Book score/soundtrack mini-challenge

I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read is hosting a mini-challenge on book score/soundtracks! I'm currently reading The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola. I think the perfect soundtrack for this book is Money (That's What I Want).

Here's a video clip of it in my favorite movie, Empire Records:


The Ladies' Paradise is about shopping and the growth of the department store in Paris in the nineteenth century. The last chapter I read featured a huge sale where a half a million francs of items were sold in one day. So, this song seems quite appropriate. Actually, the fact that I used the clip from Empire Records is even more appropriate, but both the movie and the book are about the little shops trying to take on the big guys. That's kind of funny. Look for my full post on The Ladies' Paradise to come soon!

And the nominees are...

Here's my second mini-challenge to enter for the readathon! And the nominees are..., hosted by 'Til We Read Again. I am answering quickly to get back to reading, so these are off the top of my head answers!

Favorite Female Character in a book: Hermione Granger - Harry Potter
Favorite Male Character in a book: Gulliver - Gulliver's Travels
Favorite Side Kick in a book: Ron Weasley - Harry Potter
Favorite Couple in a Book: Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy - Pride and Prejudice
Favorite Book Series: Harry Potter!
Favorite Author: Jane Austen
Favorite Book Cover: Out of my stack for potential reading for today...White is for Witching
Favorite Book of 2009: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (I'm not sure if it came out in 2009, but that's when I read it, so I'm counting it.)

Kick off of champions mini-challenge

Yeah! My first mini-challenge for the readathon! It's hosted by Miss Remmers' Review. To start off my first readathon, I've surrounded myself with books (obviously), opened the blinds by my reading chair, grabbed a Diet Mountain Dew, my laptop, my Snuggie (I know they're kind of goofy but every big reader should have one! My arms can be warm and snuggly and I can still read!), and my cats. I just took some pictures, but realized I have no idea where the camera cord is to upload them. Doh! At least getting up to get the camera got the blood moving a bit. I will try to post the pics later even though this challenge will be over. Happy reading everyone!

24-hour readathon update 2

Happy 24-hour readathon day! Here's my second update for the day!

Title of book(s) read since last update:
The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola (I should have already finished this one for my Classics Circuit post today...I'll finish it soon and post by early afternoon!

Number of books read since you started: Parts of 4

Pages read since last update: 104

Running total of pages read since you started: 239

Amount of time spent reading since last update: 54 minutes

Running total of time spent reading since you started: 2 hours and 36 minutes

Mini-challenges completed: Kick off champions
And the nominees are...

Other participants you’ve visited:
http://aliteraryodyssey.blogspot.com/
http://luvviesmusings.blogspot.com/http://tilwereadagain.blogspot.com
http://virginiebarbeau.wordpress.com

Prize you’ve won: none

24-hour readathon

I woke up a little late this morning and so I launched right into reading and am just getting my first 24-hour readathon update posted. I was about 40 minutes late starting. Boo.

Title of book(s) read since last update:
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Big Boned by Meg Cabot
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Number of books read since you started: 0

Pages read since last update: 135

Running total of pages read since you started: 135

Amount of time spent reading since last update: 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Running total of time spent reading since you started: 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Mini-challenges completed: none (I'm about to do that though!)

Other participants you’ve visited: none (I'm about to do that though!)

Prize you’ve won: none

Her Fearful Symmetry

I chose an oddly appropriate book for Easter weekend - Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. It's got quite a bit to do with death and resurrection. I bought this when it first came out because I LOVE The Time Traveler's Wife, but it was not well reviewed and was so criticized that I was afraid of disappointment and put it off for a while. I think putting distance between the reviews and the actual reading paid off, and my still somewhat lowered expectations made me realize this probably wouldn't be as good as as The Time Traveler's Wife.

However, I actually really liked it! It's very weird, which might have something to do with the negative reviews, but really, The Time Traveler's Wife isn't exactly normal either. But, it doesn't focus on a cemetery and death and ghosts like Her Fearful Symmetry does. I don't usually enjoy ghost stories, but this was very well done. I think overall it was extremely well written, with a whole cast of interesting characters who I came to care about, a mystery I wanted to unravel, and a plot I wanted to unwrap like a candy bar - slowly at first, savoring the anticipation, then quickly ripping through the package to get to the end.

Her Fearful Symmetry is a love story, a truly unique love story, and actually several love stories packaged together. Elspeth and Robert. Edie and Jack. Valentina and Julia. Martin and Marijke. All of the characters have their good and bad sides, and they're all intriguing. Martin has an extreme case of OCD and won't even leave his flat. Valentina and Julia are twins who can't quite seem to separate and still dress alike at 20. Elspeth is dead. (That's not a spoiler; it's on the book flap and happens in the first few pages.) Elspeth leaves her flat to Julia and Valentina, and Martin and Robert also have flats in the same building, so all of the characters are intertwined. The condition of the girls inheriting the flat and money is they must live in the flat for a year and their parents, Jack and Edie, cannot enter the flat. Why? Well, you'll just have to read it to find out.

House Rules

I know some people think Jodi Picoult's books a bit formulaic, but I love them! They always rekindle my love of reading and I tend to go on a reading tear after reading one of her books. There have been a few disappoints, including Change of Heart, so I was very glad that I enjoyed her latest, House Rules.
House Rules is about a family where the older son as Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism. I have been anticipating this book since I heard she was writing about that topic a while ago. I'm intrigued by autism and since her books are also so carefully researched I knew I would learn more about it through her book. I think my interest in the topic goes back to elementary school when I read Kristy and the Secret of Susan, one of the Baby-Sitters Club books. I think it was the first time I'd really read about someone with a disability, and we had a special elementary school in my district for kids with disabilities, so I had never met someone with one at that point in my life. I found Susan's abilities amazing and wondered how the brain could work that way, and the trade off her being stuck in her own mind.
Jacob, who has Asperger's is able to interact in ways that Susan couldn't, so that he can seem almost "normal" some of the time. This mix of not being clearly autistic but not functioning like a typical person is the crux of the book. A woman is dead, and Jacob is suspecting of her murder. His Asperger's causes him to act guilty, but is he? And if he is, is he reponsible for his actions? I enjoyed the mystery aspect of trying to discover if he did it or not, and even though I guessed early on what happened, since Picoult is known to through in twists I couldn't be sure if I was right until the end. Every time I put the book down, I couldn't wait to get back to it and find out what happened.
I don't think it has been very well reviewed, but I really liked it and would recommend it, and especially thought it was stronger than Change of Heart, which is probably one of my least favorites of her books. I also liked that is wasn't depressingly sad like some of her other books. I do think the reviewers are right in that she focused more on research of the legal and medical aspects of the stories, but I actually felt that worked well since Jacob is the focus and he focuses on those things, not the emotional elements. And she still did a good job of creating different perspectives and having the voices sound different, especially Jacob's. So overall, I think it was a great book!