Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Book: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Genre: Classic
Rating: A
For: F2F book club and Lit Flicks Challenge

This was my third time reading this book. I remember loving it in the past. I've always loved it, and I loved it again.

For those who have never read it, it's about two families living out in the desolate moors of England. One day, the father of one family brings home a stray child and they adopt him. His name is Heathcliff. The dad and the daughter, Cathy, are quite taken with him, but everyone else treats him like crap. As he gets older, he and Cathy fall in love (a sort of twisted, bizarre love) and he decides to take revenge on everyone else. However, Cathy ends up with the guy from the other family, which really messes up Heathcliff... and then things all fall apart from there! Eventually, there's a second generation involved and also all messed up.

How's that for a simple sum of this crazy story?

Many people hate the book because the characters ARE so messed up. They are rotten, selfish, immature, crazy, mean people. Most of them anyway.

But I've always liked the story because they are also complex characters. To me, even though they are flawed, they are intriguing, interesting, heart-wrenching, emotional and deep. Heathcliff fascinates me and gets in my head. I know he can't be all bad. I know that deep down there's something to him.

As I was saying to the book club last night, maybe it's just because I love these gothic, English, creepy, sad, doomed stories!

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For the Lit Flicks challenge, I also watched the movie.... well one of the many versions made of this book. As I mentioned in a previous post it was a 1970-Timothy Dalton-as-Heathcliff version. I enjoyed it. He was great. The only complaint I have is that they completely re-did the ending. They left off everything about the whole second generation (with Cathy #2, Linton and Hareton) and then ended it totally different with Cathy #1 and Heathcliff. Strange. But, until that bit, I liked it a lot! :)


And for the question of the month for the Lit Flicks challenge, which you can find HERE, Jessica asks: Do you set reading/watching goals for yourself? Do you have any book/movie adaptations that you are particularly excited about this year? How did you do on last year’s goals?

1. Yes, I set reading goals, which is mostly the challenges I've joined, and to try and get to 100 books again. And to just read the books I have! But I don't set any movie goals. I like to read the book before the movie, usually anyway. And I like to keep up on the popular movies, most of them anyway, but I wouldn't consider those goals really.


2. I am SO SO excited about Inkheart that's coming up really soon!



3. I did pretty good on my goals from last year I think! Except I come short in most of the challenges, but still, I'm getting plenty of reading done! And movie watching too!

Booking Through Thursday: Sing! Sing a song!

Booking Through Thursday

But, enough about books … Other things have words, too, right? Like … songs!
If you’re anything like me, there are songs that you love because of their lyrics; writers you admire because their songs have depth, meaning, or just a sheer playfulness that has nothing to do with the tunes.
So, today’s question?
What songs … either specific songs, or songs in general by a specific group or writer … have words that you love?
Why?
And … do the tunes that go with the fantastic lyrics live up to them?
You don’t have to restrict yourself to modern songsters, either … anyone who wants to pick Gilbert & Sullivan, for example, is just fine with me. Lerner & Loewe? Steven Sondheim? Barenaked Ladies? Fountains of Wayne? The Beatles? Anyone at all…


Wow! Is this opening a can of worms for me or what? I will have to restrain myself, but let's see where it takes us, shall we?

The first song that comes to mind is To Where You Are sung by Josh Groban and I thought it was written by Richard Marx but when I looked into it, I realized he wrote the music and David Foster's wife (Linda Thompson) wrote the lyrics. Anyway, both are amazing. Listen:





Richard Marx HAS written a ton of amazing songs though, and one that I think is so pretty was made popular by 'Nsync called This I Promise You.... here he is on Oprah singing along with them. Amazing, wonderful lyrics:





My son would disown me if I didn't put in Bob Dylan or John Lennon, both with an amazing way with words.





Musicals were suggested above, and I can't leave them out. They are all wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! But the one that jumps out for me is Andrew Lloyd Weber. I love all of his. I've always especially admired the way he's put the words together for Joseph, how they all rhyme and are so clever and everything. And it was one of his first ones too, I think.




I've always loved the words from Dust in the Wind by Kansas, depressing though they are. But I don't know who wrote them for sure.... whether it was the band or some writer they had.



Well, there's so many more. What a loaded question this week! Interesting for me just to see what my brain thought of first though. Later on today I'll wonder why I picked what I did.

Wait... Another Challenge!

My Own Personal Challenge... continued....

FINISH THIS BOOK ALREADY!!!!

Teaser Tuesdays: Calling the Police!

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!

From The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman p. 135:

"If you're still in here," he said, in a sour mutter, "don't even think of making a run for it. I've called the police on you, that's what I've done."

