Title:  That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story
Author:  Marlena de Blasi
Format:  Paperback
Pages:  336
Genre:  Memoir/Travelogue
Read:  2010

Rating:  B-

Description (from publisher):  “At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away,” writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she stumbles upon one summer while traveling with her husband. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, who shares her own unforgettable love story. In a luminous and tantalizing voice, de Blasi re-creates Tosca’s life and romance with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of Anjou. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants, his defiance of the local Mafia costs him dearly. The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women–now widowed–who once worked the prince’s land alongside their husbands. This marvelous epic drama reminds us that in order to live a rich life, one must embrace both life’s sorrow and its beauty.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I normally love Marlena de Blasi's books on food and Italy.  But this one disappointed me, mostly because I wanted to hear about the Sicily that de Blasi explored, not the life of her Sicilian hostess Tosca.  I was really looking forward to a book about Sicilian food and the adventures that de Blasi and her husband experienced.  Instead, I read the "auto"-biography of Tosca, and although her life was exciting and full of adventure, it didn't capture my interest.  I never got drawn into the story the way I did with A Thousand Days in Tuscany.  It's still a great book, but not as interesting (to me) as de Blasi's previous memoirs.  I did love the ending; I am, after all, a sucker for happy endings.  But I think if I want to read a book about modern-day Sicily, I'm going to have to look somewhere else.  B-

Title:  The Magicians
Author:  Lev Grossman
Format:  Hardcover
Genre:  Contemporary fantasy/Coming-of-age/Trash

Rating:  Incomplete

I'm not even going to bother with including a synopsis, because honestly, I don't think the book is worth it.  If you read my review of Paper Towns, you'll remember the fact that I really don't like most contemporary fiction, especially if it's perverted and smutty.  I read the synopsis on the cover and ignored the little warning bells going off in my head.  But I figured I'd give it a chance; after one chapter, I decided the most appropriate place for The Magicians was the garbage.

I wish someone could explain to me why it is necessary to put so much trash into books.  Why does every book, especially contemporary fantasy, have to resort to smut in order to get a reader's attention?  Especially when the concept of this book is so amazing, it wouldn't need trashiness to capture someone's interest.  Quentin is a high school senior (yes, another coming-of-age story featuring a high school senior named Quentin) who's admitted to an exclusive college of magic, where he discovers that the fantastical world of his favorite book is actually real.  Brilliant concept; poorly executed.  I know that people will disagree with me, purely for the fact that they don't have issues with smut and profanity, but I do.  Incomplete

Title:  Keeping the Feast: One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy
Author:  Paula Butturini
Format:  Hardcover
Pages:  259
Genre:  Memoir

Rating:  C

Synopsis (from publisher):  A story of food and love, injury and healing, Keeping the Feast is the triumphant memoir of one couple's nourishment and restoration in Italy after a period of tragedy, and the extraordinary sustaining powers of food, family, and friendship.

Paula and John met in Italy, fell in love, and four years later, married in Rome. But less than a month after the wedding, tragedy struck. They had transferred from their Italian paradise to Warsaw and while reporting on an uprising in Romania, John was shot and nearly killed by sniper fire. Although he recovered from his physical wounds in less than a year, the process of healing had just begun. Unable to regain his equilibrium, he sank into a deep sadness that reverberated throughout their relationship. It was the abrupt end of what they'd known together, and the beginning of a new phase of life neither had planned for. All of a sudden, Paula was forced to reexamine her marriage, her husband, and herself.

Paula began to reconsider all of her previous assumptions about healing. She discovered that sometimes patience can be a vice, anger a virtue. That sometimes it is vital to make demands of the sick, that they show signs of getting better. And she rediscovered the importance of the most fundamental of human rituals: the daily sharing of food around the family table.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Besides being an emotionally-draining book to read, Keeping the Feast was a disappointment for me.  The way people talked about it, the way it was described, led me to believe that this book was going to be similar to Marlena de Blasi's Thousand Days books, just with some more serious obstacles for the author and her husband to overcome.  I expected descriptions of food and Italy; I thought the book would focus on the healing that came from that food and that country.  Instead, I got the taxing, joy-sapping story of clinical depression, near-fatal wounds, suicide... Definitely not light reading.

