Top 10 Tuesday:

Top 10 Books at the Top of My Summer TBR List

06.19.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

I love summer because its gorgeous weather allows me the freedom to take my books outside, have a picnic, and perch myself under a big oak tree to read. The next best thing to soaking in the sun, is soaking in a good book. Here are my top 10 choices that I plan on reading over the summer:

1. MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

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2. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

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3. Ru by Kim Thuy

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4. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

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5. Aftermath by Rhidian Brook

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6. Touch by Alexi Zentner

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7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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8. The Selector of Souls by Shauna Singh Baldwin

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9. The Magic of Saida by M.G. Vassanji

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10. The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert

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What’s on your hot list this summer?

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Filed under: top ten tuesday Tagged: books, list, summer, Top Ten Tuesday ]]> http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/top-10-tuesday-top-10-books-at-the-top-of-my-summer-tbr-list/feed/ 0 zaraalexis top 10 tuesday avatar wallpaper maddaddam and the mountains echoed ru - book cvr behind the beautiful forevers the aftermath touch americanah the selector of souls the magic of saida the lion seeker zara alexis blog signature http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/book-review-a-consellation-of-vital-phenomena-by-anthony-marra/ http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/book-review-a-consellation-of-vital-phenomena-by-anthony-marra/#comments Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:11:42 +0000 zaraalexis http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/?p=6970 ]]>

Book Review:

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

06.17.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Literary Fiction

Author: Anthony Marra

Format: Trade Paperback, 388 pages

Publisher: Random House of Canada

ISBN: 978-0-307-36262-9

Pub Date: May 7, 2013

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Summary from publisher:

A novel of unflinching honesty, gutting humanity, haunting detail, and beautiful, raw hope dangling like a bare bright light in a basement.

A haunting novel set in a nearly abandoned hospital in war-torn Chechnya that is both intimate and ambitious in scope. Eight-year-old Havaa, Akhmed, the neighbour who rescues her after her father’s disappearance, and Sonia, the doctor who shelters her over 5 dramatic days in December 2004, must all reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal and forgiveness which unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.

In his bold debut, Anthony Marra proves that sometimes fiction can tell us the truth of the world far better, and far more powerfully, than any news story. You will not forget the world he creates–A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and its characters will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

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Book review by Zara from The Bibliotaphe Closet:

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra is deceptively a debut novel, which reads with the maturity and mastery of an eloquent and superbly gifted writer.

The plot, while sometimes serendipitous, lasts no more than five days, while the breadth of the story spans a rich history of seven people, even within the deplorable and harsh cruelties of the civil war that occurred in Chechnya, Russia during the 1990s.

While the result of the brutality of war is ever prevalent and graphic in the novel, the voice and tone of the book is reverently sombre, tender in its recollection, and intimate and graceful in its description and metaphor. It’s poetic prose without the self-consciousness of literary narcissism.

Marra creates detail and writes language with perfect precision and an ease that the fundamental ingredients of a beautifully told story is not only natural without being abrasive, it is also brilliantly evocative in its lyrical cadence and infuses the characters and their story with great feeling and depth.

But, make no mistake in underestimating Marra’s novel by restricting its merit to stylistic eloquence and literary genius alone. Even in its eloquent and dramatic title, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, and the mystery and lucidity found in the elusive fog of its cover design, both cannot deny the validity of the truth in which the book is grounded.

It is clear, a laborious amount of time was taken to research the historical setting and events that surrounded the Chechen conflict, which not only support the believability of the story in its graphic and creative detail, but also induces a passionate response from its reader, which transforms him from simple voyeur to fully engaged participant who is able to experience the emotional landscape that the book’s realism authentically reinforces especially through its acts of war, torture, and betrayal.

The characters, too, are vivid personalities—ones that you will harbour affection for, others you will abhor and be bewildered by. The dislike of one character does not equate the dislike of a book. It is indifference to characters that turn me away from reading, but in this novel, its character-driven intimacies are the life spark of my connection and passionate response to the complexity of the characters’ horror and the significance of the novel’s story.

