Every Day by David Levithan

EVERY DAY by David Levithan is a speculative YA that can be enjoyed by adults as much, or perhaps even more. It's an original idea. The writing style is entertaining. The book makes you think.

And, you know what? In a way, it's as sad as THE FAULT IN OUR STARS.

Here's the blurb:

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

I left my heart in Africa...

OPERATION: GENOCIDE (Stairway Press, 17 September 2013) is a book close to my heart. Very close. So close, it could have been written on the walls of my left ventricle, the life-giving one that one that receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and pumps it through to the entire body. 

It’s because in Africa I feel truly alive. The continent feels both totally exotic and totally like home. When I set foot on the sizzling tarmac of Johannesburg’s international airport as an impressionable 12-year old....

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Insert Name Here

INSERT NAME HERE by Eve Summers
Red Rose Publishing
August 2013

EXCERPT

This is my To-Do-Before-I-Turn-30 list:

•         Eat an ostrich egg. Check.

•         Play with a cheetah cub. Check.

•         Swim with a dolphin. Check.

•         Scuba dive in a foreign country. Double check for doing it at night.

•         Skydive. Check, bonus points because I wasn’t scared.

•         Dare to love again. Nah, cross it out. So not going to happen. I’ve learned my lesson.

•         Make love on a yacht.

•         ... With a stranger for extra points.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into one-night stands. The idea of getting close and intimate with someone I’m not emotionally involved with gives me the creeps. I only included it in my to-do list because I was hurt and devastated and not thinking straight.

Getting dumped wasn’t on my to-do list. Neither was an impromptu trip to Africa. When my now-ex-boyfriend broke up with me, I simply sold my engagement ring and booked the first holiday package I found. My Before-I-Turn-30 list was born on the long flight towards the Black Continent.

And now I’m in Africa. The sun is hot. The air is hot. My energy levels are up there with over-boiling. In just two short weeks, I managed to put a big fat checkmark next to five items on my bucket list. Beats choosing the wedding cake, that’s for damned sure.

Link: http://redrosepublishing.com/books/product_info.php?products_id=1328

I blame Lee Child for my recent food cravings...

I blame Lee Child for my recent food cravings. No, he didn't make me pregnant. It's just that I’m re-reading THE AFFAIR, and every time Jack Reacher goes into the diner for that enormous cheese burger and the squirrel’s nest of shoestring fries, my mouth starts watering.

Doesn’t help that elsewhere in this book there is the most explicit sex scene Lee has ever written. And for some bizarre yet totally cliché reason, it makes me crave gooey chocolate fudge.

It’s a mark of a great writer to immerse the reader in the book so thoroughly. My only hope is I’m different enough from Reacher not to walk around hitting people. Mind you, if I don’t sink my teeth into a fat cheeseburger soon, I might just start wanting to…

That scene, BTW, it’s good. I know it was nominated for the 2011 worst published scene award, but I disagree. We got the tension and the delay before, we got the distrust after, we got some great visual and auditory effects during. For those who feel there was a lack of emotional reaction, well, that’s Reacher for you. You don’t see him get emotionally involved in a fight, do you?

Cooking at Midnight

If you’ve seen the movie “Julie and Julia”, you will remember the scene in which Julie Powell is cooking the famous Boeuf Bourguignon in the middle of the night. I can relate to that. My family’s recent schedule is so hectic, I sometimes end up cooking dinner the night before. And I do mean the _night_ before. As in midnight, or two in the morning. The difference between me and Julie Powell? I’m not cooking Boeuf Bourguignon. Far too time consuming! In my desperate drive to be done cooking and catch some sleep, I’ve perfected the art of making lasagne in 10 minutes – ready to eat immediately or to reheat the next day.
Another difference between Julie and me? Nobody’s rushing to make a movie about Yvonne Walus.

Before Midnight

What is it about the movie BEFORE MIDNIGHT that makes it so good? Yes Ethan Hawke. Yes Julie Delpy. Yes the Greek setting and yes the quirky dialogue and yes the raw honesty of what love looks like after nine years.


But you know what else? It's the assumption that the female characters are all intelligent and they have something to discuss that's not shoes. It reminded me not only of its predecessors BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET, but also of a Canadian classic, THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE.   Go see BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Twice.   

Replay

Replay by Ken Grimwood is a novel worth reading. I wonder whether that's where Stephen King got his idea for 22/11/63. Yes, it's about travelling back in time, replaying bits of your life. Personally, I preferred King's version (I could actually see the railway lines and taste the root beer), but I'm glad I read Replay.

Here's what the Wikipedia says about it: "Replay is the account of 43-year-old radio journalist Jeff Winston, who dies of a heart attack in 1988 and awakens back in 1963 in his 18-year-old body as a student at Atlanta's Emory University. He then begins to relive his life with intact memories of the next 25 years, until, despite his best efforts at cardiac health, he dies of a heart attack, again, in 1988. He immediately returns to 1963, but several hours later than the last "replay". This happens repeatedly with different events in each cycle, each time beginning from increasingly later dates (first days, then weeks, then years, then ultimately decades). Jeff soon realizes that he cannot prevent his death in 1988, but he can change the events that occur before it, both for him, and for others."