The first half of the book focuses on all of the horrible things that kept happening to the author and especially her husband.  I'd read a chapter and then have to turn on a mindless comedy so I'd stop feeling so depressed.  Then the next quarter of the book was about the steps the Butturinis took towards that healing, much of which didn't even happen in Italy.  It was only in the final chapters of the book that the healing actually seemed to begin.  The food, which was supposed to be such an integral part, seemed secondary and scarce.  And the "happy" ending seemed rushed... because it was.  Butturini focused so much time describing the problems, she left almost nothing for the resolution.

Despite my disappointment, I didn't hate the book.  If I'd been more mentally prepared for what the book was really about, I'd have been perfectly fine with it.  If it had been described to me as a memoir on overcoming huge obstacles, without any mention of food or Italy, then I would have rated this book higher.  But because the memoir was supposed to have a big focus on both food & Italy (heck, it says so in the title), I had very different expectations.  C

Title:  Paper Towns
Author:  John Green
Format:  Paperback
Pages:  320
Genre:  Young adult/Coming-of-age
Date Started:  December 8, 2010
Date Finished:  December 8, 2010

Rating:  A-

Synopsis (from publisher):  When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night—dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This book was an adventure, just because it is so different from the books I usually read.  My favorite genres are fantasy and historical fiction; contemporary fiction is usually too perverted, too violent/depressing, or too gimmicky.  Or they're trying way too hard to be psychologically deep/profound/twisted in order to win an award.  Look at the bestsellers lists, and you'll find vampire novels galore, murder mysteries, romances, and mind-bending thrillers.  So this book was a refreshing surprise.

Paper Towns is a coming-of-age story, in which Quentin, your typical high school brainiac, finally pulls himself out of his shell to solve the mystery of his long-time crush's disappearance.  At first, he's trying to figure out just who exactly Margo was in order to think like her, but the longer he spends looking for Margo, the more confident Q becomes, until he's no longer the bullied teen nerd.  His quest helps him mature and transform into a self-assured leader, who takes his friends on the craziest road trip of their lives.  In the end, the book's not so much about the search for Margo, but the journey Quentin makes from boy to man.

Because the book is about modern high schoolers, there are some situations and conversations in the book that wouldn't be appropriate for a younger reader.  Nevertheless, Paper Towns is a great book on self-discovery and friendship.  A-

2010 Resolutions in Review

Time to look at back at the resolutions I made and the goals I set at the beginning of 2010 to see if I accomplished any of them.

1. Updating my blog once a week-- fail!
2. Reading more-- I did stop wasting time on the online game sites, but I think I just substituted it with TV.  So not much improvement here.
3. Scrapbooking--  Accomplished!
4. Finishing a novel--  fail!
5. Grad school application-- I can't consider this a fail, because I decided not to go.  For one thing, I found the people there unprofessional, disorganized, and mostly unhelpful.  Also, right after I sent in my incomplete application, the college introduced a new graduate program which was closer to what I'd wanted.
6. Going to church every Sunday--  While my attendance approved this past year, it wasn't perfect.  And as far as reading my Bible once a week... I'm rather ashamed that I completely failed that one.
7. Healthier lifestyle--  I am happy to say that I actually made a lot of improvement here... at least, until the holidays happened.  For months, I watched what I ate and how much I ate.  I took walks around the parking lot at work.  I lost 25 pounds and went down 2 pant sizes!  And then my birthday came, followed by the holidays, and now I've gained back about 6-8 of those pounds, and I'm starting at square one again.
8. Journaling--  fail!
9. Staying in touch with friends--  So-so.
10. Saving money--  Fail/Accomplished.  Ok, so I failed at this because I spent exorbitant amounts of money on Christmas presents this year.  But I accomplished it too, because I set up a savings account that I've actually been putting money into.
11. New car--  I'm actually getting one this month, because I can finally afford it.
12. Weekend road trips-- fail!  I did go camping with my friends in June, but I didn't get to visit 95% of the places I wanted to this summer.
13. Redecorating my room--  fail!  Do you know how expensive it is to change just a couple of elements in a room?!
14. Teaching Certificate--  Not really a fail because I really wanted to get into grad school before getting this, and since that's on hold until I make some big decisions about programs/schools, this goal will be on hold as well.

