Watermelon (Marian Keyes)

Hello, 

I wrote a review of one of my favourites books and it was published in WoW International Magazine.  Check what I think about 'Watermelon' (Marian Keyes) and why you should read it as well.

WoW International Magazine:

http://www.woweffect.it/en/2014/07/15/watermelon/

Cover of 'Watermelon':

See you soon,

Inessa Silva

  

 

Bridget Jones - Part II: Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones’s Diary is a bestseller book written by Helen Fielding which was released in 1996. The book tells us a story of Bridget Jones, a 30-something simple single woman who writes on her diary about events, worries, happiness, thoughts, weight, chocolates, friendship, work and love in one year of her life. Most of those happening are writing in a humour way. 

The success of the story became from the amazing manner of interaction between readers and character. Helen Fielding proves that she knows how to catch the attention from the beginning to the end.

Because of the tremendous success of the book, five years later, it became a movie. Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies and Helen Fielding wrote the plot and the cast was composed mainly by Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.  Sharon Maguire directed them.

In my opinion, the fact of Colin Firth played as Mark Darcy was a great idea and I think the choice was on purpose, the character is related to Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s character that was played by Colin Firth as well.

The book is outstanding as well as the film. Each one has a single peculiarity. Don’t miss them! Have fun :-)

See you,

Inessa Silva

The Travelling Tea Shop

The Travelling Tea Shop is the new book of Belinda Jones. It is going to be released in May 22nd, 2014.

About:

Laurie loves a challenge. Especially if it involves anything beautiful, baked and frosted. The brief is simple: With three other women, Laurie will board a London bus - kitted out as an English tea shop - on a deliciously different road trip of the USA. Their mission: To bring home-grown classics like Battenberg, Victoria sponge and scones to the land of cupcakes, whoopie pies and gold-leafed chocolate sundaes. And to show them how a real cup of tea is made. All of the women have their own secrets and heartaches to heal. As well as a grand appreciation of cupcakes, there's also the chance for romance... (description by https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19144685-the-travelling-tea-shop)

My Expectations:

It seems to be a great reading, Belinda Jones is famous for your road trip adventure stories. I think The Travelling Tea Shop will not be different, it will be a success one more time! :-)

More Information:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Travelling-Shop-Belinda-Jones-ebook/dp/B00EPGCS9Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400173117&sr=8-1&keywords=belinda+jones+the+travelling

See you soon,

Inessa Silva

Happy Mother´s Day!!!!

How to Fall in Love

Book: How to Fall in Love

Author: Cecelia Ahern

Publisher: HarperCollins

Year: 2013

Rate: 5


The Plot:
“She has just two weeks. Two weeks to teach him how to fall in love – with his own life. Adam Basil and Christine Rose are thrown together late one night, when Christine is crossing the Ha’penny Bridge in Dublin. Adam is there, poised, threatening to jump. Adam is desperate – but Christine makes a crazy deal with him. His 35th birthday is looming and she bets him that before then she can show him life is worth living. Despite her determination, Christine knows what a dangerous promise she’s made. Against the ticking of the clock, the two of them embark on wild escapades, grand romantic gestures and some unlikely late-night outings. Slowly, Christine thinks Adam is starting to fall back in love with his life. But is that all that’s happening…? A novel to make you laugh, cry and appreciate life, this is Cecelia Ahern at her thoughtful and surprising best”. (Description taken from Amazon)

My Thoughts:

I’ve just finished reading How to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern. To be honest, I never know what to expect from her books. She’s a wonderful writer but sometimes her stories disappoint me somehow. That’s why when I saw this book on the library I thought twice about buying it. As a real bookworm, I couldn’t resist. Thank God I didn’t, cuz it really is amazing and surprised me in a very good way.  One thing about reading I really adore is the possibility of experiencing different points of views, usually situations you’ve never imagined yourself into and make something out of it, learn values and see life from another perspective, and it was exactly that feeling I had reading this book.  As you can read the description above, it tells the story of Christine Rose, whose marriage just collapsed and witnessed a suicide. After all the sorrow she starts looking for her happy place and find herself on a bridge in Dublin stopping a young man, Adam, from jumping of the bridge. What she doesn’t realize is that by saving him she is also saving herself.  Throughout the book we see her trying to achieve her goal which is making Adam see how wonderful life is. She totally takes control of his life and promise him that 2 weeks he will have everything he’s just lost back to him. Cecelia really knows how to write, the fact that she took such a strong, serious topic as suicide and wrote a light, hopeful and tender book about it it’s impressive. Not only did she wrote a delightful story but she also make it so realistic, no life is a bed of flowers, full of rainbows. Everyone has ups and downs and sometimes we need to seek medical help or just a good listener to help us through. We just need to remind ourselves that every cloud has a silver lining.

