Until the end of the world.

I was reading the book about the end of the world (which claims
that "it makes you glad to be alive"), and I stumbled upon this
paragraph:

Is it possible to love so desperately that life is unbearable? I don't
mean unrequited, I mean being IN the love. In the midst of it and
desperate. Because knowing it will end, because everything does. End.

And I thought, I know exactly what the author is trying to say.
Because I feel like this towards you. Don't smirk, but sometimes I
really feel sad and scared because I know that how I feel and how we
are together will end, because everything ends. And I do not mean
soon. I mean that everything ends, in the end, and I feel really sad
that what we have will be over and forgotten. Like, in 80 years.

And the world will end. Right. Ah, I feel really write-ey now!!

I love you. We have some time still (see above).

I love you.

What a blow :(

I hate to write a negative review, but frankly speaking, “Life as I blow it” was a disappointment. Once I started this book, I couldn't stop, I really wanted it to get better, or to get to the end of it. I am into comic books, very much so. I love Chelsea Handler, and Sarah Colonna is a writer and executive producer on “Chelsea Lately”, so I was expecting hilariousness galore.

This is a comic book for adults, i.e. there is a lot of talk about drinking, drugs and [bad] sex. Most of the stories are repetitive and not all that amusing, and would have probably be better translated to the TV-show, rather than being a published literary work. Where I could identify with Chelsea Handler, with some of the stories in her books, I found it really difficult to identify with Colonna. I do identify with being a young person who isn't ready to grow up and be serious, but the way Colonna describes the process, the trying to grow up and then the slump back to behaving like a sex-hungry teenager, it just got a bit boring. I felt I was reading the same story over and over again. I have to admit, I did smile broadly a few times, and some of the stories (especially towards the end) are written better, the storyline and the language are evolving a bit by the end of the book, and the stories become mildly amusing, for that I think the book deserves another star.

Verdict: it’s not that hilarious. It will probably appeal to die-hard Chelsea Handler’s fans, but I doubt you will finish the Colonna book otherwise.

Unique and beautiful, as a snowflake.

“The Snow Child” – what a wonderful, wonderful book. Not a single word is excessive, the descriptions of nature are wonderful and rich and succulent, and even if the story is perhaps at times improbable (I noticed a few people are complaining of that), I felt like it did not need much more than what the author, Eowyn Ivey, gave us, readers. But it is truly a pure joy to read, with a lovely language and affectionate descriptions of both nature and feelings of the characters.

I always try to make my reviews of the books not about synopsis, and I truly think a potential reader should go and read the book himself/herself, rather than rely on a summary reviews. What I feel I should strongly underline is that the books is beautifully written, it is descriptive and magical, and Eowyn Ivey’s images of Alaska are absolutely captivating. In this sense, the book is pure excellence. Eowyn Ivey truly made the setting one of the main characters, and it is the one that could be most easily admired and respected. The images of the cold winter sceneries are particularly melancholy, poignant and simply beautiful. The story, perhaps you will find, is predictable and improbable at times. It is loosely based on a Russian fairy-tale. And what fairy-tale gives explanations and answers to its reader? Sometimes you just have to believe.

“The Snow Child” is different, and even if this is not the kind of book you usually will pick up, I think you should definitely give it a try. I really enjoyed reading it, and it brought tears to my eyes a few times, and anyone who likes this type of story will love it.

“The relentless tiny taps of individual snowflakes landing on her coat…” – do you sometimes think that you could hear it, too? Something that we couldn’t possibly be hearing. This observation of the author made me smile with recognition, and “The Snow Child” is full of these magical observations, you just have to read carefully.

Do you have a credit card [debt]?

I was a huge, HUGE fan of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, but the last couple of books left me disappointed. I guess you cannot write sophisticated stories about the art of shopping and keep it fresh and interesting for 6 books in a row.

Then, last Saturday, I picked up this book, “Save Karyn” (just because I read another book by Karyn Bosnak, “Twenty Times A Lady”, and found it easy enough for a lazy summer evening).
I was impressed. Such a trivial subject, yet Ms Bosnak keeps her story (of 400+ pages) fast paced, and interesting and smart and not at all repetitive. Moreover, there is no dream solutions (that Sophie Kinsella thinks out in her Shopaholic books, Karyn Bosnak came with genuine solution in her real life, realised her idea, cleverly administered the whole media frenzy around her web-site and universal plea for help (basically, asking random people to help her to pay her debt).

This is a true story, and because it is true you can relate easily (who have not received a credit card bill and was unpleasantly surprised at the amount owned, because more often than note the mind decides to erase memories of a purchase of another haircut, another scarf, another essential face cream or lip gloss that all of us, girl, charge to the credit card… I remember I charged some of the utility bills to my credit card, too… Not all of the items that accumulate debt are frivolous.) There is also a real life drama about Karyn’s unemployment, which really made me suffer for her.
Another plus, she did not exploit the 9/11 issue, even though the story touches it really slightly, I respect Karyn for not abusing the event, like many writers do, I find, nowadays.

And you know what, this book is also about random acts of kindness. And it is such a sweet reminder. Karyn is never bitchy or bitter, which is also a big plus. Sometimes it only takes you one buck to make a world a better place. And sometimes just a smile.

I could not put this book down and I plead: Karyn, please write some more!

P.S. Original website can be viewed here: http://www.savekaryn-originalsite.com/
I spent some time peeking through different things, it is quite amusing!

In the springtime of the year...

I have just finished pretty depressing and quite boring book by Susan Hill, "In the Springtime of the Year". I picked it from the library, I confess, because of the lovely cover. Now, after I read it, I can say that the cover is, actually, the best thing about this book (moreover, this is a re-print edition, and it seems publishers simply scanned and printed out the previous edition, not bothering to edit typos and loose letters scattered around the text).

