BukuKu Review: January 2010

Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes

Reviewed by Kiden

'Tara, Katherine and Fenton have been best friends since they were teenagers. Now in their early thirties, they've been living it up in London for ten years. But what have they got to show for it?

Sure, Tara's got her boyfriend - but she loves food, shopping and her lipstick so much more. Katherine, on the other hand, is a serial singleton whose neatness fetish won't let a man mess up her life. And Fenton? Well, Fenton has everything. Until he gets ill and he has to ask himself: what have you got if you haven't got your health?

All three are drinking in the Last Chance Saloon and they're about to discover that if you don't change your life, life has a way of changing you.' - Summary

So this is a story about changing your life. That's obvious after you read the abstract of the book. Bought this 4 years ago and got me confused. Because one of the characters' name is misspelled. And whose name is it? Fenton! In the book, he's called Fintan.

Now that I've told you the mistake, Fenton...or Fintan is dying of an illness and he has wishes to make before...or if he dies. And they are first, for Katherine to find a man and Tara to leave her boyfriend. These two wishes are hard for both women for Tara find it hard to leave her boyfriend while Katherine had a relationship that end up badly before.

What I wanna say about this book is that it bores me. Not only does the story bores me, the book is thick! But, it does contain some few humours but only 2-3 of them. This book disappoints me because I thought it'll be like 'The Other Side Of The Story'. Sorry Marian Keyes, I give this book...

Buy book from:

The Book Depository

Change of Name

Reviewed by Kiden

Greetings our fellow readers!
Kid is typing right now and would like to know if I should change my name on this blog? Because people mistook my name for a word. So what should I rename myself? Here's my list:

Kid A.
Kiden
or Kden??

Hmmm...Maybe I should go for Kiden...'Coz that's what ma calls me.

Brunei Bookswap

Reviewed by Kiden

Do you have soooooooooooooo many books that you wish you could sell it but you love them so much that it's hard for you to sell it away? (I Do! : S) Or you wish you could lend it to someone else so they can read what you have read?

Well, let me introduce you to Brunei Bookswap! Join them on Facebook where you can discuss about the books you read or would like to read and you may find people who can swap books with you. Sometimes there'll be an event or meetup posted on that group. More information, join Brunei Bookswap on Facebook. Enjoy!

~Bukuku Admins =P

Goosebumps Series by R.L. Stine

Reviewed by Afi Hamid

I am not sure whether the kids today still read the Goosebumps series but back in my school days, these series is very popular among the kids. Whenever we go to the school library, the majority of my classmates including me will either pick the Goosebumps series or the Enid Blyton's series. Our school library is not short of some interesting books. They have the Anne Rice's vampire novels, some Stephen King, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and more. The Goosebumps books with its many quirky titles such as "Say Cheese and Die", "Night of The Living Dummy or "My Hariest Adventure" never failed to attract our attention back in the days. I can be thankful for discovering the Goosebumps series because it encourages a love for reading in me and also helps me to improve my english at school.

Another thing that I would like to point out is the struggle of learning or using english especially among the non-natives speakers of english like us Bruneian. I am not saying the Bruneians are weak in English but we have to accept that there is still a number of people who are struggling with English. One of the things that can be done to improve their English is through reading. But don't be to eager to buy lots of english reading materials if at the end of the day, you are struggling to understand what you are reading. What you can do is to read books with simpler english. Books like the Enid Blyton's series and Goosebumps series or even those books written for children. And as you go along and you find you have improved your english a little, then take a step further and try reading books with a more advanced english.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Reviewed by Afi Hamid

"As a human document, Night is almost unbearably painful, and certainly beyond criticism"

- A. Alvarez, Commentry

In the midst of the Second World War in 1944, Elie Wiesel and his family along with the rest of the Jews from the town of Sighet in Transylvania were forced to abandoned their homes and make a long journey to the concentration camps in Auschwitz and later in Buchenwald. It was while living in these concentration camps that Wiesel told his harrowing stories of surviving the Holocaust. Imagine being a witness to the death of your own family members, seeing babies thrown into the burning flames, letting people decide whether you deserve to be alive or dead and eventually losing your belief in god.

While these are not the only horrible things that Wiesel experienced which are mentioned in the book but they are enough to give the view of how powerful this book is in its description of what happened during the holocaust from the viewpoint of the author. Perhaps the ability of this book to effectively convey the feeling of what happened during the holocaust made it into one of the most important literature on the holocaust. Furthermore, this book is only 120 pages thick. It was published more than 50 years ago and continues to be a bestselling book. In 2006, it was chosen by the Oprah's Book Club and in 2008, it was removed from the New York Times best seller list after staying there for 80 weeks.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Reviewed by Kiden

Screaming, my body explained. You're screaming.
I froze in shock, and the sound broke off abruptly.
This was not a memory.
My body - she was thinking! Speaking to me!

Bought this book at Popular in Miri for RM$37.90. Before I bought this book, it's on my list after I read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. Though, I have a doubt about buying it because of other reviews I read online. This book truly shocks me because I still couldn't believe that this book is Stephenie Meyer's writing. I'm a big fan of the Twilight saga so that explains the shock and expecting similar from her other writings.

Ok, the story is about unseen enemy invaded the world. You know like aliens (my first thought was, 'Agh! Cliches!'). They take over the minds of the human hosts so they're like a robot being controlled. Melanie Stryder is one of the victims of this invasion. Wanderer, the invading "souls" was given to Melanie's body to extract informations from her memories to find other humans. Though, Melanie shows Wanderer a vision of a man called Jared whom Melanie loves. Unable to seperate herself from her body's desire, Wanderer began to track down the man.

So, it's like an alien controls a body, trying to get informations about the whereabouts of other humans and try to 'convert' them into one of 'them' though Wanderer break the rules and try to find the man of her Human Host so she could be with him and not to give him up to the Seekers. When she founds the humans (well, she was found at first) she was treated as a prisoner because of what she is.

It's like 809 pages, and believe me, I almost cry reading it. Truly saddened by some chapters and that should not be happening! All in all...