Paulo and Chuck

Heyyyy humans!

Farhanah asked for me to do a book review on the 4J blog again so here I am!

Read Paulo Coehlo's books. They're good. :D His stories are not really very heart-pumping, dramatic action filled (haha see I listen in english class) BUT you get this warm fuzzy feeling when you read them.

And I'm not just talking about The Alchemist, although that's probably the best starter since it's a popular bestseller. I do believe he has a new book called "The Witch of Portobello" and I think it has nothing to do with enchanted mushrooms, so it makes for safe reading.

I've personally read The Alchemist, Veronika Decides To Die, The Fifth Mountain, Eleven Minutes and I was halfway through The Zahir before my sister decides to take away my reading rights by bringing the book to America. ):

I can't remember much about Eleven Minutes, though. Does anyone else experience memory loss when you get through a thick book? Like Harry Potter and the HBP. I can't remember anything except the ending, climatic part. Ehehehe.

In accordance to my sister's words, she told me that a particularly interesting part was when some dude buttered his toast and it landed buttered side up.

As you know, buttered toast always lands buttered side down, so he was really amazed and he went to tell everyone about how this miracle happened, and they went off to see the village old man who was omniscient and wise and all that.

The next day, the old man told him that the toast lands as it should, he just buttered it the wrong way.

HAHAHA.
I don't know which book that one is from, probably Like The Flowing River. And my sister told me that, so don't quote me.

Yes, go read his books and fall in love with them.

I've also borrowed "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk, who is the author of "Fight Club", which got made into a movie. Panic! At The Disco music fans might also want to know that P!ATD takes some of their song titles and stuff from his books, such as "The Only Difference Between Suicide And Martyrdom Is Press Coverage", taken from the abovementioned book.

It gets kind of disturbing, although it is really good hilarious satire. I'm only through a few pages, at the lobster part.

So okay. I'm going to do Chemistry now. What? I have nothing to say anymore, so I'm just going to say bye here. Bye.

P.S HARRY POTTER MOVIE/BOOK IN LESS THAN A MONTH!!!!

EDIT: I would like to say that Chuck Palahniuk writes excellently. But Survivor is probably not for hardcored Christians because it challenges the idea of God. It's not a book on religion (or rather, the lack of it) however, so if you've got a more or less open mind, read it! :D I love love this book for all its witty remarks.

To be honest the first few chapters were not that great for me, just more or less setting the background and characters for the story. You get to learn very interesting household skills like how to get bloodstains off fur coats and how to eat a lobster. Which is partly why I love this book.

It was only at about Chapter 30 when it started to pick up. BTW the chapters go in reverse order, so it starts with Chapter 47, so Chapter 30 isn't really very far into the book. Chuck Palahniuk's writing isn't exactly PG-13 though, in fact, it's kind of skimming the lines of M-18 or NC-16, but since we're not talking about a movie here, who cares?

I'm still not done, but I always spoil books for myself by finding out the ending. Hahaha. Bad habit. Oh well.

And quotes, one about the bloodstains and the others because I'm currently around that page. Read it and you'll know what I mean by challenging the idea of God. Then again, I think it has to be that way because the protagonist himself is quite jaded about this whole thing, but then I'm just not going to disclose who he is and why he's jaded and blah. Also because I'm so lazy that I don't want to type out this whole thing and turn it into a lit analysis essay.

"The secret is cornmeal and brushing the fur the wrong way. The tricky part is keeping your mouth shut."

"The same as if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, you realize, if no one had been there to witness the agony of Christ, would we be saved?"

"You realized the agent was right. You've never seen a crucifix with a Jesus who wasn't almost naked. You've never seen a fat Jesus. Or a Jesus with body hair. Every crucifix you've seen, the Jesus could be shirtless and modeling designer jeans or men's cologne."

Though the last quote is kind of pushing it because Jesus must have been emaciated after being locked up and all that. Love the body hair part, though.