Usually I’d write the synopsis here, but there doesn’t seem to be one.  All the back of the book states is that it’s about “a boy of many faiths.  A 450-pound Bengal Tiger.  A shipwreck.  A lifeboat.  The Pacific Ocean.”  Interested? 

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I don’t know where to start… if you really liked the movie Cast Away, you might like this novel.  I decided to read Life of Pi because it has been a recommendation on tons of book lists, and the idea of a boy and a tiger stranded at sea together is very intriguing, but, I HATED Cast Away, and I really disliked this book.  In fact, I wouldn’t have even finished it if I hadn’t read the last chapter halfway through the novel.  It’s a bad habit of mine, I know, but in this case, it actually lead to me finishing the entire novel, instead of chucking it across the room and obtaining something better from the bookshelf.  Wow.  Seriously, the entire first section of the novel should go right in the trash.  I couldn’t care less about how Pi got his name from a swimming pool, or how his father ran a zoo, or how Pi couldn’t decide on one religion so he chose three… I just don’t care.  It also isn’t pertinent to the storyline.  All Part 1 does—all 117 pages of it—is give background information of the main character, and once the real story begins, the story about the shipwreck and the tiger, all of part one becomes obsolete.  Just cut part one right out of the book and you’ll be good to go. 

Part two is much better, but there is an overkill of description because there are no characters for Pi to talk to, so he describes everything.  I guess I never really knew that I loved dialogue so much, until it was completely taken away from me in this book.  Halfway through part two I became restless and I read the end, and there is such a huge twist at the end of the novel that it redeemed the book, a tiny bit.  But… this book is so dry that you might not even make it to the ending.  My suggestion:  Read the last chapter first.  Then you can decide if reading the entire novel is worth your time.  It wasn’t worth mine, but at least the twist at the end moved the book up one star, in my opinion, and one star is all it’s going to get.

Synopsis from the dust jacket: “I am a beast. A beast! Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright. I am a monster. You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It’s no deformity, no disease. And, I’ll stay this way forever—ruined—unless I can break the spell. Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly . . . beastly.”

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This was a really adorable adaptation of the “Beauty and Beast” fairytale.  It’s not sappy and “lovey-dovey,” and it’s set in present day, which I really liked.  But, my favorite aspect of the book is the characters.  The Beast, Kyle, actually CHANGED.  You can see the changes taking place as the story progresses, no overnight transitions, like authors are sometimes prone to do.  I felt like the characters had souls, and that was a really nice change, in terms of “fairytales.”  I also liked that the story started out in a chatroom, with other fairy tale characters, such as the frog prince, and the little mermaid, all IMing each other about their transformation… when it’s the Beasts turn to tell his, our story begins.  Very ingenious. 

I picked up Beastly the other day because a movie rendition is coming out, less than a month from now (March 4).  After I saw the trailer and realized the book was written by Alex Flinn, I went straight to Barnes and Nobel to get it.  I have a lot of respect for Alex Flinn and her YA books.  Breathing Underwater is another one of her novels, about a young abusive teen, and my students highly recommended that book, so I read that a few months ago.  Pure talent.  I am very excited about the movie rendition of this book, though I can already tell from the trailer and movie poster above that it is going to shy away from the book (as they always do), at least in terms of what the characters look like.  Pick up a copy of this novel ASAP and read it BEFORE you see the movie.  You won’t be disappointed!  Four stars for a very cute, very well written novel!

From the back of the book: “‘It has never been easier to make a great living doing what you love. But to make it happen, first you need an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs to get away from lousy bosses, from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate, and ACTUALLY start doing something they love, something that matters. Life is short.’ -Hugh MacLeod

Freud once said that in order to be truly happy people need two things: the capacity to work and the capacity to love. Evil Plans is about being able to do both at the same time. The sometimes unfortunate side effect is that others will hate you for it. MacLeod’s insights are brash, wise, and often funny.”