I will be posting a review of 2010 in terms of books/movies/whatever soon, but first I have to a massive update on my blog.  I have over 50 entries to post on books, movies, scrapbooking, cooking, etc. from 2010 that I put on the back-burner during the holidays.  This should be fun... I hope.

Title:  The Princess and the Frog
Format:  DVD
Category:  Family/Animated/Disney Princess
Rating:  A-

Description (from Disney website):  Walt Disney Animation Studios presents the musical The Princess and the Frog, an animated comedy set in the great city of New Orleans. From the creators of "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin" comes a modern twist on a classic tale, featuring a beautiful girl named Tiana, a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again, and a fateful kiss that leads them both on a hilarious adventure through the mystical bayous of Louisiana.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm so happy Disney returned to their classic 2-D, hand-drawn animation for this movie.  It was a refreshing change from the 3-D, CGI obsession that has taken over all animation studios, including Disney.  It was also awesome, because it wasn't the low-quality, straight-to-DVD animation that seems to have become standard for all non-CGI movies and Disney sequels.

This version of The Princess & the Frog is amazing, not only because it captures the essence of the classic Disney princess movie, but also because it provides a fresh twist on the original fairy-tale.  With memorable characters, fun songs, and great dialogue, this movie is great for the whole family.  Unless you have children who scare easily (like my sister) or if you disapprove of seeing the occult in a Disney family film (like my mom).  The villain of the movie is a voodoo practitioner who speaks to evil spirits, and one of the "good guys" also practices voodoo, but she's portrayed in a good light.  Something neither my mom nor I agree with.  But if you can get past the occultism, the movie is a great retelling of a classic fairy-tale.  A-

Title:  Castle: Season 2
Format:  hulu.com
Category:  TV Crime Drama
Rating:  A

Description (from about.com):  Richard Castle is an incredibly famous mystery novelist who finds himself at the center of a police investigation when a serial killer uses scenes from Castle's book to commit his many crimes. Once Castle helps track down the killer with the help of the very beautiful Detective Kate Beckett, the two begin working together (with plenty of romantic tension) to solve homicides.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Love, love, love this series!  I just bought and re-watched this season in preparation for Season 3 (on tonight!), and it just solidified in my mind how awesome this show is.  The dialogue, the humor, the exciting mysteries, the characters, the drama, the twists, the flirtation-- how can anyone resist loving a show with so much to offer?

The characters, their dialogue, and their humor are the main reasons this show surpasses other crime dramas.  Nathan Fillion is hilarious as novelist-turned-detective Richard Castle, and his banter with Detective Kate Beckett is the best part of the series.  Beckett is an awesome female lead; she's a kick-butt detective with a talent for sarcasm.  Her partners, Ryan and Esposito, are always handy with a witty remark or to tease Castle and Beckett, and their arguments over pointless and obscure facts add to the fun.  Castle's relationship with his mother and daughter also brings a lot of entertainment and laughter, and their presence helps keep Castle anchored to the real world.

The show is exciting, humorous, and fun, and its second season is the perfect follow-up to the awesomeness of the first.  A

Title:  Primeval: Season 3
Format:  DVD
Category:  Sci-Fi
Rating:  A

So much action and drama packed into this season.  Even more new characters, the scariest new villain yet, and a catastrophic death that overwhelms and changes the team's dynamic forever.  The third season is the most intense and exciting of the series.

