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Suicide notes from Beautiful Girls|Book Review/ Reflection

July 25, 2017July 26, 2017 Marinainw0nderland1 Comment

Suicide Letters from beautiful Girls Title: Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls

Author: Lynn Weingarten

Pages: 320

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Synopsis: Pitched as Gone Girl meets Thirteen Reasons Why

June barely has time to mourn the death of her best friend Delia, before Delia’s ex-boyfriend convinces her Delia was murdered, and June is swept into a tangle of lies, deceit, and conspiracy. (Goodreads)

Review: I gave this book / 5. I want to acknowledge that this book did keep my attention and it was very captivating. It is written in a mystery format. Our main character June is trying to solve the mystery behind her best friends death. This book has a lot of character interactions, there are quite a few characters that you meet through out the book that make lasting impressions. I gave this book 3/5 stars because I felt like the resolution of the story could have used a little bit more of explaining. The story took a while to build up to the climax and really kept you on the edge of your seat however the execution of the climax seemed way to easy. I would have liked a little more of an explanation of what really happened. The ending also seemed to leave a lot of loose ends untied.

My Bookish Thoughts: This book was a complete mind fuck. It was twisted but left me wanting more. The mystery aspect of this book was really good. I was not expecting the story that I received from this book. I was really thinking that this novel would be just a collection of letters from girls who have attempted or committed suicide. I also felt after finishing the book that it can be mistaken to be mocking suicide. The events of the book, made actual suicide seem like it is not a serious matter. However, I feel like this book could have been taken in a more serious way and rose awareness about suicide. The ending was left to be a bit unclear and left me with a lot of questions that could have been easily cleaned up.

CONTAINS SPOILERS BELOW

I felt that June’s emotions were so unrealistic. She never once cried that her best friend died, however she did throw her self into an investagation trying to figure out what really happened with Delia. I felt there was a lot of loose ends, from pregnancy, to drug use, to rape, to murder, etc.

The plot of this story was very inconsistent. Although, it was fast paced and kept me on the edge of my seat, I couldn’t even begin to explain to some what the hell happened in this book. Right, as I thought I figured a part out the author through something else in. The characters themselves were not very memorable. June seemed very lost and only really confident when she was with Delia. Delia, just seemed to have multiple screws lose, she was a sinister, blood thirsty character. She didn’t really care about anyone but herself. She acted as if June was a possession and have some obsession with her.

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Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman|Book Review

July 10, 2017July 10, 2017 Marinainw0nderlandLeave a comment

Synopsis: orange is the new black With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before.

But that past has caught up with her.

Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424 — one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system.

From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance.

Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.

Review (Spoiler-Free):

This book was extremely enjoyable for a non-fiction. It was fast paced and it really kept you on your toes. As a reader I really got invested in the lives of the characters and felt along with them.

I sympathized with Piper’s story and it got me thinking a lot about the offenders in our prison systems, the types of conditions different prisons have and how tax dollars affect the prison system.

It also didn’t hit me that Martha Stewart served time. This was one of the topics of the book as the prisoners hoped that Martha would have come to Danbury.

There was LGBTQA+ representation in this book as it did follow a relationship of Nora and Piper, when Piper was younger. However, there was very limited interaction between Nora and Piper which was different from the Netflix show. I wanted to see more of the relationship between Piper and Nora. This was for many reasons, but mainly because the relationship between Nora and Piper in the Netflix show put a lot of strain on the relationship with Larry, who is Piper’s fiancee. And I had to remind myself that the Netflix show is more fictional and has difference then the non-fictional narrative.

Going into this book, do not expect it to be like the Netflix show. It is a lot more fact based and about Piper’s personal experience as it was written from a collection of letters that she sent to her family and friends. Overall, it was very enjoyable and I gave 4/5 stars. I would really recommend this book if you are a fan of the Netflix show or what to give a go of non-fiction I think this is a really good place to start because this book will suck you in.

Reflection (Contains Spoilers):

I picked this book up after I watched the first season of the Netflix series and was hooked. I first started reading this as an audiobook, but in reality I am not a huge fan of audiobooks. I ended up picking the book half way through and reading an e-book version of it, although I owned the physical copy as well. Marina, why do you need 3 copies of the same book, if only I knew.

This book was very addictive, it goes through the Piper’s journey through the law and prison system after being accused as an accomplice that took large sums of money into the U.S. for an ex-girlfriend that was part of the drug cartel.

Some of the interesting things I found in this book was that the book was not heavily concentrated between the relationship of Piper and her ex Nora as the Netflix series does. Looking back, the show seems to be drawn out because I had to remind myself that Piper only did 10 months in prison before she was let go.

It was shocking to me how the woman of the prisons came together and became a family to Piper. I was also shocked to see how different Danbury was from the high security prison that Piper was at.

I wasn’t expecting that Nora had a sister. This surprised me because I didn’t understand why Piper had to carry the money back to the U.S. and stayed innocent. While Nora’s sister who is already in the drug trade would have been able to travel with the money. I also enjoyed getting to know Piper’s fiancé/husband and watching how supportive their relationship was.

This book was an excellent piece of nonfiction that a reader could tell heart and soul was put into it. I loved this book, please don’t be hesitant to check it out.

Happy Reading (OneLoveAlways),

Rina

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Top 5 Books I want to Read in 2017| Yearly TBR

January 2, 2017January 2, 2017 Marinainw0nderland3 Comments

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Happy New Years my blogger friends,

As one of my New Years resolutions is to post at least one blog post a week, I decided why not start now?

So without further or due, I present to you my “Top 5 Books I want to Read in 2017”.

