emma. jane austen. (307)

i decided to read emma, because,  the movie, clueless, was loosely based on it. i i recently read as if, and didn't get any of the emma reference, so figured it was time for me to read austen's classic.

to start, i have to add that the movie did mess with my head as a i read.  i kept on trying to sort out who was who based on the movie.  though i did not see any of the characters as the actors.  i did start watching emma, the mini series, so started to see jonny lee miller as mr. knightly.  also i knew that mr. frank churchill was engaged due to a quote i read in as if, so the big surprise at the end was not a big surprise.  i was also shocked at how blinded emma was to their relationship.  i must add i knew the piano was from frank because really he ran into town for a haircut?!?!

i have to admit that it did take me a while to get into the novel.  it was quite a struggle from to read this novel, especially since all of the good stuff happens in the last fourth of the novel.  other complaints included was mr. woodhouse's neediness, poor miss taylor indeed for having to listen to him whine. how horrible that he could not be happy for her but instead lamented about she was no longer in their service.  i have no idea how anyone put up with that.  and though i might be guilty of miss bates' blabbering on and on, but just reading the descriptions of her talking, bored me.  and maybe it's just because elton was so "so sweet that he gave me a toothache" in clueless (i would listen to the cranberries all day with him), but felt bad that mr. elton married such a dreadful woman!  ps kudos to amy heckerling on the picture fiasco which was a great mirroring of the painting mix up.  also love love loved how heckerling had tai burn her belongings from elton just like harriet did with her mr. elton things.

back to the novel, so though i was bored, i have to admit that just like emma, an darted through my heart when it came to mr. knightley.  austen created the most sensitive, noble, morale, loving men and mr. knightley was rather quite knightly.  she created these moments when her leading men confess their love and her readers sit there wishing it would happen to them! i mean what a dreamboat mr. knightley was when confessing his love for emma.  so sweet was this ending to the novel that i forgave austen for how bored i was in the beginning.

i will close in saying that even though i didn't love it straight off the bat, emma is like the quintessential girl novel, reminding us how naive we were when we were young and when it came to love and life.  how often we fall in love with men we can not have, and at the same time can be blinded to affection of someone else.  or we try to give someone advice and we really should just keep our noses out of their business.  i guess its best to say that, emma reminded me of how when i was younger, i though i knew everything, but really i was just clueless.  

the improbable theory of ana & zak. brian katcher. (306)

i decided to check out the improbable theory of ana & zak, after seeing it

posted on epic read's instagram

post of books for geminis.  i started following epic reads after i got a free tote from them at bookcon.  anyway, this was the post:  

i decided to read the improbable theory of ana & zak because i liked the title.  i had no idea what the book was about but the title sounded cute.  and i guess you can judge a book by its title because this book was cute.

the back cover broke down the story for me perfectly:

i figured this would be like a geeky nick and norah's infinite playlist, well sci-fi geeky, since nick and norah were music geeky.

as epic reads shared, this work would appeal to my dual nature and it did! the book flips back and forth between ana and zak's perspectives.  ana was this overachiever, do anything for college applications girl (totally me!), and zak was this slacker, sci-fi, convention-attending boy.  their paths crossed when zak, to make up for plagiarizing a report, joined the quiz bowl team that ana spearheaded, she was the unofficial captain of the team.  they get off to a rocky start when at the tournament, zak took ana's place for one round, this totally pissed her off.

the weekend of the tournament, sadly conflicted with washingcon, a convention that zak attended every year.  however, both are in seattle and miles apart. zak was disappointed but graduating was more important.  with the con being so close to the tournament, he did considered going.  however, he and ana end up at the convention when clayton, ana's little brother, took off to the convention after listening to zak's stories.

having never been to comic-con, but having attend hello kitty con and book con, i could imagine the chaos of washingcon. though reading this made me wish i had attended a comic-con.  

ana and zak went on a wild goose chase looking for clayton to avoid getting in trouble with ana's parents.  ana was super uptight and as it was revealed, because her parents kicked her older sister out because she got pregnant in high school.  this caused ana to stress about being perfect.  though she was annoyed with zak at first, she started to see that zak was a great and helpful guy.  

i totally would have had a crush on zak in real life, though the goatee would have to go! that goatee was the only thing that ruined my book crushing on him.  i hope ana got him to shave it.  zak was this sweet and easy going guy, friendly to all.  though his life wasn't perfect, it was revealed, his dad died of cancer, and he didn't get along with his stepdad.  however, his issues didn't effect how he treated ana, unlike how she treated him.  her meaness at the beginning is even more upsetting given how zak kept on getting beat up, thanks to ana.

