All Old Users

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

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I am reposting this 2013 review because christianaudio.com is giving away this book as an MP3 (or M4B) audiobook for the month of August 2015. Rosaria Champagne was a hard-core liberal activist, a devoted lesbian and a tenured professor of feminism and post-modern thought at Syracuse University. Then she met Jesus over a summer break–an … Read more

Go Set a Watchman: A Novel by Harper Lee

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As with millions of readers, I’ve long loved To Kill a Mockingbird and waited with great excitement for the release of Go Set a Watchman. As the release date of Watchman drew near, my anticipation became tainted with dread as social media posts panned the book and blog posts advised readers to avoid this new book.

Go Set a Watchman takes place several years after Mockingbird. A now 26-year-old Scout returns to Maycomb from New York for her annual visit home. Atticus is still practicing law despite his crippling pain from rheumatoid arthritis. Junior lawyer, Hank, is Atticus’s right hand man and longs to marry Scout. Calpurnia is present in this tale but Jem and Dill are not.

Over the course of two days, Scout learns an ugly truth about her beloved father, her intended beau and her dear Calpurnia, hence the firestorm of complaints and dissatisfaction expressed online. Many readers and reviewers are distressed the noble hero is revealed to be a racist. This is a hard pill for a reader to swallow given our previous experience with Atticus Finch in Mockingbird. It doesn’t seem to fit the character we loved; which is exactly how Scout feels upon this heartbreaking discovery. I believe Watchman, at its core, is about a young woman realizing (rather late) her loved ones, especially her father, are fallible human beings. A realization of this nature, no matter when it occurs in life, can be a devastating discovery.

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The Adventures of the Brothers Brave and Noble by Cynthia Hampton

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What if our childhood imaginary friends are real? Noble Hewlett encounters this very situation when he finds himself magically transported from his home to a realm called The Existence. Here in this fantastical land, Noble learns his imaginary friend is real. The Existence is populated with creatures from the imaginations of children like Noble and … Read more

Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

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The Girl on the Train by Paula HawkinsGirl On The Train by Paula Hawkins is an exciting thriller about what you might notice when you are looking out the train window on your daily work commute. Girl on The Train is a book that has a similar feel, at least at first, to the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. Whether right or wrong, Rachel, the observant commuter, inserts herself into the lives of the people who live outside her train window. Rachel begins watching this couple because she sees how perfect and loving they are towards each other. But, the more she watches what is going on outside her window, the more she notices the cracks in the façade.

The novel Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has been talked about and praised since its publication for its style, intrigue, and social commentary. When this book was published in February of 2015, it was immediately compared to Gone Girl. The reasons it is being compared is because both books have strong female characters, and both books include multiple points of view, which is a very intriguing and unique method when mysteries are involved. Just as there was a lot of hype surrounding Gone Girl, there is a lot of hype with this book. I liked Girl on The Train a lot, but it is not Gone Girl. It does not strive to make any strong social statements and perhaps it is better for it. Unlike Gone Girl where a lot of what we see is the façade, the flaws of Rachel make this a really exciting story. Not only do we see what it might be like for someone with an addiction (Rachel is an alcoholic), but we also learn that we can’t necessarily trust the main character’s point of view. As Rachel attempts to piece together her alcohol soaked memories of what she has seen, we are right there with her trying to make our way through the fog. I found myself becoming just as frustrated as Rachel became as she struggled to solve the mystery with only bits and pieces of a memory to deal with.

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Life of Pi by Yann Martel

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screenshot_02Life of Pi is a fiction novel that was written by Yann Martel. One of Martel’s most famous works, Life of Pi, which was published in 2001, is about an Indian boy, Pi, growing up and navigating his way through life first as a boy in India, second as a teenager drifting out to sea for 227 days and third as a survivor. Pi states in the beginning that his is a story that speaks on the existence of God. The novel shows how one might survive on a lifeboat with only himself, his beliefs in God and a Bengal Tiger to depend on.

There was a lot of hype surrounding this book and even more when the movie came out. Because of that, I was hesitant to give it a try. When Forrest Gump came out, my mom, brother and I went to see it and really liked it, so we told my dad that it was a great movie that he would really like. When he finally watched it at home on VHS, he was a bit let down because of all of the anticipation. But, everyone knows that Forrest Gump really is a good movie. When I finally got around to reading this book and then watching the movie, I was surprised to find that I was not all that disappointed. With the exception of one aspect of the novel, there was a lot that I liked about the book. The descriptions in the book were very intense so much so that some parts were difficult to get through. The emotions described by Pi were palpable to the point where I was almost in tears when the tiger walked into the jungle.

UnknownAn interesting part of the story, to me, was that, even though I didn’t know how Pi had survived, I knew that he had indeed survived. It was the same feeling I got from reading Unbroken. I knew that the Olympic runner had survived but kept reading because I couldn’t imagine how it was possible. Whereas the book Unbroken is non-fiction account of what happened to Louis Zamperini, this book is a work of fiction. It is a work of fiction made to seem like a non-fiction account of Pi surviving at sea for 227 days. There were a number of occasions in the book where the narrator assured us that the story was true and that the account given was accurate. This was not at all the case, of course. In college, we watched an Oliver North film about the “œdesparecidos” of El Salvador called Salvador. The movie came across as a non-fiction account of what had happened and even included script at the end of the movie explaining what happened in the country after the story ended. While many atrocities did occur in El Salvador during the period, the movie was actually fiction, which I felt cheated us from learning about really happened, and I felt tricked. I don’t like feeling tricked and that’s why I only really like this book and don’t love it.

