REVIEW: THE TRIUMPH OF DEBORAH

The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy

First I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to the author of this extraordinary novel, Eva Etzioni-Halevy, for sending me this book.  If it had not been for her, I may have never had the honour of reading it.

This is a perfect example of why I love historical fiction.  Etzioni-Halevy has created a richly laid out account of the woman known as Deborah, and she is heralded as one of the greatest judges and female leaders of biblical times.  But this is not the main reason why I loved it.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, strong woman, good role model... yadda.... but it is BARAK who is the real page turning force in this book. SEEERIOUSLY.    I kept picturing Gerard Butler in the part, but you can pick any swoon-worthy man you like.  I mean, he must have been HAWT.  Every single female was practically throwing themselves at his hottie-hot-hot muscular feet, and it was through his eyes, or should I say, naughty bits, that we are propelled through this story.  Wow.  What a man.  And a BAD boy, but not TOO bad.   There were times where I thought he was a total creep, a cretin, a letch.  And other times when I thought he was somewhat honorable.   He was kind of like Warren Beatty, if you get my meaning, who was on the search for his Annette Benning but doesn't know it yet.  I am not sure why the book is called The Triumph of Deborah, when really the entire story revolves around Barak, but I am not complaining.  Not me.  Not one bit.

Okay, but OTHER than THAT.  This book is absolutely stunning in its writing.  Etzioni-Halevy is an extremely talented writer who successfully weaves several lives together and knows when to leave one character and visit another, and you are taken from storyline to storyline seamlessly and with nary a jarring scene change.  I simply could not put it down.  There is plenty of  historical content, but set against a backdrop of the relationships of Barak, Asherah, Nogah and Deborah, it is anything but dull or dry.  It is as vibrant and colorful as the rugs that lined the tents of Deborah.  It is as gilded as the great Judges chair upon which she sat.  It is as fragrant as the spices that laced the wine.  In short, it is FANTASTIC. 

I can give it none other than a very exhuberant 5 OUT OF 5. 

I am now going to rush out and read the other two of her novels:  The Song of Hannah and The Garden of Ruth! 

You can read more about the author and her works along with great interviews with her on her website.

QUICKY GIVEAWAY! GONE BY LISA MCMANN

GONE by LISA MCMANN

This is an ARC and it is just too scary for me!  How funny is that!  I am very squeamish, so I just can't bring myself to read it, although I've heard this is an awesome trilogy!  This book is the 3rd in the series, and I am offering it up for a quick giveaway!!!!!  Contest is open to US and Canada only as I will be paying for shipping myself.  A HUGE thank you to MICHELLE over at Simon and Schuster Canada for sending this along to me! 

The rules are super simple, you must be a follower and comment here.  Please leave a way for me to contact you, if you leave your email address and do NOT want me to publish it just let me know and I will note your entry and not publish your comment. 

ONE ENTRY per person, please.

CONTEST ENDS ON FEBRURARY 15TH.

GOOD LUCK!!!  :0)

TEASER TUESDAY!

It's Teaser Tuesday time agaaaiiin!  This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, and anyone can play!  Please feel free to leave a comment along with a link to your TT.  Or you can just leave your teaser sentences in the comments if you do not have a blog. Can't wait to read your teasers! 

• Grab your current read
• flip to a random page
• select two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Try not to include SPOILERS!
• Please let us know the name of the book along with the author's name so we can add it to our TBR!

My teaser is from "Paper Towns" by John Green.  I heard about this book a week or two ago on another person's blog, and am I ever glad I put it on hold at the library!  I just picked it up yesterday, so I am barely into the book, but so far it is HILARIOUS.  I LOVE the way John writes!  Because I have just started this book and do not want to risk any spoilers for me or you, I am picking my sentences from page 4.  In fact, it's very possible that this very sentence was the one that this blogger posted which is what made me want to read the book in the first place!

On the morning in question, she wore white shorts and a pink T-shirt that featured a green dragon breathing a fire of orange glitter.  It is difficult to explain how awesome I found this T-shirt at the time.

For more teasers click here.

REVIEW: THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILLY PONDER

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder by Rebecca Wells
Challenge covered:  "Reading from my shelves 2010"

This was my first ever win from a blog contest way back in August.  I won this book from She's Too Fond of Books.  THANKS, DAWN!

The first thing I will say that I love about this book is the cover, does that not just scream "SUMMER!" at you?  The unrestrained joy on that young girls face just says it all.  I loved Calla Lilly.  She is a bursting beautiful girl, who is swimming in love from those around her.  The first half of this book just had me immediately captivated.  For one thing I have always been a big moon lover.  I am forever calling my oldest daughter out from wherever she is in the house to gaze out the window at the moons beauty.  It is such a soothing orb, with its gentle bathing light.  Sigh.   I love her.  So, the fact that she plays such a large part of this story, really made it aces in my book. 

The next thing I loved was the relationship between Calla's mother (M'dear) and Calla.  These two had an extraordinary bond, and you could truly see that Calla saw her mother as a goddess.  Now I think it needs to be said here:

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
















When Calla learns of her mother's cancer, I was devestated.  And the one scene that had me in absolute tears was when M'dear and Papa come and woke Calla and her brothers at 3 AM and take them to the dance studio that they own.  There they partake in one of the most moving dance experiences I have ever read.  Made me cry, I mean actual TEARS, people!  What a beautiful way to say good-bye. 

The friendship that she shares with Suke and Renee is also believable and thoroughly enjoyable!  And let's not forget about Tuck, her first love whom she met as a rag-tag boy who stepped off a bus completely alone in the small sleepy town of La Luna.

