Ashes

   Ilsa J Bick's 'Ashes' was given to me by one of my Mum's friends. As she gave it to me, she said and I quote, "I know you're into vampires and Twilight stuff so here's a book about zombies." Zombies and vampires are totally different but I was still touched by her gesture. Ashes has probably been in my bookshelf for over a year and as my room is so disorganized at the moment, I was pleasantly surprised to find it in the mess and finally got to reading it.

   In my opinion, what sets Ashes apart from other novels in the same genre is the fact that it isn't set in a distant future; the events that occur in Bick's book could literally happen tomorrow, which is what makes the novel so chilling. As the novel begins, the reader is introduced to Alex Adair, a teenager with a brain tumour that is not responding to treatments. Alex is on a sole hike in the woods on a mission to say farewell to her dead parents and face her personal demons. There, an unexpected electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, killing billions, seemingly curing some people like Alex, heightening some of their senses while others (mostly teenagers) are 'Changed' into cannibalistic, violent and animal like 'zombies'.

   The first part of this book was awesome. I always ask my friends what they'd do in a zombie apocalypse (I seriously believe that we should prepare ourselves for such things) and Ashes gives many good tips for such an occurrence. I learned from the book that I'd be totally screwed in a zombie apocalypse as I cannot survive in the woods (making a fire etc is a foreign notion to me) my vision is abysmal sans my glasses, I've stopped doing sport so I'm now out of shape and would probably be unable to run away from speedy flesh eaters and so on. I think you get my drift. Anyway, back to the first half of Ashes. This is definitely not a good book to read whilst eating. Bick's vivid descriptions of humans feasting on the eyeballs and organs of fellow humans had me gagging into my dinner and I nearly threw up on multiple occasions.

  Alex's characterisation is very strong as well. It's good to have a strong, female lead that does not let her illness define her life and weigh her down. Alex is no Bella Swan, I'll tell you that. Although it seemed all too convenient that Alex just happens to bump into Tom Eden in the woods, a young soldier who also happens to be an explosives specialist and survival expert, I'll let Bick off for that as he too is a strong character with secrets that intrigue the audience. The character of Ellie Cranford, an eight year old girl that Alex is forced to care for after her grandfather dies in 'the zap' was highly irritating though. I understand that she was like this because she's experienced a fair amount of turmoil in her young life but still, I was not that annoying when I was eight (I hope).

  Now for my opinion on the second part of the novel. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first half because it just lacked the energy and action of the first. The characters that we as an audience come to care for, Ellie and Tom, are totally absent and Alex becomes the involuntary prisoner of an Amish like community called 'Rule'. This half of the book is too convuluted plot wise and genre wise (is it sci fi, romance, fantasy or a combination of all three?) and there were too many characters that I didn't care for. However, the book is saved by the ending, which was such a cliffhanger with so many unanswered questions and as Ashes is the first book of the trilogy, I will most certainly read the next book, 'Shadows'.

  Despite my whinging, I actually enjoyed Ashes. Yes, it was slightly Hunger Games-y at times with the killer teenagers, a bit The Host-y at times with the small community of survivors and even a bit Twilight-like with the ruling council of the Rule resembling the Volturi (you'll get it when you read the book). Nevertheless, Ilsa J Bick was very successful in exposing the negative aspects to human nature that tend to surface when disaster strikes: greed, selfishness and doing whatever it takes to survive, even at the expense of the lives of others. Bring on the sequel!

Rating 3.5/5 ***

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ashes-Trilogy-Ilsa-J-Bick/dp/0857382624

The Choice

  I thought that with exams being over and with the summer holidays, I'd have more time to read and blog. Boy, was I wrong! Last week was stressful from start to finish and it consisted of two shows that I was part of at my local theatre and four nights of singing at a church conference that I helped to organise. Thankfully, everything was successful and I sighed a huge sigh of relief as I crashed into bed on Sunday evening. My fatigue was so much that I was bedridden for the whole of yesterday, regaining my strength! I am now rested and ready to review Nicholas Sparks' 'The Choice'.

