THE LITTLE PRINCE -- POPSUGAR READING CHALLENGE #22

image from Goodreads

This was one of the harder ones so far to fill for me.

Number 22 on the Popsugar Reading Challenge is: a book recommended by a celebrity you admire.

I'm not really into admiring celebrities much. Maybe a shallow glance at Facebook and People magazine blurbs about them. So it was hard to find one that I truly admire.

I ended up choosing Emma Watson. She is an advocate for many things. She also took her education seriously despite becoming a star as the bookworm witch, Hermione Granger.

She recommended The Little Prince.

I look back on the book and I still have no idea what I read. It was an amalgamation of children's story, philosophy, fantasy, life lessons, and I don't know what else.

It's the sort of book that takes two or three readings to get the deeper meanings of the work.  It's worth another read.

What does The Little Prince mean to you? Let me know in the comments below.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS -- POPSUGAR READING CHALLENGE #25

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So I was at Walmart last Sunday. I was doing a bit of shopping and ended up passing the book section. (Yeah, okay, I deliberately went there. That section just calls to me and I cannot resist its temptations.)

Anyway, I saw this and picked it up. I had seen the movie with my sister when it went into Red Box. I enjoyed the movie enough to check out the book.

I'm glad I did. The book had way more drama than the movie. Not that the movie didn't have drama. Only the movie was more geared toward the comedic side of things.

The con is that there were A LOT of characters to keep track of including family members, and friends, and friend of friends, and kids of friends.  Also, there were footnotes that translated the language. They were translated the one time but sometimes things were used more than once. I didn't want to go back and look for the translation again.

I enjoyed the book.  Oliver has got to be one of my favorite characters in the movie and the book. Peik Lin Goh is another. I totally had Awkwafina's performance in my head as I read it.  She was amazing.

One of favorite lines that Peik Lin says is: "I have no idea who these people are. But I can tell you one thing—these people are richer than God."

Have you read or watched the movie? Who was your favorite character?

THE MARTIAN -- POPSUGAR READING CHALLENGE #14

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This was on my reading list for the longest time. And I mean the loooongest time.

I saw it at the library and put it on my reading list (in hardback). I watched the movie; it was still on my reading list.  I got the paperback last year --- and it was still on my reading list.

So I finally broke down and picked it up for the Popsugar Reading Challenge #14: A book set in space.

Let me tell you, I loved it!!! I highly recommend the book.

The book was intelligent and funny and just plain cool.  The book had a bit more depth (naturally) and had some great new bits not seen in the movie.

One of my favorite scenes is still the moment where he calls himself a space pirate.  My other is when he razzes Carl Sagan about colonizing Mars.

So what were your favorite scenes or lines from the the book or movie?

BOOK CHALLENGE 2015 #13 A BOOK THAT BECAME A MOVIE

Okay, I admit to bawling my brains out at the end of the movie when I was a kid.  What?! How could anyone not cry at the end?

Anyway, the movie actually followed the book very well. All the pertinent points of the story were there.

What they did not have in the movie did not detract from it at all. The minute details that filled the pages of the book were so neat.  There's back story on Schmendrick and more details about Haggard and his lands. Lir's story is there as well.

Also the world has more people and places that fill the story.

I liked this book.  As I read I watched the movie in my head when the scenes were the same.

Sigh.  And now I have America singing the theme song to the movie stuck in my head. Brick wall here I come. 

BOOK CHALLENGE 2015 #12 -- A BOOK WITH A LOVE TRIANGLE

So this is the second book in this series.  We find Cassie and company in the chaotic aftermath of the first book.  A new agent appears and has connections with Dean before he joined the group.  The game's afoot (heh heh) as a murder victim is found on a college campus.

The love triangle comes in as Michael, Cassie, and Dean (with a bit of Lia mixed in) deal with their feelings.  Cass has feelings for both Michael and Dean, but she doesn't know which one has her heart more.  Michael keeps pushing her into realizing her true feelings.

This book was fun because if you like sick and twisted serial killer stuff then this .  I liked that the triangle because it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the story.  Personally I thought that it created some of the actions in the story.

BOOK CHALLENGE 2015 #10 -- A BOOK MORE THAN 100 YEARS OLD

Okay, I had to fudge on the cover for this book.  The version I read was from Arcadia House and published in 1950.  It held the novel Kidnapped as well.  I could not find a picture of it like I did with Oscar Wilde.

Anywho, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in 1886.  This was a novella technically.

It's about a Doctor Henry Jekyll who created a solution from different compounds that transformed him into his purely evil side called Edward Hyde.  Only somewhere it went wrong and the doc lost control of his metamorphosis.

Hyde did all the doctor wished he could do.  It's almost like he wanted to be Dorian Grey only he didn't want to own up to his dark desires.  He just wanted to reap the benefits and live vicariously through his other persona.

I was somewhat disappointed by the fact that most of the actions were after the fact.  I was hoping I to live through the adventure, but that was not the case.  We get to see the aftereffects through Gabriel Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer and friend.

Other than that, it was an interesting book, which put me into the mood to read Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin and watch the movie with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. 

BOOK CHALLENGE 2015 #9 -- A BOOK BY A FEMALE AUTHOR

This is an author I have never of before, but I loved the interesting cover so much that I wanted to see what it was about.

Let me tell you I was enthralled with the blurb!  The premise is a tiny bit far fetched, but still plausible. Who knows what the government actually does in reality, I don't.

Anywho, I ate this book up. I was sucked in from the first page to the end.  That hasn't happened in a long time.

So it starts out with Cassie working at a diner.  She was taught to read people by her mother before she died.  When she's approached by a young man, her world is drastically changed.  She becomes a part of a group of teens that work cold cases for the FBI.  They are all classified as Naturals.  Their talents to read people and crime scenes are being honed.

Then a serial killer targets Cassie with a cat and mouse game for the highest stakes.

It's a fun glimpse of BAU training and has the slight hints of I Hunt Killers.  

BOOK CHALLENGE 2015 #6 A BOOK WITH A NUMBER IN THE TITLE

Book 2 One False Note

One False Note is the second book in the 39 Clues.  In this book, the two Cahills, Amy and Dan, travel into Germany and Vienna following the musical clue from the first book.  They follow the life of Mozart and of his sister as they try to find the next clue.  It's a race against others who are ruthless enough to kill.

With death-defying explosions, mystery, and adventure, they do pack a wallop. They have historical figures, places, and facts all throughout the book, but in such a way that I wasn't realizing I was learning things.  The books take those historic figures like Mozart, Ben Franklin, and Marie Antoinette and have them connected through the fictional Cahill family.

These books are in the Juvenile section of my public library.  Written by various authors including David Baldacci, Rick Riordan, and Margaret Peterson Haddix.  I picked up the first on a whim, and I must say that they are quite fun little books.

I would definitely recommend them.