Movie Review: Ruby Sparks

Photo Credit: rottentomatoes.com

I have mixed feelings about this movie. No I won't discuss the underlying feminist/anti-feminist themes the movie may or may not have. Just the shallower points heehee. Of course it started cutesy. What's it about? Phenomenal author of a great American novel lives a lonely life while experiencing major writer's block then gets inspired by a woman who visits him in a dream. Basically the movie started off with Calvin's (Paul Dano) reaction to seeing Ruby (Zoe Kazan) in the flesh and "out of his mind", his brother's initial disbelief and fascination upon meeting her, the start of their relationship.

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An Affair With Books... and Movies too!

Hey there to anyone who happens to read this blog! I decided to add movie reviews! I think that would work just fine since books do make crossovers to the silver screen.

I do want to tell you as early as now that I'm not a movie critic, and I would most likely not discuss the technical aspect such as if so and so had great acting chops or if the script and delivery were flawless, so please don't take my posts seriously. I would most likely be telling you how I felt and what I thought about the (characters/plot of the) movie. And also, I would most likely be peppering the movie reviews with lots of spoilers, so my apologies.

I think I would be blogging about the movies I've watched so I would remember how they made me feel, and the things I realized after watching them. I guess I'm sort of making a memory bank with this blog. I hope you don't take it against me.

On the literary front, I have read a few books in 2012, some of which are from the dystopian YA genre (I am getting so into it that I almost believed and prepared for the Mayan calendar end of the world hoax). I hope I will find the time to review them in the summer after my board exams. I do want to keep this blog alive.

And oh yeah, Happy New Year everyone!

First movie review in the next post!

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Super quick update

This blog is still alive! I've read a couple of books this year but I can't find the time to review them. #frustration

Hope I could do a review or two at least once a month. *crosses fingers*

Have a great day/evening, wherever you are in the world! ☺

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I'm Selling Books(etc.)! ☺

I have made an online shop for the books and other reading materials I'm selling. I had set up one in Multiply late last year, but I guess I wouldn't be able to draw as much attention to it as my blog would (hopefully). Also, registering as a Multiply seller requires a bank account etc. and I don't want such complications. :P

The stuff I'm selling ranges from English novels to Archie comic books to Precious Hearts Romances pocketbooks (yeah I read those. Guilty pleasure. Hahaha! My favorite author is Belle Feliz. Next is Princess Faye. But I'm selling titles by other writers.). Please do check it out! Just click on the photo. If you're interested to buy anything, you can email me at shopmonsterpretty@gmail.com and I'll reply as soon as I can. ☺

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Book Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Me, as a reader: I can read a book in a day or in a matter of hours if the story is very riveting, while it takes me days or even months to read something when I am bored to tears by the plot (yeah I have the patience to finish a book I started reading, however long it takes me to do so). However, when I read love stories and inspirational fiction (e.g. Sparks, Coelho), I tend to drink all that literary sweetness in, reflecting on the narration and the dialogue, causing a supposed quick read to extend to 2 or 3 days. :P

Moving on to the review...

First, I want to say thank you to Christy. I won this book from her second summer giveaway in the blog she and her friend Erica owns.☺ It arrived in the mail yesterday, and I was surprised to find a beautiful hardbound book from The Book Depository (I really hope shipping would still be free after being acquired by Amazon).

Title: Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1)

Author: Beth Revis

Genre: Young Adult Dystopian 

Hardcover: 416 pages 

Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin Group

Release Date: January 1, 2011

Source: Book Depository, won from a giveaway

Blurb:

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone - one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship - tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Alternate Blurb:

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed.  She has left her boyfriend, friends and planet behind to join her parents as a member of Project Ark Ship. 
Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future.  But fifty years before Godspeed’s scheduled landing, cryo-chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now Amy is caught inside a tiny world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed’s 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader.  And Eldest’s rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder.  But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship’s cold metal walls?  All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets before whoever woke her tried to kill again.

Opening Line: 

Daddy said, “Let Mom go first.” Mom wanted me to go first.

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