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July 3, 2013

Night of Hunters Price: $12.99 5.0 out of 5 stars Good storyteller and excellent musician.

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Night of Hunters
By Tori Amos

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I am a long time Tori fan. This is Tori’s 12th album and it just proves that she can make inspirational music. I know that her music has matured and it’s even stronger than Y Kant Tori Read. I like that musicians progress past their typical sound and experiment and even step out of their element. This album of Tori’s is great. She creates a story while modernising classical music.

The fascinating thing is that her daughter, Natashya “Tash” Lórien Hawley, is a guest vocalist as ‘Anabelle’ on “SnowBlind”, “Cactus Practice”, “Job’s Coffin” and “The Chase.” Just the thought of Tash joining her mom in these songs makes me feel old.

The sound is complex and beautiful. She uses classical musician’s works to create her sound. I think it’s really good and changes each time I hear the songs.
The lyrics is enchanting as always. The fourteen songs together creates a storyline of a women in a dying relationship and trying to find who she is. But the songs by themselves are good too. My favorite song is SnowBlind.
The dvd is alright. It’s nice to watch sometimes with it’s behind the scene photography reel.

Tori is and always will be my favorite singer/ songwriter. I saw her in concert almost ten years ago. I think she is a great performer and musician.
Float Price: $11.78 5.0 out of 5 stars FM is my favorite Irish Punk band

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Float
By Flogging Molly

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Float is my favorite album by Flogging Molly. I started listening to FM over 10 years ago and I still enjoy hearing their music (including Speed Of Darkness). Float has more an Irish sound than FM’s norm. And yet it’s that sound that has some of my older family members (mom and aunts) liking them.

Every song by Flogging Molly brings the desire to dance along. This album has that. I also find all the songs my favorite. Every time picking just one song, another song is just as good. I am glad that FM is expanding their sound. I don’t think that they’re conforming to pop sound. If anything, I think that it’s great that not every song of their’s sounds the same.

I really enjoy Flogging Molly’s music and seeing them in concert is on my “bucket list.”
The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season DVD ~ Johnny Galecki Price: $8.99

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The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season
By Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco
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I started watching this at season 2. Four nerds working at Caltech and living in Pasadena, Ca. I live in Los Angeles County, so it’s been fun watching these guys and now three ladies. It’s a really funny show. By far, my favorite episode is Einstein Approximation (season 3, episode 14). Or other wise known as just Sheldon in the ball pit. Bazanga.

My favorite episode of season 5 is the Shiny Trinket Maneuver (12th episode). Or better known as the episode where Sheldon gives Amy a tiara. Heck, if that tiara had real diamonds, I’d have been just as excited as Amy was.

If you think this is just for the young 20 something, you’re wrong. My 80 year old grandfather likes this show. I am 36 years old. My dad, aunts and uncles also like this show. Every family function we have, one topic we all have in common to discuss is what’s going on in the Big Bang Theory show.

Season 5 has been pretty good. I love Shamy (Sheldon and Amy combined). Both actors are my favorite as well. Sheldon is played by talented Jim Parsons. He has won three various awards for his performance as Sheldon. Amy is perfectly casted by Mayim Bialik. She’s better known for her role as Blossom in Blossom: Seasons 1 & 2. I’ve been a fan of that show as well. It’s also awesome that Mayim has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Really. She’s also a UCLA alumni – a favorite college of mine and my family.
According To Jane by Marilyn Brant Edition: Paperback Price: $12.08 5 out of 5 stars Ellie Barnett

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According To Jane
By Marilyn Brant
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(Small amounts of spoiler)

The title caught my eye at the shops. I was intrigued by the storyline. A girl who is haunted by Jane Austen herself. Ellie isn’t just haunted by Jane through her teen years though. Austen has been with Ellie from the age of 15 to 34 years old. So this is a coming of age storyline with Jane Austen’s help.

