Stardust: A Not-So-Eloquent-But-Nevertheless-Meaningful Review

Stars. For ordinary boring unimaginative beings, they're just inanimate metallic heavenly bodies that for certain reasons unknown has the capacity to fall and tumble into the earth, but then, in Neil Gaiman's world, they're temperamental delicate beings that shine, glimmer and sparkle in the shadows of the dark.

Neil Gaiman. He never fails to amaze me! A story teller of grand caliber, who in my own humble opinion have once been either a fallen star, or a naive half-human half-Faerie wandering prince, or an ambitious cold-hearted witch or a cunning unduly suspicious king-to-be, to have depicted vividly the entire story in a very convincing and amusing manner. With his superior imagination and witty words, HE is an author worthy of godlike worship and praise.

The story started in a town appropriately called Wall since the only interesting fact about the place is that a wall separates it from Faerie land and it is in Wall that Victoria Forrester, Tristran Thorn's ultimate love asked for a fallen star in exchange for anything that his heart desires. And so, Tristran, with love for a reason and nothing but a leather backpack in his shoulder, courageously embarked on a journey and unknowingly face his destiny.

Along the way in his quest for the fallen star, Tristran met a hairy midget who helped him reach the star in the fastest method possible and that is through a Babylon candle. Then he found Yvaine, the fallen star who unfortunately broke her leg on her fall. Upon pursuing Yvaine who was getting away astride in a unicorn, he met Primus, the eldest among the princes of Stormhold. After that, Tristan faces the witch-queen, who was also pursuing the fallen star but unlike Tristran, she only wants her shining heart to bring back her own and that of her witch sisters' youth. And while escaping the sly witch-queen, they met the magnanimous captain of the Perdita, a flying ship which captures lightning.

Stardust is not your average fairytale story. It does not involve any violent battles between good and evil. Nor does it have a happy ending. What makes it special is that what happens in the story can happen in reality. Well, aside from the flying ship, possessed tree, and any other odd things and people in the story, the emotions and actions of the characters are real enough to be able to garner an empathy among characters and thus making the reading experience a gratifying and of course amusing one.

Who needs a freakin' review anyways?

NICK on her Ex-Bitch

I try to hear her voice, try to separate that single pitch from the shouts and applause. But she’s as lost to me as she was the night I cried and she didn’t turn back to see if I was okay. Three weeks, two days, and twenty-three hours ago. And she’s already with someone else.

My eye is still used to searching for her in a crowd. My breath is still used to catching when I see her and the light is angled just right. My body is still used to hers moving next to mine. So the distance—anything short of contact—is a constant rejection. We were together for six months, and in each of those months my desire found new ways to be fueled by her. It’s over can’t kill that. All of the songs I wrote in my head were for her, and now I can’t stop them from playing. This null soundtrack. I’m tired, she’d said, and I told her that I was tired, too, and that I wanted to take some time for us, too. And then she’d said, No, I’m tired of you, and I slipped into the surreal-but-true universe where we were over and I wasn’t over it. She was no longer any kind of here that I could get to.

One of NICK & NORAH's enlightening conversations

“What are you talking about?”
“The Cure. What do they think they’re the cure for? Happiness?”
“This coming from the bassist for The Fuck Offs?”
And I can’t help it. I think, Wow, she knows our name.
“Dev’s thinking of changing it to The Fuck Ons,” I tell her.
“How ’bout simply Fuck On?”
“Maybe one word? Fuckon?”
“The Friendly Fuckons?”
“My Fuckon Or Yours?”
“Why is he such a fucking Fuckon?”
I look at her. “Is that a band name or a statement?”
“He had no right to do that. None.”
We break into silence again. I lob a question right into it.

From the burly bouncer dressed in a Playboy Bunny outfit

“There’s no such thing as ready,” she says. “There’s only willing.”
She reaches over and puts her hand on top of mine. She’s not making a pass at me—she’s trying to pass something on.
“I have all the proof I need,” she says. “The proof is always in the dancing.”

