Well I’ve done it, I’ve read the last of the Kris Radish books. Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral was like the others, not as good as The Elegant Gathering of White Snows but it was good. In that feel good, woman power sort of way.
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Remember a couple of months ago when I was talking about Tabitha King? Well I finally got around to reading Candles Burning the novel started by Michael McDowell. He died before it was completed so Tabitha King picked up his manuscript and wrote the story. It was good. Really very good.
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I reserved Understanding the Black Mountain Poets when we were researching poets for Michelle to study, and hopefully fall in love with. Three problems with this book. First, it’s an inter-library loan and since it’s not easy (and sometimes not possible) to renew these, I always feel “rushed”. This is not a book you can rush through, unless you really know the “big 3” Black Mountain Poets. And there you have problems 2 and 3. This is not a book you can rush through. It’s not a biography. It was dry, dry, dry. It did put me to sleep once, and that never happens. And, I’m not a huge fan of Olsen, Duncan and Creeley. I like some of their work well enough, but I am not a huge fan. And I don’t know the last time I read one of their poems, much less a lot of their poems.
So, this was a tough book. It was interesting. But tough.
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Alrighty then, that pretty much sums up my feelings about Raw Food Life Force Energy: blah blah blah. But, I’ll expand on that.
First, the book itself – once you take the jacket off, the book screams Life! Force! Energy! Awesome color choice. Awesome texture, kind of soft but firm and smooth. Cool. Nice book to hold. I found myself wondering right off the bat why we needed “Acknowledgements” “Forward” and “Introduction”. Couldn’t we have just gotten on with things? I appreciated the index in the back. I think some of the other “charts” and such should have also been in the back, along with the 21 day plan with a better layout – but I’ll get to my issues with the 21 day plan in a second. The questions and answers were a nice way to tie things up and answer some situational type questions that obviously come up while reading the book.
Next, the writing. Life! Force! Energy! Ack. It read like an infomercial. Total and complete turn off for me. Anything that guarantees “Effortless abundant weight loss” makes me suspect and that’s pretty much the way I felt all of the way through the book. Bad idea to start the meat er flesh of the book with that statement. Very bad idea.
I must say that while I am not a “raw foods believer” I do believe that many of our weight and health problems are related to the SAD (Standard American Diet). As someone who spends the day talking about diet, I AM very interested in the raw food movement. So I’m not totally blowing off this book.
I do think claiming Life Force Energy is a bit much. And the whole vibrating thing just left me cold. Yes we should be taking in a ton of vegetables, preferably organic and yes raw would be ideal. Also whole grains and a lot less processed JUNK. Agree, agree, agree. I am also very interested in food combination theories and I can see how that might work for many, many people. Overall, the whole raw food movement goes just a bit too far for me.
They lose me, and this author lost me specifically, in these areas:
1) Flesh, even organic free range chicken and eggs and such, have the aura of death and so they should not be eaten because of the negative effect on the human spirit, body and “Life Force Energy”! Cheese and milk from these poor DEATH FLESH creatures is bad but cheese and milk from goats is great! Okkkk then. Also apparently FISH don’t have the DEATH FLESH or as much DEATH FLESH so fish is OK! That makes absolutely no sense to me. Either you go all out or you don’t.
2) Juicing. Ack. No thanks. I don’t do juice for any reason. Ever. Really. I don’t want to drink my vegetables and I don’t want to drink my fruit. An occasional fruit drink is fine, no problem, but all of this push to JUICE! is INSANE! (I’m using a lot of ! because the book used a lot of ! INFOMERCIAL!) Drinking my breakfast of vegetable juice until 1/2 hour before lunch just doesn’t work for me.
3) Colonics. No, I’ve researched this and researched this and I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that we need to use colonics for any reason. Eat raw foods or more raw foods, I can get behind that. But as soon as you start to tell me to take an enema or have a colonic, I’m done.
4) Don’t keep selling me stuff in your book! Probiotics are something I can get behind until you tell me that the only ones that really work are the ones you sell on your website. Nope! Done! Infomercial!
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s look at the 21 day program. Waste of paper! Every single day is exactly the same except for day one when you’re told to “eliminate” first thing in the morning and do that every morning… and you’re given the option of a pre-dinner snack of a POUND of RAW carrots! And day 3, day 9, day something else when you’re told to use an enema or have a colonic. Yes, you’re given ideas for meals or for relaxation and you’re given homework as well. Those relaxtion tips and homework ideas – I’m good with those. But the layout for the 21 day plan could have been better, handled more efficiently and saved paper (not to mention my time.)
