Need new suggestions...

Hi BFabers!

I need to download some books onto my kobo for my next little vacay and wanted some suggestions...I am almost finished "Water for Elephants" and just read Madeleine Wickham's "The Wedding Girl" after having gone through the heavy "Jane Eyre," "Sarah's Key" and "Book of Negros."

What should I read next???

xoxo RFab

The Help...the Movie

A little disappointed that I couldn't see this movie with any of my fellow B-Fabers, I dragged my bro and Rob to see The Help in theatres last night. It started at 8:20 and we didn't get out until just past 11 (yikes - long movie!!!)

Besides the fact that it was long, I thought it had both some bad and some good points. It is definitely worth seeing. I will start with the bad to get that out of the way:

-I was trying to watch it in the perspective of someone who didn't just finish reading the book and found this a little impossible. The movie moves very fast between characters in the beginning, leaving the non-reading viewers a little confused.

-Many of my favourite parts in the novel were absent from the movie, making it a little more difficult to really get into some relationships (even though the movie was over 2 hours long!)

-We never meet Stuarts family, or get his reaction to Skeeter driving the truck with attached plow,

-Skeeter's dad is almost non-present in the movie,

-Charlotte's struggle with cancer is not super prominent in the movie,

-Mae Mobley never uses Aibileen's special bathroom,

-we never see Celia's bed-ridden struggles creeping around in empty rooms upstairs longing for a baby,

-the only "racial problem" we see/hear about in the film is the shooting of the black man by a KKK member, but no other beatings or other aggressive behaviour

-and most importantly - there's no crazy naked man harassing Minny and Celia in her backyard!!! (A chance for Celia to save Minny and form a new bond)

-a few things were changed or forgotten obviously to help the filming move along, so maybe we can discuss those at the next BFab???!

Great stuff:

-the "terrible-awful" is most definitely a highlight of the movie (although my bro said if he heard the word "pie" one more time in the movie he was gonna leave...as in, too much about it!)

-the acting was excellent, with Minny (Octavia Spencer) stealing the show. Just the expression in her eyes was enough in some scenes...she was awesome!

-Hilly was a well-played bitch (Bryce Dallas Howard). It was easy to hate her from the beginning and the interactions between her and her little minions remind us just how young these ladies were!

-Skeeter and Aibileen had amazing chemistry as well...so all-in-all, loved the characters.

-loved all the church scenes, the singing, the sense of community

-Hilly's mom...OMG, she was a hoot! A little younger looking than I pictured her in the book, but really well played.

Looking forward to hearing everyone else's opinions on the film version of the book in September, or feel free to post here!

xoxo R-Fab

The Help

So I just finished reading Kathryn Stockett's first novel, and our July BFAB selection The Help and have to admit that it grew on me. I wasn't completely into it at first, but as the characters progressed, I found myself more involved in the story and wanting to know more. I know, you're thinking, isn't that the way with all novels of this type? Not for me - there have been so many that have me gripped from the get-go, just not this one.

I love Aibileen's character the most, in the same way I loved Mrs. Huxtable growing up and wanted her to be my mom. Minny and Skeeter's mom both made me laugh the most though. Here are some of my fave highlights from the book:

Chap 7 - When Mae Mobley goes "tee-tee" for the first time and answers "tee-tee" too all of Aibee's questons: "What did baby girl do today?"..."Tee-tee." What they gonna write in history about this day?"..."Tee-tee." "What does Miss Hilly smell like?"..."Tee-tee!"

Chap 9 - When Miss Skeeter's mom starts thinking Skeeter's a lesbian because she hasn't found a man to marry her yet...at 23!!!

Chap 11 - Tongue kissing will make you blind!

Chap 23 - I loved Aibee's special secret stories she told Mae Mobley...but my fave was the one with "Martian Luther King" who was discriminated against for being "green!!!"

Chap 24 - The dirty naked man in Miss Celia's backyard offering them some of his "pecker pie"!!!

Chap 26 - Miss Hilly's own mom sayng that she would be known as "the lady who ate two slices of Minny's shit!" In this chapter, I start loving Miss Celia too, since she writes a cheque out to "two-slice Hilly" after Minny shares her horrible story about the special pie she made!

Stockett does a great job of making you freak out to learn just what Minny did to Miss Hilly as well as what the true story is behind the relationship between Constantine and Skeeter's mom, and then Lullabelle too. At this point, all you're thinking is...what did they do to each other???

I was happy to have so much travel time yesterday from Ottawa to Hamilton by train and then from Hamilton to Marietta, Georgia by van on the way to Florida! I was able to really get into the story, jot down my fave parts and share them with you! Tonight, in our hotel room already at 8pm, I turned on the TV to TLC and lo and behold, it's a wedding-type show marathon, with a special feature on the motion-picture of...THE HELP!

