Three in a row – book review

I can proudly and quite unashamedly proclaim that I’m a sucker for chick-lit and romance (er, novels, that is).

A friend was leaving on vacation, and very sweetly offered me two of her novels, that I grabbed outright.

So first, I read ‘The Notebook’ by Nicholas Sparks. I was not expecting much more than a light and refreshing read, and I have to say it proved to be more than that. It was a typically quick read, replete with romance and emotions, suspense and drama. All in all, quite an enjoyable book. Leaves one wanting to either fall in love, or envelope someone special in a bear-hug, and never let go.

****Spoiler alert**** I wonder if this Bollywood movie was made AFTER or BEFORE the book was released?!!!

Rating: 3/5

Then I grabbed ‘A Walk to Remember‘. I was expecting to see the same amount of mush in this book, but very interestingly, I found a lot of humour instead. (Now, if I’m a sucker for romance, then I’m an even bigger sucker for humour :-)) The author does warn you in the prologue. He says, the book will first make you laugh, then cry. I wholly agree. You will have more than a few laughs in the first half of the book, and even the second half, despite being sad, is extremely sweet. The book reminds one of the innocence and freshness of youth 🙂

Rating: 3.5/5 (enjoyed the humour)

And yesterday, I happened to get another book from the library. I had reserved ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ after reading a FB message by Rakesh (and loads of comments from our usual comment monsters :lol:) and I THOUGHT I was going to collect this book, but happened to bring home ‘Dear John’ instead.

Now, I confess felt very slightly bored, at the beginning of the book. However, it rapidly picked up pace, and I found myself, wanting to finish it before the day ended. And I did 🙂 (Kind courtesy: Little brat who very sweetly decided to keep himself occupied with winding his microphone around his hands and legs!!!!)

The synopsis of the book certainly does not do justice to the plot. This is not the usual ‘love story’.

For one, the characters in the book have been etched so beautifully, that you feel their love, their anxiety and their pain. They are very real.

Secondly, it gives one a glimpse into the ugly face of War, and how troops deputed in war zones actually spend their life. One actually ponders about the futility of it all.

And third, the book is not just about the love between a man and a woman, but also about the delicate relationship between a father and son. I loved the way this was brought out, in a very subtle and tender way.

To me, the character that stands out the MOST, is one that is mentioned neither on the back-cover nor the website. It is that of the Father of the protagonist. He is a simple, good man, who lives his life exactly the same way each day, but is a terrible social misfit. The father suffers from autism, and the way he reaches out to his son, in his own unique manner, twists and wrings your heart!!

Every character is true to life, and in those couple of hours spent on reading the book, one actually understands WHY each character takes the decisions he/she does, and how it seems both logical yet sad.

You must read the book, to FEEL what this is about.

I loved it, and I think it has made me more understanding of how a developmental problem can affect the lives of the person and his/her family and loved ones.

A note of caution : .This is a heart-wrenching book. It left me incredibly sad and dejected, wondering why life cannot be more simple. So, please save this for a long weekend, where you can recover and bounce back to your happy self 🙂 before the week begins again.

Rating: 4/5 (Exquisite characterisation)

Something I found to be a common undercurrent in all three books, was the almost naive, but constant emphasis on ‘true and ever-lasting love‘ (assuming, there is such a thing!).

I also liked the fact that the author managed to keep the ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’ from not jumping into bed, at the drop of a hat (or anything else for that matter). I understand that can be quite a put-off for a Mills & Boon fan 😈 😆 but it made ‘love‘ seem more special. Old-fashioned, perhaps. But ‘sacred‘ nevertheless.

As for the language and quality of writing, I was not expecting much, being ‘romance’ and ‘chick-lit’ and all. And neither am I into reading ‘difficult’ books (aka, I can’t understand them 😛 I’d much rather read a simple easily understandable sentence, rather than a paragraph full of words that contain 4 or more syllables! 😆 So yes, the language was simple, engrossing, and made all the books an entertaining read.

I just happened to find this link on Youtube.

So, if any of you happen to be die-hard romantics, do grab a copy and a bunch of tissues.

Happy Sunday, folks.

DDLJ Live!!

Picture this awesome scene from the movie DDLJ – SRK and Kajol are running to catch the train, he hops aboard first, then heroically lends her a hand and she manages to get in too! 

