Movie Friends with benefits

Plot: Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it's going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe. They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications.

My thoughts: Very funny movie and hot too! Here we are presented to Dylan and Jamie, two people from different American states – he is from California and she is from New York – that suffered the same thing: got dumped by their partners. Because of that, they promise to themselves not to fall in love again. When they meet each other at JFK airport, he goes there because of a job offer at GQ magazine and she receives the order to go get him. Resented because of their broken relationships, all they want is to have sex without get involved and then Dylan has the craziest idea: let’s just get physical and not emotional. After that, there are a lot of hot scenes between the sheets, but of course never explicit – damn it! Hihihi Just kidding. But they’ll find out that getting physical may lead to other things too, even if you don’t want them. But is it worth it to ruin a friendship and an awesome contract just because of mere feelings? Justin Timberlake is hotter than ever and his role with Mila Kunis’s character really does the trick – she is beautiful and a really good actress.

Genre: Comedy

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Wicked By Gregory Maguire

Synopsis:  When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked?
            Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class citizens, and the tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West – a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

My thoughts:  One of the most amazing books I’ve ever read! We are presented to Elphaba, or as we know the Wicked Witch of the West, from her birth to her death and as we keep reading, we got to meet many characters that have an essential role in the original The Wizard of Oz as much as in Elphie’s story, like Glinda, the sorceress that helps Dorothy when her house falls from the sky.

            In this book, we are able to realize that Elphaba became wicked not by choice, but by consequence: hated by her mother because of her skin color, ignored by her father, slaved by her sister, mocked by her school colleagues – including Glinda. Everything goes around her skin and because she was green, she suffered intense prejudice, for been the only green girl of all Oz. This prejudice can be even related to what happens today at school with some children because of their appearances or income.
            When Elphaba gets to the University, she becomes the joke because of her ways and dressing, so she learns to take care of herself and have attitude for self-protection. The saddest of the tale is that every time that she finds a little bit of happiness – (SPOILER) like her love affair with handsome prince Fiyero, who owned the lands that one day the Witch would live in – she gets into an ocean of sadness.

            Concerning the Broadway Show, only the characters were maintained and most of the story was changed – in my opinion. It’s good as entertainment, but not very truthful to the book.

Rate: Book-

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Grace Kelly: from peasant to princess

Full name:                              Grace Patricia Kelly

Birth:                                       November 12th 1929

Place of birth:                         Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Death:                                    September 14th 1982

Place of death:                       Monaco, France

            Grace Kelly is one of the most admired women in the world. Even today, she is upheld as a standard of beauty, grace, and style. At a young age, Grace decided she wanted to become an actress, and studied acting (primarily theater) at New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Art and worked as a stage actress and model before moving to Hollywood.

            Grace appeared in Mogambo, which won her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Her work in High Noon and a screen test for the film Taxi piqued the interest of director Alfred Hitchcock, who, with the aid of Edith Head, pruned Grace into his ideal of the elegant, beautiful blonde. She gave Hitchcock wonderful performances in Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. Grace went against Hitchcock's glamorized vision of her for the film The Country Girl, which won her the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role of 1954. In 1956, she was voted the Golden Globe's World Film Favorite Actor, Female.

            Later that year, she married Prince Rainier Grimaldi III of Monaco to become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. As a princess, she gave up her successful acting career. She had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stéphanie. Grace died on 14 September 1982 after her car went off a road in the cliffs of Monaco.

Fallen, Torment, Passion By Lauren Kate

Synopsis: Some Angels are Destined to Fall
There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

My thoughts: When I started reading Fallen, I had no idea what it was about until I got to chapter 15. Before that, I kept reading with the purpose to find out what was the big secret. And I have to confess, it blew my mind. We are first presented to Luce, a girl that is sent to Sword & Cross reform school because she was thought to be a suspect of a mysterious fire that killed her boyfriend. But it wasn’t her fault! It was the shadows, who followed her everywhere she goes and she doesn’t know why. When she first met Daniel Grigori, she has a kind of déjà vú because she feels that she knows him. And, even though he keeps avoiding her, she can help herself to be drawn to him. Another character that appears is Cam, a seducting, hot guy that will try everything – literally – to have Luce’s attention; and of course we can’t forget Luce’s roommate, Arriane, sort of a rebel girl, and Penn, the only friend that Luce made.  When you find out what Daniel is hiding so much from Luce – which I’m not going to tell (hehehe) – you get so chocked that after a while you connect every single thing and you think “how could I be sooo blind? OMG! Daniel can’t be that! And what about the others?”. Yeah, I totally understand you. Every page is a little box of surprise right?

Synopsis: LOVE NEVER DIES

Lucinda is sure that she and Daniel are meant to be together forever. Now they are forced apart in a desperate bid to save Luce from the Outcasts–immortals who want her dead. As she discovers more about her past lives, Luce starts to suspect that Daniel is hiding something. What if he has lied to her about their shared past? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

My thoughts: After you have found out what Daniel really is, you think that nothing is going to separate him and Luce right? Wrong! In a desperate maneuver to protect his love from the Outcasts who are trying to kill Luce, he takes her to Shoreline, a school where the students aren’t normal boys and girls. And there she meets Shelby and Miles who are half what Daniel is. There she learns how to control those shadows that keeps following her.  As the story goes on, you start hating Luce so much that you almost give up reading. Please don’t otherwise you won’t know the end. She starts suspecting Daniel, thinking that maybe he is lying and that they are not supposed to end up together after all. With that thought the book ends with such a chocking scene that you ache for the next one, Passion.

Synopsis: "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you. Just as you have chosen me. Forever."