Just like Ellie, I was a geek in my English classes because I enjoyed reading the books assigned. Not all sophomore teens can understand Austen’s satire, let alone dialogue. So that’s why I was a book mouse. I might not of had Jane Austen “haunting” me. I did have Jane’s works to use as guidelines in finding a Mr. Right. But like Ellie has realized, I’ve set that bar pretty high.

“Heaven forbid! – That would be the greatest misfortune of all! – To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! – Pride and Prejudice.”

At the beginning of each chapter, Marilyn Brant gives a quote from one of Jane Austen’s works. This one is from chapter 9 and I think it is the perfect description of Sam Blaine. Jane and Ellie consider him to be Mr. Wickham. In my opinion, teenage Sam is a lot like the teenage boys that were in my school.
The Wickham comparison is pretty good. But unlike Wickham, I think Sam can and has shown that he is changing. He wants to be a better person. So I was glad that Sam proved Ellie (and Jane) wrong about him.

Most romance books that have H and h reunited have the heroine be celibate. I disagree with that. In According to Jane, I was very happy that Ellie isn’t celibate while Sam wasn’t also.

I think that it’s plausible that 15 y.o. Sam knew that Ellie was “The One.” After all, my Uncle married his Junior High School sweatheart. They are still married and very happy. So finding “The One” at such a young age can happen.

I am very glad I have this book. I’ve read it 5 times now since I bought it almost three years ago. I didn’t always like Jane’s “hauntings” because I thought they interfered with this nice story. They were good though.
Ruby Sparks (w/ Paul Dano) – Dream Girl Ruby – 5 out of 5 stars

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Ruby Sparks
By Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Chris Messina
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It’s an Indie film I watched on cable. It stars Paul Dano and his off-screen girlfriend (I think) Zoe Kazan (also written by Zoe). And I was surprised to see Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas playing Paul’s character parents.

About a writer, Calvin played by Paul Dano, with a outstanding book written 10 years ago. And hasn’t written anything good since. When his book producer introduces him at a book forum, Langdon tells everyone about Calvin’s great book and other mediocre short works. Langdon then says that it wasn’t until he reread the 10th anniversary of Calvin’s great work that he didn’t really know how good a writer Calvin was. I really felt sorry for Calvin when he was described like that by his producer.

His shrink, played by Elliot Gould, tells Calvin to write something about his dog that pees like a girl. I liked how Elliot’s character told Calvin that he’d love the story to be badly written. From there, Calvin writes about his dream girl, Ruby Sparks, who then becomes real. Kind of like Weird Science. Calvin has created her and can make her do and be whatever he wants. I liked their romantic relationship. I felt that it was quite genuine and realistic.

I love this movie because it is has a very good character driven. Paul Dano’s character was pretty good. I felt really sorry for the guy. And really happy that he was writing again and found his dream girl. If and how Calvin keeps the girl, I won’t say because that’s a big spoiler. But I will let you know that this does have a happy ending. One that I smile and even lightly laugh at.

I liked this movie – and I’m not much of a writer. This movie spoke to me because I think it embodies what relationships are. Complex. At one point, Calvin writes that “Ruby is just Ruby. Happy or sad, however she felt.”
Brooklyn: A Novel iTunes Audio Price:? – Brooklyn Irish Girl 3 out of 5 stars

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Brooklyn: A Novel
By Colm Toibin
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I think it was a good thing that I listened to this instead of reading. If I hadn’t then I would never have finished it. I started reading this on St. Patty’s weekend in 2012, hoping for a quick Irish listen. But I didn’t finish this until the end of March 2012.

I gave it 3 stars for the nice immigration story of Eilis Lacey. I liked hearing about her new adventures and struggles of immigrating from Ireland to Brooklyn. The 1950′s description was good, but sometimes I felt it was during the 1940′s. Tóibin writes that part of the story nicely. But she was too naive and prejudice towards others. I come from an Irish family. The only thing they were prejudice at that time was when my great great grandmother almost married a non-catholic man. Her brother, a priest, had written to her that she shouldn’t marry him. Lucky for me she listened or I wouldn’t have been born. And the Irish were well aware of what happened during wars. I come from a long line of generations of men who served in the military. I am the first female to have been in the military in my family.

