Book Review: We Were Liars

Written by:  E. Lockhart

Pages: 240 pages

Format: E-Book

Genre: Young Adult, Mysteries and Thrillers

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.

A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.

A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

A revolution. An accident. A secret.

Lies upon lies.

True love.

The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

My thoughts

We Were Liars is a story of Cady who comes from a family that is rich with ‘old’ money. Cady spends every summer on a private island with her cousins. The summer of her fifteenth year, a terrible event occurs which left Cady suffering from a severe memory loss and constant migraines. She returns to the island two years later and slowly the memory of the tragic event returns in scattered memories.

Can I just lie and say I didn’t like it? Ok. Truth: I didn’t like all of it but I liked the ending.

The writing style was not something that I’m used to and it was sometimes annoying to read. There were parts where fairy tales were used to narrate the story. Truth, I skipped those parts mostly. I’ve read reviews of people actually appreciating Lockhart’s style of writing but unfortunately, I can’t appreciate it.  

Despite the writing style, the storyline was still engaging. Cady is an unreliable narrator. Her memories are scattered and revealed in bits and pieces but just at the right time and the right doses to keep you wondering and wanting to know what happened to her that summer fifteenth.

What I did absolutely love was the plot twist at the end of the book. I. Did. Not. See. That. Coming.

I finished reading We Were Liars a couple of days ago and honestly the thing I remember the most is the twist and not much else from the book.

I gave this book a 5 over 5 in Goodreads for the memorable plot twist. 

Book Review: Lego Star Wars Book Collection: A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back

Written by:  Emma Grange

Pages: 32

Format: Paperback

Genre: Children’s Book

Reading Level: 5-7 years

DK Readers is a multi-level reading program guaranteed to capture children's interest while developing their reading skills and general knowledge. With nine new exciting titles to choose from this season, kid's ages 4-9 will find the perfect book at their appropriate reading level to help with school projects or independent reading.

A New Hope:

DK Readers: LEGO® Star Wars®: A New Hope is the exciting story of the iconic Star Wars: Episode IV movie, retold for young readers with their favorite LEGO® Star Wars® minifigures and sets. This Level 1 Reader follows our heroes as they attempt to rescue rebel leader Princess Leia from the evil empire.

The Empire Strikes Back:

Follow the adventures of the rebels as they fight against the Galactic Empire-all in LEGO® form, with DK Readers: LEGO® Star Wars®: The Empire Strikes Back. Clear, informative text helps beginner readers to read on their own in this all-new Level 2 Star Wars Reader from DK.

My thoughts:

I’m a big Star Wars fan and when I saw this box set on the shelf of my local bookstore, I just couldn’t resist getting myself one. The box has a picture of a storm trooper in front. Inside the box set, there are 4 books; one copy of A New Hope and one copy of The Empire Strikes Back plus two activity/sticker books.

My kids are into the Star Wars Rebel cartoon so when they saw me come back with this box set, they attacked it and tore it open. I think my kids enjoyed the sticker books more than the actual story books. The sticker book was really a fun activity to do with the kids and I also honestly think my husband had more fun with the sticker book than the kids.

As for the books, well I’m quite surprised that the author managed to capture the essence of the storyline in less than 30+ pages for each book. The Lego mini figurines were used quite well and flowed with how the author wrote the story.

Obviously, I had more fun reading the books than my kids did because they are below the intended reading level. It really is a cute book and a fun 10 minute read. A definite must have for the Star Wars buff parent who want to introduce their young kids to the Star Wars series.

I gave both these books a 5 over 5 on Goodreads. 

February Blog Improvements: Part 2

I learned a painful lesson last week: Always back-up your blog so that if you are not happy with any amendments made you can restore your previous blog settings.

I have had the intention to re-organize my blog labels for quite a while now. I did some research and found a couple of sites that provided step by step guides on how I can rename labels in bulk on Blogger. The guide provided by the sites seemed pretty simple but yet I managed to screw it up somehow. Sigh. Only I can screw up such a simple process. 