More Information:

http://uk.cecelia-ahern.com/books/Default.aspx

Amanda Damião

Happy Easter!

Danny Wallace's 'Who's Tom Ditto?'

Welcome to April! 

A new month is already shining outside!

April is just beginning. And it brings us a new book release from the author Danny Wallace. As I have already said I reckon Danny Wallace is part of the team of Chick Lit authors. Although his main characters are men, most of his stories have a narrative of chick lit genre. 

'Who's Tom Ditto?' seems to follow the steps of Danny's last novel 'Charlotte Street'. 'Who's Tom Ditto?' tells a story about a guy who finds out a note from his girlfriend saying she hasn't left him, she just has gone. So he decides to bring her back. In this path, he meets people and strange things start happening. 

'Who's Tom Ditto?' will be released on April 24, 2014. 

More information: http://dannywallace.com

See you soon,

Inessa Silva

Bridget Jones - Part I: Introducing Helen Fielding

Helen Fielding

The famous author of Bridget Jones Series was born in February 19th 1958 in Yorkshire. She studied English at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Interested in acting and being part of a revue she met the best British comedian Rowan Atkinson and one of my favourites screenwriters/directors Richard Curtis in 1978 and started a friendship. In the following year, she began to work at BBC as a regional researcher. In 1985, Helen became a producer on a live satellite broadcast from Sudan for Comic Relief. Many facts of her life before 1990 are really fantastic, showing a woman with passion for discovering new things.

From 1990 to 1999, she worked as a journalist for important newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Independent and The Telegraph. In 1995, her job at The Independent was the best choice she had ever made, there she had a column about single life that was the first step to write Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996). Although the well-known book of Helen Fielding is Bridget Jones’s Diary, the first book of her novelist career was Cause Celeb (1994). This brief bio of Helen was just to show a little bit of her track and a preparation for the next posts.

Helen Fielding’s Books:

(1996)

(1994)

(1999)

(2013)

(2004)

Charlotte Street

Book: Charlotte Street

Author: Danny Wallace

Publisher: Ebury Press

Year: 2012

Rate: 4,5

The Plot:

It is a story of Jason Priestley (not the actor), an ex-teacher who starts writing as a new career for a newspaper. One day, he helps a girl who was taking a cab, but he keeps with her disposable camera, accidently. Jason wants to find her not just for giving the disposable camera back, but because he thinks she is the one.

For your own safe:

Before you read it you must have three characters in mind: the disposable camera, the girl and Charlotte Street. Yes, I consider disposable camera and Charlotte Street as characters, truly. Danny Wallace was brilliant when he chose a random encounter to show how Jason is living his life, his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, his friendship with Dev and lots of ordinary happenings in a human being’s life.

My Thoughts:

Maybe some people could not consider Charlotte Street as Chick Lit. It is acceptable because first of all, the main character is not a woman, neither the author. However, Jason’s feelings and experience are so closed to many female characters that we usual read in Chick Lit. Then I will take a risk, because I reckon the story belongs to the genre.

Few days before reading Charlotte Street, I read reviews and asked others readers what they thought about the book. For my surprise, I had two different points of view: first group considered not a good story because the main plot was too confused; the second one thought was amazed as the author describes London as scenery and guides the whole story. It is a Love and Hate dichotomy for sure. My decision was to read and decide what 50/50 I am part of.

I confess that in the beginning it was areally confused text, however I didn’t stop reading I wanted to find a reason of all messy thing. I believe I did: the main character is confused, too many conflicts, so maybe it was on purpose. It seems the characters are real.

In the end of the book, I realized I am part of the group that loves Charlotte Street!

Danny's site: http://dannywallace.com/

See you next time,

Inessa Silva