Can't wait to see it on the big screen and how the characters are depicted...I am picturing Rachael McAdams as Regina in Mean Girls as the perfect Miss Hilly!!! But who can pull off Miss Celia...? When are we getting our tickets ladies?

xoxo RFab

Because you've all read it by now...

A couple little items for your reading and guilty pleasure today:

The cover of Entertainment Weekly features "Peeta" and "Gale" from the Hunger Games movie. Check it out here and lemme know what you think.

Check out the Cast of Actors set to star in the movie in 2012 here.

Finally head to hungergamesmovie.org and scroll down to watch a fan-made trailer/movie of the Quarter Quell...so intense. It makes me want to read the books all over again!

Eeeeeek...I'm so excited!!! Do you think it's obvious?

xoxo

Yikes - Four Months Later!!!

O.K....I had no idea it had been that long?!!! Erinn, we are totally fired! Well, the exciting news is that we have both been reading up a storm and, therefore, have lots to share over the next few weeks!

We are also in the midst of planning our next book club, which is not always easy in the summer - either Tuesday, July 19th or the 26th at Nat D's new place...can't wait to see it!

I have finally calmed my vampire addiction down with some heavier, incredible books and am feeling like a better person (although I have to admit that Sookie Stackhouse's sexy adventures with vampire Bill did warm up my long winter's nights!!!) hee hee hee


So here's to promising to be a better blogger this summer - CHEERS and Happy Summer Reading to all!

xoxo R-FAB

I want more!

Just finished The Radleys.....read it, read it, read it BFabers!!! I
want to talk with you about it but can't without giving anything
away...who's going to join me?

I am happy having just finished such a thrilling story but also sad
because it's over...how am I supposed to go to sleep now?!! Isn't it
the best when you just can't put a book down...I even skipped Gossip
Girl to finish it tonight (that's huge!) lol

xoxo RFab

Sent from my iPhone

More vampires!

So last week I had torn this article out of the Books section of The Ottawa Citizen and meant to write about it sooner. The heading reads: Blood Relations - Forget Twilight and bite into this smart, funny vampire family tale. The book is called The Radleys, named after the family of which it was written.

Home sick this weekend, I was on the couch yesterday and got caught up watching Twilight: New Moon on tv, when I was reminded of the article. This is when my little Kobo comes in handy - I was able to run upstairs, hook it up to the computer and download the book in a minute. By the time I passed out last night in a sudafed/advil coma, I was already half-way through the book!

The Radleys story, so far, is really nothing like Twilight, besides the fact that vampires are living with normal people in a normal community and abstaining from drinking human blood. However, it is an exciting read. The author switches quickly between scenes and characters right from the get-go with chapters as short as two pages, or as long as eleven. It was a little bizarre at first; however, it truly allows you to get into the minds of each family member and almost always leaves you wanting to return to their thoughts and their stories.

Helen and Peter Radley are adult vampires with two teenage children who are unaware of their own true identities. The parents have given up their wild lives of blood sucking to give their children a chance at a normal life in a normal town. The children, Clara and Rowan have always felt anything but normal thanks to their pale skin, aversion to garlic and the fact that all animals growl and run at the site of them! A nasty event has the truth exposed and a new character, uncle Will, introduced. Uncle Will, Peter's brother, is still a practicing, blood-thristy vampire with a history and special connection to Helen...ha ha! Intrigued yet?

Interspersed between chapters are quotations taken from "The Abstainer's Handbook" - a book for vampires who wish to lead normal human lives free of blood-thirst. These quotations always foreshadow the next chapters coming events in such a teasing way. For example: "We have to learn that the things we desire are very often the things which could lead to our own self-destruction." It's so interesting to think about why the quote follows a certain character's chapter and what the implication might be...

As a reader, I feel both intrigued and disgusted by the character of Will, the practicing uncle. He kills with no hesitation and keeps labelled wine bottles full of his victims blood to quench his thirst. The fact that he lives in a sleeper van doesn't increase his appeal; however, he does have a unique ability to "blood-mind" people, meaning that he can make them believe what he is saying. ( you can't help but think of the Volturi here).

You feel for both Clara and Rowan, but mostly for Rowan, the teenage boy who is tormented on a daily basis by his class and bus mates for being pale, weak...a "loser." Rowan is quite the little romantic, is into poetry and old literature and feels like he is living in the wrong century really. He has a huge crush on his sister's best friend Eve. Clara is quite pale as well, but has friends and is the love-interest of a classmate - so at least she has those things going for her. Her biggest problem (until the "event") is the fact that she loves animals and they won't go near her!!! Finally, with Peter and Helen you get the sense right away that there is a lot of regret in the relationship and a lot of unhappiness. You begin to learn, early on, how they came to this point in their lives and feel for them as well.

Wow - I can't believe how much I just wrote when I'm only half-way through. I hope you all get a chance to read it because it's really quite good so far...I'll keep you posted on my final thoughts without divulging too much either!

R Fab xoxo