Winner: Bond Girl!

The winners of Bond Girl are.....

Kristin and Anita!!!

I already have your addresses so I will let forward them to the publisher. For those who didn't win or who didn't enter, I do recommend this book! It was an enjoyable read.

Cover Copies: Blurry Streets...

So this cover copies post isn't as bad as past ones that were literally the same stock photo. But these came to my attention when I realized that I was mixing up these books in my head; I'd see one and think it was one of the other two, etc. They all are fairly new, so I wonder if each of the cover designers coincidentally had the same idea or maybe the same source of inspiration?? Or blurry streets are just trendy now?

Check out past cover copies here:
random teenage girl
another random teenage girl
back of girl's hair

Bond Girl (review & giveaway)

Title: Bond Girl
Author: Erin Duffy
Pages: 290
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow (Harper Collins)
Pub. Date: January 24, 2012


Bond Girl is being touted as the Wall Street version of The Devil Wears Prada. It definitely had its similarities, and those who liked the latter will probably like this. I can't really compare since I've only seen the movie version of the second, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a young college graduate who starts a job in finance on Wall Street and realizes it's not as glamorous as she expected it to be. That's pretty much the whole gist of this book. She deals with some crazy things to impossibly work her way up the ranks.

So far I've made it sound mostly like "chick-lit". While it has those qualities, I thought it was more substantial than some others in that genre. It also had memoir-like elements which may have been a combination of first person narrative and the knowledge that the author has her own experience working on "the Street"; and it contained elements of an exposé, revealing the greed, back-stabbing, superfluousness, and worst, the rampant sexism in the industry. It was like Mad Men up in there, although it may be worse (I haven’t seen enough Mad Men to make a true comparison).

I loved reading about Alex and the craziness she endured at her new job, the things her boss put her up to. I laughed at various parts. But along with the humor, I found myself becoming angry as well. Although this is fiction, I believe it’s based on some of the author’s experiences so I took some parts to be truisms. Any time a money amount was mentioned I felt sick. I have a master’s degree and work to exhaustion every day, yet my annual salary is a fraction of the main character’s Christmas bonus.  The other thing that angered me was the way men treated the females in the book. It was so primitive and ignorant that it enraged me. It’s so hard to believe that kind of sexism exists. (But then, I work in a female dominated field of work so I have little experience with that!) Combining the ridiculously extravagant lifestyle and the sexist a-holes really made parts of this get to me. But despite all that, truly, I found Bond Girl highly entertaining. It’s a quick and fun read. You’ll probably find yourself cheering on Alex and shouting at her to make certain decisions throughout the course of the book.

There was a statement Alex makes at the very end of the book that was vague and that was never followed up with. It’s super minor but I’m curious what she meant, and I guess it’s supposed to not be a big deal. Oh, lest I forget! Bond Girl takes place in Manhattan (well, duh, it's on Wall Street) which was a fun addition for me as well. I loved my literary trip to NYC! I will happily be adding Bond Girl to my New York Shelf!

I am also happy to say that the publisher is allowing me to give away TWO copies of Bond Girl!! Fill out the form below to enter. The winners will be announced this Saturday.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: Book-to-Movie Review

I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer in January of 2011 and fell in love with it. I mentioned in my review that I was a little heartbroken about it being a movie because I just didn't think it could possibly compare to the experience of reading the book. Jason recently read (and loved) this as well, so we headed out to the movies last night to see it. To sum it up real quickly, this tells the story of a young boy, Oskar Schell, who struggles to cope in the aftermath of his father's death on September 11th. He finds a key in his father's closet and goes on a quest through all of New York City to find what the key is for. He does this in an attempt to find purpose, make sense of his father's death, and keep his father alive and with him in his mind and heart.

