Comments for Jess Reads Stuff

Comment on Best Books of 2010 by bluecat

bluecat — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:31:35 +0000

I read We Need To Talk About Kevin on an airplane. It made me a Shriver fan. I admire how she unflinchingly faces all aspects of her characters, both positive and horrifyingly negative. Of her titles, I’ve also read The Post-Birthday World, and Double Fault. I’ll admit I can only read about one Shriver book every 6 months because although I think they are fantastic, I feel shredded for a long time afterwards.

I tried to read So Much For That but honestly, I couldn’t get past the description of how the one character throws her dinner in a blender and gulps it down. I’m pretty squemish and I just couldn’t continue. I had this same problem with the book Geek Love.

I’m so glad I found your blog. We have similar reading tastes.

Comment on Announcement! by bluecat

bluecat — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:15:43 +0000

I’m reading!
I’ve been browsing through your archives. I read alot of the “big” books when I was younger and a huge literature snob. Now I’m totally not a book snob at all, but I seemed to have (as you said) lost my stamina for the long deep books that you have to work at. Maybe I’ll try to plan on attacking some this year.

However, I refuse to every pick up Moby Dick again. I’ve tried to read that several times and pretty much never get past “Call me Ishmael.”

Comment on When Bad Movies Happen to Good Books by If By Yes

If By Yes — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:20:15 +0000

I also prefer they keep to the spirit of the book rather than to the plot. I tend to get very upset when a bad adaptation of a good book is made, and people always excuse it with “Oh, it’s hard to fit 800 pages into a 2 hour movie”. Sure it is! But the spirit of a book doesn’t have a size!

There are good movie adaptations of books: Where the Heart Is wasn’t bad, and Watership Down was great. The Last Unicorn is another. All made some plot changes but still FELT a lot like the book.

Sad about William Goldman. Princess Bride was probably his peak, both in book AND movie!

Comment on Best Books of 2010 by jess

jess — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 21:39:30 +0000

Yeah, I decided to ditch it, though I suppose I could have swept it out and started over. A fresh start seemed like a good idea. Eventually when I fix up this blog I’m going to link it to my goodreads page.

Comment on Best Books of 2010 by JoLee

JoLee — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:03:33 +0000

I always love your “best of” posts, but I have a question for you. Why does the Jessica I’m friends with on goodreads only have 11 books of her shelf and is still currently reading the Yiddish Policeman’s Union? I want to be friends with the Jessica who has been using goodreads since September.

Comment on I Quit You by Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:01:10 +0000

(visiting from the dooce community)

OMG. I had to stop reading one particular mystery/thriller writer because while her books always looked and SOUNDED good, they became progressively more terrible and predictable. Whenever I see her stuff on the shelf, I shudder.

Comment on More Good TV by JoLee

JoLee — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:36:15 +0000

I’m glad you read Assassination Vacation. I thought about you when I read it. Especially when Sarah Vowell sees her presidential musicals. I love when she’s watching 1776, and she’s thinking, “Wow, our second president sure can sing.”

Comment on Gifts by JoLee

JoLee — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:54:07 +0000

Read Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series starting with The Eyre Affair. They would be a fun Christmas read for a literature lover like yourself. And the series just gets better and better with each book.

Comment on You Can’t Do That in YA by jess

jess — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:48:45 +0000

I probably would have recommended it to you, but I thought you might find the violence not to your liking. It is just about as extreme as it gets, although somehow they manage to both maximize it for entertainment and minimalize the meaning of it which is kind of strange. You definitely have to come into it treating it like the book equivalent of a horror movie. You have to take some enjoyment out of the death toll or else the whole thing is a somewhat bizarre exercise.

I’m also curious to see where she goes. I’m wondering if we’ll get next year’s round of Games or if we’ll just go back to the District. I’m really curious but it’ll probably be ages until we get another book. Sad.

Comment on You Can’t Do That in YA by JoLee

JoLee — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:39:24 +0000

Hooray. You finally got the book! Thanks for the breakdown between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale. I read some other reviews where people complained about the similarities between the two, but you actually explain the differences too. I have never read Battle Royale, nor, in fact, had I ever heard of the book until I started reading these reviews. (Ahem. Did you not just say you were recommending it to everyone?) So, I had nothing to compare it too, and, thus, was wowed by The Hunger Games. I am really interested to see where the trilogy takes us.