Blog Luv Fest

Book-o-rama is hosting a Valentine's Day themed challenge. Here are the rules:

You can participate as much or as little as you'd like from February 1-14. Here are some ideas for posts:

•Reviews of books or movies with a romantic or love theme
•Valentine crafts
•Valentine photos
•lists of favorite love-themed books or movies (people love lists!)
•love letters to your significant other, child, pet, etc
•poems
•a special romantic recipe

Get creative and come up with your own ideas! Then come back to this post or any post on book-a-rama featuring this button and leave a link to that post. Also please link to this post so everyone can find their way back here.

Of course, I will be blogging about the books that I read. I am going to start by reading the classic love story Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Marked: A House of Night Novel by P. C. Cast and Kristen Cast (review)

Marked: A House of Night Novel by P. C. Cast and Kristen Cast was recommended to me by a friend who suggested this series for those that are fans of The Twilight Saga.

I loved this book! My favorite part about each and every series of vampire books that I read is how the author, and in this case authors, create their own vampire universe. But this "vampyre" universe has something none of the others do: Pagan and Wicca based spirituality.

This story is about sixteen year old Zoey Redbird, who has been marked by a tracker as a fledgling vampyre. Now that Zoey has been marked and is going through The Change, she must attend a finishing school called House of Night. There she will learn everything she needs to know about being a vampyre.

However, something unique happens to Zoey before she gets to House of Night. She is marked by Nyx, the Goddess of Vampyres and is different from any fledgling, and for that matter any Priestess that has gone before her. I won't tell you anymore because I don't want to give away any spoilers.

I do want to talk about how being a teen vampyre in this book is about so much more that having cool powers, teenage angst, and drinking blood. The entire vampyre spirituality is based on Goddess spirituality. Every one of the rituals performed in the book reads like it is a true Pagan or Wiccan ritual. I should know. I've studied Paganism for fourteen years.

Christians in the book are called People of Faith. While this first book focused more on Zoey's first experiences as a fledgling vampyre, it touched on the predjudice that Christians, or as they are called in the book, People of Faith have against Paganism and Wicca. I do hope that the mother and daughter Cast team includes expands on this issue in the rest of the series.

Even if you aren't into Paganism or Wicca, this book is a great read. The story moves very quickly, is unpredictable, and exciting. The story reminds me of the Harry Potter series both because it takes place at a school and because of the things that Zoey has to face.

I do have a two small complaints. My first criticism is that the book takes place over less than a week, and that time frame seems just a little bit unrealistic for the changes that Zoey goes through. Second, it's a series so the story is set up in a way that you have to read the next book to find out what's going on regarding one of the storylines. Granted this is a great hook to get you to read the next book, but it also happens to be a pet peeve of mine. I like my books to have all the loose ends tied up nicely in a pretty bow.

Overall the book is really, really good. I will definately be reading the entire series. There's four books in all. There's also rumored to be a House of Night movie in the works. My rating is an enthusiastic .

Social Justice Challenge: Why Does Religious Freedom Matter?

Why Does Religious Freedom Matter? is the theme for January for The Social Justice Challenge.

Here are some questions that were asked:
Q. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of religious freedom?
A. Right now I am blogging about my experience studying different religions. If I didn't have religious freedom, I wouldn't be able to learn about whatever religion I wanted, much less talk about it publically and remain safe. My blog can be found here.

Q. What knowledge do you have of present threats to religious freedom in our world today?
A. I know that in the Middle East people are punished for being Christian or teaching Christianity. Here in America, there is a lot of prejudice against pagan, Wiccans, Muslims, and athiests. I know of how the Tibetians are constantly oppressed and mistreated, but I'm not 100% sure that's due to religious differences.

Q. Have you chosen a book or resource to read for this month? (If not don’t worry, I’ll be updating the resource list this week)
A. No, but I have been reading about different religions.

Q. Why does religious freedom matter to you?
A. I want the freedom to decide for myself what religion I want to learn about and follow. I have the right to believe whatever I want and practice whatever religion I want. So should every other person in the world.

Strangely, the blog has yet to give a recommened reading list even though one was promised back on Jan 3. I went to Amazon and did a search for books on religious freedom. It's quite late in the month so I don't think I'll get a chance to read any of them. The book that looked most interesting to me was Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman.

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell (book and movie review)

I managed to spend the first three weeks of January without reading an entire book, yet somehow I read all of Julie & Julia in the past two days. I've had the book for awhile now but since the movie recently came out on DVD, I decided to read it. I can keep the movie rental as long as I want so the reason I read the book so fast is actually because it was so good,

I normally hate books on cooking. Memoirs, cookbooks, diet books filled with recipes...all because I really suck at cooking. This memoir gave me hope that with a lot of practice I just might be able to overcome my lack of skills in the kitchen.

But this book was about so much more than just Julie's project of cooking through Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. (Her blog is called The Julie/Julia Project.) The book is also about her biological clock and her desire to have a child, her job working for the government that was in charge of creating the 9/11 memorial, her life in New York, and her marriage.

