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mariaellabetos's reviews
648 reviews
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
1.0
If I were to categorize this book, this is not under an erotica genre. This is a fairy tale with a twist. This is not a chick-lit like Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic, but this is a story of the girl who once believed in love but fate led her to believe more.
And with that, the rationale of the star rating.
Comprehensive Review to follow as I need to review the other books I should have made a comparative study with.
And with that, the rationale of the star rating.
Comprehensive Review to follow as I need to review the other books I should have made a comparative study with.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
5.0
Another short and worthwhile to read. :)
You may refer to this link for the text, but this would be much better if you read it with pictures. :)
You may refer to this link for the text, but this would be much better if you read it with pictures. :)
Rango: The Novel by Ron Fontes, Justine Korman Fontes
2.0
I was fortunate to get a hold of this and purchase it at Php10 during a sale in the Powerbooks Shangri-la Mall branch.
Rango is about a once-stranded chameleon in the Mojave Desert. He met Roadkill, who was seeking the magical Spirit of the West to find the precious supply of water in the town of Dirt. He meets Beans who became his escort to the town center.
The Old West town, headed by the Mayor (who holds the remaining water reserves), appointed him as the Sheriff after his accidental fame of beating the outlaw named Bad Bill.
Then everything else was an irony. He blew his first job by letting the thieves got a hold of the town's remaining water reserves. Did he get the chance to redeem himself? Did he become a hero after all this?
What I felt at the time reading this was inexplicably bored. The book lacks the voice of Johnny Depp and Isla Fisher and Alfredo Molina as the principal characters. It lacks the comedy due to the lack of descriptive words. After all, I believe this is better seen in a flick, than read in a book.
Rango is about a once-stranded chameleon in the Mojave Desert. He met Roadkill, who was seeking the magical Spirit of the West to find the precious supply of water in the town of Dirt. He meets Beans who became his escort to the town center.
The Old West town, headed by the Mayor (who holds the remaining water reserves), appointed him as the Sheriff after his accidental fame of beating the outlaw named Bad Bill.
Then everything else was an irony. He blew his first job by letting the thieves got a hold of the town's remaining water reserves. Did he get the chance to redeem himself? Did he become a hero after all this?
What I felt at the time reading this was inexplicably bored. The book lacks the voice of Johnny Depp and Isla Fisher and Alfredo Molina as the principal characters. It lacks the comedy due to the lack of descriptive words. After all, I believe this is better seen in a flick, than read in a book.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
4.0
Told in a kid's perspective, everything is in fast-paced.
The victorian-ala-gothic drama was lacking in the story book, but I enjoyed the drawings and the love element. Simply nice.
I hope I have the luxury of time to reread this as it was written by Charles Dickens himself. :)
The victorian-ala-gothic drama was lacking in the story book, but I enjoyed the drawings and the love element. Simply nice.
I hope I have the luxury of time to reread this as it was written by Charles Dickens himself. :)
Chocolat: A Screenplay by Joanne Harris, Lasse Hallstrom, Robert Nelson Jacobs
4.0
The movie adaptation is recommended to all those who are in love with a piece of Chocolate.
I never watched this movie, let alone Joanne Harris' novel where the flick is adapted. That is why my mind has the liberty to imagine the setting and to reflect on the script and to picture the characters to the story.
Chocolat is a 2000 romance film directed by Lasse Hallström, the guy behind Cider House Rules, Casanova and Hachiko. Adapted by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, Chocolat tells the story of a young mother named Vianne Rocher, who arrives with her young daughter Anouk in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. Vianne, an expert chocolatier, arrived with her daughter in the middle of 1959 and opens La Chocolaterie Maya - a chocolate store - just in time for the Lent. Residents and their mayor Comte Paul de Reynaud stictly adheres to the tradition, thus thought that the opening of the store as a radical move. Added with the odd Mayan urns, statues, and not going to church, she is implied to be a witch travelling from one place to another, obeying to the orders of the Northern Wind.
At the start of the story people thought of her as an unusual but as the day passes she has gained some loyal customers to the chocolate store. One of the first to fall under the spell of Vianne and her confections is Armande, her elderly, eccentric landlady. Armande laments that her cold, devoutly-pious daughter Caroline will not let her see her grandson Luc because she is a "bad influence". Thanks to the store - Luc and his grandmother formed a friendship and an inseparable bond. Josephine, who is being abused by her alcoholic husband Serge, becomes her helper. Roux, a gypsy who arrived and camped on the outskirts of the village, became Vianne's friend and lover (in the end). Reynaud, considering the arrival of these characters as a source of breaking the tradition, is willing to do whatever it takes to get them out of town, telling the message that they are not welcome by sending out pamphlets of BOYCOTT IMMORTALITY.
