Teaser Tuesday!

Book: Dark Visions
Author: L.J Smith

"You feel the power", he said approvingly. "Good. You're quite correct; it can be terrible. Bit it also can be very useful."

"THAT thing can increase our powers?" Gabriel said with scorn and disbelief.

I am the messenger book review

Title: I am the Messenger
Author: Marcus Zusak
Pages: 357
Edition: Paperback
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published Date: 2006
Cover Rating: C
Book Rating: C


Ed Kennedy is an inderage cab river without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops at a bank robbery.
That's when the first ace arrives in the mail
That's when Ed becomes the messenger.
Chosen to care,he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains. Who is behind Ed's mission?

Good:
-This book has a good start. The first chapters are very well written and the characters are introduced in a funny way.
-Zusak's writing style captivates you in the story.
-The idea of the plot and well,the story in general, is very original. I bet no one has thought of connecting cards with helping and a cab driver.
-The ending. Although it was a typicall happy ending, it was kind of fresh. I liked it.
-The Doorman is a very expressive dog and funny too.

Bad:
- There are a LOT of holes in the story, many unexplained, random things. I would have liked if he digs deeper into each character and the mystery each one has.
-The main character is intelligent but stupid at the same time. He knows how he can help people ***SPOILER*** and he surprised me with the way he helped Sophie, I liked the idea of the box very much...but when he sees two men in his kitchen with ski masks eating pie (yeah, pie..WTBH) he doesn't do ANYTHING!! I just would have at least tried to escape, instead of talking to them as calmly as he did. It was utterly stupid.

Anyway, it was an o.k. read... If you have time, read it. If you don't, do not stress about it.

Late Teaser Tuseday!

I began this book today!!... and since yesterday I did not have the book, I will make this week's tuesday a wendsday :P



Title: I am the Messenger
Author: Markus Zusak

"For a good ten minutes or so we stand there with the flashlight burning the grave with light. The whole time, I'm trying to guess where and exactly how he died, and more to the point of realizing that poor old Milla's been without him for sixty years."

"Just after five thitry, a lone figure comes from around the side of the house. I think it's a girl but can't be sure because the figure has a hood over the head."

Teaser Tuseday!

Well...since I am reading the same book (The Last Sorcerer), I will put a new teaser next week!


Anyway, I will just write a warning:

I was reading also "Never be lied to again" by David Lieberman and I could not go on with it. This guy is completely psycho about cheating partners, boyfriends, girldfriends, wives, husbands, fiancé, your mom, dad, your dog, your cat... almost anyone!!!! Being a PhD I hoped he would talk more in a real psychological-scientific and practical way which can be applied anywhere (like ex FBI agent Joe Navarro does) but I was truly disappointed by Lieberman.

For the body language fans, he does not say anything new (e.g if the person is saying incoherent things suspect the veracity of what he´s saying...-.- C´mon!!).

He also jumps to conclusions quite fastly. For example, if the person touches it´s nose, she or he is lying. Joe Navarro in his book "What Every BODY Is Saying" explains that these sings are also stress signs and not necessarily deception signs. Before jumping to a fast conclusion, signs like nose touching need to be analyzed with the other body signs, in the context of the situation, and with verbal hints to detect a possible deception. He also marks the importance of analyzing in context by telling that the misinterpretation of signs like nose or ear touching in a courtroom are part of the reasons innocent people go to jail.

Dracula

Title: Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker
Pages: 448
Published Date: January 1st 1994 (originally 1900)
Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics
Cover Rating: D
Book Rating: D

Dracula is a unique horror masterpiece and the most famous of all vampyre tales. Dracula recounts the struggle of a group of men and a woman - Dr Seward, Dr Van Helsing and Jonathan Harken and his wife Mina- to destroy the vampyre, whose sinister earth-filled coffins are discovered by Harker in a ruined chapel adjoining Dr Seward's asylum. Cruel and noble, evilly and fatally desireable to women, Dracula possesses a terrifying lust for power and, like Dr Jekyll or Conan Doyle's Moritary is one of the immortal fictional monsters.

Ok, I read it because it s vampyre classic... I HAD TO read it.

I expected very much of this book but I am sorry to say I did not like it that much. It takes place ina Victorian era, so you will have dark landscapes, places with a lot of creepy and cool descriptions. Stoker has a lot of information about the era (and its backgrounds) and he uses his information in a very good and intersting way to make his story.

The begining was awesome, **SPOILER** I felt the panic that Harker was living trapped in the castle as he discovered that the Count was a vampyre! He could not get out and Dracula (and his wives) wanted to kill him!!... but then it turns out to be a bit boring and had the things that happen were developing very slow until pretty much the end.
I also was waiting for a grand finale but instead I felt it was quite rushed, as if Stoker wanted to finish his novel as soon as he could.

An interesting fact is that Dracula is not the typical creature who is old and bloody and threatens to take this civilised and ordered world back to the dark ages.
This is not my favourite vampyre book, but it is ok. Stoker did a good job for an 1897 novel :)

Pascal

This image is so funny!! :P

Late-Teaser Tuseday (Tuesday I had to study ): )

Book: The Last Sorcerer
Author: Richard Morris

"Arabic alchemy was unknown in the west until the eleventh century when the first translations from Arabic to Latin were made."

"They were substances called "philosophical sulfur" and "philosophical mercury. They were supposed to be quite unlike common substances. For example, it said that philosophical mercury didn't burn".