RATINGS SYSTEM!!!

It occurred to me that I have no means of truly delineating between what I think is a good book and what I absolutely hate. So without further ado my means of rating my reviews.****


****I've come to the realization that while I may love a lot of the books that I read, that doesn't mean it's fair to give them ALL 5 Stars. As a result, I have reconfigured my ratings system to go across a 10-Star scale.

The Threads of Fate: A Book Review on Warped by Maurissa Guibord

I'm still waiting on a new book from the awesome Maurissa Guibord but while I wait I shall finally post a review on her first published novel, the wonderfully magical Warped. I've reread this book several times already. It has enough magic and mystery, with just a touch of romance to make this the kind of book to earn a spot on my favorites bookshelf, the most coveted space in my library. To begin, a little about Warped.

Tessa Brody has a strange feeling about the unicorn tapestry she just had to have once she'd seen it up for bid at an auction she attended with her dad. Once she has it in her possession the dreams start up, revealing visions of a way of life long since forgotten. But the dreams are the least of Tessa's worries when she ends up pulling a thread from the tapestry only to find a young nobleman tumbling onto her floor.

Turn a Blind Eye: An Analysis of the Detrimental Effects of Irresponsible Friendships in a Modern Film Adaptation of Othello

How many of you have actually watched "O", that film made back in the 90s which a lot of people made note of if only to comment that Julia Stiles was acting in yet another Shakespeare adaptation?  I'm thinking not many have watched this film.  Before taking a class on Shakespeare and Film this last spring I'd been quite content to avoid this film.  It never caught my attention and I just didn't feel the need to watch a movie about a guy who goes crazy with jealousy and then violence ensues until the end of the film where there was one last man standing.  Just not my cup of tea.  I'd never read the play before either and that's sad, considering how much a fan I am of Shakespeare's tragedies (but I confess, I rather loathe the history plays.)  I was assigned this play and I thought well, I had to read at some point, right?  So I finish reading this play and this is what I get out of it.  I call this "Othello in a nutshell."

Villain: "Hey. You're wife is cheating on you."

Othello: "That bitch! I'll kill her!"

THE END

A Family of Magic: A Review on The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff

Alysha Gale has the same problems that most early twenty-somethings have in life. She’s lost her job and had to move back home; she’s in love with her best friend, Michael, who happens to be gay; and she has way too many Aunties determined to tell her what to do. It doesn’t help that the Gales, or specifically the Aunties, have the power to make charms and control their surroundings with a kind of power they like to keep close in the family. So when she gets a letter from her estranged grandmother detailing her inheritance of a junk shop in Calgary, Alysha figures her best bet is to move forward and investigate the shop and the supposed death/disappearance of her not so beloved Gran. Once she arrives of course, things really start to take off and Alysha is left with the decision of either dealing with the new developments on her own or bringing in her Aunties to rain down the power of the family on their new opponents.

A Poor Choice of Words: An Analysis of Kat Stratford’s Favorite Band and Their Lyrics from 10 Things I Hate About You

Sidenote: In a slight turn of events, I've decided to write and post several analyses of various film adaptations that I've had to study over the course of my university career. I kind of consider them to be reviews so in all fairness I feel they should be posted here for that sake if anything else. So without further ado, we shall begin with Shakespeare.

  

Gil Junger’s 1999 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, entitled 10 Things I Hate About You, has received mixed criticisms focusing on the themes that have received new life that were once seen in Shakespeare.  Many students in the audience believe that the film provides an equal opportunity for the play’s protagonists to assert their own beliefs and become their own independent characters, a change met readily by those that believe the play had instances that bordered on spousal abuse between Katherina and Petruchio.  However, the film does little to make the female characters any different from their play counterparts.  These women, Kat and Bianca, are still the playthings of the men in the film, being manipulated by the rules of a bet made on a whim to prove the power that the male leads have over them in a high school setting.

Damnable Words, Neverending Consequences: A Book Review on Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

Nora Cunningham is your average teenager living in the year 1956. She's looking forward to summer after having just finished her junior year of high school. She has a best friend, listens to the latest music hits, and daydreams about finally becoming the kind of beauty that gets guys to notice her. The night before the last day of school she attends a party with her best friend, Ellie, and together they join their mutual friends Cheryl and Bobbi Jo for some fun as they spend time hanging out with the boys from their school and try beer for the first time.

But things aren't that simple.

It's the Journey that Matters: A Book Review on Finnikin of the Rock

The first time I read Melina Marchetta's Finnikin of the Rock it went by too fast for me to fully appreciate the writing, the characters and the whole of the story. I blame the fact that I originally bought the book as an early graduation gift. Of course, I was still in the process of completing my thesis which would then lead to my guaranteed graduation so I wasn't actually in the frame of mind to read anything EXCEPT thesis research materials.

But I was going a bit stir crazy by that point so when this lovely hardcover arrived in the mail I spent around 5 hours blazing through the book. When I returned to reading the research for my thesis, my opinion of Finnikin of the Rock was simply that it was a great book and Marchetta was an author I would continue to read. Anything more specific than that was more than I could possibly offer without admitting the whole truth of my sneaky reading experience of the novel.