sonia_reppe's reviews
1293 reviews

The psychopath, Eric, reminded me of the psychopath in In Cold Blood. He was very similar to that guy. This book also talks about the community and how they were affected.

Several disturbingly violent parts: the cold-blooded killer Blue Duck and his gang; an abducted woman is terrorized by her abductors; but besides that this has amazing writing, good characters, suspenceful plot. I wanted to know what happened to Lorena at the end, did she live a happy life or was she a broken person, never fully recovered? I really didn't like W.Call; he was a jerk. Of course I liked Gus, he's a hero. The characters were so believable, even the minor ones. You'll feel like you're in the old west. Nature was written about really well.

This is a realistic coming-of-age story set in death valley. Alice and her family make a living off their horse ranch. There is a lot of work for Alice and her dad when her sister leaves with a boyfriend. THIS BOOK ISN'T REALLY ABOUT HORSES, even though Alice's relationship with these animals is one of the wonderful things about this story. This beautifully written tale is about hard work, man vs. nature, taking chances, and compassion. There is a lot of involvement with horses, because the family and even the community is dependant upon these creatures for a living. But the point is the underlying tension in each scene, because so much is at stake. We get to see life through an insightful twelve yr old, experience the hard times and good times and triumps through her. I loved the scene where she competes in the horse riding contest, and I loved that the dad had a gift for training horses and cared about them.
"In the mornings my father and I fed the horses while it was still dark, and I would walk to school shaking hay from my hair and clothing, scratching at the pieces that had fallen down the front of my shirt. In the afternoons we cleaned the stalls and groomed and exercised the horses. It was foaling season and my father didn't like to leave the barn even for a minute, in case one of our mares went into labor." Five stars. I loved it.

This gets a solid 3 stars from me. I liked this book despite all of its flaws and inconsistancies. Why? It was very readable; I think I liked the voice of the protagonist, Cindy Ella. Her family was a pretty entertaining bunch even while representing every negative LA stereotype. I won't even say negative because to some people, LOOKING FABULOUS IS A PRIORITY AND THAT'S COMMENDABLE. This definitely was the order of family values according to Cindy Ella's stepmom and stepsisters. So this book had a lot of LA stereotypes and I think that's why this book didn't nauseate me, because it didn't take itself seriously (at least I hope it didn't); it seemed to make fun of LA mentality. Every highschooler is on an anti-depressant (the school counselor hands out prescriptions like its going out of style), and everyone is in therapy. It is prom season and everyone is obsessed with their prom preparations--except for Cindy Ella, who thinks prom shouldn't be the most important thing, and that it puts unnecessary stress on kids.

As I said, I liked Cindy Ella, but for all her "anti-superficial stance" she spews a lot of pop culture references and seems to watch TV (Sex and the City) and movies (Pretty in Pink, Sixteen candles) non-stop. She mentioned that she wrote a blog and reads books but we never see her doing that. But hey, it is LA, so...

This book is a spin on a modern Cinderella if you didn't already get that, and there are some cute homages to the timeless fairytale such as the stepmom forcing Ella to babysit her baby brother every weekend, and Cindy Ella losing a high heel shoe towards the end of the book. This is enough of a theme for me, but this book also combines an 80's movies theme and a pop-culture celebrity obsession theme. Too many pop culture references! Even for a book that's trying to make fun of celebrity obsession. The 80's movies theme is sweet, but that should be in a whole seperate book, not combined with a Cinderella theme. It's too much. Like Joan Rivers' plastic surgery.

Loved it! It looks deceptfully simple, but it's deep, and Levchuk masters the point-of-view thing, meaning she gives the protagonist, Edna, a unique outlook and definitive personality. We really get to know this high-schooler as she enters a relationship with her art teacher who falls in love with her and she deals (or doesn't deal) with her mom's cancer. She's afraid to see her mom, fearing that if she does, it will be the last time she sees her. So Edna has some things to work out. Takes place in 1980. I didn't get all of the music references.

After a slow introduction, where we are introduced to one of FLW's apprentices, Tadashi, (he is the narrator of the whole book—a wierd choice?) the story picks up and I started getting into FLW's tempetuous—or no, problem-ridden—love life. "Scandalous" back then. I liked reading about Maude Miriam: she was nuts, a morphine addict. (I'm assuming all this is true because TC Boyle based it on FLW's autobiography and other bios.) I'm a little disappointed that there was hardly any of the book devoted to his first wife Kitty, with whom he had six or so kids. The book just calls her "dull," but he was with her for 20 years before he left her...Nothing..?

2.5 stars. The family was a little too dysfunctional for my taste and the writing didn't seduce me enough to make up for it. I didn't really like the main character, but I guess this falls back on the writing, since that's how I usually judge a book. I got this hard cover with the ugly picture from the library. The cover art of the paperback is much better.

Bad boys and secrets are both hard to keep...So it says on the cover of this coming-of-age novel set in the early 1940's. When her mother loses her job due to arthritis, Ruby Jacinski drops out of school to work in the Chicago stockyards. (Do I need to explain that this is dirty, smelly work?) Soon she is saved from this when she gets a job at the Starlight dance "school" as a taxi-dancer, dancing with men for ten cents a dance. Suddenly her work involves ball gowns and music and it seems life can be easy if you're a pretty girl...

This book is exciting and glamorous, but also realistic. With this new life of stockings and make-up comes new grown-up problems, including a stalker who wants more than just a dance; and competing with the other girls for tips when some of these experienced girls are ruthless hustlers. On top of this, Ruby is keeping this job a secret from her mother, telling her she is a phone operator instead, because her mother wouldn't approve. Her mother also forbids her to talk to this boy from the neighborhood who has a bad reputation. Well, Ruby can't help falling in love with him...

So some would say this book is about growing up too fast. I would say this is about growing up, having to make moral choices, dealing with your conscience, and questioning what is right or wrong. War and racism provide some of the background of this book which is a vivid glimpse into 1940's America. This book is five stars because I felt very close to the protagonist, like I was experiencing new things with her. (Some parts even gave me chills). If you know me, you know that this is the kind of coming-of-age journey that I love!