The recipes. I can take them or leave them. Mostly leave them because they didn’t knock my socks off. They weren’t BAD and I could see myself referring to a few of them from time to time. Even some of the juice drinks, excuse me, Elixirs!, were interesting. I think I expected more because I’ve read so many good reviews about Rose’s first book.
So – scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best vibration! I give it a 4. If it didn’t sound so much like an infomercial, it probably would have gotten a 6.
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Almost Doesn’t Count is the library book that disappeared from our shelves ages ago that neither of us could remember ever seeing. It’s the one I paid for to clear my library account. It’s the one I found on our bookshelves a month later. It’s the one TW said “Oh that was good! I wouldn’t mind owning that!”
Well I finally made time to read it and I can’t figure out why TW would want to own it. It isn’t a bad book but it isn’t great and the editing was troubling in a lot of places. A Georgia black woman dealing with childhood abuse and intimacy issues. Lots of rough sex, really rough sex.
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Alrighty then. I finished it last night. It’s chick lit, plain and simple chick lit. I had hoped for something else, not that I don’t like chick lit – I do like chick lit, I love it. I just expected more about people’s obsessions with “things”. I read that before the book arrived and I thought I was in for something a little different. But no. Darn it.
So, about this piece of chick lit. Medwed made a huge change in the general format of chick lit – rather than give her heroine a gay friend or a lesbian friend, she gave her lesbian moms! Unfortunately, she killed the moms before we got to meet them and their demise was really what caused all of the drama.
Well their demise, their lack of a solid will (let that be a lesson to dykes everywhere, including THIS dyke) and Abby’s inability to do anything except wallow in her own self-pity.
I’m used to female lead characters in chick lit who are drowning slowly and painfully. Abby – not slowly but very painfully. The woman was a mess. Til she got her guy back! Then, like magic, poof! All better!
I liked some things about How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life – I disliked others. All in all – a 5, which is where most Chick Lit lives. Worth reading at the beach or when you need something mindless to lose yourself in.
Who am I sending this too, once TW has read it? Anyone want it? Anyone into chamber pots or EBB?
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I have never read a book with so much gay boy sex in it. And, I hope to never read one again. Good grief. Tramps Like Us wasn’t erotica, or at least I don’t think it was but I’m not a gay man so what the hell do I know about it, right? It made me almost physically ill at times because I know how it turns out… in real life. 🙁
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There are a lot of “awe” moments in the latest installment of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. Mostly there are happy endings for all of the major characters – but poor Charlie, poor poor Charlie!
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I should disclose the fact (to new readers or those wandering in from Google) that I am a Jodi Picoult fan. I have liked everything she’s written and I think I’ve read everything she’s written except her new Wonder Woman comics (and I am going to get those!). Some of her books I’ve liked more than others. The Pact is and probably always will be my favorite. Nineteen Minutes has no surprises if you are a Picoult reader, you probably figured out the ending long before you finished the first half of the book.
Nineteen Minutes does what all Picoult novels do – it takes a very very difficult subject involving teenagers and parents and spins it hard. It isn’t a feel good book, though there are moments when you will feel good. It doesn’t have a happy ending, none of her books really do. How could books about teen suicides and school shootings even have a happy ending? They can’t and they shouldn’t and that is why I am a Picoult fan. She takes those horrible difficult things that can and do happen to good people (and good teens) and she tells the stories that come along with them. She puts a parent’s worst fears on paper.
I’ve been putting off reading Surveillance for at least a month, maybe two. The cover did not look appealing and I couldn’t remember why I had reserved it from the library or if one of us had just picked it up off of the shelf. I had better things to read. When I saw it was due back to the library this week and had already been renewed to the limit, I went ahead and picked it up. It was good, at first.
Actually, it was good through til the end. What the hell? I feel like I’m missing chapters or something. It ended like that? But, but, but. Huh? I don’t even get it now. I almost re-read the last chapter thinking I missed something by trying to rush through it this morning so we could hit the library early. But I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have missed THAT much. It just ended badly. Very badly. Because of that – don’t read this book. Sheesh.
(Oh goodness, I should have read the Amazon reviews – they all were disappointed in the ending. What crap! The author should be shot!)
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