While I was trying to re-name my blog posts labels in bulk, I accidentally deleted about 90% of my posts from 2011 and a couple of my posts from January this year. Anyway, for fear of losing more posts, I decided to re-label each posts ONE BY ONE! It’s a good thing that I am not a consistent blogger and have less than 250 posts in total. Even then it took me a whole three hours to get it done.

So re-organize labels – DONE!

Other blog improvements:

I’ve added two other widgets on the widgets column:

1. Search widget
2. Popular posts widget

Those were pretty simple to do since Blogger already has the widgets ready so all you needed to do was click to install them.

Ok am gonna lay off working on the blog for the rest of February.

Next month, I’m gonna learn how to install a contact page on the blog and also how to install a progress bar for my 2015 Reading Challenges page. 

Book Review: Usborne Very First Reading: Book 1 - Pirate Pat

Written by: Mairi MacKinnon

Illustrated by: Mike and Carl Gordon

Pages: 32 pages

Format: Hard cover

Genre: Children’s Book

Reading Level: 3 – 5 years old 

• An exciting story to inspire very beginner readers.
• Based on the principles of synthetic phonics, supports the "Letters and Sounds" programme used in thousands of UK primary schools.
• Adult and child take turns to read, and the child’s text uses only the letters s a t p i n m d.
• Fun puzzles test understanding, and provide opportunities for discussion and further reading practice.

My thoughts:

I have a two and a four year old boy who is more interested with the iPad and watching cartoons on TV than reading. I wanted the kids to have more exposure to reading actual books rather than the storybook apps that they go through on our gadgets. So I did some research and found the Usborne Very First Reading Series and figured I’d give it a try with my boys.

How this book works is that the parent reads one part and the kids read another. The process is repeated until the end of the story.

Both my boys can’t read yet but what I do is I place my finger on each letter I am reading so that hopefully they can recognize some of the words if we continue doing this often enough.

My boys are quite into Pirates so they did like this book a lot. The simple rhyming used to tell the story makes it interesting to read together with the boys. My two year old especially loves it when I read this to him.

Overall we quite enjoyed reading about Pirate Pat. I’ve only purchased this book last Friday and we’ve read it about three times together over the past few days. That’s a good sign. Overall I give this book a 5/5 on Goodreads.

Oh before I forget, the book also has puzzles that you can use as activities with the kids. My kids are not so interested in them yet but I'm sure they will once they get a hang of how it works. 

This week I’m aiming to read the second book in the series titled, The Dressing-Up Box. I have a feeling my boys won’t like reading about dressing up so much as they do reading about pirates but I’m gonna give this a go anyway. 

Time Flies

* Note: This post actually appeared in early January 2015. Due to a technical error the original post was accidentally removed. I am reposting it again here.

I don’t know why but yesterday I decided to re-visit this blog. My last post on this blog was in 2011… Gosh! 2011… That’s like four years ago!

Then I got to thinking, what the hell did I do in the past four years, where have I been, what have done, why didn’t I continue blogging.

If you’re reading this, please bear with me cause I’m really writing this for my own benefit.

So let’s start with 2010 and 2011 – a combination of a really bad and really good year for me:

• I lost my job.
• I got pregnant. Hurrah!
• Managed to get a great job in a cool agency while I was pregnant.
• Then I was diagnosed with molar pregnancy  and was in and out of so many hospitals seeing so many doctors that I literally lost count of the number of specialist I met and hospitals I went to.
• I gave birth to my eldest baby boy. Blessing.
• I had post pregnancy problems and had to go for emergency surgery two weeks after I gave birth. Post-surgery, my wound stitching opened up and I was going around with an open wound for two months and had to go to the hospital EVERYDAY to get the wound cleaned up by the doctor.
• I was also diagnosed with a GTD and had to take another two months off from work to go through mild chemotherapy.
• After two months the doctors said they’ve cured me but just in case I shouldn’t plan for a baby for at least a year to ensure that my body was stable.

Moving on to 2012 – generally an okay year but I was struggling with work and motherhood quite badly.

• Because I missed out a lot at work, I had a lot of catching up to do.
• I was also struggling as a new mom juggling with my full time job.
• Accidents happen but this was a good accident, I got pregnant with my second child. Since I was still under observation for my GTD, I had to go in and out of the hospital for check-ups quite often.
• I gave birth to my second son at the end of 2012 without any incidents and I was also officially cleared from my GTD diagnosis.

2013 and 2014 – Honestly I don’t know what happened in 2013 and 2014. I think I was just moving like a robot: wake up, get kids ready, send them to babysitter, work, pick the kids up, come back home, cook, clean, spend quality time with the family, sleep and repeat the process again the next day for the next two years...LOL.

I’ll openly admit that I am not a super mummy and I think after almost four years of being a mom, I’m just only getting the hand of handling multiple responsibilities. Believe me it’s still a struggle but I’m coping with the challenges at work and at home much better than when I first became a mom.

My kids are a bit bigger now and a bit more independent so I have a little bit of time to spare for myself. They are truly a blessing despite the problems that I went through.

So, I may not have achieved much or blogged much in the past four years but I am a proud mom of two boys now.

Last year I was able to pick up my reading habit more aggressively (thank you audible) and I also dabbled with blogging on another site; Family, Work & Play. The reading bit is coming along well but the blogging bit is neither here nor there.

I miss blogging at Ulat Buku in the City. Though I no longer live in the heart of the city as I did when I first started this blog, I feel that I can still relate to this blog site better than my new one. Maybe I’ll start blogging actively again on this blog, maybe. I don’t want to say I’ll do something and end up not doing it. My life is very much focused on family, work and me-time whenever I can slot this in. Blogging is not top priority but it’ll be nice to reconnect with the friends I’ve made through this blog.

Anyway, if you’ve read this post till the end, I’m sorry for the random rambling.

Point is- I miss blogging. I miss connecting with other book readers around the world. I hope I will find time to pick up blogging aggressively just like how I pick up the habit of reading again.

By the way, this is me now, a happy mommy.

Till next time, 

Book Review: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Interrupted Tale - Book 4

Written by: Maryrose Wood

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Reading Level : Ages 8-10

Of especially naughty children it is sometimes said, "They must have been raised by wolves."

The Incorrigible children actually were.

Turning 16 is a bittersweet occasion for Miss Penelope Lumley: Her parents remain disappointingly absent, and her perfectly nice young playwright friend, Simon Harley-Dickinson, has not been heard from since he went to visit his ailing great-uncle Pudge in the old sailors' home in Brighton.

Luckily, an invitation to speak at the annual Celebrate Alumnae Knowledge Exposition (or CAKE) at the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females provides just the diversion Penelope needs.

Optoomuchstic as ever, Penelope hopes to give her CAKE talk, see some old friends, and show off the Incorrigible children to Miss Mortimer, but instead she finds her beloved school in an uproar. And when Penelope is asked by the Swanburne Academy board of trustees to demonstrate the academic progress of her three wolfish students so the board can judge the true worth of a Swanburne education, the future of her alma mater - and of her job as governess to the Incorrigibles - hangs in the balance.

My thoughts:

I started listening to this series quite some time back. It really is a great book. There is always excitement, drama and mystery. The main characters are really lovable. If you are listening to the audiobook version, better. The narrator is super excellent in bringing the characters come to life.

As much as I loved this series though, I was hoping that the mysterious plot would come to an end in book 4. At this stage I just want the suspense to be over and the plot revealed completely.

I didn’t realize until I visited the authors website recently that this is a six part series. SIX! Might be a little too much and make the storyline too drawn out. Nevertheless, I still love this series and am looking forward to read the fifth book when it’s out.

Apparently book five, The Unmapped Sea will be released sometime in April this year. I do hope that the author will be able to keep up the excitement and suspense in the next book so that it doesn’t become a draggy read leading to book six.