The Mad Housewife Diary by Chew Lee Li

Story is written in the form of diary entry starting from 3rd March to 19th August.

Mainly is about  Andie Ang Poh Choo who lives a privileged life in Singapore. She is married to a filthy rich banker. Lives in grand apartment in the upscale part of the town. Spends her time having lunches and tea with her friends. She does not need to lift a finger to do house chores as she have a made to take care of the dirty work and take care of her kids.

However, her life is not picture perfect. Her husband received news that he is in danger to be made redundant when the Banks merged. And there seems to be a malicious person who purposely damaged her husband's car.

My Comments:

I was attracted to the synopsis at the back of the book. At first, I thought this is would be like others Chick-lit. However, I was wrong.

The pace of this book is too slow for me. The "exciting part only comes after reading more than half of the book.

The threat of redundancy was lack of suspense.

The part that I like is about the maid and her boyfriend. I also like the part where their car were being scratched and they tried to find the culprit.

I also like the book being presented in a diary entry manner. It give a time line to the story and enable to to judge how much time had lapsed after a certain event happen.

Overall, this is not a book that I enjoyed. Nevertheless, I think my friend Cleffairy will love this book very much as we are directly opposite in terms of reading. Anything that I like she would dislike and vice versa.

Hence, feel free to give this book a try. Maybe you will love it

The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes by Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, Eileen Dreyer

When Lizzie and Mare were still young, their eldest sister Dee kidnapped them. They ran away from their Aunt Xan who is a source of danger to them though only Dee knows what sort of danger it was.

The three sisters have special powers though they can't control their power properly yet.

Dee have the power of shape shifting. Lizzie turn things like forks into rabbits and she is aiming to turn straws into gold to help the sisters financially.

Mare have power to move things.

One day, the sisters true loves came into their life out of the blue. It was the work of their evil Aunt Xan. It caused a lot of havoc. And they have to battle it out with their Aunt in the end.

Personally, I don't like this book. It's magical but lack of the page turning power for me.

Please don't let my review affect your opinion in this book. Many others have read it and liked it. In terms of books, there is just no right or wrong. Each person have different taste in books.

Book Lover by Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack

Dora is a divorcee who is currently separated with her second husband. She is unemployed and tend to drown herself in books whenever she is unhappy.

The only time she leave the house is to refuel in bookstore. It was during one of these trips which she met Fred, a Tennyson qouting Adonis. He seems to be the perfect guy. That is till tragedy strikes. He was not what he seems to be.

It took me a week to finish this book. I keep hoping that this will get better. Unfortunately it did not.

I find that Dora is a tad too plain and pathetic. Her ex-husband and sister tried to help her out. Unfortunately Dora was too into feeling sorry for herself that she ignored their efforts.

No doubt the main character is Dora, but the whole books seems to be about Dora, Dora and more Dora. Dora the pathetic bookworm, Dora the financially unstable, Dora the loser, Dora the lover and etc.

First divorce she blames the first ex-husband who was too immature. Second divorce she blames the husband who is a society climber. And now Fred, the uncaring man. Makes me think what about herself? She is the one who choose them for all the wrong reason. Who is she to judge them?

She doesn't seems to know what she want out of this life. At first a macho husband. Then when that does not work, maybe a husband with an ambition. And when that doesn't work, she runs away again.

It is very tiring reading how she moan about everything...about how some people read their books, about her financial situation, about what some of her friends did and about how heartless of Fred. It was like she blame everyone except for herself for things that goes wrong in herself and her depression. It was not written directly in the book but that was the impression that I get when I was reading it.

This is my personal opinion only. I am sure there are others who love this book. Each person taste in books are different.

The Gap Year For Grown Ups by Annie Sanders

Sarah Lewis is married with a predictable husband, David and two grown kids who are twins. They have just moved out to go to college.

Now Sarah is having a sort of empty nest syndrome. She felt bored and frustrated of doing the same thing daily. She got married to early and had not enjoyed life before being saddle with a family to take care off. Now the kids have gone, she felt there must be something more to life than this.

