Haven’t posted for so long

It’s been such a long time since I have posted anything on my blog ((

I even started feeling sorry for it.

But during the day I do so much writing, editing, and reading, that when it comes to my blog, I have no strength left to post something. Which is a shame, ‘cause I’ve been doing lots of interesting things, working on new projects, and where else should I talk about them if not on my blog?

After I got into the zero waste lifestyle a few years ago, I’ve started a Facebook blog about it, and recently have finished writing a book about my life as a zero waster. Now I’m trying hard to get it published :)

I’m also working on my fiction: the 2nd book of Abracadabra series and other new things.

There are other things going on too, both good and bad, and as I look at it all, I can see why at the moment I don’t have time or strength for my blog. With the quarantine in the world it might seem that people have more free time than they used to, but I don’t think we do. Those who worked hard before the quarantine, continue so during it, and will keep working after. 

I could just delete this blog and forget about it, but I don’t like the idea. I started here, and I love looking back at it. Gosh, it seems to be so long ago when I just started my journey of writing and publishing in a foreign language. And it still hasn’t gotten easier, ha, ha!

So, I may not post on my blog as often as I’d love to, but each time I finish a project I will write about it.

Your loving witch,
Irena

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is one of those rare cases, where the movie is sooo much better than the book. I am angry with myself for wasting my time on this book, but it was solely my fault, or rather, my silly habit of finishing a book once I’ve started it. I should’ve thrown it away after the first 4 chapters. But then, I admit that there were two chapters that I skipped in the middle, because one of them was about the Don’s godson, a Hollywood celebrity who couldn’t do anything on his own (yes, the famous horse scene) and that 100-paged chapter went on and on about his boring life, his mediocre personality, and his uninteresting misfortunes about losing his voice and not getting movie roles. I couldn’t give a damn about Johnny Fontaine and his lousy existence, no matter what real-life celebrity he was supposedly copied from. What the hell was that character doing in a book about mafia?

The other chapter was about a woman with whom Sonny Corleone had an affair and her whole story was about her big vagina. Yes, you read it right. She had a very large vagina and that’s why the godly endowed Sonny (we read a lot about his size) made her feel good. Then she met a doctor who performed a surgery on her vagina... No, I’m not making this all up. This was in a book about mafia. A book on which are based two fantastic movies. This is where I have to thank F.F Coppola for shooting something so good based on a material so average and dull. The prose was boring, repetitive, lifeless. Sometimes it read like a draft, not a finished book. The characters were mere mannequins. And Puzo seemed to be in love with the character of the Godfather, because I lost the count of how many times he mentioned the Don’s “genius”. How many times in a single book can you say that the Don was pure genius, his ideas were genius, his actions were genius?

There were so many things wrong in this book, but I won’t be spending my time mentioning them. I better find something more interesting to read.

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Confessions by Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review might contain spoilers.
I bought this book as soon as I read the premise, because it was just too intriguing. A teacher’s little daughter has been killed by her students and she seeks revenge. It sounded interesting and the beginning did capture my interest, but the more I read the more I rolled my eyes. There was too much of everything in one short book. How come there were so many sociopaths and bullies in a single class of 13 y.o. kids? And not just the kids: there were 3 mothers in the book and all 3 were weird in one way or the other. One was abusive, the other dotted on her kid too much and in the end decided to kill him and herself, and the third, the teacher, starts a revenge which results in the death of an innocent student, but she doesn’t even feel guilty. Not in the least. She does something else in the end, which again was just too unbelievable. I know that grief might drive people to madness, but that was too much.
Also, one of the evil kids was too genius, the other too stupid. In the age of internet and technology, a 13 y.o boy in Japan doesn’t think about testing his blood at a lab or googling AIDS which he thinks he has contacted? Not plausible. As for the genius, he was smart but also an idiot to tell of his evil plan on his website. Oh well...
A lot of things in this book were implausible and if I start writing about everything that bugged me, this will become a very long review.
As I said, the premise was interesting, but I was expecting something else. I don’t know, something more serious. This book read like a young adult revenge story, not an adult thriller.


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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A book that broke my heart. Turned my world upside down. Made me a better person.
And isn’t it amazing that a single book can do so many things to you, break your heart and mend it, then shatter it again and squeeze the blood out of the shards? Someone might say, “it’s just a book, it can’t do so many things.” And I’ll tell them, “go read it yourself and tell me you’re still the same person.”
In the last decades whenever someone would ask me what was my favorite book, I wouldn’t know which one to name. I’ve read so many fantastic books and each of them has given me something, and it’s always hard to pick just one. Well, I know now that if I get asked that same question, I will always think of “Flowers for Algernon.”
Thank you Daniel Keyes for giving me this lesson on humanity.


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Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was such an interesting story, but so unbelievable. Everything was great: the writing, the pace, the characters, but I can’t make myself believe that the doctors and the whole asylum would go to such lengths. Guess I can’t suspend disbelief that much, because the truth was just too unbelievable for me.
And still, this was suspense at its best, when you feel that something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. I hadn’t watched the movie so I went into the book knowing only that there’s some kind of twist in the end. I took the wrong path at first, thinking that Teddy’s partner was never there and just his imagination, but because the other characters were interacting with the partner, I stopped suspecting something was wrong there. The author fooled me nicely and I loved it.
I recommend this book if you haven’t watched the movie. But then, read it nevertheless: it was so well written :)


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