The Lost Symbol

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Severed Hands

(Hey, kids, it's been awhile. I am going to be better about my blogging. Life has been crazy lately because I actually have a social life right now. Go figure. Enjoy this book review. Or don't. I don't care. haha!)

When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon--a prominent Mason and philanthropist--is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept [a] mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations--all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

As the world discovered in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's novels are brilliant tapestries of veiled histories, arcane symbols, and enigmatic codes. In this new novel, he again challenges readers with an intelligent, lightning-paced story that offers surprises at every turn. The Lost Symbol is exactly what Brown's fans have been waiting for... his most thrilling novel yet. (courtesy of danbrown.com)

Before I say anything else, I have not read Dan Brown's other books. I've only seen the movies. I hear that those two are the better ones of the Langdon stories, but I find that I'm content with the movies which is rare for me. My friend, Kira, was raving about this book and she lent it to me, so I had to give it a try.

There were interesting factoids intermingled within the plot. I wanted to be able to get into it enough to want to look up what he was talking about just so I could have more of a frame of reference, but I wasn't that interested.

Noetics, the science in this book, is quite fascinating. It boasts the power of the human mind to change and alter our environment. That was my favorite part of the book.

As for Robert Langdon, he's so skeptical almost to a fault and it gets annoying. Just believe people sometimes, Rob! Geez. I understand he's a symbologist and a historian, so he's only interested in facts, but you'd think he'd have a little bit more of an imagination because of his profession. Just an observation. I'm not sure if this was meant to be a character flaw. If it was, kudos to Mr. Brown, but it was also something that made the story lag a little. Where I haven't read the others, I don't know if it was just more prominent in this book or if it is just Robert Langdon's character.

While we are discussing Langdon...Tom Hanks? Really? What were they thinking? Don't get me wrong; Tom Hanks is a great actor, but while I was reading this book I couldn't picture him as Robert Langdon. The jury is still out on who my personal casting choice would be.

Moving on. I found myself skimming. If this is a breathless thriller, then I must not be thrilled too easily because I felt like I had to speed things up. There was, however, a couple of twists at the end that I was not expecting so that was a nice payoff.

All in all, it's a decent read. I would like to go to DC and see all these places that were mentioned. I gave it 2.5 out of 5 Severed Hands.

Bragging a Little

A couple weeks ago I went to Rue 21 with my friend Whitney. They had jeans on sale for $8! Of course I had to get a pair because of that price. I grabbed a 32x30 jean which has been my size for awhile now (it feels great to get back to that size! 36x30 was awful!). I tried them on and they fit great but they were a little baggy which surprised me. So Whitney grabbed me a 30x30. I was pretty certain I would not fit into them. But I did! Granted, they were a little snug, but they fit! I ended up getting the 32x30, but I also left with a boosted ego because I could fit into 30x30s! I haven't been able to do that since high school!

So that got me thinking. Ok. I got this bad cold so I hadn't been able to workout and it's taken me awhile to get back into my groove and be motivated to workout. But last week I did good and worked out a lot. Anyway, I had been thinking about my Rue21 trip and I thought to myself, "Self, you have not weighed yourself in awhile." That is when I went in and weighed myself, fully expecting to be disappointed that I was still at 180 lbs. (Don't get me wrong, I love this weight, but I have wanted to get down lower for awhile.)

Drum roll please.

I weighed in at 175 lbs.! I could not believe my eyes! I know weight fluctuates, but it is hard to fluctuate that much!

There's even more.

Today, I weighed myself again, just to see if I'd gained back the 5 lbs. over my trip to Utah.

I weighed in at 172 lbs. That's right, kiddos.

I don't know what I've done differently either. I upped the reps on my weightlifting workout. I've eaten even smaller portions. Sometimes I forget to eat lunch. And I've also stopped eating late at night. So that has helped a lot, I guess. I'm planning on cutting out sweets altogether, but I don't know if I can actually do that. I might just have to exercise more control. I must admit that sweets have not really tempted me of late. My appetite, altogether, has changed a lot just recently.

