Leaves and Examiner.com

My puppy has started eating leaves. It's not even autumn yet and he manages to find a whole bunch of dried ones every time he goes out. His fur is like a leaf magnet or something because he always comes back with new leaves stuck to his face or feet or butt. I have no idea where he's finding them all but they end up all around my house or being smacked on loudly by my puppy who finds the crunchy sounds delectable.

On another note, my examiner.com website is still down after they have updated the site so I haven't been able to post anything new. This and the fact that I have barely made a dollar so far, are very convincing circumstances for quitting the site. However, I have yet to officially do so.

Examiner.com

I found a cool website called examiner.com. They focus on finding local writers to write about specific local topics and categories. I applied for the job and was accepted. I'm not expecting too much money from it but I am happy just to get my name out there and try my hand at food critiquing.

Here is my site.

Not to worry, though. My topic is only Charleston Italian Restaurants and so I will continue to post other critiques on this here favorite blog. I may also take this blog a bit more personal and add some stories about my favorite puppy dog and the more personal verisions of my food articles that I am not allowed to post on examiner.com since they want everything to be in second or third person.

Thanks for reading and supporting me! :)

Olive Garden: Cookie-cutter Chain Restaurant or Fabulous Casual Eating Experience?

The chain restaurant gives the average person certain perks. One always knows what to expect when walking into a familiar chain restaurant even if he/she happens to be across country or perhaps even out of the country. The décor is the same. The atmosphere is the same. The food is the same. The uniforms are the same. It’s safe and cozy.

While this can seem monotonous to some, when traveling in a new and different place, it always feels reassuring to find somewhere familiar and comforting. However, some restaurant chains take this overboard and make them so familiar you don’t even have to open your eyes to find the bathroom.

Olive Garden handles the chain restaurant niche very well. Many of their locations have differing floor plans and buildings, although they do keep the same kinds of decorations so it feels like you are still in their domain but just simply in a different wing of the Olive Garden mansion. This effect is also enhanced by the employees who all wear the same uniform but look different and have different personalities.

The menu is one thing that doesn’t change across the different locations. This ensures that you will always have your favorite dish at any Olive Garden you may visit. And since the menu itself is so large, it will still offer a variety of tastes if you are looking for something different.

Olive Garden is the average-Joe's paradise. It offers just the right amount of high class (napkins you actually have to wash and servers with ties) with the right amount of middle class casual (you don’t have to dress up to get in and you can slurp on your pasta an no one will give you a dirty look). And, of course, their creamy sauces and chewy pastas always fill you up and keep you coming back.

The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender as an M. Night Shyamalan film

This new movie is inspired by the popular Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon seen on Nickelodeon. While the cartoon focuses more on the character development and their relationships, this movie couldn't do all of that and get the plot in at the same time, despite the fact that they only focused on one book (which I think is the equivalent of the first season from the cartoon). So while the movie was definitely not as funny as the cartoons, it does have many other perks.

The casting was awesome. The actors they got for Aang and Katara are spot on. Aang is a young boy who manages to look wise and experienced at the same time. It reminded me of the princess from The NeverEnding Story. And Katara is just super cute.

Sokka was played by none other than Jasper from the Twilight series. It was really interesting seeing him in a speaking role although he does go more in the background as the movie progresses. He actually looked similar to the cartoon character he was supposed to play but he was a little bit too old and it really showed when him and his sister were standing side by side. Prince Zuko's actor could have never been perfect for me no matter who they chose since his cartoon voice is done by Rufio from Hook. I loved that dude so much that there was no way they could replace him and they couldn't get him because he was too old. :/

All in all, the cast was great.

The special effects of this movie are AWESOME. I've always loved the idea of the four elements, despite the fact that many people feel they are overdone. I just love how they play together and this movie really captures the heart and soul of these elements while embodied by humans. The special effects of the movie take the front seat and it feels just a little bit like the filmmakers were just seeing what they could do with their computer toys- kind of like Avatar did. Yet they keep just enough humanity and dialogue and intrigue that it isn't as bad.

I felt like I was apart of this different world and I enjoyed getting to escape from my own for a little while. It was definitely a well-spent afternoon.

Eclipse

The strongest reason why there are movie giants and creations (because the words "series" or "films" are too inadequate) is their great ability to yank us out of our own real lives into a complete world where things happen, where characters connect and make choices in the face of danger which we can only dream of. We end up spending hours with these fictional people but they become our friends, our sole attention for the time we spend with them. They become our world and it is all we can do to not cry as we say goodbye and part ways. Luckily, the structures of our friendships are such that on a day we are feeling particularly lonely, all we have to do is crack open that book again.

Eclipse finally caught most of the essence from Stephenie Meyer's creation. Us as fans have been waiting for them to get it right and yet while the first two attempts were not short of failures, we still supported and loved them anyway. Now they are getting it. This film was phenomenal in so many indescribable ways. They finally put in more from the other vampires and some of their back stories. They finally gave us an Alice who loves to party and plan and yet who has a mysterious edge to her. They finally gave us action and power that we knew should have been there all along. And Kristen Stewart finally quit biting her lip and acting so unsure of her role, of what strength and love Bella really had.

While the very makeup of a movie dictates that it cannot be completely the same as a novel, and while this one did have its inconsistencies as all novel adoptions into movies do, it was so much closer to what we needed. What we as fans wanted.

In short: this is film was amazing. And I can't help but feel, as a potential creator, dwarfed by this epic story of real people who just happen to not exist.

The bar has been set and it is very high.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Joss Whedon

Alright, this show was hot when I was in middle school and high school. I never got into it and only had vague notions about what was in it. Then I got Netflix and ran out of other shows to watch so I jumped into this one. Little did I know, it was a seven seasons long series and took me a little over two and half months to completely watch. But by the time I was done with it, I felt completely satisfied with the length of the series.

That being said, it's really difficult to keep this post short with so much material to work from. Overall, I haven't watched much of Joss Whedon's other stuff but through this series, I've come to really appreciate his talent as a writer. In a series like this, you know money is a motivating factor and trying to keep the show and the actors interesting can be a hard job for the writer but Whedon pulled it off excellently. He often had moments where I was thinking what was going on was all for ratings and then he'd pull out this awesome plot move that tied it all together (ex: Dawn as Buffy's sister). It takes lots of skill to work around ratings and the actual integrity of the show at the same time.

The actors overall were decent, though I definitely had a love-hate relationship with Sarah Gellar as Buffy and David Boreanaz as Angel. Her nose bugged me a lot sometimes and other times I thought she was cute. And David's acting skills are very good but his forehead is just so reminiscent of a cave man I can't help but be reminded of Geico. :( Willow was great and so was Xander. But you know who was the best? Yea... Spike. He will always hold a soft place in my heart.

As a huge fan of the paranormal, I really loved the subject matter of this series and how it almost made these kinds of things mainstream. I'm certain that it helped Stephenie Meyer's expansion into popular culture as a vampire writer. And I loved how Whedon could make fun of himself as there seemed to be a never ending pile of impending apocalypse doom and the characters had jokes about it.

I do recommend this series to anyone. Although my friends of the Mormon variety may find some uncomfortable moments, I do challenge them to look beyond the issue and into the interesting facets of the characters.

I feel like this post is lamely too short for the goodness I partook of but let me just finish that I've spent so much time with these characters that I actually feel like they are my friends.

Oh, and Felicia Day shows up in the last season. She's not as hot as she is now but I can still appreciate just seeing her cute face. XD

WoW: Intro and Character Creation

World of Warcraft

This section is going to be all about my favorite game. Since I love it so much and it’s such a HUGE thing, I’m planning on reviewing quite a few different aspects of the game. For starters I’ll definitely go over character creation/design, layout, social aspects, some linguistics specific to the game, and some gear/stat elements. Be prepared because although I love to compare good and the bad, I’m going to be very biased.

I’ve played this game for five or so years, off and on, and have met some really awesome people and had some hilarious moments. However, I have also seen it and games like it, that hurt families and relationships. Like all things: take it in moderation!

Character Creation

I’ve been around the gaming block a little bit and being a writer, I absolutely love character creation. That’s my favorite part of starting a new game or a new story.

To be honest, WoW has a terrible character creation system. It’s not as bad as Diablo II where you only have five or so characters to choose from and they are gender specific. So if you want play a warrior, it has to be a boy or the wizard is always a girl and they always look the same. Compared to that, it’s nice. But compare it to City of Heroes or Soul Calibur 4. It is atrocious.

There are only a few different types of hair, a few different colors, and depending on the race, different markings, horns, earnings, or patches of missing skin. Since my primary character is a Night Elf, we’ll use this as an example.

There is only one hair style that I like from the original batch. In the last year, they have allowed characters to change their hair style and that has been awesome. Before that, what you picked in haste to play the game, was what you had for life. My first choice was a ponytail that I absolutely grew to detest. I celebrated the day I could take my toon to the barber and get something done about it.

With this ability, they also put out a few more hairstyles that can only be attained by going to the barber. Initially, I didn’t really like many of them, but it might have been because I already had a hairstyle in mind. I got the one I had been dreaming about for years, only to run around for a while and realize that every. single. night. elf. chick. had the stupid hair. For most of us women, that bugs when we have the same looks as someone else. In one instance, I had the same hair, facial markings, and hair color as another person and that just drove me off the edge to going to get (another) complete makeover.

Much to my dismay, the hairstyles all seemed to be ugly. They were cut weird, or too bushy, or too pulled back or too something. I probably spend an hour and at least 40 gold sitting there trying to figure out what I could spend my time staring at. Finally, I had to pick the hairstyle my sister already had. It isn’t very popular and made sure it was a different color from hers, but it was cute enough to stare at for hours.

WoW does have a lot of races (and more to come) to choose from and that freedom is nice. But that does not make up for the lack of choice when actually creating a character. Added to the hairstyle conundrum is the gear sets. As you are leveling, there are lots of different armor that makes you seem unique but once you hit 80 and start getting Tier armor, you start to be clones of each other. It’s no good.

For those persons who don’t care if they look the same as everyone else, then the character creation might suit them. For us other picky people, it’s annoying, especially after the awesome, seemingly limitless creations of City of Heroes and Soul Calibur 4.

For those of you who haven’t played these games, I’ll explain City of Heroes a bit. Also note, it’s been a few years since I’ve played so the exact details maybe a little off.

You get to pick the class and then a sub class. So just right there there are like 24 different combinations. Then the characters themselves: height on a scale from tiny to huge, weight from skinny to obese, tons of different hair styles available in any color of the rainbow. The armor has, as far as I can remember, I think like seven different categories and each category has 3 to probably 20 different types of belts or shoulders or shirts. I simply cannot do it justice in a short amount of time. Suffice it to say that the possibilities are limitless and the odds of someone looking even close to you are very slim.

The character creation of WoW is it’s biggest weakness, and although they have made some steps in the right direction, there is still a long ways to go.

House M.D.

Well, if you know me at all, you know I love House. I thought I’d just give voice to a few specific reasons why I love to watch this show.

I’m a strong believer in being able to say what you are thinking without being stoned for it or getting weird looks. Of course this is within reason as I don’t go around telling people rude opinions that aren’t important for them to know. However, people should be able to say what they think and feel about certain situations. If you think your friend isn’t dating someone good enough for them you should be able to tell them. Dancing around with words and trying to be all flattering and fake all the time is just retarded. That being said, I absolutely love how honest House can be. He is overly rude and I probably wouldn’t appreciate being around him in person but I love watching him in a safe setting far away on TV. His truths are very real and can therefore be brutal but sometimes they are essential and important for the patients/coworkers to hear. House helps define the other characters by being honest with them and not letting any secrets stay hidden.

Another aspect about this show I love is the hidden psychology behind everything everyone does. Peopledo have motives and schemes in their heads and it’s just naive to think otherwise. I’d love to be able to be as perceptive as House is but we all know that he reads a script and has an upper hand in that the writer tells him what to think and know about other people. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the awesomeness of his character and I still wish I could do that in real life.

One weakness I will admit is that the plot of every episode, as far as the patients are concerned, is the same. He always has this “aha!” moment that you can clearly see on his face as he is talking to someone else about something in the subplot that is going on. That being said, I still love it and joke around when he has that moment but we all know that the patients aren’t the real reason we love and watch this show. It’s about the characters and their interactions with each other.

In this last season there was an episode all about Cuddy. She had an absolutely horrible day starting with her child being sick in the morning and it just spiraled down hill from there. I loved this episode because it mixed up the general same plot type that we always see and also gave a whole new spin on the characters. We didn’t see much of Dr. House the whole time but when we did, he wasn’t that awesome character that we love. He was an awful annoyance that made you cringe when he walked into the office. It gave me a whole new perspective and appreciation for Cuddy. She is an amazing giving and caring woman who is smart and knows what’s right. That hospital is lucky to have her.

And you know it is true: everyone lies.

Bones

I had heard that this was a good show and that I know quite a few people who watch it on a regular basis so when I saw it on Netflix, I decided to give it a shot.

Unfortunately, all the hype hurt the experience for me. I expected to be laughing all the time and marveling and the genius and witty writing. It was a let down to find otherwise. The plots are interesting, although there are some very gruesome scenes and shots. Don’t watch this show if you are sqeamish, and even if you aren’t, I don’t recommend eating while watching.

However, despite this disappointment, I have still continued to watch it. The character interactions are the strongest part of this show, and not just the interactions of the main characters but of the supporting cast as well. The main character, Dr. Brennan, often reminds me of House because of how smart she is and how she always seems to solve the situation.

I can’t address this show without pointing out Agent Booth, who happens to be Angel from Buffy. I have never ever found this man attractive and his large, overbearing forehead has always channeled an ugly caveman look. So it comes as a surprise when I find something about him that I like or feel any sort of small attraction for him, which happens more than I expected.

All in all, I’ll probably end up watching the whole first season, testing the waters to see if I fall in love with it as some other people have, or maybe I’ll quit when I find another interesting show to take its place.

Robin Hood

I’m pretty picky about what I spend my free time doing since it seems that I have so little of it. That being said, I hardly watch TV so when I do, I try to make sure it’s something that I enjoy.

Since I got all caught up with Legend of the Seeker, I thought I’d branch out a little bit and try something new. I saw Robin Hood on Netflix and decided to watch a couple of episodes.

It took about three to get really into it but the more time I spent with it, the more I grew to love it. It’s one of my favorites now. Robin Hood’s story has always fascinated me and the actors really bring the characters to life. I absolutely love the man who plays Robin, despite the slightly annoying gap in his front teeth, because he plays such a good leader. He’s good looking and charming and mischievous. Perfect characteristics for Robin.

The villain here, the Sheriff of Nottingham, is AWESOME. He’s one of my most favorite villains I’ve ever encountered. He’s evil and yet hilarious at the same time. Because I love him so much, I can’t actually hate him as the villain but he still does a fantastic job of terrorizing his part of England.

The weakness of this show is the fight scenes. They are pretty low budget. Yes, they do a good job showing how awesome Robin is at shooting arrows but the hand-to-hand combat has something to be desired. It’s pretty fake and the camera jumps around a lot to try and cover it up.

The script is hilarious and the actors do such a good job that they could be flinging around feathers and riding cardboard horses and I would still recommend this as an excellent series.

Kesha: Animal

This CD is definitely the next step if you’re looking for something after Lady GaGa. It has the similar mix of a fast beat, techno sounds, and catchy melodies.

There are a few things that sets Kesha apart from other singers in her genre. She has a very distinctive sound in her voice when she wants it. Some of the sounds on the CD are slightly generic and she sounds pretty normal. But others have this type of sass (for lack of a better word) in her voice which adds originality to her sound. The most poignant and popular example is her current hit song: Tik Tok. It’s track 2 on the CD and the song that gets the most radio time. She puts a great deal of “sass” into her annunciation. Pay attention to the words like “jack” and “down”. This gives her distinction and sets her apart from other musicians who may have some similar sounds.

I could review the CD song by song but I really didn’t feel like getting that deep and dirty into it. There are quite a few on there that I find myself feeling familiar about. Many of the tunes and melodies she incorporates are well known. For instance, there is a song that reminds me of the Egyptian tune that is used in movies for the snake charmers.

The content of the songs are all about sex, drinking, having fun, and living it up. While those aren’t the most wholesome subjects, they do help one jam out and relax after a rough day. I will admit, however, that there were a few moments when she channels a couple singers that are just too “girly”. It brought me back to the days of Aqua and Vengaboys that was almost a turn off.

The CD isn’t as good as either of Lady GaGa’s but there are some fun songs and is a good one to listen to if you’re looking for something different.

Alice in Wonderland

So we went to see Alice in Wonderland this weekend. I know – I’m a little slow on this one. But I’m lucky I got to see it in theaters at all!

Simply because this film was directed by Tim Burton and had Johnny Depp in it, I was expecting it be rather odd and creepy. Almost off the wall kind of stuff. I even wondered about bringing a young person along because I didn’t know how creepy/scary it might be. Bleh. All that thought was for nothing. We’re so accustomed to the story, that the odd things are familiar to us now. In a way, the director was going for this sense of familiarity because Alice is actually making a second trip back into Wonderland. He uses the same reliable characters and their interesting ways of talking and thinking. It was like greeting old friends for Alice and the audience.

I’ll get into some more heavy commentary after the spoiler warning but for those who haven’t yet seen it and don’t want to continue reading this blog, let me just surmise my opinion and say that this movie didn’t live up to my hopes. There were some funny parts and some new things, but overall, it’s didn’t make it on my top 20 list like I expected it to.

SPOILERS

For those of you who have seen the movie, or who don’t care about spoilers, I’m going to make some brief statements on a few observations.

Being married is like being eaten by a Jabberwocky. Alice runs away from Hamish’s proposal. She is being socially pressured into marrying him just as she later is socially pressured into wielding the sword and killing the Jabberwocky. Perhaps the statement is just about being married to someone you don’t care about but since she really didn’t have any other love interests, I’m extending this message to being married in general. Especially since in the end, she sails away off on her own as a businesswoman, I’m prone to thinking that marriage at all is being passed off as a bad thing.

Of course we all got the message of her needing to transform into a butterfly like the caterpillar does. In this film, the transformation isn’t from ugly duckling to beauty queen but an actually next step in her life. She needed to become an adult. This doesn’t mean get married like most Disney movies or other family films might portray. In this film, it means being able to stand up to the social pressures of those who might want you to go certain directions in life. It means being able to decide where you want to go and who you want to be.

Johnny Depp likes to channel certain aspects about his characters that make them stand out compared to others. He does this with Jack Sparrow and his always woozy drunk-like state and the creepiness of Willy Wonka. For the Mad Hatter, Depp primarily used a difference in his accents/speech patterns. He tried to make the Mad Hatter seem more mad by channeling different personalities, made obvious by the accents and speech patterns. This didn’t work that well for him. It wasn’t strong or obvious enough and it just made me wonder if he had been messing up throughout the whole film at first. It just didn’t work how he wanted it to.

This last idea I haven’t had a lot of time to develop, but I’ll throw it out to anyone who is bored enough to have actually read this far in my post. What do you think is the significance of the games used by the queens? The White Queen used chess in all her decor and the soldiers. The Red Queen used card games. What role did these (usually adult) games play in the film?

Avatar

Avatar (2009) by James Cameron

Although this movie is gorgeous and very aesthetically pleasing, you’ve already seen it if you’ve seen Ferngully (1992), by Bill Kroyer. Refer to later in this post if you don’t believe me but only if you’ve seen the movie as there may be some spoilers.

