Category Archives: Book Review

Review: Twilight

I don’t think there is a living, breathing person on the planet that does not know what Twilight is about so I am going to spare you the synopsis and just gush over what I loved about it.

1. Stephanie Meyer did an excellent job of taking me back to the days of girlhood. All those awkward moments. The clumsiness. The teen crushes that you swore would make your heart break into two. It all came rushing back to me while reading about Bella and Edward’s romance.

2. I loved the dangerous quality of it all. Edward has that naughtiness that you know you need to stay away from, but can’t. Bella has that “forbidden fruit” thing going on. It’s an impossible relationship that you want to see work.

3. I loved the setting. The rainy, gloomy town of Forks. An ideal place for a family of vampires to live. They are isolated but sort of not, with Seattle just a stone’s throw away.

4. Edward has got to be the most charming vampire ever known. I mean, who would even care if they were bitten by someone like that? Not me.

5. I also loved the innocence of Bella. Fragile, beautiful and somewhat naive. I usually do not like femme fatales but for some reason, I didn’t mind her being saved all the time. She truly seemed to need it.

6. I enjoyed the family dynamic. Both Bella’s family and Edward’s. Two very different families for sure, but ones that I cared about.

I held out for a long time before picking the book up. I have this thing about reading blockbuster books when everyone else is reading them. I like to take my time… ease into it a bit. I’m also glad I haven’t seen the movie yet. I really wanted to read the book first so I could picture the characters in my mind without the movie influencing me.

As for it being geared towards young adults, I found the storyline to be appealing and I am forty-years-old! My son is ten, and although Bella and Edward’s relationship is mostly innuendos, I do feel that it might be a bit much for a ten-year-old, unless that ten-year-old is more on the mature side.

Overall, it was thoroughly enjoyable and I cannot wait to read New Moon.

Review: Zen Shorts

For reading time today, my daughter picked out Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth. This book originally came out in 2005 and I remember seeing it at the bookstore but it never caught her eye until recently.

Imagine what happens when a panda bear by the name of Stillwater becomes your neighbor. Michael, Karl and Addy get to know their neighbor through the short “zen” like stories he shares with them.

The book is beautifully illustrated and filled with life-long lessons for everyday life, such as not carrying around anger or how to be thankful for what you have. This book would be great for boys or girls ages 4-7. It’s also “adult friendly” in that it was interesting to read to my daughter and was not repetitive at all. It flowed quite nicely. It would make a really nice gift.

On a side note… some of the pages would be beautiful framed. When I had my kids I had grandiose ideas of framing favorite pages from books to hang in their nursery. Wouldn’t that be cool? I never got around to doing it but this book would be good for that.