Story of My Life #4 -I Freely Admit...

... (Or Endings I Didn't Care For)

I freely admit I'm one of those people who tend to compare 'Real Life' to whatever fictional world I happen to be obsessed with at a time - this time frame can go for a few hours spent watching a movie to years of wishing there was a real Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the fictional worlds include movies, TV, books (of course!) and even anime (surreal hair and all!).

I also freely admit that I get seriously pissed off when I don't get the ending I hoped for. Like today, for example, I was busy, had chores to do and errands to run temptation won and I decided to channel surf for a bit before getting a move on (because, as I've said many times before, I'm lazy), and I stumbled across an Audrey Hepburn movie (another free admission: I love Audrey's movies) and I had to watch.

The movie was called The Nun's Story, and it's about a young Belgian woman who enters a convent to both become and nun and a nurse (and work in Congo) and eventually has to decide it she's really meant to be a nun or not. Well, let me tell you something: it took me about twenty minutes to figure out she was not cut to be a nun, it took her two and a half hours (and about, I guess, some 10 years of her life as portrayed in the film) to realize she wanted to be a nurse more than she wanted to be a nun.

There is a flirtation with a doctor - if it looks like a flirtation and it quacks like a flirtation, I'm calling it a flirtation, even though she's still a nun at this point - once she FINALLY gets to Congo, but then nothing happens, she's sent back to Europe, and we never hear from Congo ever again, thank you very much! Half an hour later the movie is over, *SPOILER ALERT* she quits being a nun, and that's it.

I mean it: That's It! I felt completely cheated out of my time. I don't know if I expected some big romantic ending (maybe, I do hope for and expect a little bit of romance in everything because it's my favorite genre in the world), but I hoped for something. I hoped to learn that, after everything, she would be happy.

I hoped and that's a big thing for me.

I can deal with endings that are less-than perfectly wrapped in a bow (like in Nick and Nora's Infinite Play List or even in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) but I need hope. I need to have the feeling in my gut that these characters - these people - I just shared part of my heart with have some sort of Happy in their future.

Because, without hope, what's really the point of it all?

The Boy Book by E. Lockhart

In The Boy Book, Ruby Oliver is back in the Tate Universe for her Junior year of high school, and at least some things seem to be looking up. Meghan and Noel are still her friends, and Nora (one of her former best friends) seems willing to talk to her again, Kim (her former BBF and boyfriend snatcher) is off to Japan for the semester and it looks like there is something-maybe going on with Angelo (one of the boys from the Boyfriend List). Oh and she has a new job at the Zoo, which she actually enjoys.

However, as in The Boyfriend List, not everything is smooth going for Ruby. Sure, she hasn't had a panic attack in a few months, but Kim is away and Jackson is sending her notes, she still doesn't know what she wants, has conflicting emotions about Angelo, Noel and Jackson, and her heart still aches for her former friends, specially when she reads The Book Book, which she had written with them in years past.

In the end, Ruby does find some clarity in unexpected ways and she made me proud. I found The Boy Book much more lighthearted than The Boyfriend List, and it was easier for me to get into the pace of things. Noel is so funny and the footnotes - since I expected them now - didn't distract me as much as in the previous book. I still think she has more standing up for herself to do but she's getting there and I like being along for her ride.

Grade:

Books Read in February

Here is an update of the 100+ Reading Challenge and the 2010 YA Reading Challenge. The books read for the YA challenge are in cursive and have their corresponding number next to the review link.

9. Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr (review) *YA5*
10. Fangtastic by Sienna Mercer (review) *YA6*
11. What Happens in London by Julia Quinn
12. Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier *YA7*
13. Follow the Stars Home by Luanne Rice (review)
14. Goddess Boot Camp by Tera Lynn Childs (review) *YA8*
15. The Miles Between by Mary E. Pearson (review) *YA9*
16. The Tenderfoot Bride by Cheryl St. John
17. Virgin River by Robyn Carr (review)
18. Re-Vamped by Sienna Mercer (review) *YA10*
19. Vampalicious (same link as above) *YA11*
20. Shelter Mountain by Robyn Carr (review)

That's it for this month! we'll see what March brings.

Shelter Mountain by Robyn Carr

Shelter Mountain is the second book of the Virgin River Series

For the last few years, John "Preacher" Middleton has helped his friend Jack to run a grill & bar in the little Californian town of Virgin River. One rainy night, John was closing up the bar when a woman came in carrying her son and looking like she could use a break. Usually, John is the type who keeps out of everyone's business but when he realizes that the woman, Paige, is probably running from an abusive relationship, he makes it his personal business to help her.

Paige is indeed running from an abusive husband, her original plan was to run off and assume a different identity, hoping her husband wouldn't find her ever again. But, once in Virgin River and with John's help, she decides to stay and fight, get a divorce and make a home for herself and her son in this out of the way town that has welcomed them both.

So, I really liked John and Paige's story. Paige has her issues and is understandably jumpy and insecure at the beginning but when her feelings toward John begin to emerge, she has gained enough confidence in herself to follow her heart. Chris, her son, was nice without being overwhelming as sometimes kids-in-books can get. And John was such a nice, good guy.

My problem with these books is that it's not only the main story, it's the whole town's saga and you spend only about half the time with the main couple. I'm pro secondary story lines, but they have to be that, secondary, with this book I felt like I wasn't sure whose story was it, John and Paige's or the whole town's (I'm not spoiling secondary plots). And there are just so many characters! It gets confusing after a while because your attention is so divided.

Grade:
1/2

Cover Love #2 - Forgive My Fins

I bet that by now lots of you have seen the cover for Tera Lynn Childs' upcoming book Forgive My Fins but I just wanted to post it too, I think it's adorable, it has all my favorite colors and I actually want to read this book, too.

Here is the summary:

Lily Sanderson has a secret, and it’s not that she has a huge crush on gorgeous swimming god Brody Bennett, who makes her heart beat flipper-fast. Unrequited love is hard enough when you’re a normal teenage girl, but when you’re half human, half mermaid like Lily, there’s no such thing as a simple crush.

Lily’s mermaid identity is a secret that can’t get out, since she’s not just any mermaid – she’s a Thalassinian princess. When Lily found out three years ago that her mother was actually a human, she finally realized why she didn’t feel quite at home in Thalassinia, and she’s been living on land and going to Seaview high school ever since, hoping to find where she truly belongs. Sure, land has its problems – like her obnoxious, biker boy neighbor Quince Fletcher – but it has that one major perk – Brody. The problem is, mermaids aren’t really the casual dating type – when they “bond,” it’s for life.

When Lily’s attempt to win Brody’s love leads to a tsunami-sized case of mistaken identity, she is in for a tidal wave of relationship drama, and she finds out, quick as a tailfin flick, that happily-ever-after never sails quite as smoothly as you planned.

Book comes out in June 2010.

Oh, and btw, Tera Lynn Childs has been hosting a Contest of Olympic Proportions - in honor of the Olympic Games - in her site.

Love,