Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

Becky Bloomwood is back! This time, with a bump — Becky and Luke’s first baby!

Becky Bloomwood is back in the 5th novel of the Shopaholic series, armed with her credit card as she prepares for the baby’s arrival – booties, designer rompers, prams, you name it and Becky has to have it. So when news of a celebrity ob/gyne Venetia Carter breaks out, Becky has to have her too, and decides to switch from her old ob/gyne. All’s well, until she finds out Venetia is Luke’s ex-girlfriend from college, and still carries a torch for Luke, posing an impending threat to their fledgling family.

My sisters, my mom (yes, my mom likes chicklit, especially Sophie Kinsella and Meg Cabot) and I are Shopaholic fans, so I was delighted when Tattie (my eldest sister) bought me a copy of Shopaholic and Baby a couple of months ago when I complained that I couldn’t find one (of course now, it’s back in stock).

I liked Shopaholic and Baby, although I think I really love Shopaholic Ties the Knot and Shopaholic and Sister best. Becky is up to her usual antics, but I guess some themes in this book make it a bit more serious than the rest in the series. I guess, Becky has to grow up sometime, well at least more grown-up than Becky has ever been in her life, and it shows in this book.

The supporting cast is still a riot, though, especially Suze, Janice, Danny, and Mr. and Mrs. Bloomwood. Jess is back too, hint, hint, I wish Sophie Kinsella would write a book about her as well, haha like the Shopaholic’s Non-Shopaholic sister. Heehee.

Of course, all’s well that ends well, and it’s still a great addition to the series :)

***
My copy: Gosh, I have three copies of this book – 2 hardcovers (one mooched, one from NBS) and one large paperback…

My rating: 3/5 stars

Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle


This was the first Peter Mayle book I ever read, and I had no idea that he was a travel writer so I was in a totally different frame of mind when I read it, expecting an art heist thriller. But like all Mayle’s books, Chasing Cezanne is more like a travel book than anything else. It also reads like chick lit, which is kind of weird, because the protagonist is male.
The premise was really good: photographer Andre Kelly is off on a shoot when he sees a Cezanne being removed from the premises of a former client. He photographs this event and is embroiled in a chase for the missing painting.

Except that it’s got to be the most leisurely chase I’ve ever read — Andre and his gang (a fastidious art dealer, plus Andre’s love interest Lucy) stop to eat and sightsee (and sleep together) every chance they get, hehe.

The language is languid and dreamy, the descriptions are beautiful and picturesque. No rip-roaring chases here — the book is more like Under the Tuscan Sun than Da Vinci Code.

Even Cezanne is only incidental, you can substitute some other painter’s name in the title and the story wouldn’t change, that’s how little Cezanne. And there’s very little actual art discussed, other than the process of selling famous paintings and a bit of forgery (haha, Incognito was a great movie for that!). Actually I think even the mystery is only incidental, it was just a reason for Andre to get together with Lucy and romp from New York to Paris and the South of France.

Worth reading for the travelogue and food commentary — this is what Mayle does best, and he delivers commendably, but mystery lovers might feel shortchanged.

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My copy: trade paperback upgraded into a hardcover with dust jacket

My rating: 3/5 stars

Photo courtesy of Amazon (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5154TY62ARL.jpg)

Holes by Louis Sachar

Again, this is another book that I’ve seen since I was a kid but never got around to reading. My cousin Dianne convinced me to get my own copy after she bought hers, and I decided to read it one afternoon.
It turned out to be a pleasant surprise right from the first page.

Holes is about Stanley Yelnats IV, a kid who has the knack of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, thanks to a family curse cast by Madame Zeroni on his ancestor Elya Yelnats.

Because of the curse, Stanley gets wrongly convicted of a juvenile crime and is sent away to Camp Green Lake for some disciplinary action, except the camp isn’t all that he expected it to be.

Stanley is in for a great adventure that allows him to put the family curse to rest, find buried treasure, survive yellow-spotted lizards, gain wisdom and inner strength, and forge the friendship of a lifetime, along with a chain of coincidences and quirky twists of fate that are delightfully tied in with the story.

The 2003 Walt Disney movie stars Shia Le Beouf and Sigourney Weaver. Let’s hope Disney channel airs this one soon; I think that except for the body type, Shia fits the character perfectly.

Postscript: someone from one of my book clubs read the book recently and commented that it didn’t exactly present something new for the YA genre.

I think that’s exactly why the book is so charming– it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. The best young adult books for me are those that succeed without trying to impress you, dealing with issues its readers can relate to but still making it fun.

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My copy: trade paperback movie cover, upgraded into hardcover with dustjacket
(I also have the hardcover sequel, plus Stanley Yelnats’ guide to Camp Green Lake in my TBR.)

My rating: 5/5 stars

Photos courtesy of http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk
http://www.tribute.ca

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

This is a book that I remember seeing a lot when I was in Grade School at the LRC, but I don’t know why I never got around to reading it. Maybe it’s because of the long title, haha, or maybe it’s because the cover isn’t appealing to kids.

Most people have probably had dreams of running away (if they didn’t actually run away) as they were growing up. Haha, I remember I used to plan my escape when my siblings ganged up on me, or when I got scolded (except I couldn’t stand the thought of roaming around on the streets in rags, with matching gunky hair and kariton). I think this is why I liked this book so much, because it’s a story about two kids who run away and actually succeed at it.

The book has a Home Alone quality to it, except that they’re at a museum and there are no bad guys, but they do have a mystery to solve.

I loved that of all places that Claudia and Jamie could run away to, it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art… Now if only we had a museum like that, maybe I’d have run away a long time ago. Haha, Jamie reminded me a lot like my brother, because he was the money shark and like Claudia, I used to be the brains that thought up ways of getting us into trouble when we were kids (uh, like the brilliant idea to polish the parquet with baby powder! boy, did we get punished for that!).

The characters are endearing, and I love that the book shows how smart kids can be, in a way adults would never expect.

There’s an old movie version (1973), with Ingrid Bergman as Mrs. Frankweiler, and a 1995 TV movie with Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Frankweiler. I wonder if I’ll ever get to watch those; I think the book makes for a really fun movie.

***
My copy: mass market paperback, wanting to be upgraded haha

My rating: 4/5 stars

Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin

Murder on the Leviathan is an amusing mystery dealing with the gruesome 1878 murder of Lord Littleby and his staff of 10 at Rue de Grenelle, Paris. Commissioner Gauche of the French police is assigned to the case and his only clue is a golden badge with the imprint of a whale that serves as a ticket onboard the ship Leviathan.
On the Leviathan, Gauche narrows down his suspects to a group of ten eccentric characters, gathered in the Windsor Salon. Among them are an Indian scholar, a doctor and his wife, the ship’s first mate, a emented baronet, a dubious Japanese army officer, a pregnant and loquacious Swiss banker’s wife, an old maid, and a suave Russian diplomat. The Russian is Erast Fandorin, who soon takes over the investigation from the bumbling Gauche.

Fandorin is similar to Sherlock Holmes, in his method and his logic, but it’s interesting how he is never on the centerstage throughout the novel, because in its entirety it is told from the point of view of the rest of the characters. The end was quite a romp, with a lot of unexpected twists and all in all, it was quite a good read. Looking forward to reading more Erast Fandorin mysteries :)

(Postscript: tried Sister Pelagia and the Bulldogs and Turkish Gambit but didn’t like them, mostly because of the politics and all the Russian names)…

***
My copy: trade paperback

My rating: 4/5 stars

Photo courtesy of Amazon (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1400060516.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)