I was moved by each one:

Khassan’s dedication to history, his second love to his secret desire, and his accrued disappointment and loneliness that moved him to eventually converse with a pack of dogs.

Dokka’s optimism and generosity of self, in faith toward nomadic refugees, and his equal power and precision with a chess piece as with a plum.

Havaa’s intelligence and precocious thoughtfulness, as well as the secrets kept in her blue, emergency suitcase.

Akhmed’s capacity for goodness in times of disparity and the fluid ease in which he draws portraits to commemorate the lost, the dead, the haunted.

Ramzan’s blind and fearless need for self-preservation, yet his maddening desperation for a father’s love.

Natasha’s absence both in her own life as well as in others, yet her perseverance to survive the most difficult trauma.

And Sonja’s stubborn resilience at the cost of her softer humanity in order to survive the exhaustion and terror of the evidence of casualties of war, and the all-encompassing obsession with the disappearance of her sister.

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The fluidity in which Marra writes is effortless and melodic. So many sentences in his work transform from the simplicity of description into stark, poetic revelation—and it’s in these lines that the depth of the story is not only intensified, but also made more beautiful.

Here are some of my favourite lines from the novel:

He was losing her incrementally. It might be a few stray brown hairs listless on the pillow, or the crescents of bitten fingernails tossed behind the headboard, or a dark shape dissolving in soap. As a web is no more than holes woven together, they were bonded by what was no longer there. – p.63

The things in his life that caused him the most sorrow were the things he’d lived with the longest, and now that everything was falling they became pillars that held him; – p.81

Despite the shock of walking into an empty flat, the absence isn’t immediate, not an erasure but a conversion in form, from presence to memory, from solid to liquid, and the person you once touched now runs over your skin, now in sheets down your back, and you may bathe, may sink, may drown in the memory, but your fingers cannot hold it. – p.120

When finished, she opened the doors to he new closet and bureau and felt pleased with her ingenuity. This is how you will survive, she told herself. You will turn the holes in your life into storage space. – p.182

They undressed by degree, a button here, shirtsleeve there, making a show of their shortcomings, their bodies androgynous with deprivation. It was remarkable to trust someone enough to be silly like this. She lay back. It was dark. Her lips found his. – p.321

So much of his marriage was a disappointment—childlessness, ailing health—but they were blessings, now, in the end, when he had to let go. Yet he’d grown to depend on the act of longing….knowing that doubt, like longing, could sustain him. – p.329

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And while I’m an avid reader who has enjoyed the taste of a sampling of good books, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, moved me to awe by its grace and sensitivity, and by the end of the novel, I wept. Its raw intensity and devastation will make you cry out and render you deeply anguished, while its fragility and fight for redemption will convince you to hope.

While I know I am not the first, the second, nor even the third person to read this novel—I am certainly one of a long line of people who have come to believe in its remarkable power to conjure a constellation of its own—and its story is as vital as it is transformative.

Thank you, Mr. Marra. This novel was a privilege to read.

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Characters:  5 stars

Pacing: 5 stars

Cover Design: 5 stars

Plot: 5 stars

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Zara’s Rating

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A special thanks to Random House of Canada for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unpaid, honest review.

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About the Author:

From Anthony Marra’s Official Website. Photo credit: Smeeta Mahanti. http://anthonymarra.net/about/

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Anthony Marra was born in Washington, D.C. He has won The Atlantic’s Student Writing Contest, the Narrative Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and his work has been anthologized in Best American Nonrequired Reading. In 2012, he received the Whiting Writers’ Award. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University, where he will begin teaching as a Jones Lecturer in Fiction this fall. He has studied and resided in Eastern Europe, traveled through Chechnya, and now lives in Oakland, CA. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, his first novel, will be published in fifteen countries.

- From Anthony Marra’s Official Website

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Links:

Anthony Marra’s Official Website

Add Anthony as a friend on Facebook

Follow Anthony on Twitter

Follow Anthony on Goodreads

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Have you read “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra yet? If so, what did you think of it?

What’s most important to you in a book? The plot? Its characters? The style in which it’s written? Its conflict?

