At the Movies: My Sassy Girl

Charlie was on his way to visit his aunt - whose son recently died - when he found a young woman leaning over the rails at the subway station, and he rushes to save her life. The young woman's name is Jordan and from that moment on she kind of takes over Charlie's life, dragging him into all sorts of crazy adventures and generally getting him in trouble. even with her father. 

Charlie comes from a middle-class midwestern family and his dream is to get into this big agricultural company that his father has worked for for most of his life, but he keeps getting derailed by Jordan and they start to fall in love - even after Jordan confesses that her fiance recently left her. 

I'm going to stop there because I don't want to give away spoilers. I have such a fond memory of the first time I saw this movie - because it was during a rare visit with my best friend Vi and we saw this movie and we both loved it. 

I liked it because it's a funny, little romantic comedy and it felt like that - I've found that so-called romantic movies of late, are anything both, someone always die or is such a ridiculous struggle for people to get together and half the time I don't buy they are going to stay together; but I totally bought into Jordan and Charlie's story.

Jordan could be a bit much at times but she was fun and I liked this movie over all. It is more the kind of movie you would watch with friends. It's a small, unassuming movie though the story-telling might be contrived at times. By the way, this is based on a Korean movie by the same name.

And I give it a B-

Book Review: Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik

At First Sight: Elise Benton and her sisters just moved to California, where their parents took teaching positions at Coral Tree Prep - an expensive high school, well known because many Hollywood stars send their kids there. 

Elise doesn't much care for the change and she's still reeling from the cultural shock of moving from Massachusetts to California, and she doesn't have a high opinion of her new classmates. 

And Derek Edwards - the son of two Hollywood A-List stars Kyle Edwards and Melinda Anton - doesn't help to improve that opinion. Derek is always frowning and acts like having to talk to people is a huge chore and imposition... yet he's still insanely popular. But Elise would be glad not to cross paths with him ever.

But when her older sister Jules and his best friend Chase become inseparable, Elise and Derek end up spending a lot of time together. Time Elise would rather spend with Webster Grant, the social outcast of Coral Tree Prep. 

Second Glance: When I heard Epic Fail was a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, I immediately wanted to read it, I've always loved Darcy and Lizzie and I thought this book was going to be awesome. Sadly, Epic Fail turned out to be more "Pride and Prejudice inspired" rather than and actual retelling. 

At first, I quite liked the book, I thought Elise was rather funny, and the setting - an affluent Prep School, (in)famous for catering to Celebrities' kids - seemed to be working. But then.. things kind of started to go off track. 

Elise and Jules' younger sisters were annoying and over the top, Layla - a.k.a. Lydia from P&P - didn't have one single hint of charm, she was an annoying, popularity hungry brat. And if one can say anything about Lydia from P&P is that she was popular and could be charming when it suited her. Webster was cartoonish too. Practically everyone was... and I had a hard time liking them, let alone sticking to the story for long periods of time.

Elise, while I found her funny at times, was  just too... passive, and crazy and lacked some of the wit and bite I was expecting. 

Also, in my book, any P&P re-telling gets points deducted when they cut off Mary or Kitty (though Kitty is in this story in a very small capacity). 

Bottom Line: Epic Fail was not the book for me as I failed to connect or even like the characters all that much. I felt he P&P story line was overly simplified and the story loss something in the process. I will say that I thought Claire LaZebnik writes with a nice sense of humor, and that was my favorite part of it all, the writing - even if the characters fell flat - and I think I would like to read more books by her in the future.

Favorite Quote: "The sandwich lady does owe me a huge favor."

That actually caught Derek's interest. He looked up. "Really?"

"Oh, year."I said. "Bur it's a long story - involves this knife fight in Brussels, back during the war. She was smuggling. I was a double agent for the resistance... The usual." 

1/2

Book Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

At First Sight: Delaney Maxwell was planning on a day playing in the snow with her best friend Decker and their group of friends. They were walking across a frozen lake to meet their friends when the ice crumbled under Delaney's feet and she fell into the icy lake.

She fights to get out of the water but soon blacks out and next thing she knows she's hearing voices as she wakes up in the hospital.

They tell her she was under the water for 11 minutes and that, as a result, her brain is damaged, and it's nothing short of a miracle she woke up at all, let alone that she doesn't seem to have any of the expected repercussions of her brain injury.

But Delaney isn't exactly as she used to be, mostly in the sense that she hears strange voices from time to time, and that she seems to be able to sense when someone is going to die. 

Then she meets a boy named Troy. Troy recently woke up from a coma similar to Delaney's and he seems to have the same abilities to sense death.

Second Glance: When I first picked up Fracture I kind of thought it would be something similar to Meg Cabot's Abandon - which I read last year - but maybe in a different tone. But the book wasn't anything like I expected. 

I liked the beginning, with Delaney falling into the icy water and all that, but then my attention began to wander a little, maybe because both Decker and Delaney sounded a little robotic to me and I had a hard time believing they had been best friends forever. 

I wanted to like them and I wanted to buy into the tension between them but then I just didn't (and they tended to go back an forth and even say the same phrases to each other again and again - I noticed this right at the beginning when Decker keeps saying "I left you and you fell" about three times in a few pages).

Troy well, Troy was all right I guess. I kept forgetting his name. 

And the ending, well it felt a little rushed and a few things never finished making sense to me.

Bottom Line: I didn't love Fracture, but I didn't hate it either, though I did have to push myself to keep reading, I thought it had enough good to keep you going. It just wasn't a favorite read of mine

2/3

Book Review: First Date by Krista McGee

The Deal: Addy Davidson has spent her life trying to fill the tall order of being the daughter of missionaries. Something made harder by the fact that both her parents died while doing missionary work and now she's being brought up by her uncle and attending a Christian high school. 

She wants to keep a low profile and succeeds at it for the most part, until she's selected to take part in a reality show called The Book Of Love. The focus on the show is finding a prom date for the President's son Jonathon Jackson. 

Addy doesn't want to participate, but her uncle and principal keep telling her it's all part of God's plan and soon, against her wishes and better judgement, she's whisked away to take part in the ultimate dating game show. 

My Thoughts: I wanted to like First Date, I really did. I thought the idea of it sounded rather cute, but very early into the book I was hit over the head with religion and God's name and God's plan.

And the over all effect was preachy, preachy, preachy. 

I liked some of the contestants and even Jonathon, the president's son. But the Christian part bothered me. I knew this was a Christian book, and I usually have no trouble with that but in this case it was just too much. I understood it was an important part of Addy's life but I felt like the message was shoved down my throat often an often and that it was used a bit as a clutch and plot device rather than a more organic part of the story.

Medusa the Mean Giveaway

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