When the story shifted to Tony and Eilis’s relationship, I lost interest. I didn’t like Tony. He felt too much like a player to me. The Italian’s were too stereotypical for me. My dad’s mom (first generation Italian immigrant) isn’t like them. She never told me that I was too skinny and I need to eat some ‘scettie (spaghetti). She was prejudice towards other races though. And a Dodger fan blue and blue.

The audio was from iTunes. Kirsten Potter was the reader. I had to get over her annoying accents. And maybe it was the way she tried to talk like a man that made me dislike Tony. So the audio I give 2 stars
Wicked Games Price: $0.00 3 out 5 stars

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Wicked Games (A Games Novel) (Volume 1)
By Jessica Clare, Jill Myles
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Free purchase 6/20/13

This was ok for a quick read. I read this in a day. The storyline is predictable and addicting to read. The interaction between the heroine and hero was the addictive part. The other storyline was like reading the tv show Survivor.

There was a lot of explicit sex scenes in full detail. Maybe a little too much detail sometimes because I was even skipping those redundancies.

There was a lot of grammatical errors and redundancies. I ended up skipping those because it took away from the story. At times I even had to read the sentence over again just to see what the author was trying to say.

Reading this in a day is a real accomplish for me because it takes me weeks to read well written books. So Wicked is more a fluff read IMO.

Also, the character description is nothing like the models on this cover. The man is supposed to be this tall blue eyed Greek God.

All in all, this was an ok read. I wouldn’t pay money for it. And IMO, this is a typical erotica contemporary romance.

This couple on some romance free ebooks looked familiar to me. So I did a search and found this:

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/15049.That_Girl_Hot_Guy_from_the_Obsidian_Cover

Sztella Tziotziosz and Péter/Pepe Tóth have been on over 70 book covers. 70+! That kind of ruins the book for me when the models are over used like this. Can’t book covers be more creative? Where’s the originality? People on this thread have even said they’ve gotten confused with seeing the same faces on so many covers. And a lot of the cover photos looks like duplicates.
The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares Edition: Mass Market Paperback Price: $7.19 4 out

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The Last Summer (of You and Me)
By Ann Brashares
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This was a 2009 audio listen. I’ve read the book and listened to this a few times since.
4 stars for both the audiobook and the storyline. I later purchased the book to read as well. It’s Brashares’s first adult book after writing some Traveling Pants series IMO. I could tell that it was a first adult book because there was times Alice and Riley were acting younger than they were. Alice and Riley are both in their early 20′s. The story gripped me. It’s original and has good character builds.
All I Want For Christmas Price: $0.00 3 out of 5 stars

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All I Want for Christmas (Entangled Flirts)
By Ros Clarke
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3.5 stars. All I Want is a ok read. The storyline was good and romance predictable. This is a very short story. But Ross Clark did do a good job in building her characters. The ending was very very rushed. I think that she could have expanded that. This is a good short read during the holiday though. For those hopeless romantics, this is a quick read to feed that craving.
Blue Christmas (Southern) (Library Kindle Overdrive ebook loan) 3 out of 5 stars

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Blue Christmas: Now with More Holiday Cheer (New Recipes Too!)
By Mary Kay Andrews
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I’ve read this twice during the holidays. Once in 2007 and again during Christmas 2012. I ended up rereading this because I forgot what the book was about. I forgot because the storyline is typical. The romance was all right but not great. There’s a small amount if mystery but I wasn’t interested in that. It did create a little bit of suspense. Mary Kay’s humor was dry IMO. It was a decent Christmas read. I have tried reading “The Fixer Upper” but didn’t like it. Eloise is a much more likeable character than Dempsey.