Stuff it!

So, I woke up this morning to find an e-mail from the place I interviewed last week saying, in similar terms, thanks but no thanks.

Wait, what?? WHAAAAT? The interview that I thought went really well?? So now I am confused, and back at the drawing board. I guess it was nice of them to at least let me know, but I still hope their building burns down in a firey blaze of terror-filled shrieks that can be heard two counties over.

*charming smile!*

So yes, they can stuff it. I hope whoever they pick has really bad body odor!

.. Okay, now I'm done. Honest!!

In my unemployment phase, I have been reading a lot of books. I am BFF with our local library and their online reservations database, so I'm hoping to post some book reviews once I finish the one I'm currently working on. My question to you fellow reader-types ... any suggestions for new books? I'll read pretty much anything, but sometimes historical non-fiction will put me to sleep. Example... I checked out Skeletons on the Zahara a few weeks ago, as the description on the back looked like a great read! Fast forward to a few days later, where I have the prologue and about half of the first chapter under my belt, and I find this book is about as interesting to me as a sack of old boots. Hey, I tried! ;)

Suggest away!

All right, that's all from the seaside for today. It's rainy and gloomy out, so I think I'm going to set myself up with a movie! And don't forget about my giveaway, it ends Wednesday and it's right over there. :)

More book reviews!

Happy weekend, people! :)

I figured it was time to review another couple of books I read recently that were just great.

A Million Little Pieces
by James Frey

I didn't know about all of the controversy surrounding this book until after I read it. This is a memoir of a 23 year old's decent into drugs alcohol and near death, and chronicles his recovery in a rehab center. It was a great read that kept me turning the pages, however it may be too graphic for some, as the beginning withdrawal symptoms weren't too pretty.

So yeah, it was a great read, albeit a bit heavy. It's an Oprah's Book Club book, but the controversy lies in that the book itself wasn't completely true, and that parts of it are fabricated... I'll let you read up more on it yourself. :) Regardless, I enjoyed it. Really makes you realize that your problems aren't that bad compared to what some people are going through.

The Host
by Stephenie Meyer

Okay. Everyone's reading Twilight. I'm on the fence. So I figured I'd pick up one of her other books (described as 'more adult'), read that first, and if I enjoyed it I'd try out Twilight.

I'm going to Barnes and Noble today to buy Twilight.

This book was phenominal. I can't remember the last time I read a book that developed its characters so well, made me really care about all of them, and when the last page was done, hungrily wanted a sequel like RIGHTNOW.

(description yanked from her website, because I had a hard time figuring out how to describe it)

"Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.

When Melanie, one of the few remaining "wild" humans is captured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Wanderer probes Melanie's thoughts, hoping to discover the whereabouts of the remaining human resistance. Instead, Melanie fills Wanderer's mind with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she has been tasked with exposing. When outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off on a dangerous and uncertain search for the man they both love."

AMAZING. Great. I had medium-hopes for it but it excelled all of my expectations by a jillion percent. Barnes and Noble. OMW.



Oh yeah, look at this cool house that has real walls now!!



Will be making my birthday giveaway post later today, so stay tuned!

Book Reviews

So before I start reading my new books I figured I'd finally write brief reviews about the ones I've read...

The Glass Castle
by Jeanette Walls

I picked this book up absolutely randomly and holy cow. Seriously, a book I could not put down. (I told myself I'd read a certain amount of chapters every night, but I always found myself saying, just one more chapter...) It's the author's memoir of growing up with two absolutely nutty, out of their gourds parents, and her siblings. It may sound boring or cliche but her parents were really out of their gourds, and when the first line of a book is "My first memory is of being on fire." (or something akin to that) you're like whoa, okay. It's not a glamorous life at all, and as the families current situation of the moment always seems really horrible, whatever is in the next chapter is inexplicably worse. Your jaw will be dropping mid-book, and you'll be thanking yourself for the common luxuries of life such as heat, clean clothes, and a shower every day! (And sane parents, I hope.) It really is a story of her complete faith in her parents, whether she really loved them for their jillions of shortcomings, or if it was because she was just a naive child, who knows. (I lean towards the latter)

Of course it has a happy ending, as the author is fabulously wealthy and writes for MSNBC now, but seriously, this will make you look at your childhood and realize it was pretty darn good. READ IT. Seriously. :)



Life of Pi
by Yann Martell

Ah, the book you've seen every-friggin'-where, with the drawing of the little boy curled up in a lifeboat with a tiger. That's pretty much the meat of the story; it's about the son of a zookeeper who eventually winds up on a lifeboat in the Pacific with a handful of zoo animals. I don't want to give this book away at all, but it is somewhat about religion (and different views on it), and even though I am not a religious person it was a great read. I started this book off knowing it was written to make a point, but it starts reading so much like fantasy as events really get going that I completely forgot about it, and during the last few chapters, went "oooohhhhh". It really all ties together nicely, and it really is a story of survival about a boy with a will to live and a 350 pound tiger named Richard Parker in his boat that he has to figure out how to deal with.

Starts off kinda slow at first, but read it all, you'll need it for later. Once it starts going it's a great page turner, and you'll constantly wonder where all of this is going...



Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov

HATED it. I really wanted to like this book, I've really wanted to read it for a while now. It's a classic, it's controversial, blah blah. But it read as SO excruciatingly wordy and heavy to read that about 1/3 of the way through it I put it down and said, screw this (no pun intended), but I really can't be compelled to care anymore. Large paragraph after large paragraph of drawn out, wordy descriptions of this or that or here or there with very little dialogue or actual real-time actions or events just made me want to fall asleep. Blah. Next!



Yay! Now that those are out of the way, I can post my next two once I'm done reading. Feel free to recommend me some books, also, that you think I'd be interested in. I'm always up for new and exciting reads. :)