Month: January 2009

Rosie Dunne by Cecelia Ahern


Rosie Dunne and Alex Fletcher are best friends who are the living example of right love at the wrong time, for the most part of their lives, starting when they were five years old. Their story plays out in a series of letters, notes, emails, text messages, and IMs between themselves and their friends.

It’s way longer than it really needs to be (and the frustration builds up to the very end chapter — to the point you keep muttering, man, can’t you two just get it on?!?), but any girl who has fallen for the best friend type of guy will be able to relate to this book. It’s funny, yet poignant at the same time. I cried a lot reading it… maybe because I could relate to it so much.

***
My copy – mass market paperback, given up for mooching

My rating- 2/5 stars

The Butterfly Tattoo by Philip Pullman

Chris Marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm Oxford evening….

From the first sentence, I was hooked. I took a chance on this book because it was on sale at Powerbooks… I didn’t like Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass) very much (too serious for my taste), so I’m not really compelled to read the rest of His Dark Materials trilogy (languishing in my TBR pile), but I thoroughly enjoyed Pullman’s other works: The Scarecrow and His Servant, Clockwork, Spring-Heeled Jack, The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, and I Was A Rat.

It’s a very short novel, and basically deals with Chris (the main character) meeting Jenny at a campus party, his search for her, and the tragic ending. Although the tragedy is a given, the story still unfolds in a breathtaking manner – funny, poignant, sometimes shocking, and moving all at the same time. It also explores several issues such as trust, domestic abuse, and divorce. I loved Chris’ character, a teenage boy falling in love for the first time, juxtaposed against Jenny’s, a girl who has always been a victim of fate.

***
My copy: trade paperback, about P100 at Powerbooks

My rating: 4/5 stars

photo courtesy of http://www.damaris.org/cw/amazoncoverimages/butterflytattoo.jpg

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

People think that when they’ve read the Da Vinci Code, all other Grail mysteries will pale in comparison. Surprisingly, the Labyrinth holds up its own quite well, probably because of the difference between the two books.

I love the fact that Labyrinth is a female grail adventure, weaving a story between two female characters that live 800 years apart. Just recently Janeh and I were discussing the difference between male and female authors, and how they focused on different things (males plot driven, females detail-driven), and this novel is a good example.

In present day (2005), Alice Tanner stumbles into a hidden cave while on an archeological dig in the mountains of southwest France. She discovers two skeletons and a labyrinth pattern engraved on the wall and on a ring, which triggers visions of the past and propels her into a dangerous race against those who want the mystery of the cave for themselves.

This narrative alternates with the story of Alaïs, in the year 1209, a plucky 17-year-old living in the French city of Carcassone, a sort of free country (under tolerant Cathar Christians) that welcomes all religions, that has been declared heretical by the Catholic Church. The Crusaders siege the city, and Alaïs’s father, entrusts her with a book that is part of a sacred trilogy connected to the Holy Grail, but evil forces, including her sister Oriane, are out to get this sacred book for their own ends.

The stories are interwoven, with events mirrored in different situations experienced by the two women in their time.

There are some gory bits, surprising from a woman writer, and a lot of adventure — a medieval battle and a modern-day chase, all in one book! There’s even a love story, although I must commend how Mosse integrated into the story without it seeming contrived.

Mosse also skillfully spins out her yarn bit by bit, disclosing details a bit at a time, never fully revealing anything until the end of the novel, making it a page-turner to the very end.

Finally, I love her take on the Grail mystery, because it’s a refreshing point of view, a unique take on the Grail legend (ergo, without the conspiracy spin: she doesn’t claim it’s the truth, unlike Dan Brown, although she does come up with a lot of daring premises) that makes it an extraordinary read.

***
My copy: originally a mass market paperback, upgraded into a hardcover with dustjacket, mooched from the US

My rating: 5/5 stars

photo courtesy of http://hopeeternal.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/mosse-kate-labyrinth.jpg

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

After I enjoyed reading Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, I decided to get The Birth of Venus because Amazon listed it as a similar book.

The Birth of Venus is a historical novel, similar to Girl with a Pearl Earring in its themes of sensual awakening and art, although it goes into more detail, especially on history and politics (from the death of Lorenzo de Medici to the rise and fall of Savonarola), with a bit of Dante thrown in.

Set in 15th century Florence, it is the story of Alessandra Cecchi, precocious and artistic daughter of a well-to-do cloth merchant. The story unfolds with Alessandra’s coming of age at 14, forcing her to sacrifice her dreams to fulfill the expectations of womanhood amidst the turmoil around her, with Savonarola threatening to snuff out the influence of the Medicis, and the pending French invasion. The Florence she has known and loved is changing, and with this, Alessandra carves out a life she can call her own, and finally explore the passions she’s kept at bay.

Like Griet in Girl with a Pearl Earring, Alessandra is intoxicated with art, and falls in love with a painter. I love how these two books explore art and love in a similar fashion. Maybe it’s the artist in me, but it’s a heady combination. The richness of detail paints a very vivid picture — you can almost hear the fine scratching of Alessandra’s chalk on the wooden board, or smell the paint as it’s being mixed to the right shade…

The second half’s full of surprises, especially Part IV, where things you didn’t expect to have any significance fall into place, and tie the whole story into a very strong piece: a charming novel that’s hard to resist.

***
My copy: trade paperback upgraded into hardcover with dustjacket, thanks to Triccie and Babing

My rating: 5/5 stars

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Some stories are driven by their plots; Girl with a Pearl Earring is driven by the sensory experience it provides the reader.

16-year old Griet is a Dutch girl who comes to serve as a maid in the house of the painter Johannes Vermeer. Her keen perception and artistic sensibilities allows her access into Vermeer’s inner sanctum: his painting studio, where she eventually becomes the master’s assistant.

On top of her work inside the studio, Griet must contend with household duties and serve Vermeer’s temperamental wife Catharina, his shrewd mother-in-law Maria Thins, the maid Tanneke, as well as Vermeer’s growing brood of children.

Griet is on the brink of becoming a woman, and has to deal with growing attentions of the local butcher’s son and Vermeer’s patron van Ruijven. And as Griet becomes more intimate with the master Vermeer, disruption and jealousy erupt within the household, and ripple in the world beyond.

I was fascinated by the novel because aside from the typical coming-of-age elements (discovery of sensuality, angst, etc), it deals with artistic awakening. Griet was innately artistic, with her predilection for arranging vegetables by color. She had an eye for art, as Vermeer noticed himself. Thus she was promoted from mere studio-cleaner to artistic assistant and eventually to Vermeer’s sitting model. And she learns to see how Vermeer sees, and understands how a real artist doesn’t paint something according to how the rest of the world sees it…

Because Griet has a real eye for detail, the imagery is so rich that you can picture so much in your mind: Griet’s favorite tile, the blood caked between the butcher’s fingers, the scalloped edges of a tortoiseshell comb, Vermeer’s gray eyes, the meat market on a busy day… It’s terrific how a book can transport you to a different world, and make you see it in Griet’s eyes.

She develops an attraction to Vermeer, and I love the way she doesn’t come right out and say it, but you can read through her thoughts and feel it. There’s a part in the novel where he’s teaching her to mix paint, and you can practically reach out and touch the electricity crackling in her…

Sigh, what else can I say? Art is the best romance.

***
There’s a movie version, starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth, and it’s every bit as good as the book. Excellent cinematography!

***
My copy: originally an old creased trade paperback bought at Book Sale, replaced with a second trade paperback in better condition, then upgraded to a hardcover copy (with dustjacket), mooched from the US

My rating: 5/5 stars