La Luna is a character in and of itself.  The town has an "aliveness" to it that is extremely charming, and if it really exsisted I would want to live there.  Wells has a way of describing Louisana and the ever present heat and music and life of the place that makes you truly escape among the pages of her book.

Once Calla has her heart broken by Tuck, and she decides to make the brave move to New Orleans was when the book fell a bit flat for me.  For some reason the story lost its zing.  I think it was mainly when she met her husband, Sweet.  I just didn't "feel" the love they had for eachother.  For Calla, who so passionately loved everyone in her life, and the world around her, I just didn't get that passion for her husband.  I still can't put my finger on why.  Later, when she is reunited with Tuck I then felt the passion was back.  Eventhough she said that she really loved Sweet, and had no doubt about him, I just didn't get that from their marriage.

All in all I have to say I did enjoy this one.  My overall feeling about it when I look at the cover is a nice warm loving embrace.  What will stay with me forever is the relationship between Calla and M'dear, and what this book did for me is made me want to strive for that kind of relationship with my daughters.  We are very close, and crazy about eachother, but it was the way in which M'dear made everything in Calla's life sacred, beautiful and a CELEBRATION!  It reminded me to do that for my girls more often.  And if THAT'S not a gift you can get from reading... .then I don't know what is, "y'all."  :0) 

RATING:  3/5

A "SWEET" AWARD!

This is an award from my new, and lovely, friend Emma at Emma Michaels!  Thanks, Emma!!!

The only rule in the Happy 101 award is you have to list 10 things that make you the most happy!

1. My family, as in my hubby and our two beautiful daughters! (that includes our pets!)
2. My extended family, and it's a big one!
3. My friends
4. BOOKS
5. my job in film when I am able to do a show!
6. the book blogging community!
7. pasta in any kind of a cream sauce
8. chips, ripple or dorito!
9. knitting
10. life in general!

I'll now pass this onto

• Natalie at The Book Inn
• Alita at Alita Reads
• Carol at Carol's Notebook 
• Jo-Jo at Jo-Jo Loves to Read!
• Mel at He Followed Me Home.

THROWBACK THURSDAY - CANE RIVER

Throwback Thursday is a bookish meme hosted by Jenny over at Take Me Away. 

It's pretty straight forward, you highlight an oldie but a goodie!

My pick for this week is: 

Cane River by Lalita Tademy

This book was a gift to me a million years ago, and I absolutely LOOOVED it.  It was the first book I had read about the life of slaves, and it really impacted me in a major way.  The parts that were especially haunting were when slave women had their babies taken away and then sold.  Families were torn apart, and probably would never see eachother again.  Here is the blurb from the back cover which can say it better than I ever could.

On a Creole plantation on the banks of Louisiana's Cane River, four generations of astonishing women battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.  They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the twentieth century.  There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage.... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promis --- and heartbreak of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independance... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.

After reading this years ago, I found I was fascinated with this time period and the personal lives of those who were treated like animals, and found another book years later The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, very good as well. You can read my review of it here.  Now I am looking forward to reading Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and it is sure to become a hot one in the book blogging world. 

REVIEW: COMFORT LIVING

Comfort Living:  A Back-to-Basics Guide To a More Balanced Lifestyle

77 pages

This book was sent to me by the publisher, and I have to be honest here, this will not be a glowing review.

I was pretty excited when I was approached to review this book as books on how to make my life more pleasurable is always a big hit around here.  And I am a pretty big clutter hound, but hate it.  The only room in my house that is always clutter free is my living room, which is the first room you see when you walk into our house.  Otherwise, everywhere else there are toys, books (duh!), papers stacked everywhere... you get the picture.  So, I was actually looking for some real tips from this one.

Here was the number one first impression that immediately put me off, but I was mindful not to let it taint the overall opinion I have of this book.  The photography.  It is just not very good, okay I'm sorry to say it is pretty poor for a book like this.  At first it was the quality of the image that was odd, I showed it to my husband saying, "Doesn't this look like it is a bad copy off of someones printer?"  He had to agree.  Even the author's photo on the back is very poor quality.  Okay, so the pics were bad quality, but then it got even worse, when I really looked  at the photos I quickly realized that even the photography itself is just not good.  The composition is terrible, and for a book like this photos are really needed to get the "picture" so to speak of what the end result of her tips are. The photos on the cover of the book and the journal are GEORGOUS, so it is a bit misleading. 

Her tips are pretty good, I like the ones of entering your house and then each room and try to see if from an outsiders eyes, and try to create a cozy feel when you enter a space.  But the "campfire" idea just seemed odd, as in creating a "campfire" in each room with objects you love and add warmth and comfort to a space. 

Then there's the journal that came along with it, that you can purchase for an additional $7.95.  This thing is so small I almost laughed out loud.  I just didn't get it.  It is about the size of a standard sized cheque book, I'm not even kidding.  With teeny tiny print, and my daughter was looking through it and found that half of the book was upside down, which had us really confused.  But then she noticed that on the back right above the HUGE bar code is actually another front cover, so you can flip it over and use it both ways for two different catagories.  But the problem with that is the bar code takes up almost half of the back/front cover so it just looks weird and doesn't feel right. 

I always feel terrible when I have to review a book I did not enjoy, but honestly I would not have purchased this book if I saw it in a book store.  And that is why I feel like I need to be honest because if you order it online you may be surprised at the quality of it. 

RATING:  0.5/5