Review-Diamond Playgirls

Diamond Playgirls by Daaimah S. Poole

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


That is a generous 3 stars. This book was just okay.

It is a series of 4 novellas written by 4 different female authors, each about a woman who is moving into a brownstone in New York City.

The first story is about Dior, who comes from Montreal, Canada. I wasn't a huge fan of her story at first, but after reading the others, hers actually wasn't too bad. Dior is a shopaholic and spends too much money (she even runs out of cash on her first day in NYC and can't pay her cab fare). She starts a Myspace account and begins chatting with this guy named Mr. GoodBlackMan, who is really sweet and sounds like his name: a good black man. However, Dior also meets another guy (can't remember his name at the moment) and he also seems too good to be true (and proves it.) Like I said, Dior's story wasn't too bad, although it was super predictable (at least to me) who Mr. GoodBlackMan would turn out to be.

The next story is Tamara's, which was written by Daaimah S. Poole. Ms. Poole is the only author of this bunch that I had ever heard of. I've read most of her books and really liked them, so I figured her story would be my favorite. That was not the case. Tamara's story was so boring, I can't even remember what it was about. Something where she's a party promoter and she's hired to plan the opening of a new club. All the while, her married boss starts hitting on her. The blurb on the back of the book mentioned something about her dating 3 men at once, but that never happened.

Next up is Chloe. I actually liked Chloe and her story the most of all, as hers seemed the most realistic. Chloe's father is a famous businessman so in her old town, she's somewhat of a celebrity, so she moves to NYC to try and make it on her own. She gets a job as an assistant at a magazine. She's good at what she does and even gets mentioned for a promotion, although she hates the woman she works for. She meets Chris, a man she falls in love with, but it turns out he has had some unpleasant dealings with her father, so Chloe hides the fact that she is the man's daughter.

Lastly is Mona Lisa, who's story is only slightly more interesting than Tamara's, but she's more unlikeable than Tamara. Mona Lisa hates commitment and runs through men at her own leisure. Her only real relationship was back in college with a man named Nat, whom she ran from when things started to get too real. Nat turns back up in Mona's life and she has to face some harsh realities about herself.

At the end of each of the stories, it is a Valentine's Day and each woman goes alone to a club in NYC to celebrate and they wind up talking and becoming good friends, despite the fact that they've all been living in the same house and never bothered to get to know each other beforehand. There's no real closure to any of their stories. All the women are basically the same with no real characterization or growth (beautiful, fashionable, successful, unlucky in love). The character of Jerome was annoying and I was tired of seeing him pop up in every story.

I give this a 3 because I did like Dior and Chloe's stories, but the rest I could've done without.



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Source: Library
Challenges: 100 Books in a Year

Theme Thursday (2)

Theme Thursday is a weekly event hosted by Reading Between the Pages. The rules are:

1. A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday’s)
2. Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
3. Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
4. It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”

This will give us a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors.

This week's theme is TOUCH

My entry comes from my current read, Diamond Playgirls by Daaimah S. Poole, et al, pg. 257-258:

He knocked three times before she opened the door. Immediately he stepped in , holding a greasy brown paper bag that smelled of fried chicken. Without even asking, he hugged her as if she were his long-lost cousin. The bag made a rattling sound as their bodies pressed against it. "Heeeey!" He smiled, rocking her slightly.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? (9)

It's Monday, What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by The Book Journey.

Last week: I finally finished up the mind-numbingly boring Deadly Sanctuary, and the semi-awesome Twilight.

This week: I started reading Diamond Playgirls, a series of short novellas about 4 women who are all connected in some way (probably a man) written by Daamiah S. Poole and 3 other authors.

Up next: New Moon!!! Can't wait!

What are you reading this week?

Review-Twilight

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars





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Ok, so Twilight. As I said before, I wanted nothing to do with the Twilight series. I've never been into vampires and werewolves and things like that. But then I saw the movie Twilight and I really liked it. So of course, I needed to read the book.

Since I saw the movie, I was spoiled for what would happen in the book. And since I also read up on the movie on Wikipedia (I always do that for movies, just to get more background info on the movie), I spoiled myself for parts of the rest of the series also, although not too much. I've also learned that, while it had seemed that the entire world was in love with Twilight, that's actually not the case. There seem to be a lot of Twilight snark blogs (such as the tumblr, reasoningwithvampires which picks apart the grammar in the books) and the majority of my favorite celebrity gossip blog, OhNoTheyDidnt, is anti-Twilight (although that's not surprising, since they are anti-anything that's not Britney Spears or Lady Gaga.)

Anywho, I was prepared to be thoroughly bored with the book and disgusted by the bad grammar. However, that was not the case. While I suppose there are some grammatical errors, they weren't so bad to jump out at me, so I didn't mind. True, the book is not a literary masterpiece that should be dissected and analyzed in college classrooms, but it held my interest, and that's all that matters to me.

