When I read Sputnik Sweetheart

How do I even begin. First, the title was cheesy. I heard about the book from a friend who was reading Fifty Shades at that time. At first, I thought it was of the same genre, my apologies. That has always been one of my flaws, being judgmental to people, book titles and reading choices. I am trying my best to be a changed person now though.

So there was the story, SS. I first read a HM book years ago before the incident, out of whim, and before the SJ era. I even forgot the title of that book. The only feeling that the book left me was of confusion. The girl in the story somehow disappeared and vanished in her room??! That story was also narrated through a male's point of view. Is this a recurring theme in HM books? Well, maybe I am getting ahead of myself.

Here are my thoughts/realizations/and fifty cents on the book SS by HM:

Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila The Great, A review

Dogs, spiders, swimming, ghost stories, thunderstorms, eerie sounds at night, what else? Sheila Tubman fears a lot of things. These things may be trivial to most of us, but to Sheila it was a matter of life and death.

I read Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great today as a light reading. It indeed was! I breezed through it in a couple of hours. I would have finished it sooner if I wasn't laughing so hard at Sheila. Haha! This girl, her ridiculous reasoning when it comes to the things she fears and things she could not admit she can’t do, reminds me so much of my younger self. Fear of dogs, eerie sounds at night, covering ones ears at night… LOL that is so me. And her inner dialogue, speaking so matter of factly of the things or situations she is in, and her tirades with her sister and parents, all these speak so true to me.

Like Sheila The Great, we both are learning and adapting, little by little. I am older now, I am no longer that afraid of dogs, but I still cover my ears when I sleep because I am sure that a monster is coming to get me if I ears are shown ;-P

Well, that is Judy Blume to us. She writes these things eloquently as if I am reading my own story and my own thoughts.  And Mouse, Jane & Sondra, Marty, summer classes, Newsdate, the play with Liddy being cast as Captain Hook instead of being Wendy (I had a laughing fit with this!), truly I wouldn’t forget this summer at Tarrytown.

Read August 29, 2012.

Paper Towns review/reflection

Paper Towns by John Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Margo Roth Spiegelman. Even the name gives off that mysterious vibe. Paper Towns chronicles how Q, Quentin Jacobsen, got the miracle in his life. The elusive Margo has asked him to on an adventure of sorts suddenly one night. And just when Q has thought everything is going to be working out, Margo disappears.

It was only Q who was as worried and concerned over what happened to Margo. Despite the fact that Margo has frequently and repeatedly ran away in the past. Q was then off to a journey in finding Margo and somehow realizing who she really is from Walt Whitman, an abandoned mall, and unfinished subdivisions among others.

I envy Margo. She had this untypical courage. Or was this rebellion? I felt she wanted to be found, but repressed this feeling too much which made her more detached from the people around her, specially her family. But who am I to judge how she has felt to be in her family, in her life. Somehow, I can get it though. How it feels. That it's suffocatingly unreal. Like I can't find myself if I am here...

And Q... the ever adoring neighbor but of course he's more than that. The part where he tells about his perception/idea of Margo isn't who she really is... that got me. The paper girl/boy we think of, and see in those photos and shows and videos. It's really not them. We'll need to dig further, find clues, deduce all these to it's meaningful whole, and pray they'll also want to be found.

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