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July 24
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Amy
read and liked
Bird's
review of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us:
"Oh, you gotta read this. Excellent descriptions and explanation of psychological method. Horrifying interviews. I've met these people and you have, too. On the downside, ain't nuthin we can do about it. Except pack heat, maybe.
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Amy
marked as to-read:
Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain (Paperback)
by Sue Gerhardt
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Amy
read and liked
Rick's
review of Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain:
"Makes the well-researched case for how parental neglect or abuse can flood a baby's brain with the stress hormone cortisol and thus interfere with the development of the parts of the brain that allow a person to regulate their own emotions. The resul...more
Makes the well-researched case for how parental neglect or abuse can flood a baby's brain with the stress hormone cortisol and thus interfere with the development of the parts of the brain that allow a person to regulate their own emotions. The results can include depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders and antisocial behavior.
The threshold for neglect and abuse as described in this book are lower than what we typically think of in the U.S....less
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Amy
gave
to:
Twilight (Twilight Series, Book 1)
by Stephenie Meyer
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in June, 2008
Amy said:
"1. It's boring. Nothing really happens until late in the book. The main characters take forever for a relationship to develop and the guy - Edward - is cold. Literally. He is likened to a marble statue. Pale, sparkly, cold and hard to the touch. Uh-h...more
1. It's boring. Nothing really happens until late in the book. The main characters take forever for a relationship to develop and the guy - Edward - is cold. Literally. He is likened to a marble statue. Pale, sparkly, cold and hard to the touch. Uh-huh.
2. The marble statue boyfriend is also controlling ad that he migt accidentally kill her. He tells her that she can't take care of herself (ok, it's true, but!), tells her to eat when she's not hungry, tells her he's dangerous and that she is irresistible because he is a vampire and her blood smells amazing. What?!
3. Bella, when a guy tells you that he might kill you, STAY AWAY! Oh, but she can't. She's not even terrified although she knows that she should be. Hello, he might kill her.
4. Is this the message to send to teens? Gorgeous trumps deadly, so go for it girls. A guy tells you that he might kill you, but he's so cute you can hardly hear what he's saying. OMG, the hormones rule. Stupid stupid so-called romance. ...less
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Amy
read and liked
Chelsey's
review of Twilight (Twilight Series, Book 1):
"I hate this book. I will read the rest of them and I know that already, but simply because I want to be able to keep backing up my hatred of this series against people who think they can convert me if I just keep reading.
In short: the writing mec...more
I hate this book. I will read the rest of them and I know that already, but simply because I want to be able to keep backing up my hatred of this series against people who think they can convert me if I just keep reading.
In short: the writing mechanics are atrocious. The dialogue is stilted and absolutely wretched. The characterization is bad-- loose, jumpy, and the progression is occasionally senseless. The main characters themselves are not compelling: selfish, shallow, lacking the deep thought that comes with true passion and love and instead leaping recklessly into stupid and deadly situations when anyone with a brain could see sixty other possibilities that should have been tried first.
I can't express my disgust for the relationship between Edward and Bella. It's not romance, it's not passion, it's not love. It's selfish idiocy at best. Bella as a character is insufferable: her self-sacrificing streak is not compassion, it's sheer stupidity. It's hormones. It's a bad, bad example for the teenage girls who read it. Bella's whole life is tied up in her boyfriend. She has no goals, passions, ambitions, or dreams besides wanting to be with Edward, who could kill her.
Edward's element of danger is occasionally compelling, but it's totally overshadowed by the fact that Bella is completely oblivious to it. She doesn't fear him at all, and that doesn't come off like love: once again, it comes off as total stupidity.
Edward. What can I say about Edward. There is nothing lovable about him except that he is apparently the most beautiful thing in existence. He's selfish: he stays near Bella when he knows he could lose control and kill her at any second. He's a creepy stalker: he watches her while she sleeps, before she even really knows him. He's bipolar: his mood swings are insane and ridiculous. He's immature: for someone who's been alive for a hundred years, he doesn't seem to have gained much experience. He's controlling: he doesn't want to let her out of his sight for two seconds. (Granted, she's dumb enough to get herself killed if he does.) He's insulting: he treats Bella like an incapable, silly little girl. (Which he's right to, but I digress. It's still insulting.)
I understand that Bella's smell and that Bella herself are irresistible to him. But if he wanted the best for her, he'd stay away from her, period, the end. The story is stupid, the love story is bad, and if that's what Stephenie Meyer is preaching to teenage girls, I think it's pretty questionable. It's not just "a fun read". There are girls out there who want to be Bella and who want to find an Edward.
Anyway.
I think I might enjoy the story a lot more if Bella's idiot head was not the one I had to spend time in while reading it. If I had to read one more description of how beautiful Edward is, I was going to choke a kitten. If it had focused more on the vampire family I would have been a lot more willing to forgive its faults. I thought Carlisle's and Alice's stories were really compelling, and Edward was finally accessible to me when he talked about Carlisle turning him into a vampire and how his family came to be formed, his life before Bella, etc. Some aspects of the vampirism were truly awesome: I found the idea that vampires can never sleep completely terrifying. That they never, ever get a break and never, ever get to rest... that is a wonderful and ghastly idea.
