This book is a book about a man who couldn't stop walking. The urge would take over him and he would lose control over his legs. He would have to walk to wherever they wanted to take him, until they wanted him to stop.
John Gray has been to every doctor and not one could offer him an explanation. He himself couldn't understand the desire to flee. He was a successful lawyer and a loved husband and father. He had everything to stay rooted at his place for.
But nothing could quell the urge to walk. And if it lay dormant for a few years, it would come back stronger and more insistent. One day, he makes the decision to stop fighting the urge. The consequences of this decision desperately changes his, his wife, and his daughter's lives.
This is a subject matter that has never been told. For that alone it is profound and powerful.
A wonderful read because of its uniqueness. This book is for those who are continuously searching for things that they don't understand. A good book for the restless. It offers no solutions but it shows you that you aren't alone.
The Twilight Saga is undoubtedly my favorite set of books for 2010. I was very late reading it because I sensed I was going to get addicted. And I really did get sucked into it, in a very manic way.
A beautiful love story that speaks to every woman's fantasy that there exists a love that is so powerful and unchanging. Wrap all of that in the perfect package of Edward Cullen and you'll find yourself in Twilight Mania Land faster than you can say craziness! He's supposed to be the most handsome person on the planet, strong, rich, smart, obsessive, loving, sensitive, chaste...in short, he's perfect. And suddenly, you'll want to be seventeen again. You'll start asking yourself questions like: Where has my youth gone? Why haven't I found my own Edward? You'll despise Kristen Stewart because she gets to have Edward Cullen in real life. You'll envy her and wish you were her yada yada. Thankfully, this insanity ends after about a month of finishing the books. Then you can resume your life and finally get a good solid grip on reality.
This book is a good, light read for those who enjoy fantasy, vampires, and love stories. For the hopelessly romantic, this book could drive you into lala land. But you'll enjoy it so it's worth the crazies!
This book begins with Mort, a good but supposed wallflower of a boy. His father decides to have him get an apprenticeship to make him more of a man. When they go to town to offer him up, nobody wants him. Even for the lamest job, he is overlooked. Then Death comes. He's looking for an apprentice too, and Mort was the only one left, so he was perfect.
A funny fantasy about Death's world and personality. Here he has a daughter and aspires to be fast order cook. Mort makes him aspire to be human. He suddenly gets second thoughts about the life he's been given and decides that he needs a change and a chance to have personal fulfillment. After all, he says, he didn't choose this occupation, it was imposed. And he deserved to live life on his terms!
This book also chronicles Mort's transformation from a wallflower to a man. He learns to assert himself and take charge. He learns to live life on his own terms as well, not just as an apprentice.
A very light read. Cute.
A book for the fantasy lovers.
I love, love, loved the movie for this book (of the same name). When I saw it the first time in high school, I nearly sobbed my eyes out. I'm a weepy girl, but that movie made me beyond weepy -- I was crying possessed.
I read this book to compare it to the movie. And I was pleasantly surprised. Most books are infinitely better than the movie. But this one is exactly the same. It was as if the book was made into the script, word for word.
The one difference that gave me grief was that the book's ending was far better than the movie's. In essence it was the same but there was a incident that was changed. They should have used the book's ending. It would have been a more dramatic end.
But the movie wins over the book for this one. The scenery and the cast override the book's better ending. But this is a book with a good, solid story. Not too sappy. Simple but poignant.
It's a very short book too. I read it standing up in approximately an hour in National Bookstore. A classic.
This book is about persistent, undying, long-suffering love. Love is pain comes to mind. Or to love means to suffer needlessly for innumerable years but in the end you'll be vindicated.
Florentino Ariza has been waiting for Fermina Daza for the longest time: fifty-one years, nine months, and four days. Ever since she refused him and married another, he has been waiting for his second chance. And now that her husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, has passed away because of an accident involving an errant parrot, his day has finally come.