Right away it was evident that the film also used some techniques to portray some of the uniqueness of the book. It wasn't all the same, of course, but it was interesting how they did it. I'm not one of those people who ever notices (or cares for when I do notice) different filming techniques, but I did notice them in this movie and thought they were subtle enough and well done. Based on the reactions I heard from the other people watching throughout the movie, they invested in the characters and laughed at the parts that were funny. I didn't fall out sobbing like I thought I might (LOL), but there were definitely moments that made me cry.

One of the things I loved about the book was the raw emotion it evoked. I actually thought the movie did a great job of showing the intensity and complexity of Oskar's emotions as well as the difficulties in the relationship between him and his mother. But I might feel that way since I have more knowledge from reading the book. Jason said he read some reviews that talked about Oskar's character being a brat, and I think thought process misses the whole point of the complete anguish the child goes through after his father's death. The movie moves mostly chronologically but there are many moments when it goes back and shows a chronologically previous scene to explain something the character is thinking or referring to. There was one scene between Oskar and his mother, played by Sandra Bullock, that was pretty intense and evocative. That was probably the part that made me the most emotional because the relationship between the two of them is so fragile at a time when they really need each other. I do think this might be a difficult film to watch for people who did lose someone in the attacks on September 11th or for anyone who has lost a loved one recently.

The movie, of course, had to leave out some details and back story from the book. The book has sooo much more to love and I compel you to read it, especially if you're interested in the movie. But, I think the movie did a fantastic job at taking as many pieces of the book as possible and creating a way to get across the unique qualities of the book and the characters' emotions, and it followed the book very well. Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks, though secondary characters to Oskar, added a lot to the movie. I feel like I can still return the book and enjoy reading it again without being "interrupted" by things from the movie because it fit very well into what I pictured anyway.

The Ruins of Us

Title: The Ruins of Us
Author: Keija Parssinen
Pages: 321
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Harper Perennial (Harper Collins)
Pub. Date: January 17, 2012


Sooo... I started reading this a while ago and I initially put it down because I had some problems with some parts of the story (I'll explain in a bit) and I really did not like the characters. That was maybe 50 pages or so in, and I considered just writing my review based on what I felt at that moment. But because of my reading slump issues from last year, and really wanting to thoroughly fulfill my obligations to TLC Book Tours, I decided to keep reading and just see if I changed my mind. But I was skeptical. And a little cynical.

And then I ended up pretty much enjoying this read. That teaches me! I'm going to include some quotes from the book because it is sort of vital to the points I want to make, but keep in mind I am quoting from an advanced copy so there might possibly be some slight changes.

The Ruins of Us tells the story of the Baylani family. American, Rosalie, and Saudi Arabian Abdullah have been married for 25 years. They have two teenagers, Faisal and Mariam. The story begins when Rosalie finds out her husband has taken a second wife and has hidden this fact from Rosalie. Although this is not uncommon to their culture, she is surprised because Abdullah was always different. Faisal is a confused teenaged boy who struggles with his bi-racial identity, sometimes resenting his mother for her causing him to not belong. He overcompensates by devoting himself to a political group and emphasizing his religious beliefs. And Mariam is a feministic teen who wants to grow up to be a journalist. She maintains a blog where she discusses issues in Saudi Arabia. There is also one other character whose perspective we hear from, Dan Coleman, who is an American friend of the family. The Ruins of Us is a portrait of the struggling marriage and how this affects the family; it's about Faisal struggling to fit in to his environment; and it's about how all these issues culminate with dangerous consequences

Although I don't feel quite as strongly about it now, I did not initially like this book because I just didn't think the characters were realistic or consistent. I couldn't figure the characters out at all. For instance, when Rosalie finds out about the second wife. Is she mad, upset, etc.? Yes. But there just didn't seem to be a gravity to it. I get that it's not totally uncommon to the culture, but for as progressive as the characters were described, it didn't make sense to me. (Honestly, it still doesn't... I think the character of Abdullah was the most inconsistent for me.) Like here, he's complaining that his wife has acclimated to the Saudi culture:

