Little Miss Apple Pie

Definitely one of the greatest and well known franchise. I honestly don't know where to start in this review of The Godfather. I just feel that the novel is too awesome and legendary to be critiqued.


The movie was excellent, if that word tops 'great'. But the book is even better! The book gave so much importance to each of the important characters in every chapter, thus making the situation or event even more easier to understand. Add to that the various point of views of the characters whenever the Don sends for them to do him service. Most of the time, the characters were frightened of doing a service that would put their lives at stake, but later on remembering the great service that the Don had done for them, thus ending up doing whatever it takes to repay him.


Every turn of the page is filled with information you definitely don't want to miss at all, or you end up confused. It's not a boring book, seriously, and just like the movie, you would have to keep your eyes open for surprises. Apart from that, the novel would make you go ga-ga over itself, and keep your emotions at bay on certain circumstances, like for instance, Sonny's death, although it came quite fast and ignored by the Corleone's, still lingers even at the end of the novel. The death of the Don, is another thing that would make you really remorseful and, at the same time, scornful about.


Mario Puzo is truly an entertaining author who have written, probably the greatest, masterpiece of the 20th and 21st Century. Forgive me for saying, but this is truly better than Pulp Fiction, and thus it deserves all the honors it has garnered. I would shoot myself to death if I don't give this book Five Cookies.

“My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. ” -Juli

I got to read this book about three years ago after my good friend Chase lent me a copy. The copy was not his, but perhaps he knew that I'm quite of a bookworm and probably he figured that it was a must read, that was why he insisted that I borrow it. I accepted the book anyway and started reading it. Here's the plot overview from Goodreads.com


Flipped is a romance told in two voices. The first time Juli Baker saw Bryce Loski, she flipped. The first time Bryce saw Juli, he ran. That’s pretty much the pattern for these two neighbors until the eighth grade, when, just as Juli is realizing Bryce isn’t as wonderful as she thought, Bryce is starting to see that Juli is pretty amazing. How these two teens manage to see beyond the surface of things and come together makes for a comic and poignant romance.


I honestly have forgotten about having read this book at all, had I not seen it in GoodReads.com yesterday. But when I saw it again, I remembered the two-perspective love story as I added it to my "read" list. Flipped, the he-said she-said novel written by Wendelin Van Draanen, tells the progressing love story of Juli and Bryce. The word cute is the best way, in my opinion, to describe the novel, and yes, I meant that in a positive way. I mean, with the way the story were told by second graders surely, you cannot think of any other way to describe it. Okay, so there may be other words to describe it, like creative or perhaps absorbing.


Flipped, is a well-crafted light read, it's also very engaging if you ask me. The story literally "flips" from one point of view to another, each chapter tells the point of view of the main characters on certain events and I find it really great as I am up for a lot of character background. I love getting to know the characters I read about. This book is also pretty hilarious, with Juli chasing Bryce, and Bryce running away from her; the story of how they met and how they eventually become friends. The story takes a turn from being hilarious to serious as the characters mature; the struggles of fitting in, coping up with family matters and figuring out emotions are most of the things found in the latter part. Towards the end, the story will give its reader a surprising little flip to funny and significant moment in the lives of the characters.


I personally find this book not only engaging and interesting, but it also makes you feel every emotion of both characters from their point of views, respectively. Also, this way of telling the story gives it clarity, it gives the readers a chance to better understand the story. This book is well suited for (although not restrained alone to) pre-teens. People my age would definitely get nostalgic about their first crush or first love, and most likely, their first kiss. Every turn of the page is another pace in the lives of Bryce and Juli to look forward to. With that, I give this book four cookies.

A Thousand Tomorrows by Karen Kingsbury is definitely my favorite novel of all time. I know there are far better novels written, but this certain book have captured my heart ever since the first time I have laid my eyes on it in the bookstore. When I saw it during my freshmen years in high school, I immediately saved up for it and bought it the following week. The best thing was it did not let me down.

I swear, every part of the book is still with me up to this day, even if I have lost the book itself from my numerous apartment transfers in the past few years. The story tells the wonderful love story of a Bull Rider by the name of Cody Gunner and Ali Daniels, a Barrel Racer. The story revolves around the complicated childhood background of Cody, and Ali's battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Having been angry at the world, Cody Gunner have met Ali Daniels, who, in the most critical stage of her illness, still managed to keep a smile on her face and motivate herself to go on and pursue her career as a Barrel Racer. As expected, they fell in love, but Ali eventually dies in the end.