If you haven’t yet read the book, what do you think the title means? What do you think “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” is?

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Nail Polish Lottery Club:

Week 23

06.17.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

The Nail Polish Lottery Club creates a fun way in which to go through your unused/untried nail polish by selecting a random number each week on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Based on members’ spreadsheet/database lists, whatever number corresponds on the list with the random number chosen, is the colour to try, wear, and post or v-blog about!

Would you like to join the club? Are you a nail polish hoarder? A secret nail painter? Do those colourful bottles just take your breath (and your budget) away every time you visit the beauty section of a store? Or would you like to just paint your nails from time to time and aren’t sure which polish to choose? Then this place is for you! (And Lindsay…and me…and oh, I don’t know how many others!).

For more details, check out the Nail Polish Lottery Guidelines here.

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This week’s random number is 220.

 If you don’t have that many polishes you can either use number 22 or 2+2= number 4 on your list.

Me? Well, to be honest, I cheated a little. This week’s nail polish isn’t actually in my collection, though I wish it was. This past Saturday was my husband’s nephews wedding, which if you translate that to a nail-fiend like myself, it really means: time to get a manicure and pedicure!

So, for my nephew’s wedding, I chose the following colour for my manicure:

O.P.I.: Don’t Pretzel My Buttons

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I’m not highly fond of the social pressures usually associated with weddings. There’s the dress to choose, the diet to go on, the number of people you expect not to know, plus the social etiquette required to shine in conversation, but also remain politically correct, as well as perfectly neat when eating food in front of strangers. And all this in heels!

But, the wonderful thing about weddings to a nail-fiend like myself is the opportunity and perfect excuse to get a manicure and a pedicure done!

So, on Friday night, I went out while my husband took care of the kids and chose this O.P.I. colour. Don’t Pretzel My Buttons is a wonderful nude and creamy shade, easily worn by any skin tone. And the best thing about it is that I can wear it after the wedding because it goes with absolutely everything. I love it!

Unfortunately, I don’t yet own it as part of my nail polish collection, which only means I have another colour to look forward to buying! Yes! Don’t Pretzel My Buttons because I’m buying this perfect shade even if I already own 200+ colours. Because for the hardcore nail polish collector and wearer, you can never have too many bottles (just ask my nail polish heroine and book blogging friend, Lindsay from Always a Girly Girl!).

Short story? O.P.I. = best brand in my nail polish world. Don’t Pretzel My Buttons = best nude shade that I’ve tried so far for my skin tone!

And the better news is that the wedding I attended was intimate and heartfelt. The ceremony was simple and focused on God’s presence in the couple’s lives, which was beautiful and a true blessing. In cases like this, it’s true when it’s said, “Less is more.” I loved that there wasn’t a crazy fanfare and that the most important people in the couples’ lives were there. No need for 500 people to attend, but a few important witnesses to support their union…and perhaps one person in particular, pretzled by buttons, but who cares? I had lovely nails, regardless, and a great time!

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And, just because I love nails, don’t think I’ve forgotten about my other love — books!

To integrate both loves, I’ve decided to also include with my nail lottery posts, a book cover(s) that I own in my library that I think complements or can be said to inspire the nail polish colour of choice or its art.

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This week’s book nail polish match is The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook.

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Have you ever tried the O.P.I. Don’t Pretzel My Buttons nail polish? How did you like it?

Do you like wearing nude colours on your nails? Why or why not?

What are you wearing on your nails this week?

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Saturday Snapshot:

My Cuñadas

06.17.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post. A special thanks to Alyce from At Home with Books, who is now retiring as host to the Saturday Snapshot meme. So sorry to hear you go, but I wish you nothing but the best and hope to see you return to blogging daily when you’re ready! We’ll be here when and should you return!

The new host of the Saturday Snapshot meme is Melinda of West Metro Mommy! Thanks for taking this on and continuing Alyce’s great collaboration.

Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

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“My Cuñadas”

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“When I married my husband, I added more than his last name to my life. The moment I gained a husband, I also gained five sisters (And they’re as catty as my real one!). Mi cuñadas son mis amigas.” – Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez

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I own copyright to all photos posted and request that any use of my photos be first cleared by permission from me with the use of an appropriate credit line, which I will specify and provide, as well as a link back to my webpage.

Copyright requests may be sent to me via email.

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Writing Wednesday:

Book Spine Poem 1

06.12.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

While I’m online, a lot of my time is spent listening in on tweets from the book community and because of this I was recently inspired to create a weekly sub-meme as part of Writing Wednesdays—Book Spine Poetry—which consists of piling up books with the intention of creating poetry by the use of only titles. No words can be added by the author, nor can books be used unless they are owned and part of the author’s book collection, which means the more books you own, the more lines of poetry you can create!

Because I love the ingenuity of this idea, I’d like to be able to create my own Book Spine Poetry every Wednesday for the Writing Wednesdays meme, beginning today!

Here’s my first Book Spine Poem:

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Book Spine Poem 1

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez

Everything was goodbye in cold blood

the year of finding memory

a thousand splendid suns

a mercy.

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This burns my heart

this world we found

the light between oceans

the sense of an ending.

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I am forbidden the world

without you:

the kindness of strangers

the sentimentalists

the hungry ghosts—

some great thing…

invisibility

a secret between us,

the time in between the last woman

the uninvited guests,

yesterday’s weather.

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Say you’re one of them:

the unchangeable spots of leopards

the season of second chances

a garden of anchors

one good hustle—

the other side of the bridge.

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(c) By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez. All rights reserved.

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Filed under: book spine poetry Tagged: book spine poetry, Writing Wednesdays ]]> http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/writing-wednesday-book-spine-poem-1-06-12-2013/feed/ 0 zaraalexis writing wednesday - blue border book spine poem 1 book spine poem 1a book spine poem 1b book spine poem 1c book spine poem 1d zara alexis blog signature http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/top-10-tuesday-top-10-beach-reads/ http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/top-10-tuesday-top-10-beach-reads/#comments Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:31:14 +0000 zaraalexis http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/?p=6949 ]]>

Top 10 Tuesday:

Top 10 Beach Reads

06.11.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

I’m not sure I understand the true premise of this topic. What’s the difference between reading a good book at the beach or on your porch or in a café? To me, a good book is simply that—a good book—regardless of where you read it. What then could I possibly use as my criteria for choosing books to read at a beach?

That, too, is a little difficult for me. Reading at a beach. If I’m at a beach, I’m there to swim, not necessarily to read. And I care far too much about my skin to try to get a tan. I leave toasting to champagne and freshly sliced bread.

Nevertheless, since this is the topic for today and if perhaps under the following circumstances:

• I have a huge umbrella to provide me with shade
• it’s not extremely hot outside
• the beach isn’t over-crowded with exhibitionists
• and I’m afforded the quiet I like when reading a book—

then yes, I’d pack these trade paperbacks that I already own into my beach bag (in any order):

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar, published by HarperCollins Publishers

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An Atlas of Impossible Longing by  Anuradha Roy, published by Free Press, imprint of Simon & Schuster

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Ru bu Kim Thuy, published by Vintage Canada

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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, published by Random House of Canada

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Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson, published by Grove Press

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This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park, published by Simon & Schuster

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We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, published by HarperCollins Publishers

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The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, published by Simon & Schuster

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The Unchangeable Spots of  Leopards by Kristopher Jansma, published by Penguin Canada

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Magnified World by Grace O’Connell, published by Random House of Canada

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Any of these books look like wonderful reads and I’d trek around with these to the beach, an outdoor patio, or café any day!

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Have you read any of the above books? If so, which ones?

Which books from above did you enjoy the most?

If you haven’t yet read the books above, which one do you think you might like to take with you to the beach?

What’s on your top 10 beach reads?