  I've read a few of Sparks' books in my time; The Last Song (the film version with Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth still reduces me to a sobbing mess), A Walk to Remember (ditto for the film with Mandy Moore and Shane West), Dear John (I haven't seen the film with Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum yet but I cried a lot after reading the book), The Guardian and The Notebook. I'm going to drop a bombshell by saying that I personally think that both the novel and film versions of The Notebook are immensely overrated. That's right, I went there.

   'The Choice' was written in 2007 and it is the story of Travis Parker and his neighbour, Gabby Holland. Travis, a young bachelor who has it all: a great job, loyal friends and a waterfront house cannot understand why his neighbour seems to have taken such a strong dislike to him for no apparent reason and as the novel progresses, the two overcome many conflicts and challenges as love inadvertently develops between them.

  Whenever I think of this book, the word that comes to mind is 'meh'. Yes, MEH. It just didn't engage me. In fact, I actually read it for the first time two years ago and forgot about it. The copy that I have now was a birthday present. It says a lot that I actually re-read it, thinking it was a book that I had not read before. This is because the plot is just so characteristically Nicholas Sparks and samey that it just didn't stand out to me. As aforementioned, the Nicholas Sparks formula works sometimes but this time, I'm sad to say that it didn't.

  If you're unfamiliar with the Sparks formula, here are some of his most common elements; a dog, a male and female that initially despise each other but fall in love eventually, quite quickly and unrealistically, might I add, some sort of life threatening disease, cheesy and clichéd love quotes and dialogue that no one says in real life, an accident, war and one element that really annoys me is the setting- North Carolina. I know this is where Sparks lives but must he always base his novels here?

  The Choice bugged me for many reasons. One, I disliked Gabby's character because I can never agree with people who cheat. Never. I don't care if she cheated because she found true love. Cheating is still never cool in my books. This leads me on to the second reason why The Choice bugged me- I just couldn't believe and buy the love between Gabby and Travis. To me, it was too sudden and rushed. Can we have some character development, please? Call me a cynic and maybe I'm a hardhearted, unbeliever in 'true love'. Maybe. It'll take a lot to move the cold, cold cockles of my heart, that's for sure. Thirdly, to me, there was a huge disconnect between the first part and second part of the novel and the plot twist just came out of nowhere, in my opinion, with no build whatsoever towards it. In addition, the book's tagline: 'How far would you go to keep the hope of life alive?' irritated me immensely, due to the fact that it was repeated over and over again in the book.

  If I could go back in time and change my choice, I wouldn't have read this book again. I'm still a fan of Nicholas Sparks' work but to quote Randy Jackson, I'm not feelin' it this time, dawg.

Rating 2/5 **

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Choice-Nicholas-Sparks/dp/0751540579

Midnight in Paris

  Those that know me are well aware of the fact that I'm a huge francophile. According to my sister, I'm even verging on pretentious with it as she gets annoyed when I tell her random French facts daily, speak the language around the house, listen to French music and watch French films. Paris is one of my favourite cities and I'll be studying French at university as my aim is to become fluent. So, it's safe to say that I'm a French keeno. Therefore, it was perfect that I got 'Midnight in Paris' (2011)
as one of my birthday presents.

   The film stars Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers) as Gil Pender, a screenwriter who goes to Paris on holiday with his materialistic fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams- Mean Girls, Wedding Crashers), in order to get inspiration for the novel that he's writing. There, he begins to realise how different their goals as magic happens and he travels back in time to his ideal era- Paris in the 1920s.

  Midnight in Paris is an absolutely stunning film for various reasons. There is something for everyone; history, 'magic', romance, eye candy, comedy, music(lots of cool stuff from the Jazz Age-I had Cole Porter's 'Let's Do It' on repeat for days) and more. There are also many beautiful images of the city that'll you'll fall in love with and want to visit. If you're like me, you'll be hugely chuffed to recognise the places that you've been to.