What I found most fascinating was not Julie's cooking project, but her life in New York City. She talks about her experience of September 11 and dealing with the aftermath. You learn about all the different kinds of supermarkets and neighborhoods where Julie must go to get her ingredients. She lives the cliche New York City life that people like me in Indiana only fantasize about. I adored Julie. She is a foul-mouthed, sexual being who finds cooking erotic and explains it graphically at times. She loves the excitement of stormy weather and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has no idea what she wants to do with her life. (We have these things in common along with sharing the same name.)

Some of the book was hard to swallow, pun intended. I'm a carnivore. I love eating meat but even some of the recipes that Julie makes had me squirming. She cuts into a live lobster, cooks cow brains, calf spleen, and debones a duck. I'm no poster child for PETA, but I felt very sad for these animals. I was curious to see if PETA ws outraged by the book and sure enough they are pretty ticked off. I found this quote, "Upon closer inspection I found a woman who had taken the Julie and Julia challenge, vegan style. (You know that movie about Julia Child’s cookbook that all the vegans I know, including myself, refuse to see because of the scenes with cruelty to animals.)."

I must say that there was something very primal about doing all that stuff to the animals. In fact, Julie apparently enjoyed it so much that she went on to do butchery. No joke. She even has a second memoir out titled Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obcession.

The ending wasn't entirely satisfying. I had expected Julie to have some kind of revelation after finishing The Julie/Julia Project but instead her life just continued as before. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. My rating

I am doing the 30 Books To Movies Challenge so I will also review the movie and compare it to the book.

The movie was so different, but in a good way. Basically, the book was Julie's story and the movie was Julia's story. As far as cruelty to animals, the only scene where anything was done to a live animal was when Julie puts three live lobsters in a pot. All the other scenes involved animals that were already dead.

Julia's story starts out with her being unsatisfied with her life and looking for something to do with herself. She wants to cook but can't find any French cookbooks written in English. She finds herself in a beginning cooking class and is quite bored with it. The only more advance class consists of all men. Julia is "fearless" and despite being looked down on by the other men and the woman who runs the school, she becomes the best chef in her class. Who knew Julia Child was such a feminist?

Because of a chance meeting, Julia forges a business partnership with the writers of a French cookbook in English. The rest of Julia's story is about getting the cookbook published and Julia starting her television show. It was really quite boring.

Julie's character is boring as well. She's not the sassy, potty mouthed blogger like in the book, Instead, she comes off as a self-absorbed, whiny, childish woman. The scenes where she is at work dealing with 9/11 were depressing. Only the lobster scene is funny and that's if you aren't horrified by the idea of boiling lobsters alive. Well there is also the scene where Julia Child reaches into a pot of boiling water to take out some pasta and says "It's as hot a a stiff cock" which would have been hilarious but the botched editing totally ruins it.

The ending of the movie, like the book, is a complete letdown. Julie wasn't really any different than the beginning of the story. Julia Child, however, was completely a new woman who turned herself into a household name.

I gave the movie . The book was better.

Bex's Hexes- The Podcast Discusses Vampire Books

On my The Domestic Witch blog, Bex left a comment saying that she had talked about an article she had read on my Feminism Matters! blog on her podcast. The article was about The Twilight Saga and how Bella is the opposite of everything that feminism stands for.

Bex's Hexes - The Podcast was just incredible! I am a complete bibliophile so I really enjoyed Bex's dicussion about the different vampire books and books with pagan themes. I will definately be reading the books that she discusses in her podcast. She dicusses the issues that feminists have taken up with The Twilight Saga and how the series just isn't the best out there. I learned why The Twilight Saga was so goody-goody. Bex talks about how Stephanie Meyers clashed with her publisher on suggestive content in the book. She also discusses how books and movies are helping promote a better pagan image and get paganism accepted in the mainstream.

Bex is extremely talented at podcasting. She's very intelligent and articulate. She stays on topic and doesn't drift into personal stories or off topic like so many podcasters that I have listened to before. I will definately be following her podcasts and promoting them on this blog. Along with the Bex's Hexes Podcast website, Bex's Hexes-The Podcast can also be found at http://hoisum.podbean.com/

Here is a post of the article that influenced her podcast.

New Moon, Same Old Sexist Story

By Katherine Spillar and Carmen D. Siering

Sure, the film New Moon is breaking box office records, and both tween girls and their moms are swooning over pale-faced vampire Edward and hunky werewolf Jacob, who both vie for the attention of our ostensible hero, Bella. Isn't it romantic?

Well.... with just a moment of critical analysis, feminists can't be too happy about how the latest episode in the Twilight series, adapted from Stephanie Meyer's popular books, represents a young woman and her place in the modern world. In fact, the "New" film is really just more of the same, only worse.

Where director Catherine Hardwicke, who helmed the first film, Twilight, subtly tweaked the characters of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), creating a somewhat more equal relationship between them, New Moon director Chris Weitz seems content to let things stand as Meyer wrote them. Edward reverts to his overbearing ways, dictating the direction of the relationship -- in this case, ending it -- and Bella quite literally lies down and takes it.