I am probably a fan of tragedies as I have often fell in love with stories with such themes. (Consider Shakespeare and Nicholas Sparks, for example.) And this novel is a good addition to a Romance and Tragedy reading lists, if you ask me. A sequel has been already published and it's entitled "Just Beyond the Clouds" I will definitely make a review of that once I finish reading it, but with my pile of work, I cannot promise to do it soon.

It is really hard to tell a story this good without going in to so much details but I do not want to spoil every detail of the novel. To keep things short though, all I have left to say is that this book is great! It is a must read for every book lover out there.

Rating:
I will not be using stars, instead I will use cookies to rate the books I've read. The mechanic is the same as the stars though, I just find using cookies more unique and this novel deserves five cookies.

Decided to finally post book reviews. :) Hope you enjoy reading them! :D

A Thousand Tomorrows by Karen Kingsbury is definitely my favorite novel of all time. I know there are far better novels written, but this certain book have captured my heart ever since the first time I have laid my eyes on it in the bookstore. When I saw it during my freshmen years in high school, I immediately saved up for it and bought it the following week. The best thing was it did not let me down.

I swear, every part of the book is still with me up to this day, even if I have lost the book itself from my numerous apartment transfers in the past few years. The story tells the wonderful love story of a Bull Rider by the name of Cody Gunner and Ali Daniels, a Barrel Racer. The story revolves around the complicated childhood background of Cody, and Ali's battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Having been angry at the world, Cody Gunner have met Ali Daniels, who, in the most critical stage of her illness, still managed to keep a smile on her face and motivate herself to go on and pursue her career as a Barrel Racer. As expected, they fell in love, but Ali eventually dies in the end.

I am probably a fan of tragedies as I have often fell in love with stories with such themes. (Consider Shakespeare and Nicholas Sparks, for example.) And this novel is a good addition to a Romance and Tragedy reading lists, if you ask me. A sequel has been already published and it's entitled "Just Beyond the Clouds" I will definitely make a review of that once I finish reading it, but with my pile of work, I cannot promise to do it soon.

It is really hard to tell a story this good without going in to so much details but I do not want to spoil every detail of the novel. To keep things short though, all I have left to say is that this book is great! It is a must read for every book lover out there.

Rating:
I will not be using stars, instead I will use cookies to rate the books I've read. The mechanic is the same as the stars though, I just find using cookies more unique and this novel deserves five cookies.






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Most people I know are desperate to lose weight, especially now that summer has come. Those people I know have considered dieting, exercising and even surgeries! Yep, believe it or not, my good friend has seriously talked to me about a series of surgeries wherein the doctors take out a part of your stomach to make you eat less.

Such surgery is risky, I know and so I made a little research on it to share with my good friend. Upon browsing the net, I have come across a site called My Surgery MD wherein I found a couple of information about the procedure that my friend and I were talking about and found out that it is called “Bariatric Surgery”.

One of the surgeries I found under Bariatric is Gastric Bypass Procedure. This procedure is said to be for extremely obese patients who have found little to no success at all in a weight loss diet. This particular procedure decreases the stomach size of the patients, which then in turn becomes a gateway to successful weight loss.
This procedure also costs around $18,000 to about $30,000 and would depend upon the surgeon who would be performing the procedure and the technique that he or she is going to use.

Another was Gastric Sleeve Surgery, some tend to call it Sleeve Gastrectomy and this particular procedure that costs around $10,000 to $25,000 involves the removal of the large portion of the patient’s stomach.

The last procedure I found is called Lap Band Surgery. This procedure involves a silicone band that would be wrapped around the patient’s stomach to limit the amount of food that they would be eating. This procedure costs around $15, 000 to $20,000.

Just imagine that. My friend’s eyes literally bulged at the tremendous amount.

And although these procedures do have their benefits, still nothing is better than the natural way of trimming down other than proper diet and exercise.

I know a lot of people who drink and drive after spending the entire evening at a friend’s house and it scares me that most of them might be involved in car accidents in the future, or worse—being caught in act by the authority.

Considering the fact that a person driving under the influence of alcohol is against the law, they might not be involved in a car accident (yet!) but they can be legally charged for DUI (driving under the influence) or DWI (driving while intoxicated) when they get caught by the police. While first offense only charges the offender a misdemeanor DUI, a repeated allegation would result to felony DUI.