since the setting is a con, a bunch of craziness happened, a vampire ball, a run-in with a strawberry shortcake cosplay player (is that right?), a battle, and like i mentioned, some fights. there was this weird twist, when zak found a bag of cocaine.  he was held hostage with a gun, this felt too extreme for me.  but the same thing happen on an episode of a different world, so i guess it could happen? i personally would have liked to have seen that part edited out because it felt too ridiculous to me.  it just seemed unrealistic, and excessive.

in the end, zak and ana of course, fell in love.  they found clayton, survived the drug dealer, and made it the tournament. i have to add i was anticipating that monte cristo question in the final round. the novel, being ya, cleaned up nicely, in the end, zak and his stepdad got along and ana finally stood up to her mom.

a cute book that i could totally see being turned into a movie.  however, i am too old to know who plays teens now, so can't give a dream cast. this was an enjoyable read and if teen me had read it, i would have totally gone to comic con because of it.  adult me might make it happen.

my cousin momo. zachariah ohora (305)

my cousin momo is the story about cousin momo, a flying squirrel, and his visit to his cousin's house.  his cousin were extremely excited about his visit.  however, momo's odd behavior, made them upset about the trip.

for example, momo, wanted to be a muffin man when they dressed up as superheroes! (i thought his costume was amazing!):

and then while playing hide and seek, cousin momo got distracted by the mushrooms and had to take pictures:

though we were not told this, it's obvious that cousin momo is a hipster flying squirrel visiting from williamsburg.  i mean i totally wanted to be his friend!  however, his cousins not so much.  there was an awkward moment where momo was about to head home but the cousin see that is fun, not weird.  so they all played together:

pastry power!

and accepted cousin momo for the hipster that he is!

a cute story with great illustrations! i highly recommend it!!

kitchens of the great midwest. j. ryan stradal (303)

after seeing kitchens of the great midwest all over my instagram (granted i do follow it's publisher's account), i decided to check it out.  also people had been posting pics of bars made from a recipe in the book, and with my new insta account @booksandsnacks, i figured i should read it.  being a lover of food and books, i was excited to read this book, but was also a little wary about how food would be portrayed.  but all my worrying was for nothing because j. ryan stradal knew his stuff!

kitchens of the great midwest chronicled the life of eva thorvald that ended with a meal that a culmination of her life that reminded me of a final challenge for top chef that would have made tom colicchio proud.  each portion of the meal related back to a story, the reader read about her life.

the novel opened with her father lars thorvald, an awkward but loving man and a great father.  he was a chef and was so excited to feed so much so that the doctor warned him about introducing things to early to eva.  i mean he wanted to give her pork shoulder at like three months, which is alittle extreme. however, helped provide eva with an extraordinary palette.  oh, i should add that lars was really a lovely person, it was so sweet to learn of his dedication to his family and he made the best lutefisk.  sadly, however lars passed away and eva was raised by her aunt and uncle, though she did not know it during her youth. i forgot to mentioned, by this point, eva's mother had abandoned her and lars.

the story then jumped to eva as a tween.  she was obsessed with peppers and after getting in trouble with at school ran away to her cousin, braque, who was away at college.  quick sidenote, eva had the coolest cousins (via her aunt by marriage/"mom"'s side) that had great taste in music, braque got her a bikini kill shirt and randy listened to nine inch nails.  anyway, braque and eva went around hustlin' people to make money, eva due to her high tolerance of spicy food, would shock adults with the spicy food she ate.

the next chapter of eva's life introduced, will prager, a boy who was her first sweetheart.  i have to add i loved will prager's taste in music as well (okay, stradal's amazing taste in music.)  i even listed out all the songs, which i youtubed as i read to help soundtrack the chapter:

"where is the love"

"super bon bon" soul coughing

"car" built to spill

"in an airplane over the sea" neutral milk hotel

"fade into you" mazzy star

"why (mtv unplugged version)" annie lennox

"reason to believe"

their first date was at a fancy restaurant and it reminded me of when i first started fine dining, how unsure i was about the procedures and of course how much i would be spending.  it was a nice little stroll down memory lane.  anyhoot, it is her that the reader and will realized that eva had a special gift when it came to food and she began working in that very restaurant.  i have to add that eva moved away and though i hoped that will would come back into her life and they would end up lovers, but this did not happen.

the next part of eva's life revolved around dinner parties, which reminded me of the dinner parties that my friend danny used to host.  they weren't potlucks, he did all of the cooking, nor were they as catty. thought it was probably just octavia that was catty.  i mean she was horrible person and had a bad life because she made bad choices.  but back to those dinner parties, eva was so nice and her caesar salad sounded amazing!

i have to admit that was a little bored by the storyline that introduced jordy.  i am going to say that that part was just to introduce venison into the menu.  odd, but i read it.  i think the novel would have been better if the venison was included a different way that related more to eva.

i was very excited about pat pragar's section, mostly because i made those bars and they were delish.  also that new woman was so mean.  and i wonder what happen when she got pulled over.  also, those vegan people were the worse, but i guess if you were vegan, you would be angry and hungry too.