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From the Library to the Megaplex, Five More Books Come to Life Onscreen

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Filmmakers have long turned to novels as a consistent source of inspiration. Over the past few decades, the phenomenon has taken on a life of it’s own with a slew of record-breaking, billion dollar franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games (which continue to find new fans on iTunes and DTV). Recent films such as The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay point to the continued and bankable success of YA novels on the big screen.

But the books-as-movies concept isn’t just for kids: some very adult books have also reached blockbuster status, 50 Shades of Grey and Gone Girl being two prominent examples. Any fears associated with film adaptations of beloved literary tales have faded in favor of mass audience approval and enormous payouts. If you’ve been to the theater recently you’ll know that this trend of big budget book adaptations shows no sign of stopping anytime soon – so lets look at some more books that have been optioned for films and see if we’ve got another blockbuster hit in our midst.

Artimis FowlArtemis Fowl

This purchase of the book rights to the successful Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer by Disney was made back in 2013. They grabbed Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and Robert De Niro to produce the film, which was to be adapted to a screenplay by one of the Harry Potter series’ screenwriters; Michael Goldenberg. They made the same announcement that they were in pre-production earlier this year as well, so it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing the film hit theaters for a year or two yet.

UnknownBefore I Fall

This dark, high school version of Groundhog Day penned by Maria Maggenti was released in 2010, and Fox optioned it for a film almost immediately. It’s a promising page-to-screen adaptation because Maggenti herself is likely to be the screenwriter; given her past employment as one in both film and television we can expect to see her working on this film and ensuring it stays true to the story. The film hasn’t gotten past the development stage yet, but they’ve announced a director, Gina Price-Bythewood, so it appears it’s still moving forward.

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One More Thing By B. J. Novak

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One More Thing is a collection of stories and musings by comedian, actor, producer and now writer, B.J. Novak. B.J. Novak first gained notoriety for his work as writer and actor on The Office. The only major theme throughout the stories is that they have a common overlying purpose, which is to entertain. His stories mention heaven, revenge, romance, sexbots, literature, Tony Robbins, Kellogg’s and Kate Moss. Some stories are many pages and some last only a page.

I am a fan of The Office and I have always enjoyed B.J. Novak’s approach to comedy. I would describe it as being dry without being too British. One of my favorite B.J. Novak moments is when he uncovered for America the Cadbury Conspiracy on the Conan O’Brien show. I think he is great because his jokes aren’t really jokes they seem to mainly be observations on the real life. I learned from reading more about Novak’s life that he comes from a very creative and talented family, and he is a very intelligent person as he graduated with honors from Harvard. After reading this book, I am confident that his success on The Office was not a fluke and that he will continue to humor us for years to come.

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A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France by Miranda Richmond Mouillot

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A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in FranceHome is the center of Miranda Richmond Mouillot’s book A Fifty-Year Silence; a memoir about the author’s quest to learn what happened to her grandparents during World War II, why they separated, divorced and refused to speak to each other for over 5 decades. Mouillot grew up with very little factual information about her grandparents. She knew they escaped Nazi-occupied France and lived in refugee camps in Switzerland. Her grandmother was a psychiatrist; her grandfather a UN employee who was a translator at the Nuremberg trials. It was also family lore that one day, Mouillot’s grandmother packed up the children and left her husband without a word. The couple had never spoken to each other since.

Beyond these scant facts, the lives of these two people were a complete mystery to everyone in their family. As the author grew older and attended college, her desire to know what exactly transpired in her grandparents’ lives grew as well. Mouillot’s determination to uncover family secrets became a dominating force in her life.

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Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Book and Movie Review)

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Insurgent is the second novel in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. The second novel shows what life is like for Tris and the other survivors now that their faction system is falling apart. Whereas before the factions were created so that everyone could coincide peacefully utilizing their natural talents, now one faction is trying to take all of the power and control the others. Tris and Four along with some others are known as divergent because they don’t fit in to just one faction. The divergent are hunted down in this novel because the faction that wants to rule over the others discovers that they can’t be controlled. Tris leads the movement to try and stop the controlling faction.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and I didn’t quite experience that same enjoyment with the second novel. The first novel was exciting because here was this new society and their unique traditions. Tris was doing her best to navigate her way through the training in the faction that she had chosen, which was different then the one she had grown up in. In this novel, all of the intrigue of the new exciting faction is gone and we are left with the aftermath. I feel like the reason I liked this novel less than the first is the same reason that I liked the third Hunger Games novel least of all. It was too different from the first two novels that included the excitement and intrigue of the actual games. I am hopeful that the third novel will provide the reader with similar enjoyment as the first novel.

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Ruby by Cynthia Bond

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UnknownI have no idea how to review Ruby by Cynthia Bond.

Ephram Jennings is the adult son of a deceased backwoods preacher and has been in love with Ruby for as long as he can remember. Ruby Bell has recently returned home to Liberty, Texas. She lived a horrific life being sexually trafficked and abused since childhood.

Upon returning from New York City, sharply dressed and epically groomed, Ruby begins a long descent into madness as her past begins to quite literally haunt her. Voodoo runs deep within Liberty, even permeating the faith of the Christians in town. Now living in filth and wandering the streets in tatters, Ruby is openly shamed and once again, used by the men in her hometown. Ephram begins his long, slow courtship of Ruby; the only man who treated this woman with respect, kindness and expecting nothing in return.

Ruby is the debut novel by Bond, a writing consultant and therapeutic writing teacher. This novel is many things: a love story, a survival story, a horrific story, maybe even a ghost story. Bond is a fantastic writer and brings the reader immediately in, lock stock and barrel. The scenes between Ephram and Ruby feel beautiful and full of hope and sharply contrast with the main characters backstories as well as the evil they face together as adults.

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