Off The Shelf

"I believe we have a choice in this world...about how to tell sad stories. On the one hand, you can sugarcoat it. Where nothing is too messed up that it can't be fixed with a Peter Gabriel song. I like that version as much as the next girl does. It just isn't the truth. This is the truth."   After months of waiting, I saw The Fault in Our Stars movie on opening night with some friends. The theater was so crowded that they had to turn many people in line behind us away! Hazel Grace Lancaster was played by Shailene Woodley ( Divergent ), Augustus Waters was played by Ansel Elgort, their friend Isaac by Nat Woolf, and Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster by Sam Trammell and Laura Dern respectively. Above are the opening lines to the movie, and right away Hazel tells the viewer that this is not your traditional love story. My friends agreed that this was one of the best parts of the movie because it makes the story more real, and less Nicholas Sparks-esque where everything is...

     {An odd mix of classic literature and blockbuster contemporary}   Currently Reading I am currently reading The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. I went to the bookstore (in fact,  I drove to the bookstore :)) a few weeks ago hoping to buy something in particular, but ended up coming out with something entirely different. I bought The Chaperone  because of it's beautiful cover and of course because of the ever-deciding factor: the blurb on the back, which in a brief summary states:   Cora Carlisle, a traditional woman from Kansas, has volunteered to chaperone the beautiful, yet arrogant 15 year old, Louise Brooks to New York City. Louise is on her way to becoming the silent-film star of a generation, with her famous black bob with blunt bangs and lack of respect for convention. Cora has her own reasons for making the trip, but the five weeks the two spend together promise to change their lives forever. Set in the 1920s an...