the last part of the book, reintroduced cindy, eva's mom that abandoned her.  her life though enjoyable was not great, which felt kind of like karma for abandoning her daughter.  by this time in the story, eva was a successful chef.  she started out by hosting these random dinner parties around town, well the town she lived in.  she then decided to start a pop-up dinner party.  i had seen something like it on top chef, but have sadly never attended one of those.  she was so successful that she began doing her dinners in even more exotic places, and the waiting list was years longs.  anyway, cindy decided to get on the wait list so that she can meet her daughter.  it is from cindy's perspective that we learn of the dinner of eva's lifetime.  it's pretty amazing, i was impressed by the courses and everything related back to the stories, we had read.  it was brillant, as a lover of food and good storytelling, i couldn't imagine a better way to end a great novel.  also, all of the people from eva's life, were there as well.

it really was the perfect ending to a great book! i really can't get over how great it was that the meal related back to her life.  well, done stradal.  this book is definite read if you love food. i highly recommend and as an added bonus, there are also recipes in it, so you can make some of what you read. i recomend pat pragar's bars!

here is pat's recipe:

here are some of the recipes i want to try:

mom's chicken wild rice casserole:

mom's carrot cake

barn ramstad's kraft caramel bars 

last celeste's mississippi mud bars which reminded me of something my grandma would make, but we called them brownies.

the festival of insignificance. milan kundera. (303)

i checked out the festival of insignificance because its the first book that milan kundera has written in 6 years, i think.  i don't know it's been a while, so i decided to check it out.  i did reread the unbearable lightness of being in anticipation.  and just like i felt that i wasn't intelligent enough to completely grasp how wonderful unbearable is, i was definitely not intelligent enough to get this book.  i mean there was a bit about stalin and one of his guys that was old and wet his pants.  there were four friends.  there was musings on women's body parts being sexy and what that had to say about the era (i thought that was quite witty).  there was a future mother that drowned a man when she tried to commit suicide because she was pregnant, this was a complete shock to me.  there was an actor who made up his own language.  a man that lied about having cancer.  a mother, who was an angel, that passed away.  there was an absent mother.  there was talk about a play that completely theoretical, i liked that talk.  but all in all there wasn't too much cohesiveness to make this a full story for me.

i did google afterwards to help myself understand it more.  also to see that hopefully i wasn't an idiot, but i did find one guy that was just as confused as i was.  and he loved kundera.  his article was good.  you should read it, it is better than any review, i would write.  you can read that article here.

i mean there were some deep little musings that i enjoyed.  the one how women like men that do not overwhelm them with flirting, because it causes them too much pressure to perform, instead we like men that seem to ignore us because its the insignificance that sets us free.

i liked the talking about lines.  because i hate lines at museums, though i always find myself in them.  i absolutely hate how people will wait in a line to see artwork, i purposely bounce around when i see this happen in hopes that people will follow suite.

the idea of apologizers was interesting to think about since i am one.  a boy i once dated pointed out how i always said i was sorry for things when there was nothing to be sorry for, but i did it out of habit/reflex.  who knows why.  though amy schumer has this great skit about it just being in women's nature to apologize because of society.  though the apologizers in kundera's work were both men.  and i do agree that apologizing does make you the scapegoat for things when you did nothing wrong and just say it.  but i do agree with charles that i would like a world filled with people who apologized versus not.

i also liked that mom's rant on human rights.

all in all this book felt insignificant and maybe that was point.  maybe kundera wrote this book just to get out random little thoughts and made it a quick read to demonstrate how the thoughts we think are insignificant.  they are best when in discussion but when they stop being part of our dialogue, they use their meaning.

oh and i didn't really get that whole play thing in the end. i don't know.  read this if you want, it's short, but really in comparison to his other works it seems insignificant.

don't fail me now. una lamarche.

as part of penguin's first to read program, i was able to read don't fail me now by una lamarche.  here is my review for the first to know website:

Having read LaMarche's "Like No Other", I decided to spend the points to guarantee my reading of "Don't Fail Me Now."

Again, LaMarche has taken teens with different backgrounds and thrown them together to learn that you can always find common ground regardless of your differences.  "Don't Fail Me Now" told the story of Michelle Devereaux and her struggle to keep her family together.  Michelle was 17 years old, but did not enjoy the carefree life that most teens do.  Her days were not filled with parties or hanging out with friends, instead Michelle worked part-time at Taco Bell and took care of her younger siblings, Cass and Denny.  Unfortunately, their mother was a drug user and in jail and their father had left years before, thus leaving Michelle as the responsible one in their home, making sure her siblings attended school and were fed.   When we first met Michelle, she was tying to keep her siblings out of foster care and living with an aunt that was more concern with money then helping take care of her family.

As Michelle struggled to keep it together, she was thrown a curveball.  Michelle's half sister, Leah showed up with the help of her stepbrother, Tim to inform her that their estranged father, Buck, was dying.  prior to this Michelle had never met Leah, and only knew of her because of her parents arguments, when she was younger.  Though Michelle had always dreamt of meeting her sister, once she did, she wished she hadn't.  Michelle's regret at meeting her half sister was due to the fact that Leah's life was not as complicated and Michelle and her siblings' lives.  Leah's mother remarried a wealthy man and Leah did not have to the same money issues as Michelle.  There was also a difference due to race, Buck their father was White, and so was Leah's mother, but Michelle's mother was Black.  Leah lived a very privileged life in contrast to the ones of her siblings.  As much as Michelle wanted to have a relationship with her half sister, she was upset that Leah was sheltered from the issues Michelle faced.

When Tim and Leah first met Michelle, they mentioned that Buck had something of value for her. Hoping that this gift would provide her money to get her mother out of jail and pay her aunt, Michelle decided to drive cross country to California to visit Buck on his deathbed.  In an act of goodwill, she invited Leah so that she could get closure as well.  Leah's stepbrother, Tim, joined the road trip to help Leah.

The trip got off to a rocky start.  Leah and Tim were used to traveling a certain way while Michelle was on a budget, caused a division between the siblings.  However, as they travel, they work together to survive their trip.  In addition to that they learn, that tough they may differ based on race and class, they have had to face similar struggles in life.  They learn more about each other and begin to relate not only as friends, but also as sisters.  There is even a romance that blossoms between Tim and Michelle.  I have to add I had a total book crush on Tim, he was so sweet and the boy could sing.

Without giving too much away, they do make it to california, and though they lost their father, they became a family.  "Don't Fail Me Now' was an enjoyable read, demonstrating that we can't always pick our relatives, but at the end of the day, they are the ones that care and love us the most.

as if! the oral history of clueless as told by amy heckerling, the cast, and the crew. jen chaney

if you know me, you know i love clueless.  so when i discovered that a book about the making of clueless was coming out, i added it to my goodreads to be read list.  and i hit the jackpot when i entered a los angeles magazine for a copy of the book and i won!  totally cool, right?  i was so excited!

so i absolutely loved the book and though i didn't think it was possible, the book made me love the movie even more!  the work is an oral history, some parts taken from previous interviews for television and magazines, as well as interviews that the author, jen chaney conducted.  and it seemed that as much as i love it, everyone loved working on it.  i mean it did hit some bumps along the road, but for the most part, the cast and crew loved working on the film, which is probably, why it is so great.

my favorite parts of the book were:
-slang dictionary
-the casting process
-the fashion
-the breakdown of all of the scenes
-the soundtrack

i have to admit that i did get bored with the last part of the book.  i mean i get the cultural influence of the movie, so that part started to get a little redundant.

so here are some of the fun facts that i learned:

-first, in the "virgin who can't drive" scene, tai doesn't say "i'm outtie", but "i'm audi" like the car!
-heckerling was a genuis when it came to creating slang for the film, she had all of these references

-i need to read emma (also wow gwenyth paltrow hating on clueless!)

-the real mr. hall was in the film as the principal.  also he was a real teacher at beverly hills high.  i texted my friend danny, who went to bhhs and he had a class with the real mr. hall!
-i would have LOVED jerry orbach as cher's dad, damn law and order for not allowing that to happen!
-it was crazy to see all the people that were considered for roles, and as much as i love sarah michelle geller, i can't imagine her as amber, also could not see lauryn hill as dionne, though i love the fugees
-learned that donald faison and terrance howard were cousins
-its shocking to think that some of the scenes went on with it raining outside
-mona may, the designer, was a genius when it came to all of the fashion!
-they were so meticulous that they even dressed the extras, which is why there are so many great fashion moments in the background when you watch
-paul rudd wore his own shirts!
-alicia silverstone didn't know how to pronounce haitians!
-heckerling was spot on when she showed up cellphones would take over ie cher and dionne talking on their cells right next to each other
-elisa donovan aka amber didn't get the balls joke initially
-the mugging actor's sotry was really cool
-the party scene with mighty mighty bosstones was filmed at the moca's geffen!!!! i think i know which stairs, tai fell down, get ready for a pic in the future!
-i thought the freeway scene was done in long beach
-i had no idea that "all by myself" was actually a jewel cover
-i didn't realize all of the music that was in the movie
-also no doubt's people really fucked up by not letting them on the soundtrack
-they got lucky cos the beastie boys actually licensed a song to them which they said they never do, which is odd considering all the unlicensed music on "paul's boutique" lol
-also oasis was mean for not giving them the last song

seriously so much good stuff.  if you love the movie, you really need to pick up this book, it is a great and informative read!