"If you're a Saudi man and you marry an American woman, the last thing you want is for her to become a Saudi wife. Otherwise, why would you go through all the trouble with the family?" (p. 41)

So, you become a "Saudi man" and marry a second wife? That seems inconsistent to me. There was another part where he was telling his friend about a girl who was flirting with him and expected him to reciprocate. The friend basically points out that well yeah, you have a reputation. And Abdullah acts all confused and says "I'm a married man." Um, hello, that didn't stop you from finding a whole new wife... And the reasons Abdullah justifies marrying a second wife are so superficial that it was hard for me to take it seriously. Yes, he felt he and his (first) wife had become distant, etc. but marrying another person? At least he acknowledged it:

He saw that now, acknowledged that he had not wanted to deal properly with the distance opening up between him and Rosalie and so had fallen back on the laws of the tribe to avoid it. (p. 104)

But more for inconsistency... in one part Abdullah gets mad at his son, and they get in a little tiff followed by this response.

"Don't speak to me like that, or you can be certain that you won't be going to any university, here or in America.  I will not tolerate this kind of behavior from my son." (p. 113)

I wonder if I missed something because not only did this statement elicit confusion from me, but was the topic of university an issue? I don't know. But then, a couple pages later, Abdullah is defending his son to his wife, basically saying ah, he's just being a kid.

Then some parts were just strange...

Rosie's taste for the dramatic raised her arguments with Abdullah to a form of high art, both of them gesturing wildly. Sometimes, Abdullah would just spank her, in utter seriousness, right in front of everyone, and then they would collapse all over each other with laughter. (p. 38)

I really disliked Abdullah's character. This following passage was the clincher for me. (Abdullah thinking about Rosalie.)

Her stubbornness was starting to wear on him and a strange coldness had filled him. If that was how she wanted to behave, then he would let her. He would be patient. He had all the time in the world because he had love available to him. It was she who would grow lonely night after night in an empty bed. (p. 118)

I did find a passage I liked, though, since much of this book is about marriage and parenting:

There should be some sort of training before you got yourself mixed up in such things -- marriages and divorces and children and second marriages. He had trained for every other part of his life, football as a youth and then business and economics as an adult. Even driving required training. Yet when you married, what advice did people give? Only congratulations, and what good does that do anyone? (p. 90)

I did find, though, that I became invested in the characters. I never did grow to like any of them that much except for Mariam. (Okay, Dan grew on me too). But then the last third of the book the plot totally picked up and I devoured the book to find out what would happen. It was sort of funny because this book had some similarities to the last book I read. They were both about Muslim teen boys who are confused and take their beliefs too far.

I did think it was interesting to learn about Rosalie and her motivations for living in Saudi Arabia. She had spent time there as a child (like the author...) and had idealized it as she grew up so that once she was an adult, she wanted to live there. Yet, she was always the outsider because of her looks but also because of her beliefs. A lot of this book is about her difficulty straddling the cultural divide. I felt like I could relate to her in some of these ways.

So to conclude, I had difficult in the beginning but I'm glad I decided to read the rest. I didn't care for the characters most of the time, but I did enjoy the story. And I actually think this book would be a great read for book clubs, because there are a lot of topics that could be discussed. I have to say that I appreciated The Ruins of Us for making me think so much whether it was about the story, the characters, or the issues they all dealt with.

Follow the rest of the tour here:


Tuesday, January 17th: Book Hooked Blog
Thursday, January 19th: Broken Teepee
Friday, January 20th: Bibliosue
Monday, January 23rd: Book Club Classics!
Tuesday, January 24th: Wandering Thoughts of a Scientific Housewife
Thursday, January 26th: Peeking Between the Pages
Tuesday, January 31st: Col Reads
Wednesday, February 1st: The House of the Seven Tails
Thursday, February 2nd: Raging Bibliomania
Monday, February 6th: Library of Clean Reads
Tuesday, February 7th: Man of La Book
Wednesday, February 8th: 2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews