Click image to enlarge. Remember to email me your answers to lemonzreviews@hotmail.comSaturday, April 12, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Screenshot #1
Click image to enlarge. Remember to email me your answers to lemonzreviews@hotmail.com
Monday, April 7, 2008
A Dirty Job (April 3rd - April 7th)
Not as funny or evocative as the critics on the back-cover suggest. Moore has a wacky imagination and is an excellent writer capable of tacking serious issues (in the case of this book, death with a capital "D") with a warped type of macabre humor that is side-splittingly perverse. With his latest offering "A Dirty Job", Moore slightly misses the mark on trying to eschew the ominous and gloominess of dealing with death by taking an absurdly comedic approach that is far too uneven. At times the humor does work but the majority of the time Moore's typical silliness falls flat and becomes tiresome starting around the half-way point. The last act is rushed and unsatisfying leaving nothing particularly thought-provoking to mull over. Many would argue that Moore's books are supposed to be nothing more than hilarious bizarre tales that don't aim to be enlightening or contain depth. This is where I would strongly disagree especially if you take a closer inspection at some of his previous novels such as "Lamb" (a perfect example of his ability to balance humor with erudite controversial subject matter). This novel lacked the effectively potent humor and profundity I have come to expect from him.[**]
Sunday, April 6, 2008
April: Screenshot Contest
I'll be posting a bunch random screenshots throughout the month of April and whoever answers the most correctly at the end will win a DVD Prize or an $25 Best Buy gift certificate. Send your answers via email: Lemonzreviews@hotmail.com. Good luck everyone!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
A Long Way Down (April 1st - April 2nd)
What makes life worth living? This is the fundamental question of Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down" that is instigated by the attempted comical suicide of four strangers who coincidentally pick the same block tower to jump off of on New Year's Eve. This is definitely one of the quickest reads in recent memory and much of that has to do with Nick Hornby's swiftly elegant writing style, snappy dialogue and natural story-telling voice. He is one of my favorite authors with High Fidelity and About a Boy being two of the best novels I have read in my entire life so suffice it to say, my expectations were exceedingly high. It was naive of me to think that Hornby would be able to top himself with his latest work and while it wasn't a bad book by any means it definitely didn't resonate with me as much as I initially hoped it would. Perhaps I was expecting something a little more inspirational or profound (after all, his novel is about suicide and what makes life worth living) and it was niether. However, the greatest strength of this novel is that Hornby manages to be add a refreshing sense of humor to the gloomy subject matter and use it cleverly to expose the selfishly ridiculousness of committing such an act. I applaud Hornby for staying away from any kind of cliched redemption for his flawed characters and taking a more realistic approach that is funny as much as it is serious. If only the novel contained a little more depth instead of providing the obvious sentiments regarding suicide it would have truely reached a level of greatness. Fans of Hornby's previous novels should find it engaging but for newcomers to his work I wouldn't suggest this book as a good starting place.
[***]
It won't be long before some Hollywood studio purchases the rights to adapt this novel so for my own amusement I thought it would be interesting to cast who should star in the leading roles.
Clive Owen as Martin Sharp
James McAvoy as JJ
Imelda Staunton as Maureen
Emma Watson as Jess
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials #3 (March 27-31)
Two down, 48 more to go. I had started reading this book about a year ago and put it down after getting close to about half-way through. It simply wasn't engaging and I found myself easily distracted. Picking it up again, it became clear that my initial problems with it were very much the same although this time around I seemed a lot more tolerant. The Amber Spyglass pales drastically in comparison to the first two novels of the trilogy bringing an unsatisfying conclusion to what was shaping up to be one of the best of the fantasy genre.
The Bad:
- uneven pacing: The story wasn't as thoroughly compelling as the previous novels where Pullman gets too caught up on description, description, description. The sub-plots that didn't focus on Lyra and Will's journey were dull and frivolous.
- Lyra's transformation from child to adult isn't believable and feels forced. Her "growing pains" are mishandled and she comes off as this annoying, insufferable girl who I just wanted to slap everytime she opened her mouth to speak or went through one of her emotional mood swings. Her precocious sweet-natured innocence present in the first two books was what I found appealing about her character. I understand that this book was intended to illustrate her maturity but it felt rushed and at times ridiculously lame. SPOILERS: Was it really necessary to have Lyra and Will have sex (they are only 13 for goodness sake!) to portray that she has now entered womanhood?
- Deus ex Machina: People complain about this in the Harry Potter series but at least Rowling didn't overuse it and actually gives plausible reasons for such occurences. Whenever Lyra or Will find themselves in peril they always manage to escape with the help or others or some chance occurance that doesn't make much sense. This really kills the suspense.
- Disappointing climax: The entire series was building up towards the battle between Lord Asriel's army and the angels of Heaven which I expected to be one of the most exciting confrontations. Alas, this was not meant to be. For such an epic war it was surprisingly short and unimpressive. Yawn.
The Good:
- Pullman's excellent writing style. The man knows how to tell a story. Unfortunately, with this third book the results are less than satisfactory. He still manages to create such a tangible universe full of interesting people and creatures.
- Not preachy in his religious views. He doesn't condemn the Catholic faith in so much as he exposes its flaws and asks the reader form his/her own beliefs.
Overall, I was glad to finish the series and would still recommend this fantasy trilogy to children and adults despite my lukewarm reactions here.
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