One day, she just can't take it any more and she told her husband that she is leaving. She left and went to France. She stayed with her bestie. Before long, she had her music and the company of a gorgeous man. But soon, disaster struck.

This books is not your typical chit lit as it dives into issues regarding family like her daughter Claire hanging out with the wrong crowds, extra-marital affairs and the result on the family and children.

However, this book did not click with me as I find that Sarah is a very shallow woman. A rather selfish one. Although she have blabber that she have made a lot of sacrifice in the marriage, but who did not?

For me, the emotions expressed by the characters in this book were lacking of authenticity. Nothing outstanding that makes me cry or makes me laugh.

The ending was too perfect.

This may be a good read for others as each person have different preference in books

The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

This book is written by Deborah Rodriguez about her experience in Afghanistan where she had set up a beauty school for the women there. She is a hairdresser escaping from a second bad marriage by joining a group offering humanitarian aids to people there after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

She wrote that people broke into applause when she was introduce as a hairdresser from Michigan during one meeting of the team with other foreigners who were living there.

After that, daily she would received request from people for her to cut their hair although she was busy with her volunteering work. This soon arouse her curiosity about beauty salon there. She soon discovered that beauty saloon were banned by the Taliban. There are some beauty saloon started to operation again but at a low profile to escape public scrutiny. She managed to visit a beauty salon with the help of a friend and find that they are lacking very much in skill. This brings on an idea for her to open a Beauty School there.

She went home and set on working to get sponsorship for the said. She managed to get some and started to set up the beauty school. She interviewed the first batch of potential students. She were shocked by the reason why they want to join the beauty school and the story about their life

She also married an Afghanistan man after being match-made by her friends after meeting him for 20 days. Neither can speak each others language much. There are some tough challenges in their relationship.

During the course of her 5 years stay, she learn about the life and the stories behind her students.

But she was forced to flee Afghanistan when her heard not only there are threat against her person but also there are threat to kidnap her son for ransom

I find that the some things described in this book is not so right.

In this book she portrayed herself someone soft hearted and kind. Kind of savior to some of the woman in the beauty school.

Then why did she have to go and write how she helped a student faked her virginity on her wedding night? From her stay there, she would have know what is the consequence if this story gets back to the girl's husband.

Then there is her marriage to an Afghan man, Samer Mohammad Abdul Khan who is 10 years younger than her and which she knew for only 20 days. In page 101 "Afghanistan was great when I was with the students or my friends, but when they went home, I was lonely. It's a very family orientated-culture, but I wasn't part of the family. I wasn't part of a big NGO, either, where people live together in big compounds and become sort of like family. I wanted to stay in Afghanistan, at least for a longer stretch of time than the few weeks when school was in session. But I wasn't sure I could do it alone." Is this why she married him although she knew that he has a wife and seven daughters? Loneliness?

After she took her marriage vows, as written in her book, she was thinking "I was thinking worst case scenario : I'll just go back to America and never tell anyone that I got married"(Page 113).

In Page 122, she mentioned the reason why she did not tell her family about her wedding when she went back to America "I thought this was the perfect arrangement: three months in States with my cottage and my loved ones; two months in Afghanistan with my secret husband and continued involvement with the beauty school".

This is the part which raised a red flag in my brain. If these are her feelings at the time, it seems to me that she is the type that would put her interest first before others. Is she the type of person who would go through so much trouble to help women in Kabul without some sort of benefit?
In Page 190, one of the Teachers warned her about her son getting too close to a 15 year old student named Hama but she thinks "I thought it was important for her to know that other men found her pretty. I didn't want her to think she was stuck with Ali or forever tainted by his actions." Result? Hama came to school with a black eye and cut lips after her "uncle Ali" heard about Deborah's son and her. She have been in Afghanistan for some time and she should have known their conservative culture there. Like people say "when in Rome....". Changes have to be gradual.