My goal when I first started working out and trying to lose some weight was to get down to 170 lbs. That seemed like a lofty goal, but now it is entirely plausible!

Now that I've bragged I will probably wake up with an extra 8 lbs. Oh well. :)

Randomosity

It has been awhile since I've blogged, so here is an update on my life:

I went on a random trip to Utah this weekend and it was amazing. It was really nice to get out of town and not be in the same mundane routine.

I'm reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. So far, so good. I'm reading them backwards because I've never read his other two books, but now I really want to. You should see a review of this book soon enough although it's taken me awhile to get through for some reason.

The revision/rewriting process of my novel Befall is still very frustrating and still at a complete standstill. However, I do have ideas and I'm going to see if they work. Time to just bite the bullet and just write no matter what.

Operation: Fabio is coming to an end. The longer hair has been fun, but I think I am going to cut it short again. This time, however, I may try something a little different. My friend, Kym, will be able to tell me if I can pull it off. I was going to see if I could find a picture of it, but I think I will just keep it under wraps for now. My next haircut appointment is the beginning of June.

I am seriously considering going back to school now. This means I have to study for the GRE and then take the dreaded test and ace it and then find a school that will take me. This also means more debt and whatnot, but it also means my brain won't be turning into mush anymore. I'm very excited for the opportunities this presents for me, and I hope I can hack it. As far as schools are concerned, Utah would be great, but I would like to go somewhere different and new, get involved in a different place culturally. Ideal spots would be California (very expensive, but the beach is right there!), Denver (random, but I hear it is a great place), Seattle, somewhere on the east coast like Virginia or North Carolina, or head south to Florida again. As you can see, I have not narrowed it down very well, but I have plenty of time for that.

Still obsessed with Zumba. It really is a great workout. My kettlebell class is cancelled for the summer which is a huge bummer. I also want to see about certifying to be a Zumba instructor and/or a kettlebell instructor.

That's all I can think of for now which is probably a good thing because I need to go to work.

Peace out, ya'all!

Kings of Colorado

Rating: 3 out of 5 Wild Horses

William Sheppard had never ventured beyond his Chicago neighborhood until, at thirteen, he was sent away to the Swope Ranch Boys’ Reformatory, hundreds of miles from home, for stabbing his abusive father in the chest with a pocketknife. Buried deep in the Colorado mountains, Swope is shrouded in legend and defined by one prevailing rumor: that the boys who go in never come out the same.

Despite the lack of fences or gates, the boundaries are clear: prisoners are days from civilization, there exists only one accessible road—except in the wintertime, when it’s buried under feet upon feet of snow, and anyone attempting escape will be shot down without hesitation in the shadow of the peaks. At 13,000 feet above sea level, the mountains aren’t forgiving, and neither are the guards.

With twenty-four months of hard time ahead of him, Will quickly learns to distinguish his allies from his enemies. He also learns about the high price of a childhood lost. At Swope, herds of mustangs are trucked in to be broken by a select group of inmates. Once the horses are gentled, they are sold to ranchers and landowners across the Southwest. Horses come and go, delinquent boys come and go. The boys break the horses, Swope Reformatory breaks the boys. Throughout this ordeal, Will discovers three others who bring him into their inner circle. They are life preservers in a sea of violence and corruption.

But if the boys are to withstand the ranch, they must first overcome tragedy and death—a feat that could haunt them for years to come.

(Courtesy of Goodreads.com)

This is a detour from what I normally read, and it turned out to be a good adventure. It is a brutal story about coming-of-age, friendship, and learning to accept the past. Really, it wasn't what I expected, and there were some nice parallels drawn seamlessly together.

