Two books and a movie.

[Author's Note: Um, for some reason this didn't post yesterday. Oops!]

Instead of thinking about the goodie bags that I need to assemble, and the gobs of stuff I still need to buy (don’t let me forget about the ice!), and the cake and cupcakes I still need to bake and decorate, and the house I need to clean before Sunday, and the mix CD I still need to burn, I thought I would focus instead on fun happy things like BOOKS! and MOVIES! Because occasionally, when my children aren’t being horribly mean by having birthdays, I do have a life. (Okay, not really, but it’s fun to pretend.)

Book Review the First: The Witch of Portobello (without spoilers)
My sister sent me Paulo Coehlo’s The Witch of Portobello with instructions to read it immediately. So, of course, I did – happily humming “Portobello Road” from Bedknobs and Broomsticks as I did. (What?) I shouldn’t have set myself up like that, thinking all happy things and imagining the book would be a certain way; I had envisioned fairies and magic and enchantment (either in-story or as a reading experience. I’m not picky about my magic). I thought I was about to enter a storybook. Okay, well, Witch is fiction and it does tell a story, but not the kind I imagined. I thought it would be a story-story, one with a timeline and a plot, one that you fall into and embrace as it enfolds you. Witch wasn’t like that at all. Witch was more of the other kind of story; one that is more springboard than story, one that makes you think and keeps throwing you out of the story instead of pulling you in as you ponder deep questions and try to figure out how life works exactly.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate a deeply philosophical book – especially not if it’s crafted as well as Coelho carefully constructed his. But I was expecting fairytales and storybooks and I had a hard time shaking my assumptions, so I never really felt myself click along like I normally would. I do have to mention, however, that for what it was, Coelho managed to find the perfect narrative style. The way his narrator set out the story in recorded descriptions of their encounters with Athena was brilliant and worked really well for his construct. I just wish I had known from the beginning that Coelho was going to be all parable-y so I could sit and learn at his knee instead of constantly wondering when the story was going to kick in.

Book Review the Second: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (with spoilers)
Do me a favor: open a new browser, click on Barnes&Noble.com, and order this book right now. Go ahead – I’ll wait. If you watch Big Bang Theory and, like me, adore Sheldon – click faster. Yes, this book is that good. Then again, I love stream-of-consciousness and babbling narrators and quirkiness and the ridiculousness of Dwight from The Office and (as I’ve said) the hilarity of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. However, I don’t like Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye and while I can now appreciate the whole The Sound and the Fury thing now, I can’t say I thought it was quite the same trip when I read it in high school. Christopher, the protagonist in Curious Incident, is compared to Holden Caulfield and the narration style is compared to (a much-toned down version of) Sound and the Fury, but I think that’s rather unfair. Christopher is MUCH more likable than either.

Not only does Curious Incident win big with its likeability factor, but it scores points on the relativity scale, too. Christopher’s journey is a coming of age story. The book starts off with an introduction to an autistic teen and his (ahem) different life rules he’s created for himself, escalates into an amusing relation of his hilarious quest to find out who killed the neighbor’s dog – despite his inability to interact with anyone besides his teacher or his father – and before you’ve even realized it, Curious has become a delightful coming-of-age story that inspires the hell out of you. Christopher entertained me, made me laugh, made me re-evaluate my coping skills, made me thank god I wasn’t in his situation, made me question my decency as a human being, and in the end made me want to be as strong as him, too. Every author should strive to create a novel as thoroughly enjoyable and as worthy of a reader’s attention.

And a movie: Say Anything (with spoilers)
I can’t tell you how nervous I was to watch this movie. I had heard so many amazing reviews of this 80s staple – but then again, I had heard so many amazing review of Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, and Pretty in Pink and they were crap. So. I was nervous. But my best girlhood friend, Julie, told me that I must, must, MUST watch it, and so I moved it to the top of my queue.  You guys – this movie is AWESOME. Finally, a movie that lives up to its hype. I was worried when I remembered that John Cusack is in it. (There is a John Cusack curse, people – most of his movies are not that good – and yet, I still have a bit of a thing for him. It’s his voice. If my List of Five was chosen on voice alone, John Cusack would be at the top of the list. But I digress.) John kinda worried me, but after his first scene, my shoulders relaxed and I started breathing again. This was vintage Cusack – it was Anastasia, and ConAir, and Runaway Jury, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

And the movie was pretty good, too. Sure, it was a bit dippy at times and I didn’t like the girl who played Diane, but it was a decent high school graduation movie. I liked how the dad was actually guilty of stealing from old people and that Diane struggled about whether to talk to him and keep him in her life. I didn’t like that she caved just in time or that everything seemed to work out okay. I did like the realistic botching of the speech (their peers liked that?) and that they somewhat realistically showed the gap between the smart kids, the cool kids, and how none of them understand that they’ve created the gap – and the ensuing social awkwardness – themselves. The party scenes were perhaps my favorite from the whole movie. (Aside from the iconic boombox-over-his-head scene, of course. I am still a girl who likes to wooed.)

So, yes, I’ll have to say the movie was pretty awesome for what it was. Vintage Cusack trumps Molly Ringwald any day of the week.

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Tags: book review, literature, movie review, movies, reviews