I am happy to read this book / screenplay just in time for our Lent. Set with the same season, it is for the reader to reflect that while there are traditions embedded in our society in contemplating for the hardships of our God, this composition helped us to see the humanity of it. We do not eat meat, we fast, we pray religiously - but what of all this if we cannot maintain our promise to our heavenly father? We are to be true of ourselves, and our God knows that we are human - we have the freewill and the potential to influence ourselves and others.
AND I LOVE CHOCOLATE! YEY! :D
I never watched this movie, let alone Joanne Harris' novel where the flick is adapted. That is why my mind has the liberty to imagine the setting and to reflect on the script and to picture the characters to the story.
Chocolat is a 2000 romance film directed by Lasse Hallström, the guy behind Cider House Rules, Casanova and Hachiko. Adapted by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, Chocolat tells the story of a young mother named Vianne Rocher, who arrives with her young daughter Anouk in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. Vianne, an expert chocolatier, arrived with her daughter in the middle of 1959 and opens La Chocolaterie Maya - a chocolate store - just in time for the Lent. Residents and their mayor Comte Paul de Reynaud stictly adheres to the tradition, thus thought that the opening of the store as a radical move. Added with the odd Mayan urns, statues, and not going to church, she is implied to be a witch travelling from one place to another, obeying to the orders of the Northern Wind.
At the start of the story people thought of her as an unusual but as the day passes she has gained some loyal customers to the chocolate store. One of the first to fall under the spell of Vianne and her confections is Armande, her elderly, eccentric landlady. Armande laments that her cold, devoutly-pious daughter Caroline will not let her see her grandson Luc because she is a "bad influence". Thanks to the store - Luc and his grandmother formed a friendship and an inseparable bond. Josephine, who is being abused by her alcoholic husband Serge, becomes her helper. Roux, a gypsy who arrived and camped on the outskirts of the village, became Vianne's friend and lover (in the end). Reynaud, considering the arrival of these characters as a source of breaking the tradition, is willing to do whatever it takes to get them out of town, telling the message that they are not welcome by sending out pamphlets of BOYCOTT IMMORTALITY.
I am happy to read this book / screenplay just in time for our Lent. Set with the same season, it is for the reader to reflect that while there are traditions embedded in our society in contemplating for the hardships of our God, this composition helped us to see the humanity of it. We do not eat meat, we fast, we pray religiously - but what of all this if we cannot maintain our promise to our heavenly father? We are to be true of ourselves, and our God knows that we are human - we have the freewill and the potential to influence ourselves and others.
AND I LOVE CHOCOLATE! YEY! :D
Exit A by Swofford
3.0
When you are trapped, would you wait it out? Or would you find a way to get out?
Swofford takes another turn as he made his debut novel - a different genre from his memoirs as a marine. From Jarhead to Exit A, he put an element of first love, of Bonnie and Clyde and of conflict between nations.
Started in 1989, the novel is about Severin Boxx, son of an Air Force Colonel-trainer and Virginia Sachiko-Kindwall, daughter of the General that oversees Exit A and its enormous American air force base on the outskirts of Tokyo. Exit A is considered as the gateway to the outside world, of conflicts of Cold War, of North Korean plans to infiltrate Japan, and of its keys outside autonomy. We see that there is civilization outside - neon lights, warehouses, TV and noodle shops and Bonnie and Clyde - the most famous flick during that time.
Severin, a 17 year-old, is apparently inlove with Virginia Kindwall. The latter, being the general's daughter, is smart but defiant, thus became a petty criminal in the Japanese underworld. After Severin's rebellion with anonymity - putting Virginia's middle name as tattoo, quitting football in the middle of the game, and thrusting himself into her world, he is trapped in a trouble that is, for a teenager, way unmanageable and very much different from Bonnie and Clyde.
With a twist in the circumstance, their teenage romance ended abruptly and was reconnected by a mismanaged marriage, stale postcard, and Hideko. Soon, Severin, at his mid-thirties, embarked on a journey to find Virginia, rekindle their connections and bring her home.
Poignant and dark, Exit A is a tale of entrapment, of being jaded, and finally, of being found.
I first encountered the novel (paperback version) as a goodbuy in a Booksale branch near our residence. Though this is not part of 1001 books to read before you die, let alone part of my current group's 100 books to read for 2011-2012 (The Filipino Group in goodreads), I gave this affordable book a shot. In addition, it would not hurt if I do a fastpaced read on this, given it is thinner than my other classic novels to read on my shelf.