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Filed under: top ten tuesday Tagged: beach reads, list, Top 10 Tuesday ]]> http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/top-10-tuesday-top-10-beach-reads/feed/ 3 zaraalexis top 10 tuesday avatar wallpaper world we found cvr atlas impossible longing cvr ru - book cvr sense of an ending alif the unseen this burns my heart we need to talk about kevin light between oceans the unchangeable spots of leopards magnified world zara alexis blog signature http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/nail-polish-lottery-club-week-22/ http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/nail-polish-lottery-club-week-22/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2013 01:04:46 +0000 zaraalexis http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/?p=6939 ]]>

Nail Polish Lottery Club:

Week 22

06.09.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

The Nail Polish Lottery Club creates a fun way in which to go through your unused/untried nail polish by selecting a random number each week on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Based on members’ spreadsheet/database lists, whatever number corresponds on the list with the random number chosen, is the colour to try, wear, and post or v-blog about!

Would you like to join the club? Are you a nail polish hoarder? A secret nail painter? Do those colourful bottles just take your breath (and your budget) away every time you visit the beauty section of a store? Or would you like to just paint your nails from time to time and aren’t sure which polish to choose? Then this place is for you! (And Lindsay…and me…and oh, I don’t know how many others!).

For more details, check out the Nail Polish Lottery Guidelines here.

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This week’s random number is 206.

If you don’t have that many polishes use 2+0+6=8. Or some of you might prefer 20+6=26. Your pick!

I chose 26.

After mixing it up a bit, number 26 on my nail polish spreadsheet is:

China Glaze #987

Crimson

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I trust the China Glaze line enough to buy at least 20 bottles for my collection.

As usual, the colour Crimson didn’t disappoint. It’s a deeply dark purple that with only two coats comes out as a dark espresso and an almost black tone. While it isn’t as harsh as a pure black tint, it’s dark enough to get noticed, bit not to be mistaken for the style of goth.

I was a little messy in my application, which I think made the polish bleed more than usual, which isn’t what I find typical with the China Glaze brand. It’s a smooth, clean, opaque polish, perfect for wear in the fall or winter. (Or at least for my skin tone, anytime of the year!) And it’s clean enough to do without top coat, but if you want extra shine, you’re more than welcome to add a top coat of your choice.

And, just because I love nails, don’t think I’ve forgotten about my other love — books!

To integrate both loves, I’ve decided to also include with my nail lottery posts, a book cover(s) that I own in my library that I think complements or can be said to inspire the nail polish colour of choice or its art.

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This week’s nail polish match is China Glaze Crimson with the tear on The Immortal Rules cover by Julie Kagawa.

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What’s the darkest colour you’re willing to wear on your nails?

What nail polish are you wearing this week?

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Who M.A.C.’d Herself Out? I Did.

06.08.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

In my house, Saturdays are usually low-key. They’re the days that take us all a little longer to get out bed, sip back some coffee, and put our feet up reading the morning paper while the kids watch Saturday morning cartoons.

But, not this morning.

This morning, I was up at 6:00 a.m., sipping my coffee with proficiency, watching my clock, anticipating the day’s upcoming events.

My sister had somehow scored exclusive Estee Lauder/M.A.C. event tickets (which, by the way are gold) and offered to take me. ‘Lil, makeup-obsessed me. Of course, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to attend. I had attended last year’s event with a friend and if this year’s sale was anything like last year’s madness, then…ch-ching…there goes another makeup splurge!

So, back to this year. Today. Lineups. Frenzy.

The women that attend such events don’t necessarily go for the great deals (though, it’s a large factor)—we make-up, beauty hounds wake up literally at dawn, dress ourselves, drive out to the east end, and lineup from one building to the next to enter at a chance at participating in the event.

We participate. We don’t just browse idly with no hope of buying anything. No, we—these women with purple-hole-stamped tickets, purchased or specifically distributed by corporate kindness in the name of lucky perks—are on a serious mission:

• We chat it up with like-minded women in the lineup that’s as long as those comparable to Canada’s Wonderland or York University.
• We plan our shopping strategies in our heads before entering the premises.
• We have already mentally memorized our personal product lists.
• We urge ourselves to stay within budget, but inevitably fail at the sight of the actual products lining the tables that we feel we must get.
• We crane our necks to sniff out quality, colour, and cost.
• We dab our fingers, swatch our wrists, jot down codes, and hope by the time that we reach a table, the product we want isn’t sold out.
• We encourage our friends as they, too, frantically scan the samples.
• We create meeting places in case we lose, such friends, in the chaos.
• We discourage our friends from spending too much money—but they spend it anyway—and so, we follow suit.
• We even accidentally shove others in order to get the first peek at beauty goods in the name of “survival of the cattiest.”
• We get giddy. We squeal.
• And we don’t—I repeat—don’t tell our husbands what we bought.

What goes on at an Estee Lauder/M.A.C. Event stays at an Estee Lauder/M.A.C. Event.

It’s our beauty code. And we’re mindful enough that even though we’re competing against each other in haggling for the best deals and the most products, we respect, and even applaud each other’s efforts in stashing away some really great finds.

My sister and I arrived onsite at 9:30 a.m. and there was a line-up outside the building from one building to the next. We laughed with other women in line about the audacity of such a line, but knew very well, we were all in essence, the very same people to blame.

The lineup to the entrance. (c) Photo by Riza Garcia-Yarra. All rights reserved.

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While the line slowly moved, we remained tenacious in our mission of the day:

Get as much as you can for the best deals you can!

(Well, maybe that was everyone else. I pretty much wanted to stay in budget and find a couple great lipsticks.)

So, while we waited, my sister and I  discovered our aunt’s Doppelganger, gossiped about the latest news in our family, and promised to not lose each other in the fray.

Surprisingly, it was my sister who went nuts. And I mean BALLISTIC.

She kept saying to me, “I don’t wear a lot of makeup. I don’t plan on getting a lot.”

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My sister trying to convince me she isn’t going to spend a lot of money at this event! HAH!

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Yeah, right, sister! She literally ran from table to table, happily hunting, marking her territory. Her bag was already full and we didn’t even hit the second building.

Me? My bag was empty. I’m a conservative. I like to look at the whole merchandise. Scope out what’s available. Calculate in my mind what’s really worth getting. Because you know… with more than:

• 200 bottles of nail polish
• three dressers of makeup
• three cupboards of lotions
• and a box full of perfumes

…there isn’t a whole lot that I need.

Nevertheless, I tamed myself back this year and stuck to my guns. And unfortunately, I was really disappointed in their lipstick selection. There were only two measly tables of a few lipsticks and 85% lip gloss. I’m a lipstick lady. See a lipstick, buy a lipstick. My lips speak volumes. They pout, they smile, they eat, and they need a good moisturizer, SPF, and lip colour that kills!

But, not this year. I’d have more luck at an actual M.A.C. store, which would be triple the price and quadruple the snobbishness. Oh well. There’s always next year.

Here are the goodies I came away with from the highly esteemed and exclusive Estee Lauder/M.A.C. Event:

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M.A.C. Julie Verhoeven makeup set

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M.A.C. Lip Bag by Julie Verhoeven

1 M.A.C. Dazzleglass Crème lip gloss: Natural Talent

1 M.A.C. Cremestick Liner: Sublime Culture

1 M.A.C. Cremestick Lipstick: Cremesheen Nude

Retail: $70.00 USD

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M.A.C. Pro Longwear Eye Shadow: Always Sunny

Retail Price: $21.00 USD

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Coach Poppy Flower Eau de Parfum Spray

Coach Poppy Flower  Body Lotion

Retail: $123.00 USD

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Coach Poppy Flower Eau de Parfum

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Coach Poppy Flower Lotion

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Not a lot right? See? I behaved. (A little.)

Have you ever been to a M.A.C. special event before?

What’s your favourite M.A.C. product?

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Book Review:

The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai

06.06.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Shyam Selvadurai

Format: Hardcover, 378 pages

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

ISBN: 978-0-385-67066-1

Pub Date: April 2, 2013

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Summary from publisher:

In Buddhist myth, the dead may be reborn as “hungry ghosts”-spirits with stomach so large they can never be full-if they have desired too much during their lives. It is the duty of the living relatives to free those doomed to this fate by doing kind deeds and creating good karma. In Shyam Selvadurai’s sweeping new novel, his first in more than a decade, he creates an unforgettable ghost, a powerful Sri Lankan matriarch whose wily ways, insatiable longing for land, houses, money and control, and tragic blindness to the human needs of those around her parallels the volatile political situation of her war-torn country.

