Book Review: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.

Mood: ??
Listening to: 'How Will I Know?' by Keke Palmer
Hungry for: love
Bella says: 'c-c-c-c-c-c-coldddd'

I quite literally just finished this book five minutes ago.

What can I say? It sucks you in and won't spit you out until about three in the morning. The Holocaust as seen from the innocent son of a Nazi officer. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

Okay, so Bruno's ignorance gets very annoying after a while, but at it's heart it's a very good book. Brilliant movie, too.

And, just in case you've read the book but haven't watched the movie, or vice versa, here is a little comparison:

THE MOVIE: DIFFERENCES FROM THE NOVEL:

• Bruno's father is not as harsh as in the novel. In the movie he is portrayed as a little distant, but kindly, and confused as his dedication to the Nazi regime conflicts with his morals.
• There is no mention of Bruno's mother having an affair with Lieutenant Koftler or whatever the hell his name is.
• Bruno's head is not shaved when he enters the camp, so he is very recognisable in the gas chamber.
• The 'dead dolls' scene is not featured in the novel.
• The family's move to 'Out-With', as it is referred to in the novel, affects Bruno's mother much more than it does in the novel.
• The 'Fury' (Hitler) does not feature directly in the movie, but at the Grandmother's funeral a wreath of flowers with the words 'von den Fuhrer' (from the Chairman) is placed on top of the coffin.

Book Review: The Time Traveller's Wife

Mood: tired
Listening to: 'Affirmation' by Savage Garden
Hungry for:...
Bella says: 'Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah....it's cold...'

More book reviews!

I've just finished The Time Traveller's Wife, which I've wanted to read for like FOREVER, and it's utterly brilliant. It proves that you don't need immortality or vampires to make a love story interesting.

But you might need a time traveller.

The book explores the life of Clare Abshire, who is married to Chicago librarian Henry DeTamble, who has a genetic defect that causes him to uncontrollably time travel. It looks at the complexities and difficulties their relationship faces due to his constant disappearances, and their struggles to conceive a child.

It's an amazingly romantic book, but not sickly sick or gooey - it's more homey, more simple, much more like waht a real relationship would be like. It's based on The Odyssey, a little, in that Clare compares herself to Penelope waiting for Odysseus to return. At the core of every great love is a great love story, so at the core of every great love story is a great love.

Henry DeTamble is a very unusual sort of man in that he's moody, poetic, bookish...not the classic hero, but a very loveable character nonetheless.

WARNING: this book is not for children. The language is unrelentlessly...rude. But a very, very, very good book.

Book Review: Jane Eyre

Mood: high
Listening to: 'Hips Don't Lie' by Shakira ft. Wyclef Jean
Hungry for: nuthin'
Bella says: 'TUMMY SCRATCH!!!!!'

Okay, so I finished Jane Eyre ages ago, and it's now one of my favourite books.

Jane Eyre is perhaps the most famous of all the Bronte classics, written by Charlotte Bronte under her androgynous pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre is a very well written novel, very tightly written, and reads like an autobiography.

The story's heroine and narrator, Jane Eyre, captures the very essence of a virtuous woman, but her character makes her distinct from other literary heroines in that she is an independant, educated woman, and has the strength to turn away from love when it threatens her religion. Jane is deeply religious and her moral beliefs are infallible, but she is also compassionate, kind and has the ability to love passionately, in sharp contrast with Mr Brocklehurst, the clergyman who ran her orphanage, Lowood School, who abused and maltreated his pupils in the name of religion, and St John Rivers, her cousin, who, whilst passionate, is cold and lacks the ability to love her or the willingness to love his true love. Jane Eyre is not beautiful, nor is she commonly portrayed by particularly beautiful actresses, purely because her character is beautiful enough to shine through any physical plainness. Despite the fact that St John is the missionary, Jane Eyre's character is alluded to as some kind of angel, reforming and converting Mr Rochester, who is to sin as Jane is to purity, and his ward, Adele, the bastard daughter of a French courtesan. But, despite being seeped in Christian morals, it's doesn't have an overbearing effect on non-Christians, as the focus is more on moralities rather than the religion itself.

