Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister ~ 368 Pages
"In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats...so now children play our family's shame as a story in the streets."
I don't think the word "book" makes one appearance in this book. But I sure as heck would like to know how many times the words "beauty" or "beautiful" are used.
I swear on my life this is like, the last retelling I'm reading this summer. I really didn't pick out all these books on purpose, and I don't think I've ever read this many in my whole life. (I usually read murder mysteries and historical fiction)
BUT, this is, in fact, another retelling. It comes from the perspective of one of the Ugly Stepsisters from the classic tale of Cinderella. I tried as hard as I could to read this book during the school year, but I only got half way through. I then placed it on my shelf and forgot about it until recently, when I was looking for more books to reread. So I started over.
If you don't like slow stories, this might not be a book for you, but if you like contemplating what true beauty is, you would very much enjoy this book. It just follows the life of Iris, the younger stepsister. This book was written by Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked (which I assume most people know about because of the musical). I think the writing was beautiful, and I loved the last half of the book, but the first half is pretty slow. It felt like I was just waiting for what I knew was going to happen.
After rereading the first half, and finally finishing it, that put 368 pages down, leaving me with 6,876 pages left.
Paper Towns ~ 305 Pages
"It became a weekend of reading, of trying to see her in the fragments of the poem book she'd left for me. I could never get anywhere with the lines, but I kept thinking about them anyway, because I didn't want to disappoint her She wanted me to play out the string...to follow the bread crumb trail until it dead-ended into her."
My summary of this book in a few words: Bad things happen to people, grass.
It's a typical teen angst book. I didn't really realize this till about half way through. The author (John Green) is very talented, but the story is just... typical.
It's from the point of view of Quentin Jacobsen, a senior in high school, who has had a crush on the girl across the street since they were little, Margo. Margo is a free spirit to say the least. She has run away from home a number of times, and she enjoys planning out elaborate clues when she leaves. So one night, she shows up at Quentin's window and tells him they are going on an adventure. They drive around Orlando doing crazy payback things and then they break into Sea World. At the end of the night, Margo says "I'm going to miss hanging out with you." and walks away to her house.
Well, low and behold, she isn't at school the next day, or the next. It turns out, she has run away again. Her parents are furious and decide to change their locks instead of look for their daughter. So Q decides it's his job to decipher the clues and bring her home.
I think this book could have been awesome. I definitely thought it was going in a complete different direction. But at the end, it's so metaphorical and about life and all that teen angst stuff, that I couldn't finish the last three pages till the next day. So it's a cute book. I really liked their night out on the town. The rest of the book is like, "Where did Margo go? I don't know! Maybe this poem will tell me!" And to tell the truth, I figured out how to find her on page 169. Thats 136 pages of me going, "You're so stupid! would you just look right in front of your face???"
I guess I'm just a little disappointed because I thought it was like a murder mystery about 150 pages in, because it gets really creepy. But then it's all angst and tears and beers and driving cross country.
So with 305 more pages down, I'm left with 6,571 pages to go.
In other news, I'm 33rd in line for City of Fallen Angels. That book better be pretty freakin awesome. Also, I don't want you guys to think that I hated any of these books. I really didn't I just tend to say what I didn't like and you can assume that everything else was good and I enjoyed. I think I just make up endings in my head, and if they aren't as good or better, I get disappointed. But once I read a book I hate, you'll know. Trust me. Well that's all for today friends. Hopefully my next blog will include the much anticipated book I've waited over a month for...
Read on,
Jamie
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