Book to Movie Review

TITLE: Alice in Wonderland
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
SOME ACTORS/ACTRESSES: Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bartem Carter to name a few
PREMISE: When she was young, Alice had the infamous adventure in Wonderland. Now she's older and thinks it was a dream. Her life is not going the way she wants, and just as it all gets to be too much she falls down a familiar rabbit hole...
MY REVIEW: This is so far my favorite movie of the year. I know there are a lot of naysayers out there who hate what Burton has done to Alice (my newspaper's reviewer complained about him making it into "just another fantasy film" but he hates fantasy films in general so yeah...) and perhaps they have a point or two (I do admit as much as I love Burton, I wish he would work with different people sometimes). But I don't care. I loved it. Best movie in the world? No, not really. But fun take on Alice in Wonderland? Most definitely.
Visually it's spectacular. I will note that I did not see the 3D version, mostly because I feel 3D is a gimmick nowadays for films and I don't care for it. Especially since this film is so beautiful it doesn't NEED 3D popping out at you distracting from the awesome CGI backgrounds. Costumes were awesome (I want those blue stripe rosette gloves Alice had so bad) and as always the characters were great. I loved Johnny Depps version of the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat was the perfect blend of cute and creepy (crupy if you will...okay that's kind of lame).
Anyway, it's a great movie if you're an Alice in Wonderland lover who doesn't mind that Alice has been slightly tweaked a little. Kids will love it, I'm sure. In fact I'm positive, because the kids who were watching the movie in the audience with me were TOTALLY QUIET. No, I'm serious! They were! I feel like congratulating Burton just for that alone.
WHO SHOULD SEE: Alice in Wonderland fans (who don't mind changes), fantasy freaks, Tim Burton fans, Johnny Depp fans, you want to see a visual effects movie but don't want to see Avatar because like me you're sick of hearing about it
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five Cheshire Cats

Library Loot...March 8th through March 22nd

I know there's a meme like this around somewhere already but oh well. I went to the library yesterday and managed to snag these:

The Last Knight by Hilari Bell
Faerie Wars series Book 1: Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan
Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot
House of Night Book 1: Marked by P.C.Cast and Kristin Cast
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

It's Monday! What are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Well Last Week I finished and reviewed the following:
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Sookie Stackhouse Book 5: Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn

Just recently (as in today) I finished:
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Currently I am reading:
Gilda Joyce series Book 2: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison
Sookie Stackhouse Book 6: Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
Emma by Jane Austen

I will definitely be reading this next:
Percy Jackson 2: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riorden
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Whatever I get when I go to the library today.

Book Review: The Mists of Avalon

TITLE: The Mists of Avalon
AUTHOR: Marion Zimmer Bradley
PUBLISHED: 1982
GENRE: Adult, fantasy, fiction retelling
PREMISE: The women give their take on the tale of Arthur and Camelot.
MY REVIEW: This was a ambitious idea. I do give that it was beautifully written and some of the historical stuff mixed in with the tale of Arthur that we know was interesting and it does make you think. Unfortunately, I didn't care for how the book was executed.
It was a bit annoying how the point of view jumped from woman to woman. I kind of wish the author had just done either one woman or dedicated each book to a woman. I also think that the book was way too long and could have done with cutting parts because a lot of it was not needed for the central idea of the story. Plus, I'm still trying to figure out why people kept telling me this was a feminist book because I didn't really see anything feminist about it except for the fact that it's written in the point of view of the women (and many of those women were whiny and self-righteous and didn't actually neccessarily do anything). But that could be just me. I also found the religious talk rather annoying at times (but again that's me).
So while it is an interesting tale, it was just sort of dull for me. I do reccomend trying it out at least once if you're into epic fantasy though.
WHO SHOULD READ: King Arthur fans, epic fantasy buffs
MY RATING: Three out of Five swords

FOR THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:
Support Your Local Library
One Hundred Plus Books

On My Wishlist...

The amount I want this book out now is sad. Anyone who has read the last book in the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane knows how she left it and are probably just as eager to read it as I am (assuming they still remember the series, there was a bit of a lull between book eight and this one). I can't wait for Duane to get back to this series. Info on Wizard of Mars is here on Amazon. If you have not read the Young Wizards series and are curious the first book in it is So You Want to be a Wizard

On my wishlist is a meme hosted by Book Chick City.

Book Review: The Bar Code Tattoo

TITLE: The Bar Code Tattoo
PART OF A SERIES: Book 1 of 2
AUTHOR: Suzanne Weyn
GENRE: Young adult, science fiction, thriller
PREMISE: In the near future, everyone gets a bar code tattoo. Mostly because they have no choice. Kayla is suspicious of it and soon learns that it's probably a good thing she was so suspicious of it.
MY REVIEW: It's not long into this book when you realize it's one of THOSE science fiction books. You know the kind: the ones that warn against stuff going on today, question everything, etc. The problem with these kinds of science fiction books is they can go one of two ways: have interesting ideas but your bored to tears so you can't really enjoy it or reccomend it, or have interesting ideas cleverly woven into a decent story. Luckily, this is the latter kind.
Weyn keeps an excellent pace in this book. It's not difficult to get into and along the excitement it also makes you think about things and the way our society is going. The scary thing about this book is that a lot of the stuff in here is not that far off the mark of what could happen. I don't particularly believe we'll be gaining super powers (that was a little off the mark for me), but the thing about a corporation gaining enough power to do what Global-1 does in this book? I have no problem believing that. Especially with that law that Congress/whoever made not to long ago concerning corporations (if you follow politics you know the one I'm talking about).
But anyway, the future Weyn painted is grim and sadly not totally unrealistic. It makes for interesting reading. My only complaint is that characters weren't totally fleshed out and there were some obvious plot points going on. Other then that, this is a really interesting Science Fiction thriller.
WHO SHOULD READ: if you like science fiction/future type stories.
MY RATING: four out of five tattoos