The novel centres around Shivan Rassiah, the beloved grandson, who is of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese lineage, and who also-to his grandmother’s dismay-grows from beautiful boy to striking gay man. As the novel opens in the present day, Shivan, now living in Canada, is preparing to travel back to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to rescue his elderly and ailing grandmother, to remove her from the home-now fallen into disrepair-that is her pride, and bring her to Toronto to live our her final days. But throughout the night and into the early morning hours of his departure, Shivan grapples with his own insatiable hunger and is haunted by unrelenting ghosts of his own creation.

The Hungry Ghosts is a beautifully written, dazzling story of family, wealth and the long reach of the past. It shows how racial, political and sexual differences can tear apart both a country and the human heart-not just once, but many times, until the ghosts are fed and freed.

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Book Review by Zara from The Bibliotaphe Closet:

The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai is an exquisitely rich story about Shivan Rassiah, a young boy born from poverty and the weight of a burdened past that originally stems from an abrasive grandmother that poisons her lineage to create a wilful and eventually rebellious daughter—and the fate of her belief in her own terrible karma.

Amidst the turmoil of a divided Sri Lanka where the tensions between the Tamils and Sinhalese people are a vivid and violent backdrop to the tensions between Shivan’s estranged grandmother and mother and the sides he is forced to choose from in order for his family to survive—Shivan also grows, discovers, and explores his own sexuality as a gay man and battles against the intolerance of his homosexuality by his Sri Lankan culture and community.

Between his grandmother’s controlling dominance and astute ambition for power and money; his mother’s depression and devastation at the failure of a western country, Canada, whose expectations she held towards were far too high in estimation compared to her real immigrant experience; and his sister’s radical extremism in feminist theory and racial equality—Shivan is often a victim of emotional liminality and displacement, marginalized in his culture and experience not only by being both Tamil and Sinhalese, but more importantly a Sri Lankan-born boy who immigrates to Toronto, Canada as a refugee and eventually becomes a westernized Torontonian and later, a Vancouver resident, open and active in the LGBT community.

The richness in this novel is found in the author’s ability to write with an eloquence and ease that give his characters resounding depth, authenticity, and a vulnerability, which readers can eagerly connect to and appreciate.

And the emotional landscape of the novel’s characters are not static, nor linear, but like life, mimic the fluctuation of people who change their minds over time and over a number of experiences.

The cultural translations of Buddhists stories also enrich the novel in metaphor and Sri Lankan culture, as well as intensify the substance of the novel’s characters.

But, the novel is not just entirely character-driven. The plot, too, is rich as it is turbulent and engaging. The capacity in which characters can love is just as passionate as their ability to hate and condemn, which drive them to illogical and unthinkable acts of cruelty.

The plot, filled with the torment of conflict and anguish, create an emotionally charged and gripping tale that will move readers to empathy and reflection about the importance of resisting exclusivity, answering the issues of cultural displacement, and advocating racial and gender equality, while defining the ideas of love and home.

Overall, The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai is a beautifully written book, full of substance and dichotomy, tenderness and heartache, tension and cruelty—a book that is so gloriously good, I couldn’t put it down—and still mourn the loss I feel in turning its very last pages.

A book like this is one is one in which you befriend its fictional characters in your reading and then miss them severely, feeling a loss at having to accept that though the story does not end, the book itself, has to. The Hungry Ghosts by this gifted and mature writer will inevitably leave its readers hungering for more.

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Characters:  5 stars

Pacing: 5 stars

Cover Design: 3.5 stars

Plot: 5 stars

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Zara’s Rating

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 A special thanks to Random House of Canada on behalf of Doubleday Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unpaid, honest review.

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About the Author:

From the Shyam Selvadurai Official Website.