This is pretty much what happened on our recent trip to Disneyland Paris!! 

Well not exactly, but something similar… 

On a sudden whim, we decided on Thursday, to make a quick trip to Disneyland Paris 🙂 

 

Our onward trip was rather uneventful, except for the fact that I (un)wisely decided to take only my old dabba (not so good) camera and leave behind hubby’s new one!! 

Once we boarded the train, the tummy let out a rumble, so we opened out the aloo parathas that were meant for dinner (!!) and gobbled them up, quite oblivious to the glares from fellow-passengers 😉 In fact, I wanted to open even the Achaar and Yogurt (but I wasn’t carrying any of the former, and the latter was a HUGE tub, and even I felt embarassed to dip the paratha into it ;-)) 

As we reached, the weather Gods decided to make our trip rather memorable. We looked out of the train, to find, that everything to our left was Bright and Sunny and absolutely beautiful 🙂 ! While, everything to our right was CLoudy, Dark and morose 😦 🙄 Then, a light drizzle, followed by slightly heavy rain, and in a few minutes, LIGHTNING!! Luckily, the sky cleared up just before we reached our destination – Marne-la-Vallée. 

We had read mixed reviews of our hotel on the internet. So our expectations were not that high! Thankfully!! The room was clean, no doubts, but it was Teeeeeeeeeeeeny Tiiiiiiiny!! There was one little sofa-bed which, once pulled out, left no space to even walk around the room! The bathroom was huge, which was really nice. There was also a tiny kitchenette, which pretty as it sounds, was also rather useful. Typical South Indian that I am, I actually carried a little rice cooker, paruppu-podi (and yogurt ofcourse, which is my staple diet :razz:) 

Saturday morning was rather strange. As we ate our minimal breakfast (yummy croissants with jam) – and I say ‘minimal’ because the hotel didn’t provide fruits or cheese! – a thunder storm had broken out!! It was pouring…and we weren’t quite equipped for it!! All we had was one umbrella between the three of us (but the smart Mommy that I am, I had packed a raincoat for the Brat). 

Anyway, we brave soldiers marched onwards to the mini shuttle that took us to the Disney Park. The local store made some massive business that day via Raincoat sales!!! So we donned our disposable raincoats and went all around the Park. We took a ride in the little train. The MAP looked rather daunting! What with all those mountains, forests, little rivulets and all. But soon, we realised the actual Disney Park wasn’t all that difficult to manouvre around. 

It was amazing, how clean the park remained even with all the rains. There was no litter, no dirt… it was actually magical 😉 

In a couple of hours, the rains stopped, and then we had a ball!! 

We went on several rides. There was one Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups, that spun us round and round. Then, there was this other Merry Go Round. Remember the ones we find on beaches in India? Same thing. Just a little more colourful and cleaner. For a change, instead of hubby and me taking turns, all three of us went on the ride together!! The brat sat on the horse in the middle, while we were on either side. I loved this part!! And to my luck, obviously, when the ride stopped, my horse was high up in the air, and I struggled to get off it!! I am so glad I didn’t fall and make a fool of myself, which I am normally bound to do!! 

Pic courtesy: Google

 

There was this Big Thunder Mountain Train-ride.. which was a breath-taking experience. The train was super speedy (as my brat calls it) and the carriages threatened to THROW us out horizontally!! The train went through tunnels that were PITCH DARK and steeped really high/low in turns!! We were all screaming our lungs out. At one point, I actually thought one of us would just fall into the ravine beside the little hill!! But this was the most memorable ride of all 🙂 Little R loved it 😉 

There were beautiful parades, of all the cartoon characters… Pooh bear, Piglet, Tigger, Mickey and gang, etc…. Infact, I got pretty emotional when I saw all the fantasy Princesses and their respective Princes. I’ve lived on fairy tales all my life, so to see them in ‘pseudo-reality’ was rather moving 🙂 Call me crazy, if you like, but I did get senti!! 

 

We also went in a Maze with a little castle at the top. From our prior experience, we have no luck with Mazes. At Hampton Court palace, we actually forgot to visit the maze!! At Leeds Castle, we did enter the maze, but 30 minutes down the line, we had just made three trips to the ‘EXIT’ and not reached anywhere near the centre! Now, this Disney Maze, for a change, was really quite easy. We found it in about 20-25 minutes and were rather thrilled as we reached the centre!! 

