Mini Shopaholic

Rebecca Bloomwood is back! She's back! YAY!

Mini Shopaholic is the sixth book in the hugely popular Shopaholic series (and this was made in to a movie!), written by one of the funniest women in fiction. And Becky's back, along with lovely husband Luke and two-year-old daughter Minnie. Becky's her usual shopaholic self, though she has reined that particular obsession in quite considerably. It seems all her genes have passed straight on to Minnie, who can already buy stuff on eBay and identify a VISA credit card from miles away. Luke's caught up in another financial crisis, which inspires Becky and Co. to cut back and be thrifty. In addition to banks collapsing, children spending pocket money years in advance and a personal work set-back, Becky is also organising a surprise party for Luke. Hilarity ensues as she tries to keep it a secret from her sniffer dog of a husband, which is no easy feat. Does she manage it? Well, you'll have to read it to find out! Mini Shopaholic isn't quite as funny as previous books in the series (i guess...), though it's just as daft. The situations Becky gets herself into are ridiculously unrealistic, but that's one of the appeals of these books. They're complete escapist fun and, although they are aimed at an adult market, there's absolutely nothing that would be unsuitable for younger readers. I can't wait for the next book!

Life of Pi

I've been recommended this book for long by my mum (as always) and friends. I thought i would just borrow it for a day to read through a few pages but since i started reading, i just didn't want to return it.

Pi is a 16 years old boy and the only son of a zoo's manager is going on a trip to Canada with his family. After the ship sinks, he realises that he is the only one who survives and is drifting on a emergency boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean. He isn't alone actually, he is with a miserable zebra (with a broken leg), a spotted hyena, an ape that keeps vomiting of sea sick and especially a Bengal tiger that weights 450 pounds. How would he gets out of there....? I guess you just have to find out yourself since this book is so great. If i tell it would ruin everything interesting about the book.

I found this book pretty boring at first but if you have patience and keep reading and reading to about chapter 10 or so, you find it amazingly great. For the first time, i had such great patience in reading a hundred chapters book (really, this book really has 100 chapters. It was pretty funny when i reached chapter 9 and started screaming aloud: "When is it going to end!?!" but when i got to chapter 78, i didn't want it to end....). Well, you may say that patience is really important in reading, for some occasions... (Because there are a lot of books that last for 30 pages....). I think the book is available now in the library, i'm not really sure because i didn't borrow it from the library

The Monkey King

Almost a month now since i've started to dig in my mom's old book shelves. 3 weeks ago, i went through a bunch of books which most of them are about criminals and laws (since my mom is a lawyer) i found a very interesting book called 'The Monkey King'. At first i thought: "Who am i kidding? I am not going to read a 'monkey' story!" and i actually thought it was lame. But well, sooner or later, i would still have to read it because if i wouldn't i would have to read law books (which i terribly don't like).
This book is by Timothy Mo, who i've never heard of before i've started to read the book.
The plot is very easy to understand since it is 'irresistibly' funny. In the story, the Poons, as the people of Hong Kong gossip about, have plenty of money. But when Wallace Nolasco marries May Ling (who is the daughter of the house of Poon, he finds he has been sold short. Old Mr Poon rules the family with a misery hand; the family mansion is shabby and neglected, the ier meagre - nd the only signs of wealth are the gold ngots buried in the cesspit. Wallace is relegated to the very bottom of he household pecking order, But like the Monkey King of Chinese legend, he is a born survivor, with a hidden reserves of craft and endurance.
I've really found this book richly entertaining novel of domestic tyranny and revolt written wih deft irony and comic flair. I don't really think that this book is available at school so if you really want to read it, i would probably let you borrow it (probably).

Oscar and Lucinda

Keep digging in, i found this book which is by Peter Carey. He looks very young at the 'black and white' picture on the back cover but he is not (because this book was published in 1988).
The story is aboutthe Cornish son of a Plymouth Brethren minister who becomes anAnglican priest who named Oscar Hopkinds , and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on the boat over to Australia, and discover that they are both gamblers. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a remote place at Bellingen. This bet changes both their lives forever. And if you want to know how it changes them, you've got to find out yourself (since i don't really get that part also...).
I really like the betting part but not really with the changing one. Things start to get complicated their. It is very interesting that at the back of the book there is a glossary where there are words that you may find hard to understand, like swy (now i know that swy is a gambling game...), unfortunately, there are only eight words in that glossary so you wouldn't be able to get the whole novel... But check it out, may be you understand it better than me and find it interesting.

Tapes of River Delta

I wonder why the book is so expensive ($138.00! literally! well, the $14.95 part printed on the book is recommended only so... ) so i've read through it to see if it is truly that expensive.
The story is about Theodore Shortcourse who is betrayed in love, used and abused by dark forces, as unsure of his origins as of his future and his story of his troubled family, of his boyhood friends Bain Cross and Pax Sheehy, and of the uncertainties and secrets each of them must confront as they rises to power in the political world. Their history is one of allegiances given and withdrawn, all of them over shadowes by the powerful and enigmatic presence of Theo's mother, herself the victim of an old crime that no one dares to speak of.
Writting the plot of it is already breathtakingly brave because the story is really complex. If you are brave enough to just take a glance at the first chapter, the you are really really brave. Not that the vocabulary is complicated (as a matter of fact, it is really simple), the main story is like you have a ball of wool but you don't know how to knit!

Dispatches

Michael Herr is someone i've never heard of but this book of him is brilliant. Dispatches is a book that would inspire someone like me who especially hates book about war.
The book is just simply about Herr's experiences in the Vietnam war, about how the soldiers lived, the health conditions there were in and how they fought. This book is more than just a historical textbook, it's a novel, a real story brilliant use of languages and the accurate historical accounts.
It isn't a textbook that you learn at school but i learned from this book that war isn't just about fighting and being tough, it's about courage and sacrificing. The book really would inspire you to live better, to appreciate what you have already got and to pay attentions to things around you (which means not to be selfish :]). Over all, i loved it!

Purple Hibiscus

Purple Hibiscus is written by an author who has a very long name that i was afraid to put at the title of this entry: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
This is a religious book that is not really suitable for everyone that does not know well about religious studies like me.
The novel tell a story of a 15 years old girl named Kambili who is afraid of her father who is a charismatic and violent Catholic patriarch but generous and well-respected in the community. Furthermore, he is repressive and has compulsion towards religious at home. Kambili and her brother, Jaja, are forced to live at their aunt's home due to Nigeria is shaken by a military coup. At their new home their wounds by their father start to heal and they live better lives than they have ever live.
I find it pretty hard to understand the plot but it turns out to be easy to read because the use of language is very simple and the vocabulary is not that complex. After all, it is fun to start reading something more complicated and i can't wait to read 'Half of a Yellow Sun' also by Adichie!