Part 1 is the introduction of the story and thus makes the story dragging. I am not an avid fan or war games, or of war in itself, but the scenarios described made me immersed in the story. The stiffness of the soldiers, the petty criminals, as well as the big-time kidnappers roaming some of Japan's metropolis made me realize that whatever we have here in my home city is the same as what in theirs.
Part 2 depicts the new life of Virginia and her defining moment as an adult, and elaborates the life of Severin as a PhD graduate mowing the lawn and trapped in a bizzare patient of his wife, thus inflicting a damage in their slowly dying marriage.
Part 3 makes the adventures of Severin as a middle-aged man as he looks for a way to meet Virginia and send her to her true family - her dad.
What was touching in the end is the moment when Virginia finally accepted her father into her heart, making herself whole, and Severin completing his quest. I was a bit dismayed by its open-ended angle with Severin and his unfinished business with his psychoanalyst wife, but he is determined that he is to answer those questions - with Virginia. Call it a fairy tale, but Swofford, in a way, admits this belief: no one cannot forget their first love, especially if it is true.
Swofford takes another turn as he made his debut novel - a different genre from his memoirs as a marine. From Jarhead to Exit A, he put an element of first love, of Bonnie and Clyde and of conflict between nations.
Started in 1989, the novel is about Severin Boxx, son of an Air Force Colonel-trainer and Virginia Sachiko-Kindwall, daughter of the General that oversees Exit A and its enormous American air force base on the outskirts of Tokyo. Exit A is considered as the gateway to the outside world, of conflicts of Cold War, of North Korean plans to infiltrate Japan, and of its keys outside autonomy. We see that there is civilization outside - neon lights, warehouses, TV and noodle shops and Bonnie and Clyde - the most famous flick during that time.
Severin, a 17 year-old, is apparently inlove with Virginia Kindwall. The latter, being the general's daughter, is smart but defiant, thus became a petty criminal in the Japanese underworld. After Severin's rebellion with anonymity - putting Virginia's middle name as tattoo, quitting football in the middle of the game, and thrusting himself into her world, he is trapped in a trouble that is, for a teenager, way unmanageable and very much different from Bonnie and Clyde.
With a twist in the circumstance, their teenage romance ended abruptly and was reconnected by a mismanaged marriage, stale postcard, and Hideko. Soon, Severin, at his mid-thirties, embarked on a journey to find Virginia, rekindle their connections and bring her home.
Poignant and dark, Exit A is a tale of entrapment, of being jaded, and finally, of being found.
I first encountered the novel (paperback version) as a goodbuy in a Booksale branch near our residence. Though this is not part of 1001 books to read before you die, let alone part of my current group's 100 books to read for 2011-2012 (The Filipino Group in goodreads), I gave this affordable book a shot. In addition, it would not hurt if I do a fastpaced read on this, given it is thinner than my other classic novels to read on my shelf.
Part 1 is the introduction of the story and thus makes the story dragging. I am not an avid fan or war games, or of war in itself, but the scenarios described made me immersed in the story. The stiffness of the soldiers, the petty criminals, as well as the big-time kidnappers roaming some of Japan's metropolis made me realize that whatever we have here in my home city is the same as what in theirs.
Part 2 depicts the new life of Virginia and her defining moment as an adult, and elaborates the life of Severin as a PhD graduate mowing the lawn and trapped in a bizzare patient of his wife, thus inflicting a damage in their slowly dying marriage.
Part 3 makes the adventures of Severin as a middle-aged man as he looks for a way to meet Virginia and send her to her true family - her dad.
What was touching in the end is the moment when Virginia finally accepted her father into her heart, making herself whole, and Severin completing his quest. I was a bit dismayed by its open-ended angle with Severin and his unfinished business with his psychoanalyst wife, but he is determined that he is to answer those questions - with Virginia. Call it a fairy tale, but Swofford, in a way, admits this belief: no one cannot forget their first love, especially if it is true.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
1.0
[Comprehensive Review shall be made after reading other books with the same genre]
Initial Review: THIS IS DEFINITELY A MOMMIE'S PORN. NO JUSTICE TO THE TITLE, NO DEVELOPMENT, NO LOVE ELEMENT. ALL ABOUT "Fifty Shades of Fucked-up", as the main character would say.
Initial Review: THIS IS DEFINITELY A MOMMIE'S PORN. NO JUSTICE TO THE TITLE, NO DEVELOPMENT, NO LOVE ELEMENT. ALL ABOUT "Fifty Shades of Fucked-up", as the main character would say.
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
2.0
The eye left me feeling creepier, weirder, and more insane than the moment I opened its e-book. I shall make a comprehensive / comparative review with the Paulo Coehlo's 11 minutes and EL James' 50 Shades of Grey