As we sat to refresh ourselves over coffee, there was this HUGE tea-pot from which a little Rabbit would pop out every few minutes. I put R on it to take a photo. After which, there was this other Indian family, with 3 boys all climbing the tea-pot. One of them was standing at the very tip of the spout and YELLING OUT LOUD to his parents to take a pic before he fell down!! The parents were busy drinking something and chatting away happily 🙂 I’m not sure if they even got a picture of the heroic stunt 😯 

By end of day, we were poooooooped!! We got back to the hotel, to eat our precious ‘curd-rice’ 😉 and crash into the lumpy sofa-bed!! 🙄 

Sunday was Hot Hot Hot. We were also tired from the previous day’s excitement, so we spent the first couple of hours, in the Disney Village (window-shopping) and went on a quick ride on a beautiful Hot Air Balloon. It was stationary though..meaning, it was tied down to the base by a thick rope. Made me wonder.. what if.. the rope snapped and we went far far away… gosh.. it was both scary and fascinating. 

We spent the second half of the day at Disney Studios. This had many shows – animation, live puppet shows, etc. etc. And yes, we had a good time at all these. Especially a Motor Stunts show, which I vehemently opposed, but ended up enjoying thoroughly. 

Yeah, so back to our DDLJ in Real Life scene! 

It was 6 pm, and our train was to leave at 7:34. We decided to be extra cautious, and reached the station by 6:30 itself! And waited. And waited. AND waited. There were no signs, and all the announcements were in French, which neither of us knew!! (The only thing we know now, thanks to R, is ‘Bonjour Come Es Stas’). 

At about 7:15, little R had a bad fall – right on his face – cut his lower lip really badly – and was bleeding and howling with pain and shock!! 

And in all that chaos, at around 7:25, the departure board announced that our train was to depart at platform 3. we were right at the gate. But… the gate was closed!!! 

So we ran – literally ran – with bag, baggage and a screaming child – to the other end of the station – and tried to get through the other gate. And guess what? Even that was closed!! 

Then we asked the Info guy, and he pointed out that we had to ‘check-in’. And as we discussed what we ‘should have ideally done’, we saw our train slowly chugging away!! 

The Helpdesk however, on seeing R’s lip wounds, suggested that we catch the local subway to Paris city, change to another train, and then take the Eurostar back to London. 

We were left with no choice!! We again ran ran ran all the way to the ticket counter, managed to get onto the subway and counted every minute as the train slowly slowly slowly pulled into Paris. 

After a heart-stopping and breath-taking one hour, we finally made it to Gare Du Nord station. And guess what? It was 9:05, and the LAST Train to London was to leave at 9:13!!! And, to top it all, there was a serpentine queue for immigration and security check!! 

I tried to get some sympathy from one of the female staff, thinking she would understand our situation with the missed train, baggage and wounded baby!! She was rather unsympathetic though. 

Then Hubby worked his magic on one of the staff, who finally helped us jump the queue. And by this time, it was already 9:20. We were sure that by the time we completed our check-in process, this train too, would have left!! 

Anyway, we continued to run, run and run. So there was my SRK running in front of me, carrying the brat, who was by now, screaming his life out, in pain, shock and sorrow!!!! And me, running right behind, panting, almost about to throw up (sorry for the graphic description) and carrying a trolley and two backpacks and some other junk that I could have easily just left behind!!! The staff watching on, had a taste of DDLJ 🙂 Just that, instead of a lovely Kajol, all they got was a panting fatso 😉 and screeching baby 😯 !! A couple of the staff actually said ‘Don’t worry, you have time!’  

And you know what I realised after this incident – Kajol was carrying an EMPTY suitcase!!!! 🙄 Cheats!! 

Like my friend commented on FB, ‘ordinary people huffing and puffing, with REAL luggage, is not romantic at all’!! 😦 

And just as we jumped into the train, the doors shut……..but YAYYYYYY!!! We actually made it!! We reached home by 12:00 am. Exhausted, but so relieved just to be back!! 🙂 

So there ended our Disneyland adventure 🙂 And guess what? No matter how awesome a holiday is, there is nothing better than Home!! 🙂 

Happy Weekending, folks!