Entirely overshadowed by their flowery breath and the fact that they sparkle. Mothereffing ridiculous.
This is hardly the tip of the iceberg, but I'm trying to spare you at least a little. I have serious anger over this book. Serious, serious anger. I wouldn't want my daughters to read it, if I had daughters. ...less
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Amy
gave
to:
The Alchemist (Plus)
by Paulo Coelho (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
light-quick-reads
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Amy said:
"Here's what I liked: the setting in Spain & North Africa, the 15 year old setting off on his own in pursuit of a dream, the scene where a windstorm kicks up with some magic.
Here's what irked me: the kid falls in love with a "desert girl...more
Here's what I liked: the setting in Spain & North Africa, the 15 year old setting off on his own in pursuit of a dream, the scene where a windstorm kicks up with some magic.
Here's what irked me: the kid falls in love with a "desert girl" after barely talking with her and then he leaves on his personal quest while she hangs out in the desert pining for him. I really hope she was so over him and found a new boyfriend at the watering hole...or better yet, maybe she took off on her own journey.
Another thing that irked: This kid was young with no real responsibilities to speak of. Nothing to lose. He was a shepard, so his poor sheep may have been eaten by wolves while he wandered through North Africa. The talk about Personal Legends and following your dream is great, but I think this book is best for teens who still haven't made huge commitments yet. If you are young, read this book and go for it. If you already have major life commitments, Coelho will make you feel like a winey loser whose time has passed.
It's a short book with a clear message about life and some cool scenes, but I'd only reccommend it to teens....less
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Amy
marked as to-read:
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic (Paperback)
by Martha Beck
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Amy
read and liked
Britta's
review of Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic:
""...you'll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been hurt by remaining closed."
"...then I understood. She was talking about the soothing, singsong language mothers speak spontaneously when they talk to babies. Baby talk ...more
"...you'll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been hurt by remaining closed."
"...then I understood. She was talking about the soothing, singsong language mothers speak spontaneously when they talk to babies. Baby talk is found in all nations, all cultures; it is the original Mother Tongue. It translates across any language barrier because it is more about music than about words; the sounds themselves, not their meaning, give comfort and support."
"When he got home, the sun came out."
"...the word mother is more powerful when it is used as a verb than as a noun. Mothering has little to do with biological reproduction - as another friend once told me, there are women who bear and raise children without ever mothering them, and there are people (both male and female) who mother all their lives without ever giving birth."
"Real magic doesn't come from achieving the perfect appearance, from being Cinderella at the ball with both glass slippers and a killer hairstyle. The real magic is in the pumpkin, in the mice, in the moonlight; not beyond the ordinary life, but within it."
(about sweetness felt):
"It comes from looking at the heart of things, from stopping to smell not only the roses but the bushes as well. It is a quality of attention to ordinary life that is loving and intimate it is almost worship."
"Angels come in many shapes and sizes, and most of them are not invisible."
"...despite all my years of education and training, I have learned most of what I know about living joyfully from one person, and he is not on any faculty. They barely let him into the first grade... people pay me good money to pass along to them what Adam teaches me for free. Luckily, I'm pretty sure he will never demand a percentage of the take. It scares me to think how much I owe him."
"Horses live to run; that's what they do... what do we live to do, the way a horse lives to run?... This is the part of us that makes our brief, improbable little lives worth living: the ability to reach through our own isolation and find strength, and comfort, and warmth for and in each other. This is what human beings do. This is what we live for, the way horses live to run."
"The meaning of life is not what happens to people... the meaning of life is what happens BETWEEN people."
"Life would be completely unbearable if it weren't so hilarious."
"...I have never met a mother of any culture who could just whack off her children's hair without a few nittersweet twinges. It's so astonishing to look at a child, an incredibly complex, independent living being, and know that it emerged from your own insides. It seems a pity to throw any of it away."
"Whoever said that love is blond was dead wrong. Love is the only thing on this earth that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy."
"...we are born innocent but ignorant, and to remedy the second of these conditions we inevitably surrender the first."
"I am always perversely happy to hear that a friend has been knocked upside the head by some unpleasant event. I am not glad they've expirienced the pain, but I am profoundly grateful for the down-to-earth compassion that emerges only when people face their pain and absorb it into the fabric of their lives."
"Any person who acts out of love is acting for God. There is no way to repay such acts, except perhaps to pass them on to others."
"...I decided to try an expiriment: for that one evening, I would resist assigning any labels to my classmates... I would try to look at them without preconception... of course, this is nearly impossible, but I did make an effort - for a few minutes. After that I had to stop, because I was so overcome by the beauty of every person... that my eyes kept filling with tears. I think that's maybe one reason we screen out so much loveliness. If we saw people as they really are, the beauty would overwhelm us."...less
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Amy
gave
to:
A Wrinkle in Time (paperback)
by Madeleine L'Engle
bookshelves:
all-time-faves,
kids-books
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Amy
marked as to-read:
Emily of New Moon (Emily Book 1)
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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