Mr Rochester is a very welcome break from Edward Cullen in that his flaws are somwhat graver and more interesting than obsessive-compulsive stalking and watching prospective girlfriends sleep. A worldly yet deeply unhappy man trapped in a hopeless marriage, Mr Rochester's life is tainted with sin and tangled with misery, and shows how Jane leads him towards and then away from sin.

It's a very good book if you have troubles with the classics, and the perfect starting point into the beautiful Bronte novels. Let Thornfield possess you.

Your Skirt's Too Short

Mood: feminist.
Listening to: 'Anything But Ordinary' by Avril Lavigne
Hungry for: food.
Bella says: 'Sorry I peed in the corridor, mummy!'

So I've found this great book by Australian novellist and columnist Emily Maguire - Your Skirt's Too Short. It discusses the ridiculous expectations of women, and, to a lesser extent, of men, and how they contradict each other. It also discusses, in a perfect world, how the sexual expectations of men and women will be the same, if not non-existant.

It's something I've argued with for a long time. A man who sleeps around is 'manly' - a woman who sleeps around is a 'slut'. Why is that?

Okay, so I don't sleep around. I'm underaged, for starters, and I'm a sworn virgin until marriage - not because of some hokey religion, but because I want to. Why? Not because I'm afraid of being a slut. Simply because to me, sex has more meaning and besides, I have big dreams - a baby at sixteen is not one of them.

But I still think it's my right, once I'm over sixteen, to have my own private life and not be labelled - labelled as a slut, because I am a woman. If I were a man, I don't think people give a shit. This is the sad fact of life, but it's something we can change.

When we see a teenager pregnant, or with a small child, we often think, how irresponsible. And yes, she is, most definately. But we often push aside the fact that there is another person involved, but because he can just walk away from the situation, or even ask her to kill her own baby, we often forget about him. Women are forced to carry the evidence of their life's mistakes with them - men, more often or not, can just wipe their hands clean. Which is not fair.

I'm not saying that all women should rush out and sleep with the first man they see. I still think modern society is oversexed, but it seems that only women find themselves in hot water. We have to learn not to judge each other by our personal decisions.

I hope, one day, we will reach that point.

Just a few...random...notes...

Mood: biebered? is that a word?
Listening to: 'Never Let You Go' by Justin Bieber
Hungry for: dinner
Bella says: 'Hey mummy! I snapped a millipede in half today!' (me: uh...that's...great....bells...')

Okay, so welcome back Morgapedia, if you just came back...if you've been here all along, then, well, hello anyway...sorry, a bit random. I can only tell where people are signing in from, not exactly who they are, so, COMMENTS ARE REALLY COOL PEOPLE.

Another thing. I just realized that the picture of Paul Wesley I posted makes him look really, really, fat. (There's this thing about buff guys and tucked in shirts and ties...it makes all of them look unbelievably tubby.) In my defense, it looked fine at first glance - all the other pictures he's doing this weird head-jut thing so his head looks totally out or proportion to the rest of his body. Sigh. Hot people don't always have hot poses.

So, being the dutiful blogmistress that I am, I have provided some better eye candy:




He does appear topless in episode 10, but I couldn't find any good pictures of that. Anyway, feast your eyes ladies.

Another thing I wanted to do was a product review on some new products from The Body Shop I bought about a week ago. I bought the night cream, day lotion, foaming cleanser, blemish gel and mask from The Reformulated Tea Tree Range, and I think it's great. The products have a beautiful powder-matte finish that lasts ALL DAY, works great under makeup, and has really helped my acne, acne scars and uneven skintone. This only works for people with, like, super oily skin, because the products are quite drying, although you do get used to that. But I totally, totally recommend it for people with oily, blemished skin because it's natural and effective...and it's body shop!