Review: The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

Book: The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

Genre: Lit. Fiction/ Mystery

Rating: B+

For: Fun

So, I must say, after looking forward to reading my first Georgette Heyer novel, and finally doing it, I think I'm a touch disappointed. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book. I thought the story, about a girl who ends up making a mistake right at the beginning which causes her to marry a dying man, instead of going to become a governess, was fun and interesting. But, it turned out to be more of a mystery (with all the subsequent problems and questions) and I was expecting more of a romance. I wanted SO BAD for the characters and the relationships to be more developed! I wanted to be "in their heads" more. I felt like, as readers, we didn't really get to know them. It was frustrating to me.

I know there's tons of you who love these books, and I'm wondering if you've ever felt this? This distance from the characters? Hmmm.... maybe it's just me.....

But I enjoyed it enough to try more. I loved the character of the little brother. He was a hoot!

The Sunday Salon: Utah Book Bloggers Bash

Natasha from Maw Books Blog said she was going to do it, and she did! She got many of us bloggers in the Utah SLC area together to eat, talk and hang out. She said she thought it was a crazy idea, but crazy or not, it turned out to be very fun and we think it just might become a yearly (at least) event.

So, in this picture you can see us all, including the understanding and supporting spouses that came. (Whose names I think I remember, but I'm not going to chance it!)

Way in the back there is Drew from The Bookmark at the U and his wife next to him. Then we have James Dashner, (his blog called The Dashner Dude) our local author celebrity who was so nice to join us! (His next books out: The Dark Infinity in March, and The Maze Runner late in the year.) Then you'll see Cari's husband, with Cari from Book Scoops in front of him (in the brown shirt.) Next is Kim's husband, with Kim from Good Clean Reads in front of him (in the green shirt.) There on the end is Jessica from The Bluestocking Society and her husband.

In the front we have my husband, with me (Suey) sitting in front of him. Next to him is Leisa, Natasha's sister, who has many blogs but I'm linking to Enrich Create Dream Learn Live. Then there's Natasha from Maw Books Blog in front of her and next to me. (Her husband was taking the picture.) Also behind Natasha is Jenn from The Inkblotter at The King's English bookstore.

Front and center is Stephanie from The Children's Literature Book Club.

We had a blast eating good food, comparing our blogging experiences, picking James' brain about being an author, hearing Jenn and Drew's different experiences hosting authors at their bookstores, and talking lots and lots of books!

It was so great to meet you all and I look forward to doing it again. Those of you that weren't able to make it this time... hopefully we'll see you next time! Thanks again Natasha, for your "crazy" idea and for following through with it!

Weekly Geeks 2009.01: Blog Love... (and passing along some awards too)

Weekly Geeks is back! Yeah! Thank you to Terri for posting the first assignment which is:

1. Link to blogs you love.... and/or

2. Post your 2008 wrap up, or your 2009 goals if you haven't already done so.

Since I have done my wrap up... and a little bit of my goals (though there will be more on that later too) I will do the first option and list my favorite blogs... or some of them, since, sheesh, I have a lot.

Blogs I Love:

Melissa at Book Nut because I love her fresh opinion on books. She cracks me up a lot.

Becky's Book Reviews because even though I'm always behind on reading her posts, I love the variety of books she reviews.

Joanne at Book Zombie because she is such a great commenter... and her blog is great fun too.

Bookfool at Bookfoolery and Babble because she does Wahoo's that I love and she's also a great commenter.

Chris at Book-a-rama because I've just been reading her blog forever and can't imagine the book blogging community without her.

Natasha at Maw Books Blog because she invited me to a fun party and now we can be IRL friends... oh and because she has an amazingly well done blog too.

Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic because I love to see what books she's reading at what she thinks about them.

Amy at The Sleeper Reader because she's another one of those blogs that I've read forever and love to keep up with.

Boy Mom at Boys-R-Us because she writes some amazing poignant posts that either make me laugh like crazy or make me cry and cry.

Raidergirl3 at An Adventure in Reading because she is so nice and I've just been reading her blog forever. And she's the creator of "Where in the World Are You?"

Julie at A Small Accomplishment because she's an amazing blog writer and she is going to be the next up and coming popular book blogger AND YA author.

Trish at HeyLady! Whatcha Readin'? because she is so funny! And she's brave enough to tell the world what she thinks about certain books! :)

Jessica at The Bluestocking Society because now I can be IRL friends with her too! Besides that I love her blog. She gives away lots of stuff and sometimes I even win. She's also the host of the fun LitFlicks Challenge.

Andi at Tripping Toward Lucidity because she also very funny and has a fresh perspective about life and I love to read about what's going on with her.

Okay, well. I could go on and on. I'm leaving a ton of people out. That's what I hate about these "Blogs I Love" lists, because it's impossible to include you all.

Anyway, and to kill to birds here, I give everyone listed above (even though many of you have received them already) the following two awards, which were lately given to me by Ruthie at Books, Books and more Books.