot! It was even hotter because I really wasn't expecting it, especially in a novel as old as this one. What is really neat is that there were photos from different film adaptations and stage productions of this. So there were a few pictures of Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor, and even a photo of Colin Firth and Greta Scacchi. I haven't seen the latter pair's version yet, but now I'm really curious to. I saw it on sale at Barnes and Noble the last time I went shopping, and I knew I should have bought it! Next time...

Just Finished Reading: Dracula

I found it quite odd that the title character is barely in this book. I was expecting at least some of the novel to be from his perspective, but none of it is. The only dialogue that he has is in the beginning when Jonathan is at his house. I understand why they had to make up the whole love story subplot for Francis Ford Coppola's film version. If they hadn't, you wouldn't have seen Dracula at all! Having said that, I did like parts of this book. I loved the parts with Lucy. How she is turning into a vampire, and then terrorizing children when she is supposed to be in her grave. I do think that the ending is somewhat abrupt. I mean he just dies. They stab him and he turns to dust.  There is all of this build up and then it just ends like it was no big deal. How lame is that?

Just Finished Reading: Anna Karenina

I'm pretty sure that this was the longest book I have ever read. I actually really liked it however. I found the story very interesting, and I would sit and read it for hours at a time because I didn't want to put it down. I actually read like a third of it in just the past two days. While I was expecting a first person narrative from our title character, Anna doesn't actually come into the story about chapter 18 or 19 in part one. The story has two major plots; Anna and Vronsky, and Levin and Kitty. It is interesting because Anna and Levin have so many connections, but they only ever meet once. I thought that it was sad how Anna ended up getting all bipolar at the end, even though Vronsky did still love her. Personally, I think that the worst part of the book was the last section. Even though Part 8 was the shortest section, it seemed like the longest because it was basically just Levin being all depressed.

When I read books, especially ones as long as this one, I always picture them as movies in my head. So here was my cast...

Anna was, of course, played by myself. I always picture one of the characters to be myself, and since the main character was female, that is obviously going to be me. One of the reasons that I didn't really care for At the Mountains of Madness was probably because it didn't have any female characters.

Vronsky was Michael Fassbender. If I was to leave my husband for anybody it would be him. Karenin was Clive Owen. It says that he has a high squeaky voice, but I like Owen's deep voice better. Also, there is a DVD for the movie Closer sitting right by my bed. Oblonsky was Jude Law and his wife Dolly was Jennifer Connely. Levin was Ben Affleck and Emily Browning was Kitty. So that the cast of Anna Karenina in my brain. What is really funny is that I was reading about an upcoming film version of Anna Karenina yesterday, and Jude Law is actually going to be in it, except he will be playing Karenin instead of Vronsky. I was psyched when I saw that Keira Knightley was going to be Anna, but I'm less than pleased at Aaron Johnson being Vronsky. He is way too young!

Just Finished Reading: Madame Bovary

Even thought the main character of the novel is Emma Bovary, the character that I ended up sympathizing with was her husband Charles. She cheats on him with two different guys, spends all his money, and puts him in debt and he is completely oblivious to it all because he is so much in love with her. Even at the end when he finds the letter from Rodolphe, he still doesn't think bad of her, and thinks that the letter was about "platonic love." It isn't until he opens her desk that he finds out what she was really doing, and he doesn't even think ill of her then. I think that he is really foolish, but still really sweet.

Just Finished Reading: At the Mountains of Madness

While I think that the concept is very interesting, I really didn't care for this book. I wanted to like it, but I thought it was pretty boring. I had to reread parts because I kept getting distracted, and if someone asked me what it was about I probably wouldn't give them a very good answer. There are three other H.P. Lovecraft stories in the edition that I have, but after reading At the Mountains of Madness, I really just want to move on to a different author.