The main character, Will, is complex and likeable. However, I don't know if I felt like he really evolved as a person. He attacks his abusive father and ends up in a juvenile ranch in Colorado where it's every man for himself. The experiences he has there are brutal and, at times, unreal in their violence. The last experience in the woods lasts a long time and it is awful. I cannot imagine living through something like it and being sane afterwards. We see an older Will at the end of the novel and he is a man torn apart by guilt and haunted by ghosts from those days in Colorado. The attack on his father is never addressed really. I wanted him to come to grips with that whole thing in one way or another. Whether he finishes the job, namely Silas Green, and actually kills someone or he turns completely away from violence and sees it as something despicable. I just don't know if Will really is a fully changed man by the end of the novel. I wanted him to be better because of or in spite of his experience, but that didn't happen.

Will's friends are each very unique. I loved Benny the most. You don't really get to know Coop well enough and I wish his character were developed more before he was taken out of it simply because of how much of a crux his part became later on. Mickey is interesting, and he was not my favorite at first, but I grew to like him. Each of their stories are more and more depressing than the last. Benny's story is simply the most heartbreaking especially as it evolves. Benny is the only character that I think really grows and becomes a different person by the end. His accident makes him slower and whatnot but there is something magical and beautiful about him. I love the scene where Benny is carrying Will to the cave.

If you're looking for a light read to lift your spirits this is not it. However, it has managed to be a haunting story to me. All in all I'm glad I read it, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something gritty and a little thought-provoking. I gave it three out of five wild horses.

The Weird Sisters

Rating 4 out of 5 Shakespearean Sonnets

The three Andreas sisters grew up in the cloistered household dominated by their Shakespearean professor father, a prominent, eccentric academic whose reverence for the Bard left its imprint on his daughters' names: Rosalind (As You Like It), Bianca (The Taming of the Shrew), and Cordelia (King Lear). The siblings eventually left home and escaped their ponderous monikers with nicknames, but their mother's medical maladies brings them back. Before long, their unwelcome reunion reveals that they all have problems: Rose is force-feeding a troubled relationship; Bean is entangled in a big city case of embezzlement; and unmarried Cordy is pregnant. (courtesy of Goodreads.com)

This was a ponderous and slow read for me. Maybe it's because I've been reading teen fiction and burning through those so quick it was a change of pace to read something with a little more depth. It was a welcome plunge.

The first-person plural narrative is hard to adjust to, but I absolutely loved the effect. By the end of the novel, I saw how it made the story complete. It fits with the Shakespearean theme in that the Weird Sisters in his play refer to themselves in the same way.

Speaking of the Shakespearean stuff, I loved it. The way the characters wove the Bard's words within their own dialogue was enchanting. I wish I knew those words as well as these characters did. And then it shows how the family has lived under the shadow of the greatest writer who ever lived and a professor who loved him. The thing that really sealed the deal for me to even want to read this book was the Shakespeare allusions in it.

Another theme I loved within the pages of this novel was the idea of what's in a name. These girls are named after Shakespearean heroines and, thus, are given ideals to live under and strive for. It is interesting to see how they cope with that, how they differ from their namesakes, and how they are poignantly similar. The characterization in this novel is absolutely terrific. Once I was done with it I felt like I knew the sisters so well they could be my own kin. Each one was distinct from the other, but they overlapped in ways that is so real that they felt like real people. My favorite, admittedly, was Bianca, or Bean. For some reason I related to her the most, and I liked how her story evolved and how it was eventually concluded. It did not end the way I wanted or expected, but I was glad it didn't. I feel that each sister got what they wanted and needed.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. It is thought provoking and beautifully written. I gave it 4 out of 5 Shakespearean sonnets.

Revision Process

I'm getting so frustrated with this revision process! I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought the rough draft was an irritating process at times, but that was cakewalk compared to what I'm dealing with right now. It is nice, however, that I have a great little foundation for my book with a decent rough draft with some very usable and loveable scenes. I'm actually doing something that is slightly weird and combining two characters from the rough draft into one character. We will see if that works. If not, I guess it is back to square one. Personally, I think it is a good move and will make things a little more interesting and allow for more character development.