The book tells the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan who moves to the town of Forks, Washington to live with her father. During her time there, Bella meets and falls in love with the mysterious Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire.

I liked the character of Bella for the majority of the book. I did have to roll my eyes at the beginning in which all the boys are falling over themselves to date Bella, who's supposed to be a plain Jane I guess (I picture Bella as Kristen Stewart from the movie, who isn't gorgeous, but I thought she was really pretty as Bella.) I thought Bella was kinda rude towards her father and to her new friends Jessica and that other girl, almost as if she were too good/smart for them, but I could overlook that. Bella started to bug a little bit towards the end of the book, where almost every other word or thought from her was about how much she loved Edward. I found their relationship very sweet and cute, and I get that this is Bella's first real love and that Edward is so beautiful and sparkly, but it just seemed a little much that she was just so in love with him already, so much so that she's already willing to become a vampire for him. I just thought that happened a little too fast.

As for Edward, I had no real beef with him. He seemed really sweet and like a good guy. I'm trying to figure out what he likes so much about Bella except for the fact that her blood smells good. I would've liked to know what exactly they loved about each other, but maybe that's mentioned in one of the other books.

The book did tend to drag at some points and what turns out to be a 500 page novel, easily could've been around 350-400 pages if some of the drivel was taken out. But all in all, I really liked the story and I enjoyed the characters. I'm dying to know more about what happens next in their relationship (I know bits and pieces, but not everything.) I"m a definite Twi-hard or whatever they call themselves now, lol.

Source: borrowed from a friend, but will be purchasing
Challenges Used For: 100 Books in a Year, YA Reading Challenge

Review-Deadly Sanctuary

Deadly Sanctuary by Sylvia Nobel

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Clearly this book wasn't keeping me on the edge of my seat, since it took me nearly a month to finish. The storyline and the characters were boring. The mystery was so boring, I can barely remember what it was about. Something about a dead journalist and then someone planting some taratulas in the main character's (Kendall) shower.

This book wasn't a total waste of time, however. The relationship between Kendall and Tally was semi-interesting, even though it was entirely predictable. Kendall is the poor man's version of Stephanie Plum and Tally is the extremely poor man's version of Joe Morelli.

I don't know if there are more books in this Kendall O'Dell series, but I won't be bothering to find out. I'm glad this was a freebie and that I didn't waste money on it.



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Source: freebie from B&N for my Nook Color
Challenges Used For: 100 Books in a Year, Mystery and Suspense Challenge, Show Me the Free Challenge, E-Reader Challenge

Theme Thursday (1)

Theme Thursday is a new meme that I came across on Reading Between Pages...

The rules are simple:

1. A theme will be posted each week (on Thursdays)
2. Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
3. Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
4. It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”
This will give us a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors.

This week's theme is LOVE.

My entry for this week comes from my current read, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, pg. 314:

"You were very deeply asleep; I didn't miss anything." His eyes gleamed. "The talking came earlier."
I groaned. "What did you hear?"
His gold eyes grew very soft. "You said you loved me."
"You knew that already," I reminded him, ducking my head.
"It was nice to hear, just the same."
I hid my face against his shoulder.
"I love you," I whispered.
"You are my life now," he answered simply.

Borders

I am very saddened to see that all of the Borders bookstores in my area will be closing soon.

Despite the fact that I buy all my books from either Barnes and Noble (because of my NC) or Amazon, I have always had a special place in my heart for Borders. I worked as a cashier at Borders for most of my college years and it was such a great job. One of the stores that's closing, the Bowie store, is the one I worked at. I loved that job so much. Being around books all day? Who could complain! The only bad thing was that the majority of my paycheck went right back to them.

Another one of the stores that's closing, the Largo store, is the one I've gone to the most often lately, since it's right up the street from me. When I want to get some grading done, it was a good place to go and set up a table in the cafe and grade while people-watching.

So despite my Border love, why did I become an Amazon/B&N girl? Well, Amazon was great for shopping from home, plus I love the whole free shipping for orders over $25. I could also get a lot of the more obscure books, and a lot of my teacher resource books on Amazon.

As for B&N, before the Borders in Largo was built, the closest one to me was the one in Bowie. There's also a B&N in Bowie, which is actually in the mall that I frequently go to there. So it just made more sense to stop in at B&N while shopping at the mall, than to drive extra and go to Borders. And now that I have Strawberry (my NC), I pretty much have to buy books from them.

So I'm sorry for seeing Borders go. I always liked the layout of Borders better than B&N's anyway. I'm thankful to Borders for helping me be the great reader I am today, as well as keeping me a broke but employed college student, lol. RIP Borders, you will be missed!