Books Love Me – Reviews

Just fresh out of college, Andrea Sachs or Andy, 23, thinks it’s time to get a job. She soon finds herself as junior assistant to Miranda Priestly, highly-feared Runway magazine editor and also one of the most powerful women in the world of fabulous fashion.

Since she has never read Runway or any other fashion magazine, Andy has to rapidly learn the ropes in order to survive as Miranda’s assistant. She’s also not the sort of girl to swoon over the latest Prada bag or Jimmy Choo shoes or starve herself to stay skinny.

She’s also being reminded constantly that she’s lucky to be working for Miranda Priestly, and that millions of girls would die for the job. But it’s tough attempting to carry out various tasks in a short amount of time for the ever-demanding Miranda. To stay motivated, Andy assures herself that she’d stick it out as Miranda’s slave assistant for a year and she’d be able to be a writer for The New Yorker. It seems that working for Miranda can get you places!

I’ve watched the movie starring Anna Hathaway and Meryl Streep many, many times and I love it! The clothes are superb and to-die-for. Meryl’s performance as the boss-from-hell Miranda is perfect. Although most scenes from the novel have been adapted into the movie, their storyline weren’t the same. Compared to the book, the movie is considered a feel-good version.

Not that the book isn’t all that chirpy and light-hearted but Andy has had to deal with serious issues. For example, her best friend Lily is an alcoholic but Andy couldn’t bring herself to talk to Lily about it. In the movie, Andy’s boyfriend, Nate is a chef while in the book, the boyfriend, Alex teaches in a school in South Bronx where the students come from troubled homes.

I kind of breezed through the 391-page book. Some parts were dragging, for instance when Andy keeps complaining about Miranda. Also, I cringed a few times just from reading about all the wasted food that Miranda never ate. Andy doesn’t know when Miranda arrives at the office in the morning and she orders her breakfast every ten minutes so that when Miranda arrives, the meal will be steaming hot. All the previously ordered and now cold, meals will be dumped into the trash. Just like that. Isn’t that wasteful???

Miranda does have a lot of responsibility in her hands and she needs to overcome the challenge of balancing work with personal life. Therefore, being her assistant is not easy! I wonder how a typical day goes by for Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue magazine.

Well, what do you think of the book? Is it really that difficult to be assistant to a fashion editor and do these editors have fussy demands?

I would give Does My Head Look Big In This? a rating of 7 out of 10. The whole story is told from Amal’s point of view. Amal is 16 and she considers herself as a young Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl. A few days before the start of a new school term, she contemplates whether to don the hijab or not.

To help her decide, she compiles a ‘To Wear or Not To Wear’ list with 2 columns. The column on the left contains the names of people who will not treat her like an outsider whilst the names in the right column are bound to make her life a living hell if she wears the hijab. Well, so far, the list looks balanced but it’s still a huge decision. Wearing the hijab is not a small matter. In her new school, it’s probably social suicide if somebody wears that every single day.

Anyway, I think you know that she does wear it on her first day of school and got a lot of stares from her schoolmates. Luckily she has the support of two close friends, Simone and Eileen. However, she’s disappointed when her crush, Adam Keane, failed to strike up a conversation with her during the first week of school. Tia and her obnoxious friends, on the other hand, are not exactly kind to her.

Amal also turns to her other two best friends from her old Hidaya Islamic College, Leila and Yasmeen. Leila is extremely intelligent but her mother can’t wait to marry her off while she’s still young. Therefore, there’ll be eligible suitors coming to dinner every time. Yasmeen is the carefree one and simply adores shopping.

As the story goes on, Amal, Simone, Eileen, Adam, and another boy, Josh become fast friends in school. They’ll spend lunch time together, joking with one another, and of course, waiting to see how things will turn out. Simone likes Josh but isn’t sure if he feels the same way. Adam seems to be giving Amal the signals and she’s giving them back.

I enjoyed reading about Amal’s grumpy Greek neighbour, Mrs. Vaselli and how she accuses Amal of doing things like throwing empty cigarette packs in her garden. Amal insists that she doesn’t smoke but Mrs. Vaselli will only repeat what she said. But as Amal gets to know the old lady better, she sees that there’s sadness behind her grouchiness.