The book also chronicles in length how Florentino Ariza numbed the pain of waiting by accumulating women worthy of being a bonafide Lothario. As well as how Fermina's marriage to the Doctor has weathered the day-to-day rains and the major storms.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Spanish, so this is a very wordy book because of the translation. The amount of words in one page will cross your eyes a little if you get it in the usual size paperback.
If you dislike wordy books and flowery adjectives, this may not be a book for you. If you enjoy the concept of suffering for love, this is definitely a book for you.
Please be kinder to your eyes and get a big hardbound, if available, if you want to read this.
This is a true story from the author's unusual but very beautiful quest for happiness.
Elizabeth Gilbert was a young successful writer with everything that she thought she wanted: money, acclaim, an upscale lifestyle, and a husband who wanted to start a family. But she was clinically depressed. She was sobbing her heart out every night on her bathroom floor, begging to a God she didn't believe in for help. She divorces her husband, goes through a bitter battle with him, loses all her money, takes a lover, falls desperately in love with this lover, continues with her depression, loses this lover, and becomes irrevocably heart broken.
She realizes then that she had truly lost herself in her pursuit of everything that the world told her she needed: success, money, and love. To find herself and take back her whole heart she decides to take a one-year sabbatical from her job. She decides that her path to healing was a three part (four months each) model where she was to explore the pleasures of eating in Italy, her spirituality (prayer) in India, and the balance of both pleasure and prayer -- love -- in Indonesia.
She takes us on a very personal, sometimes painful, often hopeful, and always beautiful journey from devastating pain to true joy. A very honest book. A very inspiring read.
This book is for everyone. Pain and the quest for happiness in universal after all. A disclaimer for the men, this is written from a female's view of pain so it could get a little dramatic at times.
The lead character in this story is a troubled youth that feels all his adolescent issues in its most extreme. He grapples through identity, sexuality, belonging, purpose, achievement, and pressure in a mask of unbridled rage and rebellion. In the book, we follow him as he struggles through his pain alone after being expelled. The book is a tirade of profanity and rants, but the ending is a shining light amidst it all.
What I took from this book is that we often pride ourselves in going through our difficulties alone. We get broken from the weight but we refuse to let the world see that we hurt. Sometimes, all we need is one true friend that will insist that he or she share the load.
This book is for anyone who is feeling particularly angry at the world. Sometimes we have rebellious moments that have no sense but they're there anyway. A book to share the rage with. With an ending that's a killer. An excellent read.
A gorgeously written book. This book is very idealistic and adamant about the place of the rational and productive people in the world. The book says that society will collapse without the intellectuals, industrialists, and innovators. That these people are indeed "the motors of the world".
This is a book that speaks mainly of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism which can be summarized as being: "...the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
A very thick book, 1074 exciting pages, that sucks you into the fantasy lives of Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, and Francisco d'Anconia. It also answers the famous question: "Who is John Galt?"
A book to be experienced. Thought provoking. A true classic.
This is a book for everyone.
American Psycho is about a rich, successful, and handsome twenty-something serial killer. In between agonizing about his looks, his career, his girlfriend, and his drug habit, Patrick Bateman is also obsessing about his next kill. He lives a double life that he's not really trying to hide. He takes his bloodstained clothes to the cleaners for crying out loud. He is a successful businessman socialite by day and a murderous madman by night. He's an interesting character because he's obviously a sick animal but when he almost gets caught, he becomes human. He sobs and frets for his life and prays that he lives another day. Live to kill another day that is. But you feel for the character without realizing it. You can see that he kills as a result of multiple trauma, anxieties, and mental disorders. And here is when it starts to get disturbing. You'll question your sanity a little bit with this book.
The book is enthralling, graphic, and very disturbing. I had to stop reading the book for a week after I read the first graphic murder scene. And I skipped through many of the details of the next ones. It gave and still gives me mini-nightmares.
If you're into horror and suspense this could be a book for you. If you're looking to spice up your readings by shocking yourself, this could be a choice for you too. I'm warning you though, this book is unforgettable. The images stay with you for a long time. And these images are not pretty.
