Blast From the Past

The following reviews were first blogged by me on the now-defunct Multiply site. With a little editing and proofreading, I have refreshed some of my old reviews.

Book Review 
As first blogged on Multiply on August 16, 2009 

My one achievement this summer was that I was able to read a lot more books than I have ever had since I came to America. In fact, I've read more books now than I did before coming here (when I was still in Manila).  Trying to save money by not traveling has allowed me the luxury of time to read. And read, I did. Granted, the reading material is mostly light and easy reads, but when it's summertime and I need a break from work, it's something that eases the mind and is just relaxing.

So here are some of my reviews of the books I have read this summer (warning: spoilers):

Note: Unfortunately, the author has used some
of the funds for his charity for personal
expenses leaving his reputation in tatters.

I started reading this book either last year or early this year.  Because of all the craziness at work, I only got to finish the book in early summer. Why is that? Well, the first part talked about mountain climbing and all that stuff which could get technical and a bit dragging. But once it started talking about the hardships the author had to go through in order to get his first school set up, it became a lot more interesting. I liked his notion that education was the main weapon to combat extreme Muslim groups in Pakistan and even Afghanistan. He was able to explain how people in that region could be drawn and recruited by the Taliban and how important it was to educate people, especially the women in order to fight against the brainwashing that can sometimes occur with extremists. He did portray also that non-extremist Muslims share mostly the same values of education, peace, hard work, etc. as the rest of the Christian world. Once the school-building got started, I got more into it. It is a very inspiring story that there is hope amidst all the terror in the world right now, and an individual CAN make a difference.

According to some news sources, they say the author is being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize this year... (Note: Obama won that year and donated $100,000 of his cash prize to Greg Mortensen's Central Asia Institute. If nothing else, Mortensen did set up schools however, the misuse of funds certainly placed a damper on his message of education in order to fight extremism.)

So that was my "heavier" read for this summer. Now onto the "lighter" section... If my former student from Iloilo, Philippines had not asked me to order some Twilight merchandise to sell in Iloilo, I would not have thought to read the series. I am not a "young adult" a.k.a. teens/early 20s, and so I am commenting on this based on my mental age (whatever that is!).

Admittedly, it's a vampire love story, but honestly, I have never met a sappier guy than Edward Cullen. "Take care of my heart, because I left it with you..." [puke]. "I like watching you sleep...." [creepy]. "You're like my own personal drug...my own brand of heroin...." [uh-oh, drug pusher]. Seriously, no matter what year you were born in (he was supposed to be 17 years old in 1918), if you were a guy and you said that, wouldn't that be too.... over-the-top saccharine-filled mush that any practical, sensible, AND realistic woman would know that it's just a line? Ha! 
The books also give misconceptions on what love is. First of all, the girl is pretty much a loser with no life and no friends, and she has her world revolving around this one dude. Unhealthy and pathetic, don't you think? Secondly, teenagers are reading this and Bella is pretty much throwing herself at Edward and wanting to engage in intercourse. Yes, yes, Edward insisted on waiting till after they get married, but I sure hope this is not a reflection of teenage girls of today and/or start giving teen girls ideas that it is perfectly acceptable to throw yourself at guys. Also, the whole idea of "imprinting" seems to give readers the idea that love is NOT a choice. That love just happens and you have one soulmate and that's it.  There's nobody else. And once you've been imprinted, nothing else matters. Hmmm... do I see a trend here? I sure hope readers are smarter and can discern these things better...
One critique is how the author just totally changed the concept of vampires and werewolves...oops! I mean, shapeshifters... (how politically correct). Vampires now glisten in the daylight and they don't just come out at night anymore. Will the next generation still remember the classic vampire persona literature has embodied prior to the Twilight series?  When I read "Breaking Dawn," it actually seemed more like X-Men than a vampire story because of all the "supernatural" powers the vampires had (like they weren't supernatural enough already!). The ending was anticlimactic. The author built it up well and readers expect a close fight between Volturi and the Cullen camp, but nah! They just talked their way out of it...  Chicken!
All in all, it WAS an entertaining enough read, but you have to get past all the honey-dripping pages to get to some kind of action.  Also, being the teacher that I am, I cannot help but be distracted by several grammatical errors and missing words... She needs to get a better editor, considering her background is also in English Lit, you would expect she would proofread a little before she turned her work into the publisher.

Here is a funny clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mixed in with scenes from Twilight the movie.  It illustrates just how weird Edward's character is...


That was such a long rant that I should have just made a separate review just for the Twilight series (and yes, I finished reading all four books!).

Now onto children's books. I have always loved children's literature and I really got into the fairy tale genre this summer. I've had "Fairest" sitting on my bookshelf for the longest time (I got it on sale), but I only had the opportunity to read it now. No real complaints except she tried to be creative with gnome-speak by having it written backward like sarhT. It would have been better if it were still an actual word just written backwards like retteB for better.  So there were definitely a lot of nonsense words that you can't even say. It's as if she just randomly ran her fingers over the keyboard to come up with a bunch of scrambled letters  Since it was entertaining enough, I noticed that I had  "Cinderellis and the Glass Hill" in a box full of my classroom library books. I quick read it in less than an hour. Again, it was entertaining, lighthearted reading.  

Another book just sitting on my shelf for some time now (yes, I bought it on sale) is  Book 1 of The Mistmantle Chronicles. It looked very kiddie, but it's surprisingly not kiddie (IMO) because of the violence. It actually touched on topics that are akin to abortion and euthanasia. There were definite killings in the book and talks of darkness and evil. It's definitely not something you'd want to read to an 8-year old before bedtime. I actually found the book engaging and yes, maybe next summer, I'll read Book 2 of the series. (I think there are 4-5 in this series so far....).

I nearly forgot that I also read the third installment of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw." Its comic style and easy read make it entertaining enough that my nephew who isn't a bookworm like his Irish twin older sister has this on his reading list. This is one of my "fast food" reads. 

Not a bad haul considering I spent the early part of the summer vacation playing on my Nintendo DS (darn those addicting puzzle games).

I don't know how much reading I can squeeze in this school year, but I do look forward to next summer especially since I am really tapping into local resources (i.e., the public library). So I guess the summer was not a total waste, and my one regret is that I wish I had read more.