First of all, I hated the movie Sideways. However, I watched it when I was maybe 19, had no appreciation for wine and a deep hatred for Paul Giamatti. Now I’m, well, older than that. I love wine. I still hate Paul Giamatti, but since he’s not actually in the book, I thought I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did, since I found the book considerably more enjoyable — not sure whether to attribute that to my own personal changes, or that the adaption varied greatly from the […]
If you like your romances dark…
I’m reluctant to give too much information about the plot of Alice Hoffman’s Here on Earth. I didn’t really know what it was about going in, and I think that made it a much more compelling and surprisingly good read (especially for a novel I grabbed for $3 back on recognition of the author’s name only). That’s probably because lines like the following, which can be read in different ways and therefore reveal different things about the characters: “Unfinished business always comes back to haunt […]
One Hell of a Ride
From the moment Snow Crash starts, you know you’re in for quite a ride. In an alternate future sometime around the turn of the 21st century, a pizza delivery boy working for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc. is careening through town, trying to make his delivery in under 30 minutes (or face the dire consequences). Stephenson immediately introduces my favorite aspects of the novel: the crazy slang, the privatization of everything, including city-states called Burbclaves, the penalties suffered by late pizza deliveries. The United States has been reduced to a […]
But…but…where’s the rest of it??
I’m going to echo Caitlin_D’s sentiments regarding Love All: it could have been 5 stars if Callie Wright had finished the damn thing. Instead, it drops off suddenly with nothing really resolved. This caused me to spend the last 50 pages going, “How is she going to wrap everything up in time?”, then thinking, “Oh, I guess she’s just not going to?”. Maybe she’s going to write a sequel, but I somehow doubt it (no teasers on Goodreads, for one). Very frustrating for a novel with such great […]