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 know of a story where a vampire is in love with a human but what if the romance is between a vampire and a witch??? Now, that should be a very interesting tale.

Jasmine Tremaine or Jazz, is a 700-year-old witch who was banished from The Academy for Witches many, many years ago and is forced to survive on her own in the big, bad world. So now, she works as a curse eliminator and also as a driver for All Creatures Limo Service during the night. Dweezil is Jazz’s boss in this limo service company.

Jazz’s life is tumultuous. Eliminating curses for people can be quite a tough job, especially when clients don’t pay her but that’s easy because she will only need to bring the curse back to them. Then only they’ll pay her quickly!

Besides that, working as a driver for Dweezil’s company is like a nightmare. One of the customers that she has to drive is Tyge Foulshadow whose farts are absolutely horrendous but since Jazz is a witch, they don’t bother her that much. She hates to drive him, too because she knows that he likes her and she feels uncomfortable around him. Tyge pays in gold bars and Dweezil values him as a very valuable customer. That’s why Jazz still drives him around.

But wait! The excitement isn’t quite over yet. How would you feel if you had a T-Bird car with a ghost in it? Pretty scary, right? Well, Jazz’s ghost is not that scary at all. Irma is/was a heartbroken woman who killed herself in her husband’s car. And now that car belongs to Jazz.

Now, the part I guess you’ve been waiting for. The man, or should I say vampire in Jazz’s life. He is Nikolai Gregorivich or simply Nick. He needs Jazz’s help now to find the bad guy who’s responsible for the disappearances of vampires. The thing is, will she help him? Many years ago, he had put her in jail because he thought that she was a thief! Weird, huh? They’ve already hooked up and broke up lots of times.

What do you think? It is an exciting book, after all. Just check out the cover’s design. I like the cover and I like the feel of the cover. I just like to hold the book, you know. 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover is fun to read, a few twists and turns here and there, and you will like Irma the ghost. You might not like Dweezil or Tyge as they are quite sleazy kind of creatures.

The bad guy’s part is kind of creepy. Well, he has to be creepy, right, since he’s the bad guy? I guess this is not purely a chick lit’s book as chick lit books don’t scare me. Nevertheless, it kept me turning the pages to find out if good triumphs over evil.

By the way, look out for more of Jazz’s adventures in the next book, Hex Appeal! And don’t hesitate to check out my interview with Linda Wisdom!

***Thanks to Danielle Jackson of Sourcebooks for sending me a copy of this book.

I bought this book yesterday at Popular as I was looking around the bookstore for any book that will have any artsy ideas for making greeting cards and other arty stuff. My friends were at the Chinese section of art and craft books and unfortunately, I can’t read Chinese so I wandered over to the English art and craft book section.

Now why didn’t I ever go to that section before? Whenever I enter a bookshop, I always head to the Fiction books section. Well, I used to visit the revision books section too but not anymore.

This book captured my interest right from the very first page. The instructions for each art project are simple and that’s why this book is suitable for kids who want to make fun stuff. Like greeting cards, for example. Instead of buying one card for around RM2.90, why not make one yourself? There’s the personal touch too and the receiver would be so happy to know that you made the card yourself!

In this book, there are interesting art tricks that you can use if you’re designing anything from cards to photo frames. You don’t need too many expensive materials to get you started on your art projects. You can even create a masterpiece from a piece of eraser!

Also, colourful pictures are included so you will know exactly what you are making. Pictures with instructions, everything is laid out for you. All you need to do is find the materials, which are easy to find and then you can embark on your project.

I’ll try one of the projects in this book later, then I’ll show you how it turned out!

Buy The Usborne Book of Art Projects (Miniature Editions)

I started reading Calvin & Hobbes when I was in my primary school years mainly because it was a comic! The comics are colourful, humorous and incredibly entertaining. I used to read C&H for hours. Calvin is smart yet stupid at the same time.

He uses big, bombastic words but he is frightfully hopeless in Math. His best friend is a stuffed tiger toy, Hobbes, which he imagines is a real and talking tiger.

He detests girls and loves to bully his classmate and neighbour, Susie Derkins. I truly enjoy the ones where there are Calvin and Susie. Susie is smart and friendly. Unfortunately, Calvin stubbornly remains unfriendly and hostile towards her. However, it may be possible that he likes her!

He frequently gives his teacher, Miss Wormwood, lots of headaches. He is also afraid of Moe, a big but not-that-smart bully who always asks him for money. Moe calls Calvin ‘Twinky’.

Calvin is also afraid of his teenage babysitter, Rosalyn. Rosalyn also considers him a little monster but she baby-sits him because she needs the money for college. Something always goes wrong when she comes over to baby-sit him for the evening.

His mom loves to throw him out of the house as he is always making a mess in there. His dad tells him things, which are not quite true. It seems that Calvin’s dad is a resemblance of the comic’s author, Bill Watterson.

The characters in Calvin & Hobbes never grow old. Calvin will be 6 years old forever. It would be awfully interesting if he did grow. But, I guess Mr. Watterson had no plans of making him older!

It’s still fun reading the comics anyway. =D I wonder how many Calvin & Hobbes books are there in total. There is a box set – The Complete Calvin and Hobbes – that includes ALL of Calvin & Hobbes comics and would be a must-have treasure for any Calvin & Hobbes fans. It is also priced at a whopping $90.00!

Buy The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin & Hobbes)