It’s impressive that the author has managed to write about a serious issue like wearing the hijab in a light-hearted way. There are hilarious moments at the beginning of the book but as it progresses, it becomes serious as we follow Amal through her trials and tribulations. In the place where Amal lives, the act of covering one’s head in the name of religion is frowned upon as it is not part of their culture. However, in Malaysia, it is normal to see tudung-clad (tudung = headscarf) Muslim women walking around and nobody bats an eyelid.

So, to sum it up, being different is a tough thing and being ridiculed for being different makes things even tougher. In Amal’s case, even her parents fear for her if she chooses to wear the hijab full time. This book tells the story of a gutsy young girl who is determined to stick with her own beliefs even though it’s in a place where not everyone approves of them. Well, we don’t need everyone’s approval, do we?

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: Culture Squad, KittyCat, Alessandra

In my honest opinion, I found this book quite a difficult read. There are 15 short stories in here and I could not understand all of them. I had to read some of them a couple of times to understand them better. In a way, the stories make you think and form your own opinions about the characters and the endings. Some stories don’t have a clear ending, hence making you guess it.

Mathias B. Freese brings you into the minds of troubled individuals. For example, in ‘I’ll Make It, I Think’, the narrator describes himself as normal-looking at some parts of his body while some aren’t so normal. He says that girls wouldn’t date him because they wouldn’t hold a deformed hand like his. So even though he’s different from the rest, he is still human and has normal human feelings.

In the story ‘Herbie’, Herbie aspires to start a kind of shoeshine business with his friend. His father also polishes shoes for a living and Herbie wants to follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately, despite his son looking up to him, Herbie’s father is not very happy of his son’s idea.

I like the story ‘Alabaster’. It is about an encounter of a 9-year-old boy with an old Polish woman who had survived the Holocaust. She showed him her numbered hand but it’s not clear if the boy understood what it all meant. It’s a simple story but a truly poignant one about a small boy spending time with a lonely old lady by listening to her talk.

All the same, ‘Little Errands’ is exceptionally interesting. The person telling the story is kind of restless. He has mailed his letters but he kept worrying whether he had remembered to put stamps on them or whether the mailman collected them or not. Sometimes, I am like that too. It may just be a little chore but it’s so simple that we feel like we did not do it right. Like something went wrong somewhere and we are not sure about it, that’s why we worry and keep thinking about it!

Have you ever answered back at your teacher probably because you don’t like her or feel that she’s not teaching the right thing? That’s what Nicholas did in ‘Nicholas’. This short story was probably written by the character Nicholas himself since there are spelling and punctuation errors. It seems that he’s not good in English and he receives neither respect nor attention unlike another kid from Iran whose English isn’t that good either.

Most of the short stories are about children and young adults and about how they feel towards themselves as well as their surroundings. Like what I had mentioned earlier, this book gets you thinking and asking questions. That’s how it is with me. What about you?

***Also, I’d like to thank Mathias Freese for sending me a copy of Down to a Sunless Sea.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: gautami tripathy, Melody, KittyCat

To be honest, I was pretty appalled when I began reading this book. Appalled by how three sexually-hungry teenage boys think about ‘it’ and girls. Perhaps that’s really the way they think?

Dino, Ben, and Jonathan are best friends and they are always talking about doing it. Dino is a good-looking boy and many girls are after him. He’s also known as a player. However, he is desperate to get it on with the prettiest girl in school, Jackie. But, she already has an older boyfriend and is always pushing Dino away. Anyway, later, she decides to just give Dino a ride and then chuck him away.

Ben, on the other hand, is having a secret affair with his teacher, Miss Young. They’ve been meeting each other discreetly and not even Ben’s friends suspect a thing. If they are found out, Miss Young could lose her job because dating a student is totally against the law! Miss Young is a woman who likes to take risks until Ben feels like ending the relationship. He’s not allowed to mix with other girls his age nor have other girlfriends. Miss Young watches him like a hawk.

Jonathan likes his good friend, Deborah. She’s smart, humorous, easy to talk to, and everything. There’s one big issue though. She’s considered fat by the other guys. Jonathan is shy to date her because of her weight. Behind her back, he talks bad about her with his friends, which isn’t very kind. When they kissed during Dino’s party, she’s always hanging on to him but he’s, like, brushing her off or simply ignoring her when she smiled at him.

Doing It is written from the characters’ points of view, which is what makes this book interesting. How guys think and how girls think, too. Besides that, this story is easy and fast to read. You could finish it in a day or two. It’s a fine book but not one that I’ll be reading again.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: nylusmilk