Cameron’s team did a great job with the animation. This film is cresting the wave of where CG becomes so realistic, it’s difficult to tell the difference between real actors and animation. Pandora is so life-like and the creatures and inhabitants so well done that they seriously look very real. The most surreal moment for me was when the film came back from that other world to the real one on the military ship. I actually started to wonder if the real actors were CG too and that the film was trying to trick me in some way.

I recommend seeing it and yes, I’ll probably own it on DVD someday. The only thing that makes it remarkable is the technology used. Otherwise, the plot is just a copy-cat. And while I understand that there are many movies which re-hash other plot lines, this one is just too uncanny.

SPOILERS

Ferngully

Indigenous population, nature loving, views life as sacred- Infiltrated by someone from the outside made to look like one of them

All live in a huge tree

The outsider knows that the humans are coming and that they have a HUGE machine which can take out their dear tree

An old woman is their spiritual leader

A romance between one of the leader’s daughters and the infiltrator while there is another suitor wanting the leader’s daughter but can only sit back and watch as the other relationship develops

Lots of pretty flowers

Avatar

Uh… THE SAME THING!

When in Rome

When in Rome (2010). Directed by Mark Steven Johnson.

My husband picked this movie out for a date night. Frankly, I was surprised but saw the effort for what it was: a desire to make me happy and see something he thought I’d like. I didn’t contest the opportunity.

This is a blatant chick-flick. The premise of the movie is based on a legend and the fountain of love in Italy. Beth (Kristen Bell) picks up coins from the fountain of love in a drunken stupor. Each coin she picks up automatically makes the owner fall in love with her.

It is completely predictable. The only redeeming quality that saved this movie from being horrendous is the hilarious comedy. The dialogue has some winning moments but its strongest attribute was, by far, the slap-stick type scenes involving some very interesting situations (a car in a place cars do no go in and Pedro?!). However, don’t go in there expecting too much or you’ll be completely disappointed.

I was totally surprised to see what cast they had to work with, a really interesting one. You’ll recognize a few of them. Including some from 30 Rock, Napoleon Dynamite, Transformers, and Baby Mama.

Overall, I might watch this again on Netflix. I might even buy it if it goes on sale. But it’s no run-to-Wal-Mart-on-release movie.

The Gunslinger

The Gunslinger (Dark Tower I)

Before this book, I had read two other Stephen King novels. One was The Eyes of the Dragon which was written for his thirteen year old daughter, and it was engaging and amazing. The other one I read was The Shining. Because Stephen King is so popular, I felt that only reading two of his books, one being vastly different than most of his other works, wasn’t enough and that I should give him another try.

I picked up The Gunslinger because I had heard that the Dark Tower series was awesome. The new edition that I read started with a forward that explained about where the novel came from and how King fell victim to Tolkien’s beautiful Middle Earth and was trying his hand at an epic fantasy. Geared up for all of this, I hit The Gunslinger with running expectation of an engaging, descriptive, enthralling, fantasy story. It wasn’t any of these things.

Call me a traditional fantasy fan, but there just simply wasn’t enough detail about Roland’s world. The reader is thrown in this odd, dreamlike chase of a man dressed in black. Along the way we get flashbacks of Roland’s life and how he came to be where he is but I couldn’t place whether this world was post-apocalyptic of our current world or just a different type of world in another dimension altogether. I couldn’t get a very strong feel of the culture and these are very important things to know when the author is mixing fantasy and western genres together. I want to know how much of each is involved here.

It actually hurt the novel for me to have read about the origin of it and where King’s ideas came from and how old he was when he wrote it. All I kept thinking over and over was how this was supposed to be a 19 year old kid writing his epic novel and it’s a dude, without a name for a good chunk of the novel, with awesome guns chasing a bad dude across the desert, finding lots of women to sleep around with and lots of people to shoot. This novel is completely sexual like a horny teenager would write and while I can appreciate it in moderation, it was way too much.