FOR THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:
YA Challenge on J-Kayes blog
12 by 12 in March
One Hundred Plus Books
Support Your Local Library

Booking Through Thursday-March 4rth

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

I have one grammer/writing book from college that I've kept: Quick Access: A Reference for Writers, 3rd Edition by Lynn Quitman Troyka. It's a great source for grammer that has helped me a lot. Yes, I've read it; college has this crazy thing where they like you to read your books, plus I actually had to buy this one so I wasn't wasting my money.
Grammer is important to me. Probably my grandmother's fault (retired English teacher) so I've always had this thing where improper use of puncuation irritates me. I'm not total control-freak over it (because a lot of the time, I myself am not sure of the rules since there are so many of them) but blatant mistakes drive me nuts and can sometimes keep me from enjoying a book (Book example: Twilight and it's abuse of the dash and theosaurus). If the improper usage is deliberate (such as the novel Push by Saphire because it was in the girls point of view and she was illiterate) then I do not mind so much. But I think if you're going to have a novel published, then please have the decency to have limited to no mistakes otherwise, how do you expect people to take you seriously as an author? On that note, please forgive any grammer mistakes possibly made in this post.

WWW Wednesday-March 3rd and shoutouts

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
This Meme is hosted by MizB at Should be Reading

What are you currently reading?
Emma by Jane Austen
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (yes, still, it's not my fault have you seen the size of that book? It's like four books in one)
The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn

What did you recently finish reading?
Sookie Stackhouse 5: Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod Book 1: Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer
The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
The Looking Glass Wars Trilogy Book 2: Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor
All these reviews are on this blog.

What do you think you'll read next?
Sookie Stackhouse 6: Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
Gilda Joyce series Book 2: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison
Percy Jackson series Book 2: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riorden
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

This also has nothing to do with the meme but I have to give a few shoutouts this week:

First a shoutout to Becky at Page Turners for featuring my blog on her blog spotlight. Yes, it was a contest win but I still appreciate that she does it in the first place so thank you Becky. She is also now starting another contest like the one I won so if you want to be featured on her blog and get a little publicity go check it out!

Second, a shoutout to s.meadows at The Unread Reader for giving me my first blog award, One Lovely Blog. Many thanks and I will be working on passing it on this week. I just have to figure out which ones I want to award it too...this may take awhile...

Lastly a shoutout to the ladies at Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates for my new blog look. It was free but at least now my blog no longer looks boring. Go check out their site for freebies and great tutorials on html if like me you are a little clueless about all these codes. I'm also pretty sure they do comissions.

March New Releases

Ah, a new month, meaning new releases (and paperback versions of ones we couldn't get earlier). Here's a few you all may be interested in to know (or ones that I'm just plain excited about and think people should take a look at):
Sisters Grimm 7: The Everafter War by Michael Buckley. Paperback version, out today!
Hex Hall: Book 1 by Rachel Hawkins. Hardcover, out March 2nd.
Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn by Fuyumi Ono. Hardcover, out March 2nd.
The Agency 1: A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee. Harcover, out March 9th
Fourth Book of Pellinor: The Singing by Alison Croggan. Paperback version, out March 9th.
Evernight novel: Hourglass by Claudia Gray. Hardcover, out March 9th.
Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel by James Patterson. Harcover, out March 15th.
Allie Finkle: Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out by Meg Cabot. Hardcover, out March 16th.
Princess for Hire by Lindsey Leavitt. Hardcover, out March 16th.
House of Night Novel: Hunted by P.C.Cast and Kristin Cast. Paperback version, out March 16th.
Shadow Mirror by Richie Tankersley. Paperback, out March 18th.
Darkest Powers Trilogy 2:The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong. Paperback version. Out March 23rd.
Savvy by Ingrid Law. Paperback version, out March 23rd.
Fablehaven Book 5: Keys to the Demon Prison by Brandon Mull. Hardcover, out March 23rd.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Jane Austen and Steven Hockensmith. Paperback, out March 24rth.
Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien. Hardcover, out March 31rst.

Book Review: Sookie Stackhouse Number 5

TITLE: Dead as a Doornail
PART OF A SERIES: Book 5 in the Sookie Stackhouse Series/Southern Vampires series
AUTHOR: Charlaine Harris
GENRE: adult, mystery, romance, urban fantasy, vampires
PREMISE: In the fifth Sookie Stackhouse book, snipers are taking out shifters in the small town of Bon Temps; the were pack is in the midst of choosing a leader; Eric is trying to work out what happened to him in the last book and many other things.
MY REVIEW: Still addicted to this series and I have given up trying to figure out why. Like the other books there are many things going on in this and Sookie has to deal with it. Some events she handles well, others not so much. I have a definite feeling that there will be consequences coming from this book. Especially with the outcome of who becomes leader of the were-pack (not saying!).
Harris still keeps a great pace in this series and still keeps it interesting. She also slowly shows how things are in these fantasy worlds without giving it all away at once which I appreciate. I also found Andy Bellefleur's more active involvement really interesting and can't wait to see what becomes of that. I also can't wait to see what Eric does with his new found knowledge. All in all, if you are fan of this series, you will not be disappointed.
WHO SHOULD READ: vampire fans, Twilight fans, True Blood fans, if you liked the first few books
MY RATING: Three and a half out of five hot vampires

FOR THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:
Finish that Series
One Hundred Plus Books
12 by 12 Challenge for March