These are books I hope to get through this year. Although, there are only 5, I hope to read more than this. This year I decided to set my goodreads challenge to 1 book. Mainly, because I don’t want the pressure of having to read a certain amount of books. Secondly, I want to be able to read thick books without feeling like I am taking too long to read them, and lastly I want to find my love for reading again.

Coming in at Number 5: Tender is the Night by F.Scott Fitzgerald tender-is-the-night

Synopsis: Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender
Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick’s harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative. (Goodreads)

modern-romance Number 4: Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

Synopsis:

Now a New York Times Bestseller

A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices

At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?

Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?”

But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate.

For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before.
In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world. (Goodreads)

Number 3: Eating Animals by Jonathon Safron Foer

Synopsis: Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between carnivore and vegetarian. As he became a husband and a father, he kept returning to two questions: Why do we eat animals? And would we eat them if we knew how they got on our dinner plates?Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, and his own undercover detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales justify a brutal ignorance. Marked by Foer’s profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, huge bestsellers, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we’ve told–and the stories we now need to tell.(Goodreads)

Number 2: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski house-of-leaves

Synopsis: A blind old man, a young apprentice working in a tattoo shop, and a mad woman haunting an Ohio institute narrate this story of a family that encounters an endlessly shifting series of hallways in their new home, eventually coming face to face with the awful darkness lying at its heart.(Goodreads)

a-clash-of-kings Number 1: Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Synopsis:
Time is out of joint. The summer of peace and plenty, ten years long, is drawing to a close, and the harsh, chill winter approaches like an angry beast. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who held sway over an age of enforced peace are dead…victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns, as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms prepare to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war.

As a prophecy of doom cuts across the sky—a comet the color of blood and flame—six factions struggle for control of a divided land. Eddard’s son Robb has declared himself King in the North. In the south, Joffrey, the heir apparent, rules in name only, victim of the scheming courtiers who teem over King’s Landing. Robert’s two brothers each seek their own dominion, while a disfavored house turns once more to conquest. And a continent away, an exiled queen, the Mother of Dragons, risks everything to lead her precious brood across a hard hot desert to win back the crown that is rightfully hers.

A Clash of Kings transports us into a magnificent, forgotten land of revelry and revenge, wizardry and wartime. It is a tale in which maidens cavort with madmen, brother plots against brother, and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside.

Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory may be measured in blood. And the spoils of victory may just go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel…and the coldest hearts. For when rulers clash, all of the land feels the tremors.

Audacious, inventive, brilliantly imagined, A Clash of Kings is a novel of dazzling beauty and boundless enchantment;a tale of pure excitement you will never forget. (Goodreads)

All synopsis and picture rights belong to the authors and Goodreads.

What are your top 5 books you want to read in 2017?

Happy reading adventures and One Love,

Rina

Book Discussion

Book Discussion: Grey by E.L. James (Spoilers)

January 23, 2016January 23, 2016 Marinainw0nderland2 Comments

Grey, by GREY E.L. James took me off guard. It immediately sucked me into the story, mostly because I wanted to know more about Christian’s past. He was such a complex character and I couldn’t help but want to try to piece together why he acted the way he did. I will admit it did take me a while to get used to the pace of the book and the writing. I had so many emotions going through my mind while I was reading this book, from sympathy to anger, to sadness and happiness this book did it all for me.

This book was the retelling of “50 Shades of Grey,” from Christian’s perspective. He had a very interesting personality. He was a character who liked to be in control. Although, when I first read “50 Shades of Grey”, I didn’t have a clear understanding as to why he did things he did. I didn’t understand his need for control and at times from Ana’s point of view I found it a little shocking and sometimes felt uncomfortable with the amount of aggression that he showed toward her. But, getting to experience this story from Christian’s point of view gave me a clearer understanding to why he had the need for control and why he wanted women to submit to him. From a psychological view, Christian suffered from insecure attachment and passive parenting as a child. This would explain why he would have a need for control. The insecure attachment made him want to chose who would be able to get close to him and who wouldn’t. This also allowed him to cut people out of his life as quickly as they came, which would explain why there several other submissive’s before Ana. The passive parenting, had an influence on him too. As a teen he seeked love from where he could find. He found affection from Elena, aka Mrs. Robinson. As a child of insecure attachment and submissive parenting it would make sense that he would accept any sign of affection towards him. The fact that he was made into a submissive at an early age also, had an affect on his want for control because he didn’t want to feel vulnerable as he had as a submissive, therefore as a dominant he was able to be in control of the situation.

When Christian met Ana, he was taken out of his element. He and Ana’s had many firsts together- from Christian, taking Ana on a ride on the Charlie Tango to having a female sleep in his bed without any sexual interaction. Through out the book Christian fought the idea of being touched by Ana, which could be influenced by the abuse he endeared as a child from his mother’s acquaintances as well as the gain of control he possessed after he no longer was in the position of a submissive. There was a lot of trust building throughout the novel, which allowed Christian to unlock some barriers in himself in order to allow Ana to touch him. He also came to terms with the idea of falling in love with Ana wasn’t as improbable as he imagined.

The book was a page turner. The story was told completely from Christian’s point of view with occasional flashbacks to his childhood. I really enjoyed seeing how Christian’s childhood effected his life as an adult. One thing that really stood out to me was that Christian worked really hard to improve the quality and quantity of food for those that were living in poverty because of the lack of that he had as child. Something else that also caught my attention his will of compromising with Ana, to create a relationship that wasn’t just based on sex as he was used too. Ana, took him out of his element and turned his world upside down.

The ending was a cliff hanger, I would love to see the rest of the “50 shades of Grey Series” unfold in Christians point of view.