One thing I was impressed with was his vocabulary. I know King went back and added some things and changed some things so it easily could have been in his now older man repoitorie to add all those awesome huge words and strong descriptions, but I like to think at least some of it was provided by his 19 year old self.

Oh, and also, I found the foreshadowing too be way too heavy.

Overall, there is a small chance I will read the second one in the series just because I want to really make sure I don’t like it. I guess I have a hard time believing that this series is so popular and I want to figure out why

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

This is the first of a series of books. So far there are two, with the third one coming out very soon, but I’m not sure if there are more planned or not. Currently, I’m reading the second one called Catching Fire. These books are amazing!

It gives me the taste of 1984 mixed with some good old teenage romance. The plot is excellent and although I didn’t find it predictable, I did find it satisfying and that it resolved all my concerns with the characters.

Collins is an excellent writer in that her descriptions are clear and not overbearing. The text flows so nicely and is so exciting, it’s really hard to put it down. In fact, I found myself wanting to read it instead of playing my favorite video game and that’s pretty epic right there.

Also, if you love food, you’ll love this novel. She describes such yummy and delicious food that serves not only to make the experience feel more real but shows how grateful Katniss (the main character) is at having such wonderful food when she can get it.

There are no weaknesses. This book is pure perfection

Thirst by Christopher Pike

Thirst by Christopher Pike.

My husband picked this up for me on a whim as he was shopping around. He did well.

This is a series and actually contains three books in this newly published edition. It was originally published in 94ish and has found another audience after Stephenie Meyer made vampires popular again.

This story has one of the strongest first person narrative voices that I have ever encountered. The main character, Alisa or Sita, is awesome. She’s very full of herself and yet it’s securely founded that she be so confident. I did like this but it does get a little over the top in the first book. As the reader gets used to it and Sita can resist bragging so much since we already know how awesome she is, it mellows out.

The action scenes are SPECTACULAR. They are clear and suspenseful and always have interesting twists. This chick is really how a vampire should be: gorgeous and so super humanly strong she could probably give Superman a run for his money.

One major weakness of this book is the romance. Pike just isn’t a romance writer. The relationships are flat, move too fast, and even though Sita is a five thousand year old vampire, she falls in love as fast as a thirteen year old girl who’s been in all-girl schools her whole life. It’s ridiculous and not believable.

Another weakness is the supporting characters. They are mildly flat. If it weren’t for Sita being so strong, I’d probably throw this book into the fire. But it’s so refreshing to read about a butt kicking chick who knows how to handle herself and the narrative style is so engaging, I had a hard time putting it down.

I totally recommend this book and am glad I read it. Just beware of some sticky moments where you will want to roll your eyes.

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Sabriel by Garth Nix

My sister recently lent me this book to read. I had heard about it and saw it around a lot, especially in my middle/high school years but had never picked it up. I’ll admit that I was judging it from the cover as it has a solitary person on it in an unusual artistic style that frankly makes the main character look like a dude. That being said, I don’t avoid books with males on the cover but the style also looked more old-timey and so I just never got around to reading it.

Well, curiosity caught up with me and my sister happened to have a copy and I’ve finally read it. It is a super original and creative work that mixes the fantasy world with one that is hauntingly close to our own.

Sabriel is a girl that grows up on one side of the wall and has to cross over to the other when her father goes missing. Her travels are slightly more fast paced than I prefer but probably just perfect for the adolescent age range the novel is geared to.

Nix’s fantasy world is very different than our own but he doesn’t spend a lot of time describing it to us. Since the world is new to Sabriel too, we practically explore it together. However, as a avid fantasy reader and one who enjoys the longer, more detailed works, I would like to know more about it.

There are more books that follow this one and I have vague plans of eventually picking them up but isn’t a high priority since they don’t immidately follow the novel’s timeline and pick up on the same story.

I do recommend this novel as a light read that is entertaining and unique. The characterization is interesting, if not wholly revealing, and the adventure is desperately scary and rewarding at the same time.