Luce would die for Daniel. And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn’t need to be that way. . . .

Luce is certain that something—or someone—in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey of this lifetime . . . going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel . . . and finally unlock the key to making their love last.

Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history.

Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames . . . forever.

My thoughts: This is the BEST of them all in my opinion! In this one we aren’t presented to just one Luce: but to hundreds of her while Luce searches for the truth about her and Daniel; and the same goes to Daniel: hundreds of him. And you think through the whole reading “How can you be so ungrateful Luce? He loves you isn’t that enough?”. The only new character is Bill, a gargoyle that decides to help her finding out why she keeps dying, but he has second intentions and plans for her and her beloved one. They go to the most historical place imagined: from Russia at World War II to Egypt at the Pharaohs period! Between getting into one Announcer – the shadow – to another, this book shows us an image of the extension of Luce’s and Daniel’s love for each other and that the forces of Hell are planning something very big that, if it’s not stopped, threaten to erase the whole story of both of them.

 
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Dracula In Love by Karen Essex

Synopsis: This variation on Bram Stoker’s Dracula tells the story from Mina Murray Harker’s point of view. As a child, Wilhemina was given to strange dreams and sleepwalking, which so alarmed her parents that at age seven she was sent to a boarding school for young ladies to “learn to control herself and her urges.” And she did become a proper young lady, with a proper fiancé, a young solicitor named Jonathan Harker. But the bewildering dreams continue, and one summer, which she is spending in Yorkshire with her friend Lucy Westerna, she sees a mysterious shipwreck at Whitby. After that the dreams become more like memories, and a presence, which she cannot see, follows her. Essex, who has been praised for her historical novels, has drawn a detailed picture of England at the end of the nineteenth century, including some of the horrendous psychological practices introduced from Germany. Essex’s twist on Stoker’s plot is sufficiently original, and the quality of her writing makes this novel stand out among the vampire offerings.

My thoughts: What a marvelous reading! We are presented to Dracula by the girl of the story: Mina Harker. With her, we discover an entirely different point of view of The Count. If you read Dracula, you probably thought that he was an ugly, mad and evil vampire; but after you read Dracula in Love you will wonder if you were correct. In this book, we are presented to a totally different Count, one that had fell in love and have been waiting for seven hundred years for his love to accept him again. With a lot of sexy scenes and romantic quotes from our handsome and rich Count Dracula, this is a “must read”, especially if you read the original Dracula and want a different way of thinking. Mina goes through many situations – from being attacked by a lunatic while sleep walking to find out that she is half immortal (SPOILER). The book shows us that maybe the Count wasn’t a vampire at all: just an eternal Merlin! With an astonishing end, Karen Essex shows us that even immortal beings are able to love someone and wait for them.

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Educating Caroline by Patricia Cabot

 

Synopsis: Lady Caroline Linford is horrified to discover her fiancé, the Marquis of Winchilsea, in the arms of another woman. Unfortunately, Victorian society considers such masculine peccadilloes a trifle; canceling their imminent wedding would be unthinkable. But Caroline's wish is for the man she is to marry to desire only her...and she seeks lessons in the art of romance from the best teacher - London's most notorious rake.

 Braden Granville may be a famous lover but he has no intention of taking part in Caroline's scheme - until he learns she has something he wants - the name of his own unfaithful fiance's lover. As their passionate tutelage begins, sparks fly - and the lines between teacher and student fall away. Now there is just one last lesson to learn - on the subject of true love, the heart chooses its own unpredictable ways.

My thoughts: Educating Caroline was one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read! We are presented to the sweet Caroline Linford, who discovers her fiancé in the arms of another and, instead of crying, she looks for the Lothario of London, Branden Granville – who is handsome, sexy and despite of all, very sweet – to teach her the art of seduction.  Branden, however, doesn’t want to have a thing which such a prune. How is he supposed to teach her the art of seduction? It doesn’t even make sense! But, still, he accepts it, because she has what he wants: the name of his fiancé’s lover.

                Their first lesson is the funniest: she gets to his office – he worked with weapon production – sits down right in front of him, and, full of naivety, pull her glasses out of her reticule and her little notebook. He just stares at her, thinking “What in the name of God did I put myself into?!”. As class begin – he was teaching how to have the best environment for seduction – she suddenly asks: “Can we skip to the kiss part?”. JUST LIKE THAT! He almost chocked at that one. She is asking him, the most infamous man of all London, to teach her how to KISS PROPERLY?! Really?

As the lessons follow, both realize that something happens between them, but neither of them wants to see much less accept it. The narrative get hotter e funnier page after page, as well as their love. The book shows that it doesn’t matter how you look like, how wealthy you are or where you came from, love can happen.

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The Lonely Hearts Club de Elizabeth Eulberg

Synopsis: Love is all you need... or is it? Penny's about to find out in this wonderful debut.

Penny is sick of boys and sick of dating. So she vows: no more. It's a personal choice. . .and, of course, soon everyone wants to know about it. And a few other girls are inspired. A movement is born: The Lonely Hearts Club (named after the band from Sgt. Pepper). Penny is suddenly known for her nondating ways . . . which is too bad, because there's this certain boy she can't help but like. . .

My thoughts: a good book. A good story, but the end seemed a little blurry. What about now? What is Penny Lane’s position in all of this? If the book’s title is “The Lonely Hearts Club” and the main target is to show that women can live without a date and be happy, why we didn’t see this kind of ending? Penny, our main character, could have continued without a guy. The end seemed like a happy ending instead of an ending that is committed to the title.

                Despite that, the book is really funny, so you laugh a lot. The situations that our main character goes through are great, creative and a few may be chosen as realistic.

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