BTW, I've found some great music for y'all. As you may or may not know, YouTube has been the place where many popstars, including Justin Bieber, have been found, but not all of them have been as successful as my favourite J.B., which is a shame because some of them are really talented. My favourites are Esmee Denters, who is Justin Timberlake's protege (check out her new single 'Love Dealer', totally cool), and Savannah Outen and her single, 'If You Only Knew' (which is basically what I sing to pictures of Paul Wesley and Justin Bieber like, all the time). Other songs that have been on my playlist is 'Somebody To Love', by Leighton Meester and Robin Thicke, and 'Stranger', by Hilary Duff. So yeah, lots of cool stuff.

And another thing: Taylor Swift has made it to TIME magazine's Most Influential People of 2010! So exciting. Robert Pattinson was on there as the prime target of twilightmania, but I don't understand why J.Biebz didn't make it, with bieberfever and bieber nation and all those crazy beliebers out there.

That's all from your best friend, Lady Renegade.

When Words Fail

When words fail,
Hearts break,
When words fail,
It's heartache.

When words fail,
Couples kiss,
When words fail,
It's bliss.

When words fail,
A child cries,
When words fail,
It's all lies.

When words fail,
Children laugh,
When words fail,
You can't get enough.

When words fail,
I smile,
Because when words fail,
I write.

The Perfect Edward Cullen

Mood: meh
Listening to: 'I'd Lie' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: love
Bella says: 'WHERE'S MUMMY GOOOOOONE??????'

BROADCASTING FROM SCHOOL.


I have found the perfect Edward Cullen.


Paul Wesley.

Unfortunately (or perhaps not so unfortunately), Paul Wesley plays another vampire who falls in love with a mortal girl and only drinks the blood of animals and all that, in the TV series adaption of The Vampire Diaries - which has pretty much the exact same themes as Twilight, only the vampires aren't so virginal and it was published fifteen years ago. But Paul Wesley should have been cast as Edward, too.

Why? Because he fits at all the criteria so much better than Robert Pattinson. Pale? Check, only Paul's skintone is creamy white to Robert Pattinson's ash grey. Slim, yet muscular frame? Double check, only Paul's six pack and muscle definition is real, and not painted on by makeup-artists like Rob's was and, as an added bonus, HE DOESN'T HAVE CHEST HAIR. Bronze hair? Check, and it's not even dyed. Yellow eyes...well, it would be really creepy if he had those naturally (although amber is an official human eye colour, closely linked to green and hazel). Tall? Well, Paul Wesley's height is not officially documented, he is estimated to be around six foot (he's taller than Nina Dobrev, who plays his love interest Elena/Katherine in the series, by a good few inches, and she's 5'6", the same height as Kristen Stewart). Robert Pattinson is 6'1" to Edward Cullen's 'book height' of 6'2". He's also a better actor, and, unlike Robert Pattinson, has more charisma at least than a cardboard box.

Who is Paul Wesley? Well, he's a Polish-American actor best known for playing Stefan Salvatore, a character uncannily like Edward Cullen (or the other way around, because Stefan was invented first) in the TV series Vampire Diaries, which is an adaption of the vampire novels of the same name. The Vampire Diaries is considered the halfway house between the very unconventional vampire lore of Twilight and the garlic-fearing coffin-sleeping myths of Dracula.

So what do you think? Is The Vampire Diaries a good modern interpretation of the traditional blood-sucking myths, or does Dracula still win at the end of the day? Or does Twilight beat them both?

The Vampire Diaries is certainly not as ridiculous in terms of storyline, and there is some relatable stuff in there, along with some very real drama, wherelse it's nearly impossible to relate to Bella or Edward. I think The Vampire Diaries wins. What about you?

I just had to add this picture, just to show you the un-originality of Twilight (but I still love it).


(can anyone see the similarity?)

Bieber Fever

Mood: weirded out
Listening to: 'Baby' by Justin Bieber, Live @ Sunrise Australia
Hungry for: milk.
Bella says: 'daddy's seat is so warmm.....'

