Confessions of who knows what...

Confessions of a Shopaholic
by: Sophie Kinsella

Confessions Of a… if I had a book styled like this what would it be called? Probably “Confessions of a Banker.” It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it does it? Oh well. Confessions. Do you have something to confess? Guilty conscience pulling you down? Hum, interesting point to ponder. I have a confession, I ate 3 pieces of chocolate today. Bye Bye Diet!

The book is styled as if this shopaholic was confessing her inner thoughts to the audience. Some things are even too bad to share with us, while other thoughts and actions are just thrown out there for us to read.

So, here’s the second book that I’ve read by this author. I do have to say that I liked this book better than “Can You Keep a Secret?” First of all, it’s a series. I love finding series, it’s just nice to know that when you get to know a character in a book, that the story isn’t over at the end of book one. You can see some development in their story and you’ll have a few more to go before it’s all over with. Second, the personality of Becky Bloomwood is a very interesting character. Just the fact that this character is a financial journalist and she’s in serious debt is such a funny concept (not funny haha, of course). Becky is funny and witty and she’ll keep you smiling throughout the book (or gritting your teeth and biting your nails-but a reaction none-the-less). The third thing I enjoyed about this book is that it was a quick read. I went home sick from work one day, but I was in too much pain to go to sleep, so I read for the afternoon. Seriously, I read for 4 or 5 hours and knocked the book out. Which is a good thing since it took me 3 weeks to read the last book I read (A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin), quite refreshing!

There are a few points that I would like to make about this book. Just a little insight into my personality, I can’t be in debt. I hate debt, it stresses me out BIG TIME. I can’t sleep at night if I’m worrying about money. Because of this reason my husband and I keep a tight reign on our finances. Therefore when this girl is just spending money constantly and on ridiculous things I’m screaming “For real? Are you freaking kidding me, because you are RIDICULOUS!!!” Becky sees that she has two options for getting out of debt, 1. Spend less, or 2. Make more Money. When she tries to cut back on her spending, she just ends up spending more money, maybe more than she would have if she just kept to her regular shopping patterns (which is, walk by a store, go in, buy what she wants). K-razy!!!

A complaint I have is that the ending isn’t really that realistic. I have always thought that if you work hard, then you will be rewarded for your work. Without giving away the ending, you can’t get something for nothing. Your personality can only get you so far and you actually need to work hard to achieve your goals. Actually, come to think of it, her life isn’t very realistic. How can you get hired as a financial journalist without a credit check or knowing nothing about finances in the first place? I thought they did credit checks for every job these days, I know with Simon and I working at a bank, they did one on both of us, so wouldn’t someone writing for a magazine on finances be about the same? Again, without ruining the ending, there are some very unrealistic things that happen at the end. I hope that the movie does a better job of making it look like real life. The transitions in the book didn’t work for me. Speaking of, I think I’m going to make my husband take me to this movie for my birthday, yay!!!

As a whole, the book was good, it was kind of predictable, but a fun read none-the-less. This is one of those books that it is a brainless, fun read, which is a good change of pace. Please read the book and let me know what you think. Am I right? Am I wrong? Let me know… also, if you see the movie, let me know what you think about that as well.

P.S. Please use discretion. I would say this book is PG17, There is some language and sexual content.

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” Queen Cersei

A Game of Thrones by: George R.R. Martin

I have read quite a few fantasy books. If you asked me what my favorite genre is I would probably say fantasy. A friend of mine termed it quite accurately, she said, “We are escapists, we want to read things that aren’t real to escape from the real world.” So, some of my favorite fantasy books are the Lord of the Rings series. I read them last year and LOVED them. I have not blogged about them, because there is so much information that I wouldn’t even know where to start. I feel the same way about this book, A Game of Thrones. My friend Jimmy Pope from work said if I like Lord of the Rings, that I would love this story, A Song of Ice and Fire. The first in the chronicle is an eight hundred page book. I usually read a book a week, this book took me three weeks to start and finish. It was not a boring book, it was actually quite action packed, it was just super long and the vernacular was pretty intense.

This story revolves around a family of strong honor, character, personalities. The Stark family, the Lords and protectors of Winterfell, are as hard and cold as the area they grew up in, but will it be this family that saves the Seven Kingdoms? Each person seems to have begun an individual journey within this first book. Honestly, this book seemed like a rather long intro for what is to come in the future books. I can’t wait to see certain character’s stories unfold.

I will start with my criticism for the book… Hum, well… um… ok, so I know that no book is perfect, but I think that because the book was so intense and so long I really can’t think of any criticism for the book. Anything that could be a negative, I can turn it into a positive, such as… the amount of details about every subject matter… I loved it. The detail was so good I thought I was in the story. Another thought that I could have is that the author had no sanctity of life. He would and could kill any character off at any time. But if you remember my Breaking Dawn blog, I like for some people to die. It makes the story so much more interesting if you are unable to figure out who is going to live and who is going to die. Main characters dying, makes for a more interesting story.

My absolute favorite part of the book is the chapter “titles.” Each chapter is focused on one character. We, the audience are hearing the story from the narrator and it focuses on a particular character in each chapter. I found that when I would finish one of my favorite character’s chapters, I would look ahead to see when their next chapter was. I don’t usually cheat like that, but I wanted to see if I could keep reading and find out what happened. One thing I found interesting is that if 2 weeks had gone by for one character, the same amount of time has gone by for all of the characters. So, when we would come back to a character that we haven’t heard about in a while, something else would be going on, instead of picking up where we left off.

My favorite characters were: Jon Snow, Eddard Stark, Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen. I have a feeling that some of these will change, one of them for obvious reasons (well to anyone who has read the books) and the last chapter of the book really weirded me out, so I might switch favorite characters because of that alone. We’ll see as the books progress who continues to be my favorites and who changes.

I also enjoyed the language. Each person spoke in old English and stayed in character throughout the book. Even the descriptions were written with the same cadence as the spoken words. A wonderful example is from the Lady Catelyn Stark when she thinks, “Ser Wendel, the younger boy, would have been the fattest man she’d ever known, had she only neglected to meet his father and brother.” If I was writing this, I would have said it totally different. I wonder if the author has to talk like that all of the time, kind of like an actor, you know, to stay in character. I’m sure Mr. Martin never says something like, “I’m sooooo over you, Sansa Stark. HOLLA!”

The last contents of the book that I want to write on is, The Others. The book starts off in the Prologue with an exciting sequence of events. This book started stronger than any other book I have ever read. I couldn’t believe how he started it, it was extremely intense. In the prologue, The Others appear and I had to know what they were and how they come into existence. Well my questions go unanswered in the first book, but hopefully by the end we will know everything there is to know about The Others. (dun dun duuuuuuuun)

I will be starting A Clash of Kings soon and it will probably take me 3 weeks to read it just like this one did. Please let me know what you think about this blog or this book. Do you think it’s something you would enjoy reading? Let me know what you think!

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” Queen Cersei