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I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon when FedEx pulled up and delivered a package I wasn’t expecting.  Upon grasping the envelope, I knew it was a book, but I couldn’t fathom what the title was, seeing as I haven’t ordered any new books lately.  The book turned out to be an advanced copy of Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination, by Hugh MacLeod, which won’t be out in bookstores until the middle of this month.  Imagine my surprise!  An invoice was located inside the book, and it looks like I apparently won the advanced copy from a drawing on Goodreads.com.  I knew I loved that website!!!!

Because Evil Plans is an advanced copy, I pushed my other books to the side and began reading it right away.   Very interesting…

Honestly, I had no idea what the book was about when I put my name in for the drawing.  I just liked the title of the book.  As I read the back cover and flipped through the pages, I thought that this novel might be similar to Apathy and Other Small Victories, by Paul Neilan (a phenomenal book, if you love sarcasm), but it wasn’t.  It turns out that Evil Plans is more or less a self-help book.  I was not expecting that!  However, it was funny and very insightful.  Instead of being long and drawn out, each chapter is a quick read, and the author is a cartoonist as well, so there are many supplemental cartoons to enjoy (though I didn’t find them funny… I probably just don’t understand them.  Dry humor and I don’t get along very well…?).  What I did like was that most chapters told a true story about how someone pulled away from the traditional work of 9-5 and became their own boss, mainly through using the internet. 

 If you hate your job, or feel like it’s a dead end, then I do recommend this book to you, because it has a ton of good advice about becoming your own entrepreneur.  I currently love my job, which is a prerequisite MacLeod says you must have in order to begin an as entrepreneur—you must love what you do (or, I guess, what you’re about to do), so I guess I’m golden for the time being.  I’m only going to give this book two stars, since it wasn’t as interesting as I hoped, since it doesn’t pertain to me, but perhaps one day I’ll decide to branch out and become my own boss.  In that case, I’ll turn back to Evil Plans.

From the dust jacket: “Beware the Wheel of Fortune… Johnny, the small boy who skated at breakneck speed into an accident that for one horrifying moment plunged him into… the dead zone.  Johnny Smith, the small-town school teacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won trip into… the dead zone.  John Smith, who awakened from a seemingly interminable coma with an accursed power: the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in… the dead zone.”

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This was my first bout with Stephen King, and I must say, I’m not impressed.  I’ve never had a hankering to read King’s novels, but just this once I decided I’d give it a go.  This book was the predecessor for the television show, after all, and I did love that show!  But the book… just doesn’t cut it for me.  The idea behind The Dead Zone is great, but I really wasn’t into the story line King presented.  It’s a shame, really.  There was so much potential for this novel, and it just fell flat.  While reading the book, I felt like I was reading a Charles Dickens novel, and that King was being paid per word!  It was unnecessarily long.   I need a fast paced story, and while the book deals with the paranormal, which I usually love, there are just too many boring sections in the novel to win my affection. 

 The fact that I have no affection for any of the characters is also a drawback.  That seems to be one of the biggest issues I have when reading a novel.  If I don’t care for the characters, it’s all over.  Nothing in the world could make me like that book.  And, that is the case with this novel.

I wanted to see Johnny running around forecasting the future, battling evil, saving lives, etc., but in all the 400 pages of the novel, there were only three riveting sections that dealt with Johnny “seeing.”  And, each time he did combat the future, it pushed him further into himself, until he shut out the world completely.  Now, I agree that being able to “see” could be viewed as a curse, which is the mind-set that Johnny adapts, but even so, he is a very melodramatic character.  For instance, he falls in love with Sarah after only a month, and once he wakes from his coma, he never gets over her, even though five years have passed, she looks different, and he ultimately loses contact with her.  Really?  A month long relationship has that much hold for him?   But that’s not even my main issue with the book.  The main issue I have is that it’s depressing.  Not one good thing happens to Johnny, and the story left me depressed.  Though there are periods in the book when things are “looking up,” they inevitably crash down just as quickly.  I certainly won’t be giving this to my students to read.  Two stars is all I award this novel.