Thursday, January 18, 2018

Book Review: Talking as Fast As I can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, And Everything in Between - Lauren Graham

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In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood revelas stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood--along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelei Gilmore once again.

In Talking as Fast as I can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, "Did you, um make it?"  She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood ("Strangers were worried about me; that's how long I was single!"), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway ("It's like I had a fashion-induced blackout")

In "What It Was Like, Part One," Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelei Gilmore.  The essay "What It was Like, Part Two" reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she's aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls ("If you're meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you've already set the bar too high"), and she's a card-carrying REI shopper ("My bungee cords now earn points!")

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and - of course - talking as fast as you can.

4/5 stars (really liked it)
So I decided to listen to the audiobook since it was read by Lauren Graham.  So glad I did, it was made the book so much better.  I love how she reflects on every season of Gilmore Girls and makes fun of her hair.  I loved the little bit of behind the scenes for the show and how she even started on the show.  Overall a great book.

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Book Review: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

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It begins with a boy.  Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother.  Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend.  Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works.  He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art.  It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

3/5 stars (liked it)
This story spans several years.  It starts out with thirteen year old Theo.  We see his relationship with his mother and how close they were.  Then they are bombed in a museum and his mother dies.  He gets away with a painting, The Goldfinch, which becomes a center of the whole book.  Theo moves in with a rich family, then ends up living with his estranged father in Las Vegas.  While in Las Vegas he meets a strange boy named Boris.  I really like Boris and wish we could have had some of the story with his point of view.  After loosing his father, he moves back to NY and lives with an antiques dealer.  Then several years pass and Theo is grown up.  He's engaged, but not truly happy.  We meet old friends and things wrap up with the painting.  I didn't feel like the book had a true ending.

Book Review: Hold Still - Nina LaCour

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I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

That night Ingrid told Caitlin, I'll go wherever you go. Ingrid was dead and Caitlin was alone.  Suddenly Caitlin has to dela with a completely unfamiliar life--a life without the art, the laughter, the music, and the joy she shared with her best friend.  When she finds the journal Ingrid left behind, Catilin gets a chance to learn about another side of her friend; and the journal becomes her guide as she deals with forging new friendships, finding a first love, and learning to live without the one person who knew her best.

3/5 stars (liked it)
The book started out with Caitlin dealing with Ingrid's suicide.  We get to know Ingrid and Caitlin throughout the book by seeing what they were like together.  We also meet new people as Caitlin does too.  We see how the death of Ingrid didn't just affect Caitlin, but other kids their age, parents and even teachers.  I really like how we see how Caitlin deals with things and how even at the end it's not happily ever after but life is a little more bearable for her.

Book Review: Overbite - Meg Cabot

Overbite - Meg Cabot Meena Harper has a special gift, but i's only now that anyone's ever appreciated it.  The Palatine Guard--...