Well, two young people, falling in love, getting married, the husband dies within a year, the girl struggles for several months after, and at the end begins to if not understand than simply accept the simple fact of death, of the circle of life, what can be born has to die sooner or later, nothing is forever, but perhaps Love and the Present Moment.
You know what, I was hoping for some moving descriptions of love and loneliness and palpable hurt when somebody you love is gone... No, this did not touch the strings of my heart. It's written exquisitely, the vocabulary of the book is rich and opulent, sometimes I found myself being tired, really tired of all the words, nice, adult, rich, exquisite, wonderful words, that failed to make ME, the reader, feel for Ruth and for her dead husband.

I read a few reviews of the books and understand this book is considered one of the finest works of Susan Hill. I read only one of her other works, "The Woman in Black", which did not impress me. Susan Hill, I think, is one of those authors who you can admire and love; devour her books, tasting every word, slow-pacing through her works, indulging in every phrase. The word "academic" comes to my mind. Or you can be left disappointed, if not slightly annoyed with her writing style. For me, it was a little bit of the latter. I do, I do appreciate her turn of phrase and vocabulary, but her works failed to move me how I hoped they would.
My advice: you are one of the two of the above categories, most probably. And most probably, you know which one. So give it a go, enjoy. Or avoid.

One more thing, there is a description of the curate's family, and it left me sad: two people, having two young children, so apart and far away and not belonging to each other, people who live together and yet do not have ability and desire to comfort one another when one of their young daughter dies. I was reading it and thinking, how some people get married and stay married and have a child, and another one... And all this without love. This is depressing as hell.
I am so happy that I have somebody, with whom things are completely opposite. And I think with this Susan Hill reached to my heart, she made me think and appreciate, and stirred my emotions. Fot this, I give the third star.

My father's 74th.

Last night, it would have been my father's 74th birthday. I guess he was quite lucky to live to this ripe age. I remember ages ago, when the problems in the family were already quite obvious, when the quiet nights were the nights I could not go to sleep, waiting for another argument my parents would not have been bothered to conceal behind the close doors, I could not sleep. In the dead of the night I would be waiting for their raised voices, for my mother's frenetic screams, for threats to divorce my father, to leave him, to even kill him. The threats were never followed though, of course. Some women are like that, and I promised to myself that I would never be one of those women. I hope I can keep the promise, because dysfunctional families are only cute in the published works of Douglas Coupland. And never in real life.
My mother would come to my room and try to wake me up, which was not necessary - I was wide awake anyway. She would try to quickly dress me in the first available thing, throw on a sweatshirt and order me to qickly pull on a pair of jeans. We would go to the hallway, my mother would wait for a few agonising minutes, waiting for my father to emerge from the kitchen, to fall on to his knees and beg for her forgiveness, to promise a better life, to promise to stop doing things that were killing, that by then already killed their relationship. My mother would have none of that, it was like a well-rehearsed play. We would leave. Just the two of us, she clasping her handbag and nothing else. I would always worry that we did not even have a change of clothes, shampoo, our toothbrushes. We would leave the house but would not even make it to the main road just a few blocks away from our house, to, perhaps hail a car to take us somewhere, where parents were loving and children were full of pride to have an important father and a stay at home mother, where commitment to being part of the healthy family would be palpable. We would stop in the middle of the lane leading to the main traffic road, my mother and I, in the dead of the night. It just dawned on me that maybe my mother was waiting for my father to come running after us. But he never did. And eventually, after several minutes, or maybe half an hour outside, we would turn back and head home. By then I would be really tired, I cannot remember how these short trips and returns home ended. Perhaps I was sleep-walking, with my eyes already shut tight, before I even hit the already cold bed.
It was one of these nights, the argument I was listening to was just getting out of control, my mother would soon start screaming her devastated threats, not caring about the early morning hour of a school night, the fact that she had a child, not even a teenager with a sort of wisdom of the world and how thing run, but merely a child, to work out unhappy families by herself. She screamed and screamed at my father, who kept quite, maybe because he was considering the late hour, maybe because he simply did not care to respond, maybe because he wanted us to leave.
I wish you were dead, my mother spat viciousy these words in his face. And then I heard him saying, that it was better to have a shitty life, then die in a happy place. I don't know. Actually, I know for sure that this is not the best at all. To lead a shitty life instead of ending one when you could, in a happy place, still loved and respected and knowing that this is the peak, that things might never get any more perfect, that all that is in the future is a slow downfall, exhiliraring, the loss of hair, the loss of sexual desire, the loss of respect, the sudden guilt of being a burden to people who surround you. All of the old people are left to themselves, to shrink within their bodies, to lose the appeal, the hopes, the wit, and finally even the wisdom of an old age. To be left with bad odour and helpnessness and broken nights of nocturnal weakness, when one can never fall asleep and is constantly woken up during the night to empty the weak bladder - an early signpost to the future of adult nappies, and than the grave. Was my father the major egoist? The selfish cancer eating the life of his family away? I guess, after hundreds of futile attempts of my mother to leave him, he was quite certain that she never would. He knew that he was safe with her, looked after and never abandoned. He knew that whatever his sins, whatever his selfish deeds, he can push further and further and there would always be a cushion to fall back on, not the softest cushion, but hey, it's better to enjoy the shitty life, then to be dead. People in the East Europe are lucky to live to the age of 60, the statistics show. My dad lived to 73.
I still remember the awkward phone-calls I had to endure on his birthday, when after the usual greetings and wishes of health and propserity, there was nothing left but ackward silence, year after year. Well, the first year I am relieved from this duty. Happy birthday, dad.