For some reason, a big frustration with this process has been that I cannot seem to get motivated to write! Probably because my mind is not used to having to go back and rewrite and revise. I've trained myself just to write and be done with it. I've never really been one to rewrite and revise. With a project this large I know it is necessary. My undergraduate education probably gave me some bad habits that way. I tend to write maybe a second draft and then I'm done. Or I just try and write it as perfectly as possible right from the get-go (another impossibility when writing a novel).

While it is grating on my nerves it is also interesting to see the story take shape and become more fully developed. I'm certain I will be satisfied with the story the more I work on it and it will become less of a chore as I keep working at it. I am currently rewriting the beginning (which was horrendous in the rough draft) and it is coming together nicely. This is like molding something into a beautiful masterpiece, but it is also like tying together a quilt and making things match nicely and seamlessly. Someday I will perfect my art, but for now I'm learning as I go. I don't understand how authors can write more than one book a year. Granted, they are all more learned and experienced than I, but it still blows my mind. Maybe I am biased, but I tend to think that, if you are spitting out books that fast, they can't be that great of writing. I'm still doing well with working on this novel for just a year. I'm hoping to start sending queries to agents and publishers by June. We shall see if this frustrating process takes on hyperspeed before then.

Until then, I guess I will just keep dealing with it. If you hear screams of frustration in the distance, you will know I am working on my book.

City of Fallen Angels

Rating: 5 out of 5 Half-Dead Demon Half-Brothers

City of Fallen Angels takes place two months after the events of City of Glass. In it, a mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever. Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels. (courtesy of Goodreads.com)

Cassandra Clare is one of my favorite young adult fiction writers out there. I would say she is in my top four along with Jennifer Donnelly, Markus Zusak, and Lauren Oliver. Her Mortal Instruments saga continues in this fourth book and it took me awhile to get used to the idea that the story was continuing. Book three had wrapped up so beautifully that I wondered where she was going to take the story to bring in more conflict.

During the first, say, half of the book I wanted to smack Jace. That was a new feeling for me. He was always one of my favorites during the other three books. This installment finds a tortured and conflicted Jace (again) but in different ways. For the longest time, Clare keeps it under wraps as to what is really bothering him and why he is acting so dumb. He finally has Clary, the girl he loves, and he starts avoiding her for no stupid reason. And then when he does see her he paws at her and tries to take off all her clothes. The sexual tension is unbelievable in a good way but even Clary comments on it. She says You can't just kiss me in place of talking. Good call, Clary. I don't know. The Jace and Clary story is wonderful, but, during the beginning through the middle I couldn't help thinking that Cassandra Clare was just stretching for more drama with them.

That was not entirely true. I had changed my opinion by the end of the book which is why the book gets such a high rating from me. The denouement of this novel is fantastic. Everything comes out smoothly and surprisingly. There are enough little twists to keep the reader guessing which is always a plus.

The Simon/Maia/Isabelle love triangle is interesting, but I'm glad the introduction of Jordan kindof breaks that up. I'm hoping that develops more and in the way I want it to. Cassandra Clare, I am sending you mental vibes of how you need to end that plot to make me happy. Simon is also one of my favorite characters, but he kindof gets whiny in this book.

I can see why we had to read the prequel Clockwork Angel before we read this book. There are characters in the book and characters mentioned that would have no real meaning if I had not read Clockwork Angel. So, if you haven't read Clockwork Angel, read it before you read this one. I was a little more than annoyed when I had to read the prequel last year instead of reading this one, but I'm glad Clare had some forethought that way.

Just a couple more comments.

Cassandra Clare's writing, in the first three books, was superb. I remember reading City of Bones and just feeling like the words sparkled and leaped with magic and life and vigor. This one, and even Clockwork Angel, not so much. The quality isn't what it used to be. More mental vibes headed your way, Ms. Clare. Bring back the magical feeling in your writing! Maybe it is still there and I've just gotten used to it. I don't really know.

I love the tie-in with the Bible and Dante's Inferno. There are continual references to both in these books and I think Clare has done an amazing job of creating her own mythology/world with those two books. It goes to show what a good writer can do. I have given this book 5 out of 5 Half-Dead Demon Half-Brothers.