The newest characters in the series are Dr. Sarah Page (an Egyptologist), Captain Becker (head of ARC security), and Danny Quinn (former police officer).  Each add their own unique style and quirks to the team, as well as provide new perspective on the anomalies.  The newest villain, Christine Johnson, is extremely power-hungry and devious, and she's not afraid of putting other people at risk to get what she wants.  Her desire to learn more about the future and its advances and to gain an important artifact from a future anomaly is one of the main overarching plots of the season, and on more than one occasion, she comes close to succeeding.

The worst part about watching this season was to get to the awesome cliffhanger at the end, and then realize that the show had been canceled.  How could they?!  It was such an amazing show, and it ends in the most exciting, nail-biting cliffhanger ever.  They couldn't just leave it there.  Luckily, lots of other fans felt the same way and voiced their opinions loudly.  And they're bringing the show back in December for at least two more seasons!!  I'm so happy!  Now they can finally tell me what happened to the team.  And if my luck holds out, maybe they'll extend it for a sixth season too!  Can't wait for December!  A

Title:  Primeval: Season 2
Format:  Netflix
Category:  Sci-Fi
Rating:  A


I'm not even going to bother putting in a description because imdb's stinks, and every other websites' is two pages long.

The second installment of the Primeval series is even more exciting than the first.  New characters, new creatures, new villains... and an alternate universe!  This season focuses on creatures from the future and the relationships between the characters.  Which are especially strained after the twisted ending to the first season.

Cutter has the hardest time readjusting to all of the changes occurring in his life and world, like their new headquarters, the ARC (Anomaly Research Center).  The biggest change he has to cope with is the departure of Claudia Brown, and the entrance of her look-alike, PR specialist Jennifer Lewis.  James Lester gets a much bigger and more appreciated role, although he will always be snarky.  And Connor and Abby start to take on more responsibilities as well as bigger roles in the series (after all, they are the only two people from the original team to last through all four seasons).  Their "relationship" also goes through a lot of bumps and turns, but it's one of the best parts of the series.

The second season also has a more defined overarching plot, and the subplots are much more connected.  Everything builds up to a spectacular season finale, where one main character dies to save others, and one of the villains escapes to cause more trouble in the next season.  A

Title:  Primeval: Season 1
Format:  Netflix
Category:  Sci-fi
Rating:  A

Crappy Description (from imdb.com):  When strange anomalies in time start to appear all over England, Professor Cutter and his team have to help track down and capture all sorts of dangerous prehistoric creatures from Earth's distant past.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I heart this series!!  I started watching it just because I love Andrew Lee Potts, and ended up falling in love with the whole show.  The dialogue is funny, the cast is amazing, and the plot is engaging and exciting.  Like many British TV-shows, the special effects aren't the best, but they don't detract from the show at all.  And as the series became more popular and made more money, the effects did start to improve.

This season, which only had six episodes, mostly focused on the introduction of the time anomalies, the establishment of the team, and the development of the characters' personalities.  Basically, the anomalies are these rips in time that are allowing creatures from the past, such as dinosaurs, to come through to the present, wreaking havoc all over England.  A team is quickly thrown together, mostly by being in the right place at the right time, to try to control the creature sightings and keep the nation from discovering the anomalies exist.  This early team is made up of Nick Cutter (professor of evolutionary biology and team leader), Claudia Brown (government liaison), Stephen Hart (lab technician & bodyguard), Connor Temple (student-turned-equipment/research/logistics-specialist), and Abby Maitland (herpetologist and assistant zookeeper).  They are overseen by Home Office official James Lester, who butts heads with Cutter all the time.

The stories are extremely interesting, especially since most of the creatures in the series aren't the traditional ones we think of when we think of dinosaurs.  No triceratops or stegosaurus or t-rex here.  Instead, there are giant insects, dodos, parasites, mosasaurs, and a gorgonopsid.  Of course, like Jurassic Park, a great deal of creative license is used when it comes to these creatures, as we don't have a lot of concrete facts about their behaviors and habits.

This is one of those shows that you just can't stop watching; it's so exciting.  And there are overarching plotlines and subplots galore to keep the show from just being about catching dinosaurs.  BBC created an awesome series with Primeval, and I can't wait for the next season to come out on DVD (since they won't be showing it in America).  A