  In addition, the film's star studded, ensemble cast are brilliant, recognisable faces such as Marion Cotillard (La Vie en rose, Inception) , Michael Sheen (Twilight saga), Adrien Brody (King Kong) and Kathy Bates (Titanic). I got to geek out over literary heroes being brought to life and Tom Hiddleston as F Scott Fitzgerald was spot on.

  Midnight in Paris was written and directed by Woody Allen and it's the first film of his that I've seen. I shall definitely be watching more of his films as I really enjoyed this one and the main message that I got from it was that even though the past can sometimes be appealing and seem as an ideal, it is always best to accept the present and live in it. The little squeal that I did whenever French was spoken and I understood it is proof that I've chosen the right degree. Thanks, Woody, for this gem of a film, a welcome breath of fresh air from the action packed films nowadays.

Rating 9.5/10

The Unfamous

  It's hard to pinpoint exactly how I found this 'book'. I actually read it online, on Wattpad; it is apparently going to become a published book soon and the author goes by 'Scotty Unfamous'. 'The Unfamous' is the story of Rio Greene, who starts her first year at Brompton University on a mission to reinvent herself and become 'unfamous'. The story follows the difficulties in Rio's past that make this mission hard to succeed in such as her cheating ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel Gibson, and her arch-nemesis, Georgia Daniels, the girl he cheated on her with. The plot is nothing new as the whole idea of a cheating boyfriend wanting to win back the 'love of his life'/ nerdy girl wanting to be popular and changing herself has been done before, but I was still quite excited to read it as I love teen dramas.

    My excitement quickly dimmed. First of all, 'unfamous' is not a word. So, the title actually makes no sense. In fact, I worry that Scotty might have meant to call the book 'The Infamous' but as the letters 'i' and 'u' are next to each other on a keyboard, the whole title could have been a typo that became too late to go back from. Awkward. Secondly, I am completely against colloquialisms/ references to brands in books unless they are used well or ironically. This is because they can make a novel  become outdated, ruining its longevity. For instance, The Unfamous was written in 2010 and  Rio constantly mentions how using a BlackBerry Curve makes her cool and 'part of them'. She also states that anyone without a BlackBerry is a loser as it is THE phone to have and BBM is better than everything. In 2013, the age of the iPhone, I was laughing whilst reading as it is now the opposite and the BlackBerry is now lame. In addition, every time a character wears a designer brand  of clothing, it is mentioned. This got irritating as well as I began to feel that I was reading an advert, not a book. Scotty Unfamous, you do not need to describe every item of clothing that a character is wearing! People read books in order to use their imagination and they are unable to do this if the author spells out everything for them as if they're stupid.

  Thirdly, there was just too much going on. To name a few, there is an abortion, teenage pregnancy, drug use and domestic abuse. There are too many characters in the book; they are not well developed and they're mostly annoying, awful people that ruin each others' lives. So, they all start to merge into one. In the second Unfamous book (yes, I read this as well as I am clearly a masochist), I think Scotty tried to remedy this by switching point of views as the book is written primarily in a first person narrative from Rio. Again, this was not successful and it was laughable as the audience is suddenly meant to believe that these colloquial youths have Shakespearean-esque and somewhat poetic inner voices and monologues. The reader gets a lot of Rio though and in my opinion, she is so hard to like as her 'love' for Nathaniel is incomprehensible and unbelievable as she jumps from one guy to the other.

  It is very obvious that I did not like 'The Unfamous'. The book's target audience is an urban generation and as it is getting a lot of love on Wattpad, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (there's even a web series!), maybe I'm not 'black enough' to fully appreciate it. I say 'black enough' very bitterly but that is a post and rant for another day. Well done on all the success that you've had with it so far though, Scotty Unfamous.

Rating 1/5 *