Notes from a bibliophile

In a previous post I admitted being confounded by the praise some award-winning novels get. This novel is pretty much the polar opposite of that problem. The A-List is what it sounds like: a novel about uber rich teenagers. Anna lives in Manhattan, but when her secret crush starts dating her best friend Cynthia, she decides she needs to re-invent herself. She jets off to the West Coast (as one does when a boy doesn't think one's hot), downing vodka tonics and trying to avoid being hit on by older men. She's saved by a gorgeous hunk named Ben. He invites her to the wedding he's going home to attend, which just happens to be the wedding of the biggest movie star on the planet. But Anna isn't the only one under Ben's spell. She soon meets his ex Cammie (who is determined to get him back and is not accustomed to not getting what she wants), his friend Samantha who wants to be so much more (and who is the daughter of the groom), and Dee, a ditz who also has a crus...

The ads for the movie look really good, so when I saw this on the shelf I decided to give it a try. After I got it home, I was a little reluctant. After all, it could ruin everything too. So if you haven't figured it out from the trailer, a Mars mission gets aborted due to a huge dust storm. As the astronauts are trying to make their way back to the ship that will get them back to Earth, some debris is blown into one of them and he goes spinning off into the distance. The crew search for him for a bit, but they have to leave or risk death themselves. Assuming their crewmate is dead, they very sadly return to space and journey back home. But astronaut Mark Watney is one resourceful dude. He manages to stay alive and keep himself from dying. He manages to reconnect with Earth. He is calm, cool and collected; the sort of guy you want to have around when all hell breaks loose. And I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. This is a never-give-up kind of guy, although he has a st...

I have always read a lot, but I guess I'm not a very cultured reader. There are some novels that are praised to the skies, win awards and all kinds of accolades, but they sound so boring to me. I usually just pass them by, but this one sounded interesting and I liked Remains of the Day , so I thought I'd give this one a try. Wow, it's hard to imagine a book where so little happens. Maybe if the other novel's pages were blank, this novel would stand a chance of being a bit more exciting. It centers around a group students at a private school. You get the feeling right from the beginning that something's up with these kids, but for the longest time you aren't told what. Then, just as an aside, they just happen to mention that they are clones. I thought I missed something. Surely that's an important part of the plot; shouldn't there be more made of it? Even when they do let the penny drop, it's like saying they all have brown hair or something else eq...