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Shyam Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1965. He  came to Canada  with his family at the age of nineteen. He has studied creative writing and  theatre and has a BFA from York   University, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Funny Boy, his first novel, was published to acclaim in 1994 and won the WH Smith/Books  in Canada First Novel Award and in the US the Lambda Literary Award. It was also named a Notable Book by the American Library Association, and was translated into 8 languages.

His second novel, Cinnamon Gardens, was published in Canada, the  UK, the US and translated into 9 languages. It was shortlisted for Canada’s Trillium Award, as well as  the Aloa Literary Award in Denmark  and the Premio Internazionale Riccardo Bacchelli in Italy.

Shyam is the  editor of an anthology, Story-Wallah: A  Celebration of South Asian Fiction, published in Canada and the US, and his  novel for young adults, Swimming in the  Monsoon Sea, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and is the  winner of the Lambda Literary Award in the US, the Canadian Library  Association Book of the Year Award and Silver Winner in the Young Adult  Category of ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award.

His articles have  appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Toronto Life, Walrus Magazine, Enroute Magazine, The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. He served as Festival Curator for the Galle Literary Festival for  2 years. His fourth novel, The Hungry  Ghosts, was  published   April 2, 2013 in Canada, India and  Sri Lanka.

- From the Shyam Selvadurai Official Website

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Links:

Shyam Selvadurai’s Official Website

Connect with Shyam on Facebook

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Have you ever faced cultural displacement before? Where and how?

What unfulfilled desire do you “hunger” for the most?

Have you read Shyam Selvadurai’s book, “The Hungry Ghosts” yet? If so, what did you think of it?

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Filed under: review Tagged: book review, Doubleday Canada, fiction, LGTB, Random House of Canada, Shyam Selvadurai, Sinhalese, Sri Lanka, Tamil, The Hungry Ghosts, Toronto ]]> http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/book-review-the-hungry-ghosts-by-shyam-selvadurai/feed/ 0 zaraalexis zara wallpaper avatar - book reviews hungry ghosts z ring - small z ring - small z ring - small z ring - small z ring - small shyam selvadurai zara alexis blog signature http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/whats-in-your-pocket-scavenge-2/ http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/whats-in-your-pocket-scavenge-2/#comments Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:09:26 +0000 zaraalexis http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/?p=6913 ]]>

What’s in your Pocket?

Scavenge #2

06.06.2013

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

If you weren’t following me yesterday, you might not know that I’m a scavenger. I like to take everyday things that others may overlook and discard and turn them into something else for good use. My scavenging motto: “Why waste if you can paste?” And it’s a creative, almost therapeutic endeavour. (What kind of therapy I’m in need of is…well…bibliotrophic!) <— I’ll even scavenge letters to create new, non-existent words! That’s how “scavenge-obsessed” I am.

For example (and it’s a serious one), I cut the decorated cardboard remnants of empty tissue boxes and make them into bookmarks. Uh-huh. Beat that, Scavenger!

I’ll see a bottle cap and in my scavenging madness, will begin to collect caps of each beer brand known to man (my husband doesn’t drink, so you can see how difficult this little project can be).

Used postage stamps become an art collage.

My children’s used clothes get passed onto their favourite dolls.

Yes—my scavenging goes way beyond the realm of Penguin Books Canada’s Pocket Scavenger Contest. (Why I don’t already own their awesome journal is beyond me.)

So, here’s Penguin’s scavenge find today:

We’re still scavenging, and we found some currency & made it into a badge. We want to see yours! #thepocketscavengerow.ly/i/2hR25

— Penguin Canada (@PenguinCanada) June 5, 2013

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Currency? I’ll match Penguin’s five dollars to my measly find of two nickels! (Mind you, I was an English Major—not a mathematician.)

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In an age where debit transactions are the way to pay, I was still able to scrounge around and find these precious coins…

Hello, my two nickels!

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But, with a few paperclips, I’ve changed this change into…

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(Non)-Nickel-Free Earrings!

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And it only cost me 10 cents (and five minutes)!

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You just never know what’s in your pocket…

What did you scavenge today?

Happy hunting, kids!

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