THE SKY IS FALLING

When the last member of the so called American royal family, the Winthrops, was killed as a result of a burglary gone wrong, well respected Washington DC-based media personality, Dana Evans, investigates on the series of tragic fatal accidents wiping out the entire Winthrop family within a year. What started out as a seemingly wild goose chase, with her connections both locally and internationally, Dana pulls strings which allowed her to probe deeper and further into the confidential Winthrop family affairs. Her growing curiosity for the family's mysterious deaths led her to places such as Italy, France, Rome, Brussels and Germany. Little did she know that from the first moment she put her nose on it, the people that conspired to facilitate the Winthrop's deaths have been watching her every move. As she gets closer to finding out the truth, it becomes apparent that her and her disabled son's lives are in grave danger.

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Being a fan of Sidney Sheldon, I love how no two works of him are alike. Although his writing style is consistent and evident in all his books, the suspense and plot twist are simply unpredictable that there is just no way you could guess how a story would take its turn. I love how he gives his readers free travels to different places and introduces them to different languages and cultures. Although his works are fiction, I love how he incorporates nonfiction items into the storyline. My favorite is when he, what I phrase as, "drops bombs" in his books. He has this notable style wherein he would make a positive remark and then he would totally just kill it in the following sentence. For example, something like, "She has the most beautiful angelic face he has ever seen and held. So, he decided to slash it and douse it with acid." Or something like, "She has been feeling better since the last dose of chemotherapy. She is slowly regaining her strength and has been very active the past few months. She is looking forward undergoing breast reconstruction next month, and going back to work when she has recovered fully. Her spirits were high when she came for MRI this morning. Her doctor is put on the spot when the findings came back showing end stage cancer with widespread metastasis." (Please note that those examples I gave are mine and not Sheldon's. Next time I read one of his works, I'll copy and paste his exact bomb dropping moment.) Anyway, all those elements and writing style I mentioned above are found in this yet another page turner, The Sky Is Falling, and once again, this great author did not disappoint. Bravo!

Now for excerpts from the book:

“...time ticks on until it finally sends us into the same unknown eternity."

“Where his right arm should have been was an empty sleeve.”

"They invented charisma."

“It was hard to believe how beautiful she was. But she probably doesn’t have a working brain cell in her head, Dana decided. On the other hand, with that face and body, she doesn’t need any brains.”

"Snowball in hell..."

“Dana felt uglier by the second.”

“There was an unspoken message in her words.”

“The place was jammed with people celebrating the Christmas spirit by rudely elbowing other shoppers out of the way.”

“Anytime you want more, just tell me. And you better do it fast, because from what I hear, you’re history.

“There should be an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not abandon those who love you.”

“Tomorrow will be a better day.”

“Don’t go looking for trouble, or you’re going to find it.”

“There were still vague traces of beauty left, like clues to what once was, but bitterness had overlaid the past with a harsh brush.”

“Can I do anything?” “Say an extra prayer for me.”

“Russia has become a candy store — only instead of buying candy, you can buy atomic bombs, tanks, fighter planes and missile systems.”

Finally, I rate this book 4.5 stars - a half-point deduction for very few typo errors I found.

Wow, I wrote another book review. Looks like I'm hitting two birds with one stone here. I'm not only back to my hobby of reading, but I'm back to writing as well. Kudos! *high five to myself*

REUNITING WITH THE BOOKWORM IN ME

I love to read, and back in the days when I had sooooooo much time to spare, reading was my favorite pastime. My love for books started at such an early age. At 5, my reading and writing skills were quite advance for my age, and the books we had at our home library got me hooked into reading. I can still vividly remember how I flipped pages of Collier's Encyclopedia (we owned a complete set), and read through whatever tickled my carefree mind, one volume after another. There were several more educational reading materials and a few fiction books in our home library, and that kept my young mind occupied. At school, I was introduced to young children's books including Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, Choose Your Own Adventure, and Sweet Valley Twins (which as I aged later on turned into Sweet Valley High then Sweet Valley University). Getting older, I then followed the works of Sidney Sheldon and V.C. Andrews. When I had extra money back then, I bought paperbacks preferably pre-read ones (they're cheaper), so I rummaged book sales for those. I never ran out of books to read back then.

For some reason when I left the Philippines, I stopped reading books the way I used to. I would still grab a book and read every now and then but it was nothing like the way I did before. I guess I got too caught up adjusting and exploring this whole new world ahead of me that I somehow shoved the bookworm in me at the backseat. Anyway, long story short, recently I have started reconnecting with my inner bookworm. I have picked up on reading again and the most recent one I finished was The Divergent Series. It's a good read and quite interesting, although I have to admit that I think the ending was anticlimactic and I would've preferred a different ending. >>> SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't read the book and wish to read it, then don't read further here. <<< If I were to choose an alternate ending, the scene would be something like this: Tris getting weaker and weaker because of the Death Serum in the Weapons Lab. Then, wheelchair-bound David appears to kill Tris. She and David then engages in a fight with Tris struggling due to the Death Serum slowly taking its effect on her. Despite that, she manages to disarm David and knock him off his wheelchair. David crawls his way to the gun intending to shoot Tris. With whatever strength that's left of her (and all the climax drama of this particular scene in the book), Tris manages to release the Memory Serum just in time to stop David from shooting her, his memory being immediately wiped out. However, the Death Serum appears to have taken her last breath as she passes out after pressing the serum launch device. Then, she sees her dead Mom, and she talks to her asking her if she's done and her Mom says yes, yada yada, and just when one may think she's really done, Tris gasps as if choking on air and draws a deep breath, and that's when she realizes that she in fact is immune to the Death Serum because SHE IS DIVERGENT after all! The ensuing events will then be Tobias and Tris going back to the city and will start anew and rebuild their lives together. Jeez. I couldn't believe that after all the triumphant events that built Tris' Abnegation/Dauntless/Divergent character, the author decided to kill her. Anticlimactic, really. Oh well, I could only wish that when the third book turns into movie, they provide an alternate ending. Sigh! If it would make it any better, here are my favorite quotes in the series:

"His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the body's fluids flow into space it leaves. Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long."

"...confidence alone can get a person into a forbidden place."

"...politeness is deception in pretty packaging."

"Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable."

"A brave man acknowledges the strength of others..."

"...Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it..."

"I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand for another."

"But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point."

"...but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time."

"Or maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten."

"Sometimes all I want is to be a few inches taller so the world does not look like a dense collection of torsos."

"I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last."

"Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life."

Okay, that's about it. I didn't really plan on blogging a sort of book review here, but while I was at it, I couldn't help, so, my apologies for that. Till next book!