Page 274, " Then I heard that someone is plotting to kidnap Noah and hold him for ransom. That terrified me-it was one thing to put myself in danger, but I couldn't risk my son. When I contacted some security professionals I knew in Kabul and told them my story, they told me to pack my bags and meet them at a safe place in ten minutes. I was not to tell anyone, including my girls or my husband, what I was doing or where I was going. ....". This seems rather fishy to me. Like there is something missing, not told here.

And in page 276 "I left behind not only all my valuables, but also my precious personal tokens-including the only picture I had of my father and my kids,antique dishes and other heirlooms from my mother's family, and the silly flamingos my kids bought me years ago..". Why can't her husband and friends forward the said to her after she left the country as she said she had communicated with them after she left the country and she sent money to all the girls to help them through the tough time? If not through normal postal channel, surely she would still have contact with some NGO volunteers who would be willing to carry the only photo of her father with her kids back to her.

This book seems to be full of contradictions.

Bangkok Days by Lawrence Osborne

Speak of Bangkok, all kinds of thoughts would comes to mind. City of entertainment and tourist attraction. People comes to Bangkok for Many reasons but Lawrence Osborne comes to Bangkok for its cheap dentistry.

He found that he can live in Bangkok for just a few dollars a day. He preceeded to explore Bangkok. There he venture to No Hand Restaurant where he was feed by the waitress and he was not allowed to use his hands. There was the story where he waited at the Bar to be pick up by women who would pay him for sex.

The things he described should have been interesting and exciting but from the way it was written, I feel it's a bit of tedious. I find that I cannot "connect" with his style of writing.

Well, one man poison is another man's meat. I may not like this book but others may love it.

Real Time Stories & A Reminiscence By Amit Chaudhuri

There are 16 short stories in this 184 pages book.

Stories are mostly of the modern Indian subcontinent. A wide range.

Among the stories, I like the most is A Man From Khurda District. It's about a man trying to help someone and end-up getting into trouble for himself and his family.

I don't really like the stories in this book. Too many of it with not clear ending and clear story line. More like hanging threads of thoughts. For example"Confession of a Sacrifice". The lady said she was aware that she is being prepared for a sacrifice in the future. But there is no mention of what sort of sacrifice that she is being pushed to. It was left hanging there.

I like story where there is a beginning, middle and preferably and ending. If no ending, at least a hint of it. Instead of just hanging there

1star out of 5.

The Associate By John Grisham

This book have been gathering dust in the store room for quite some time. Finally managed to dug it out.

The story is similar to The Firm. This round, Kyle McAvoy, a brilliant law student who is going to graduate soon. All big firms wants him.

That is when something which he did in the past came back to haunt him. He was involved in wild parties in his University days. And someone had recorded a video of him and his mates doing something which would destroy his future should the video be revealed.

He was then blackmailed. Surprisingly, instead of money, the blackmailers wants him to join one of the largest law firm in New York that would pay him USD 200K a year instead of the measly USD32K which he was thinking about.

Their "request" is that he was to pass them documents on a Billion dollars lawsuit that the firm had undertaken.

Kyle had to do what they wanted. He join that firm but he tried his best to avoid from being assigned to the said case. At the same time he also tried to extricate himself from this mess.

I found this book unsatisfying. Most of the things was mentioned briefly. Like how he didn't tell his dad about being blackmail. Also briefly about his girlfriend and his colleague who were working half dead. To me the story was loosely woven. I really miss the way he wrote in The Firm, The Pelican Brief and Runaway Jury.

Sorry to say that I deem this book worth 1 star out of 5.

A Voyage By Dhow - Norman Lewis

Bought this book some time ago from TIMES Warehouse Sale at RM10 for 3 book.

From the synopsis it seems interesting. It's about travel by Norman Lewis. He had travel far and to places where not many would go. Here it detailed 7 places where he had went to.

With each place there is a story.  Some are life threatening.

I should have enjoy this book but sad to say I did not. Story too long winded. If only there is some photographs.

This book is just not for me. Maybe others  will think differently.