Book Reviews – Page 72

Match Me if You Can

1228973_87663022

I remember reading a couple of Susan Elizabeth Phillips romances back in high school (historical, I don’t remember which), but I’ve never read any of her contemporary novels. I’ve been reading positive reviews about them, though, so when I spotted a hardcover copy of Match Me If You Can (#144 for 2009!) at a roving book sale last year, I decided to get it so I could check it out.

My plans to read this book got derailed when one of my sisters (the one based in Singapore) found the book on my shelf while she was on vacation here and took it with her, so I didn’t see it for a year or so until I reclaimed it when I visited her there a few weeks ago.

Continue reading “Match Me if You Can”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

diary

I’ve been hearing so much about this book in the last year, and for some reason I forgot that my cousin Dianne gave me a copy of this book last Christmas, as it got buried in the TBR pile. Thankfully I managed to dig it out sometime before the flood so it didn’t get wet or join the rubble of books that were brought upstairs for safety against the flood which I am still in the process of reshelving.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (#143 for 2009) caught my eye when I first saw it on the bookstore shelf; the words “a novel in cartoons” jumped out at me and I just knew I had to read the book.

Continue reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

991793_39199359

I’ve been meaning to read the classic Dracula ever since I read (and reread) The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. With all the vampire fiction that’s been coming out recently, I realized I really abhor the glamorized vampire and prefer the good, old-fashioned Dracula, and so I grabbed the chance when I spotted the Viking Studio illustrated edition featuring comic book artist Jae Lee at last year’s Cut-Price Sale at National Bookstore, for about P200, along with a copy of Jane Eyre from the same line, also P200.

I knew I read Dracula when I was in 6th grade but it must have been abridged, or maybe I covered my eyes over the scary parts (Rich Hall has a sniglet for it — “snargle” — to lessen the visual impact of a horror movie [in this case, a book] by filtering it through one’s fingers) because I don’t remember much of it.

Anyway, I had to read Dracula because I need to read the book “Mina” by Marie Kiraly, a Dracula spin-off assigned to me by another Flipper for the Flips Flipping Pages Diversity Challenge this year. I also have some more Dracula-themed books in my TBR that I’d like to read so I figured I needed to read the original for comparison.

Continue reading “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”

Catching Fire (and the HG fever continues!)

I know this is way overdue, as I finished Catching Fire three weeks ago. But the book fair, the two storms (and the great flood) that hit the country, my trip to Singapore (more on that on a future post!), and rearranging the house (ugh, reshelving my books, and still resuscitating those that went under during the flood) have kept me pretty busy and this is the first weekend I’ve had to myself in a long time.

If you’ve just discovered my blog, well, I read Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games (Scholastic Press) about a month back, and to my surprise, it slaked that craving I had for a really good read, and about time too, as I’d spent more than half of the year looking for a book to wow me.

Several days later, I got ahold of the I had newly-released sequel, Catching Fire, and finished it just before I had the thrill of watching the Hunger Games Live Action Role Play (LARP) at the Manila International Book Fair, organized by Scholastic and National Bookstore with the New Worlds Alliance.

(Spoiler free!)

Continue reading “Catching Fire (and the HG fever continues!)”

The Hunger Games

It’s been nine months into 2009 and I’ve been hard-pressed to find a book to really wow me this year, and I must say that I did not expect it to be a book I would not normally go for.

I’ve been seeing Scholastic’s The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (book #140 for 2009) at the book stores for some time now, but I’m not a big fan of dystopian themes because they’re often depressing, so I didn’t feel compelled to pick it up.

When I was given a chance to review the book, I was apprehensive, especially after learning it came highly recommended by Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris, two authors I don’t particularly care for, as I abhorred the Twilight series (no secret there) and have no intentions of reading the Sookie Stackhouse series.

So I finished The Hunger Games in three hours flat this afternoon — and even Ateneo (my university) winning the basketball game (for top seed) against FEU this afternoon couldn’t tear me away from the book except for quick glances at the screen for the score — and I still can’t get over how much this book has affected me, so here I am, writing this rough cut review (am writing another for Manila Bulletin later on when I get my thoughts organized) to pour out some raw emotion after reading the book, before I read what anyone else has to say about it, and before I forget the roller coaster experience I just went through.

Continue reading “The Hunger Games”