Being caught DUI or DWI is like being in an accident as well, in the financial sense that is. Just diminish the finances involved in getting the area cleaned up and the medical fees, but in the same way the offender will still be charged for the crime he or she has committed. The offender would need to hire a special DUI lawyer for his DWI defense and that lawyer would need to let the offender understand the sentence of a repeated DUI offense.

See, all these commotion only for drunk driving. So friends, please do drive safely and sober!

I honestly did not anticipate on attending this school year's college tour. For one reason, I thought it would be boring and childish, considering the fact that our itineraries were The Myth of the Human Body and Manila Ocean Park, add to that having my batch to share the bus with the annoying freshmen. I thought it would be the worst tour I and my friends would ever have, but I guess fate has once again changed all those sentiments. As usual.

FIRST STOP : Myth of the Human Body - The Fort

Our first stop was The Myth of the Human Body. At first, I thought that the museum would have something to do with the Greek gods and goddesses, but it turned out that only the halls (and certain body parts) were named after some Greek mythological characters. Cameras were not allowed inside, so I was not able to camwhore with my friends during our hour-long tour of the museum.

I found this exhibit really creepy, knowing for a fact that the museum used real human bodies, preserved in a way that the bodies would not have a terrible stench and that the bodies would not dilapidate, they also arranged the bodies into sporty positions as to feature how our muscles are stretched as we do different activities, especially when we play certain sports. The bodies are all of Chinese decent, as mentioned by the tour guide and among the entire exhibit, only two were European. One of the highlights of the museum is featuring various kinds of internal organs, from its healthy state to its worse, due to poor diet and vices such as smoking and alcoholism.

Another was a disturbing exhibit of the different stages of a baby's transformation, and even possible causes of death. Most of them, if not premature, stillborn, or overdue were aborted as abortion is legal in China. I could barely look at the poor babies encased in thick glass, some are even cut in half as to show what was inside them and some even showed tumors which caused their deaths. Well, that was the last part of the exhibit, thank God, but the best highlight I must say is the thin red veins that forms the human body. I have no idea how the people behind the exhibit managed to pull those things off a dead body, nor how they managed to put those fragile things in a thick glass, but all I know is that, it was really amazing.

It is a really wonderful (but creepy) experience, if you ask me. It really was made for learning, no matter how some parts made my tummy churn in a funny way.

LUNCH : Mall of Asia - Pasay
After touring the creepy museum, we headed to the Mall of Asia for lunch. On our way there, I sent a text message to my high school best friend, Gel, telling her that I would be going to MOA, and asked if we could meet and have lunch. She agreed without hesitating of course, she studies in Manila Doctors anyway and going to Mall of Asia is just a jeepney ride away. It's been over five months since we have last seen each other, and perhaps almost a year prior that. I missed her so much.

We had lunch with Abby and Felice at KFC and we tried to catch up with each other's life, but an hour is definitely not enough, but we had to bid each other good bye after lunch. Having half an hour more of free time, Abby, Felice and I roamed around the mall and had coffee at our favorite coffee shop before finally going to the meeting place to get settled for our next destination...

Manila Ocean Park - Roxas Boulevard
Our last stop is Manila Ocean Park, and I would have to admit that I had so much fun in that place more than I ever expected I would. Upon arrival, we watched an amazing bird show that I enjoyed so much. Seeing such talented and witty animals, no one would dare to say that the place was boring despite of the fact that we had to share the entire place with younger children. Yes, that really was embarrassing at first but we managed to get the hang of it.

After the bird show, we watched sea lions do cool random tricks. They really are funny, and I find them really cute as well. I felt like hugging them tight ha-ha, I think they're cuddly despite of how they smell. They are smart animals too, they're practically more human to me than monkeys. Harmless and cute creatures... le sigh. I just could not help but fall in love with sea lions. We watched a sea lion show right after that, which made me want to take photos with them but it's just darn too expensive. T.T

We had a very tickling fish spa right after the sea lion show, and I guess it's my favorite part of the entire tour. I have long been whining about having a foot spa, but I just don't have the time...okay fine, I was just too lazy to go to the nearest salon to have one. :nyaah: So anyway, the experience was really fun--literally. Everyone was screaming and laughing when those cute little (janitor-fish like) fishes swarmed around our feet and started "giving us a foot spa". I was laughing practically all the time.

Our tour eventually ended with a Musical Fountain Show, and I must say it' a perfect way to end a very tiring (yet fun) day. I would really love to go back to Ocean Park but next time with my fiance...