Okay, so I said that my school is...not that enthusiastic about Justin Bieber.

Clearly, it's another story for a lot of other Australian teenagers.

People flew from all across Australia to see Justin Bieber at his only live performance in Australia to date, in Sydney - just to give you an idea how big a pilgrimage that is, Sydney is FIVE HOURS FLIGHT away from Perth, which is where I live - you can get to Singapore on a similar-lengthed flight - and the police kind of underestimated Bieber Fever a little bit. Eight girls were taken to hospital, mostly for hyperventilation, and about 5,000 teenagers crowded to wherever he was meant to perform live, on stage, bashing down barriers and struggling with police. Eventually, to their outrage, his outdoor performance was cancelled and J.B. had to perform indoors on the set of Sunrise, which is this...talkshow thing that is on every weekday morning, and wave and kiss and do whatever celebrities do, through the windows, because it was considered too dangerous for him to go outside.

I mean, this is crazy. I like Justin Bieber a lot, but there's no way I would fly all the way to Sydney during a school term just to go see him...maybe if it was a one-on-one meeting, but not to be one of the many screaming hyperventilating psychos. And I mean, live performances never sound good. They're in an unfamiliar environment, without the digital altering and the leeway to make slip ups and what not. I mean, popstars on stage just sound like normal people - because that is really what they are, just normal people. I don't think screaming fan girls really understand that. I think they've succeeded in scaring Justin Bieber away from Australia for good, though.

P.S. I've just noticed one of the polls is really stupid - who on earth would admit they'd rather be pretty and dumb? Regina George?

Book Review: The Imperfectionists.

Mood: ?
Listening to: 'Eenie Meenie' by Sean Kingston ft. Justin Bieber
Hungry for: apple pieee...
Bella says: 'zzz...'

I've been meaning to write this for ages...

Okay, so, at the same Writer's Festival that I bought Jasper Jones, I bought another book called the Imperfectionists, who is...wait for it, written by a London-born Canadian ex-journalist who lives in Rome. I actually met him, Tom Rachman, and he is very nice.

I started reading The Imperfectionists first, but then I started Jasper Jones soon after - because I generally have no less than six books on my reading list at one time, a mixture of old favourites, bad habit trash, classics and new stuff. But then I got hooked onto Jasper Jones and started reading into the wee hours - not such a good idea, it's really quite spooky - but then I finished The Imperfectionists, and I loved it.

The Imperfectionists is a novel, but it doesn't really follow a traditional novel format. It's instead a collection of interlinking short stories from the different perspectives of interlinking people, all somehow connected to an international newspaper based in Rome. As the blurb rightly says, behind doors at newspaper it's sex, strife and spellcheck, which is basically the main themes that connect the stories. Each short story clearly shows the diverse people and personas who are connected to a somewhat failing newspaper, and are prime examples of Tom Rachman's wit and journalistic experience.

The only shortcoming? The book is simply too long for it's rather complicated format. By the time one character pops up again, twenty stories after his own, you've already clean forgotten him. It's the kind of book you have to read over and over, so you establish a kind of personal connection with each and every character.

But hey, I'm not really complaining.

By the way, Jasper Jones update: Craig Silvey is one of (the Australian) Cleo Magazine's Most Eligible Bachelors.

back!

Mood: sick :(
Listening to: 'Baby' by Justin Bieber
Hungry for: tea!
Bella says: 'Mummy's back! TUMMY SCRATCH TIIIIIIME!!!!!'

I'm back!

I don't know how many times I've said that.

Sorry I haven't been blogging, I've been away for nine days. I went to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and, as you may know, blogger (and facebook and youtube) is banned in China, and the internet services in the Hong Kong hotels were ridiculous.

But I'm back now. Sick, tired, exhausted and shopped-out, but back.

More posts when I'm actually concious.

P.S Bella seems so much bigger than I remember! But according to my very dodgy 20-year-old set of scales, she's actually lost half a kilo. Strange.