In fact, just moments after Edward leaves her, Bella stumbles in the woods and refuses to get up, lying in the muck until a strong, bare-chested man carries her out. Later, we see her sitting in her room, staring out the window, as the months roll by. When she isn't sitting and staring, she is in bed having nightmares. Very empowering.

What finally rouses her is a vision of Edward -- which she sees after she hops on a motorcycle with a creepy guy. Even this ghostly Edward is bossy, scolding Bella to be careful, but it seems Bella likes, or needs, to be bossed around. Bella figures out that she needs to do "dangerous things" to keep seeing her visions of Edward. She somehow rustles up a couple of motorcycles and convinces her friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) to get them running. What follows is the requisite time-passing montage of the two of them fixing the bikes and, Jacob hopes, Bella's broken heart.

Like the previous film, New Moon wraps its romantic sensuality in a tidy abstinence message, but this time Bella denies her physical attraction and growing fondness for Jacob in order to remain true to Edward, never mind that he dumped her. One can't help but feel sorry for Jacob. The guy is crazy about Bella, and she tells him he is her "best friend." The truth is, Bella is obviously attracted to Jacob, and spends much of the film physically close to him. The two hug, cuddle, and come close to kissing too many times to count--but she always pushes him away at the last minute. To hear her insist this is a platonic friendship rings untrue, yet ultimately Bella is pretty callous regarding Jacob's feelings, telling him not to make her choose between Edward and himself because Edward will always win.

Bella doesn't come across as an empowered young woman in New Moon, especially as she uses one man to get over another. And yet, as Ms. pointed out in our Spring 2009 article "Taking a Bite Out of Twilight":

Meyer has insisted that she sees Bella as a feminist character, writing on her website that in her opinion the foundation of feminism is being able to choose. But what Meyer fails to acknowledge is that all the choices Bella makes are the one's Meyer would make -- choices based perhaps on her background as a member of the highly patriarchal Mormon church.

This is a film full of gender stereotypes -- testosterone-driven male aggression, females who pine away over lost loves, boys who fix motorcycles and the girls who watch them. The one role-reversal in New Moon, where Bella saves Edward for a change, is immediately negated when Bella's low self-esteem takes center stage. Even as Edward declares his love to her, Bella deems herself "unworthy" of it, being simply human while he's a vampire and all. Perpetuating the idea that this is true love -- torturous, painful, and unrequited--is detrimental to all of us, women and men.

There's something scary about "New Moon," but it's in the human encounters, not those with the monsters. One wishes Weitz had taken a page from Hardwicke's script instead of simply following Meyer's so completely. Next up: "Eclipse," due to hit theaters June 30, 2010. If there really isn't anything new under the moon-blocked sun, we'll expect even more of the same, and another missed opportunity to create a Bella who stands more on her own.

Katherine Spillar is executive editor of Ms. magazine. Carmen Siering is an assistant professor of English and women & gender studies at Ball State University.

The Jane Austin Challenge

The Life (and Lies) of an Inanimate Flying Object is hosting The Jane Austin Challenge. I have always wanted to read Jane Austen and now I have a good reason to!

Here are the rules:

--Anyone can participate. Bloggers: leave a link to your challenge in the comments. Non-bloggers, leave your name (and e-mail if you like)

--Levels:

**Newbie 2 books by J. Austen, 2 re-writes, prequels, sequels, or spoofs (by other authors)

**Lover 4 books by J. Austen, 4 re-writes, prequels, sequels, or spoofs (by other authors)

** Fanatic 6+ books by J. Austen, 5+ re-writes, prequels, sequels, or spoofs (by other authors)

--Challenge books can overlap with other challenges.

--Any format counts: bound book, e-book (check online for free downloads of J.A’s copyright-free books), audio book, or any other thing you can think of.

--Challenge runs January 1st 2010—December 31 2010.

--You can change which level you read!

I think I'm going to go for the Lover level! Books read:

1.

2.

3.

4.

The Memorable Memoir Challenge

The Betty and Boo Chronicles is holding the The Memorable Memoir Challenge.

Here are the details:

1. The Memorable Memoir Challenge will be hosted here on The Betty and Boo Chronicles.

2. The challenge will run from January 1, 2010 - December 31, 2010. You're welcome to join anytime.

3. Memoirs, letters, diaries, and autobiographies count as reads for this challenge. (Basically, if you think it is the stuff of memoir, it counts.)

4. Overlaps with other challenges are allowed. Audiobooks and e-books are also allowed.

5. Participants are encouraged to read at least 4 memoirs/diaries/letters/autobiography books in 2010. (Of course, more are fine!) The four was kind of a random number because I was thinking about the seasons of our lives ... hence, four memoirs ... but I want this to be a fun, low-key challenge, especially for those who might be new to memoirs or haven't tried them before.

6. You're not required to make a list, but feel free to do so. You can change your list anytime. I'll do a separate post with some thoughts, and will compile yours too. (Just leave them in the comments.)

7. To join, simply sign up by using MckLinky on this post. If you want to do a special sign-up post on your blog, feel free ... but just the url of your blog is fine.

8. Feel free to grab the button that Florinda made for us!

Memoirs I read:

1. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

2.

3.

4.