2010 Book Review

Word to your mother, here are the books I read this year:

**1/2 The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally, a nice book about photography - but doesn't really offer any technical help, just casual suggestions.  The pictures are cool though!

*1/2 Graceling by Kristin Cashore, a YA fantasy novel that had a really nice thing going for itself and then it just crashed and burned - like the Hindenburg.

**** Olive Kittridge by Elizabeth Strout, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner.  The writing was really, really good - but in a haunting way.  I think this is the first book that I read that I enjoyed the writing more than the story.  Is that possible? 

*****Island by Alistair Macleod.  A collection of short stories.  If I were the kind of girl to get tattoos, I would tattoo quotes from this book all over my body - that is how much I love this book.  It is achingly beautiful. *Caution for those who would like to read it, not every story in the collection is rated with 5 stars.  I can tell you which ones to skip if you want.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, not even worth half a star.  I can barely remember what the book is about, but I can vividly remember how painfully boring it was to read.  I'm kind of surprised and disappointed I took the time to finish it.

****The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall, a biography about Peter M. Roget (of Roget Thesaurus fame).  I loved this book so much that I even used it in a Relief Society lesson.  This man had a fascinating life/family full of mental diseases, tragedy, depression, etc., and the thing that saved him was making lists.  Proving to me that I've been right all my life in thinking that finding the right word has a preternatural power (and yes, I did just use the thesaurus to find the word preternatural, thank you Peter).

***Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, this was my introduction to Brandon Sanderson and the beginning of my status as a BranSanFan.  It was a little slow getting into it - but still a very awesome book.  Saying that makes me feel like a boy, but it is what it is.

****Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (I told you I was a BranSanFan - had I not started reading him at the end of the year, I would probably have 5 more of his books up here).  NERD ALERT: Yes I do find myself comparing my everyday life to the attitudes, powers, and circumstances of Elantrians, Duladens, and Aons.

1/2 star The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer.  In trying to read all past pulitzers, I stumbled my way through this one.  I would ask you to tell me how this won the prize, but that would mean you would have to read it - and I don't want to make anyone do that.  It gets half a star for somehow managing to trick people into giving it the prize.

*****Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett.  She only uses four words the entire book.  She's a genius.

******The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  Six stars is not a typo.  This book sparkles.

*Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  The one star is in honor of the first two books that preceded this one.  I read this book months ago and I still have nightmares about it.  In my opinion, it goes against everything I believe about literature.  I wrote a dramatic blog post about it right after I read it but never posted it.  Maybe I will soon.

**************************************************These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner.  I think the stars speak for themselves.

Books on 2011's list: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Tinkers by Paul Harding, Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Help by Katheryn Stockett, the entire Fancy Nancy series, and the collected works of Brandon Sanderson.

Any suggestions?

A Trip (Halfway) Around the World

I search for tickets to Iceland at least once a day.  Today, in my search for my dream trip, I stumbled upon this treat: tripplanner.airtreks.com  It's a site that you can map out your own trip around the world and then it tells you how much the total cost for flights would be.  The below trip would cost me a total of $7500.  Isn't that amazing?  The only problem is that it wouldn't let me calculate any more cities - and I didn't even make it to Africa or South America.  That, and I would be stuck in Abu Dhabi.

This One is for Ashley!

***SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen the movie, Tangled, you might not want to read this.***

***BORING ALERT:  If you have seen the movie, Tangled, you probably already thought these exact same things and this will be very redundant to you.***

As previously mentioned, I have been nicknamed Rapunzel since I was a little girl.  This has coincidedly made me feel like an outcast in the family.  Everyone else's princess/prince nickname was attached to a beloved movie.  Everyone else had visual representations of themselves, their forest friends, and their future lovers.  I had squat.  Granted, when Sarah was dubbed Thumbelina there was not yet a movie for her.  But she only had to wait 7 short years before she got her awesome representation.  Try waiting 27 years.

This has been my dream all my life - waiting for Disney to make a Rapunzel movie.  I was so excited to go see the movie, we documented much of the process.

Me, buying the ticket.

Kelly's photography skills.

All of our "tangled" hair

After seeing the movie, I've decided that 27 years was well worth the wait.  They must have had to wait that long in order to truly capture the essence of Rapunzel, which makes sense because that essence is me.  I am Rapunzel.  Please note the shocking similarities:

We both have green eyes and the same eyebrows

Rapunzel was obsessed with dreams.  Not only hers, but helping other people achieve their dreams.

I am obsessed with dreams and helping other people achieve their dreams.

Rapunzel has a horrible guilt complex that runs against the ability to achieve her dreams. I have a somewhat functional guilt/lazy complex that runs against the ability to achieve my dreams.

All of Rapunzel's hobbies are my hobbies. (Baking pies, reading, knitting, painting, charting stars, playing hide n' seek, singing, dancing, weilding frying pans, taming horses, sidewalk chalk drawing...)

Rapunzel was blonde, and then she became a brunette.  I was blonde and then became a brunette.

Rapunzel dated an ex-con. I dated an ex-con.

Rapunzel's hair glows when she sings and has magical healing powers.  I have been told my hair can get really shiny (If I take consistent showers.  And stand in the right kind of sunlight.).

Rapunzel sure had a rotten birthday in the movie.  I have been known to have unlucky birthdays.

I could list similarities forever (our persuasion skills, our serious promises, our fashion sense, being lost princesses...) but in summary, watching that movie was like watching my life.  It was truly a dream come true.  And now, just like Rapunzel, I will have to find a new dream.

I hope you all have seen the movie - it really is a visually stunning masterpiece and it's funny and it's just good old Disney.  If you haven't seen it, please go see it - and when you do, please raise your arms up in the air and shout out in dedication: This one is for Ashley!  Just like Kelly did.