NORAH says

“Look,” she says, raising her Tina Colada, “I owe you a kind of explanation. I know you probably think I’m a horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, but I’m honestly not trying to mess with your head. I’m just messing with my own head and I seem to have dragged you along for the ride. I think you’re nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy’s a jerk or an asshole, it’s easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn’t an option, you don’t have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him. Right now I am thinking about ten things at the same time, and at least four of those things have to do with you. If you want to leave right now and drive home and forget my name and forget what I look like, I wouldn’t blame you in the least. But what I’m trying to say is that if you did that I would be sorry. And not just sorry in an I-apologize-I’m-so-sorry way, but sorry in a sad-that-something-that-could’ve-happened-didn’t way. That’s it. You can go now. Or we could stay for Where’s Fluffy when Toni’s set is over. I think they’re playing a surprise show here tonight.”

NICK answers

“No,” I go on. “It does. And if I left, you’d probably want to give me my jacket back. And if you did, I wouldn’t be able to put it on, because the whole time I’d be knowing how perfectly it fit on you. How even though the sleeves are ridiculously too long and the collar is all fucked up and for all I know some guy named Salvatore is going to come in this very club in two minutes and say, ‘Hey, that’s my jacket’ and strike up a conversation and sweep you off your feet away from me—even though all those things are true or possibly true, I just can’t ruin the picture of you sitting there across from me wearing my jacket better than I or anyone else ever could. If I don’t owe it to you and I don’t owe it to me, I at least owe it to Salvatore.”

While Where's Fluffy is playing

Dev’s elbow hits my back and I press forward and she’s right there and I’m reaching out and she’s right there and right at that moment the amps amplify and the music takes on such a pulse that it becomes my heartbeat and her heartbeat and I know it and she knows it and this is the point where we could break apart and that would be it, totally it. But I look into her eyes and she looks into my eyes and we recognize it—the excitement of being here, the excitement of being now. And maybe I’m realizing what a part of it she is and maybe she’s realizing what a part of it I am, because suddenly we’re not crashing as much as we’re combining. The chords swirling around us are becoming a tornado, tightening and tightening and tightening, and we are at the center of it, and we are at the center of each other. My wrist touches hers right at the point of our pulses, and I swear I can feel it. That thrum. We are moving to the music and at the same time we are a stillness. I am not losing myself in the barrage. I am finding her. And she is—yes, she is finding me. The crowd is pressing in on us and the bassline is revealing everything and we are two people who are part of a lot more people, and at the same time we’re our own part. There isn’t loneliness, only this intense twoliness. There’s only one way to test it, and that is to dare a movement, to push it farther and see if she wants it to go there. I find her lips and I make that kiss and she’s pulling my hair and I’ve got the fabric of her jacket bunched in a fist and it’s nothing like talking and it’s right there and we’re taking it and taking it and taking it. And my eyes are closed and then my eyes are open and I see her eyes are open and there’s a part of her that’s pulling back even as our bodies are pressing and it’s the fear, of course there’s the fear, and I just hold her close to tell her I understand.

NICK with Dev

“‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can’t hide. Every single successful love song of the past fifty years can be traced back to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding. Trust me. I’ve thought a lot about this.”

NICK while waiting

While they’re in the bathroom together, I try to distract myself by coming up with a list of things that could be worse than having your vehement ex drag your current she’s-so-frickin’-cool girl away for some cubicle camaraderie (or conflict). I come up with the following:

• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears.
• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister.
• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister during an 8.6 earthquake.
• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister during an 8.6 earthquake with lite jazz playing.

I have to stop there. It’s just too horrifying.

Still waiting

Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it’s just a story I’m telling or a song I’m singing, then I’ll be okay because I’m the guy who’s providing the words. Which is not the way life works at all. Or at least not when it’s unfair.

The Song

March Eighteenth

The way you’re singing in your sleep
The way you look before you leap
The strange illusions that you keep
You don’t know
But I’m noticing

The way your touch turns into arcs
The way you slide into the dark
The beating of my open heart
You don’t know
But I’m noticing

NORAH on being Jewish

“Tikkun olam,” I repeat.
“Exactly. Basically, it says that the world has been broken into pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job—everyone’s job—is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole again.”

NICK on NORAH being Jewish

“Maybe that’s it,” I say gently. “With what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn’t that we’re supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we’re the pieces.”

NORAH's discovery

I can’t think about what Dad did because the skies have suddenly opened up and it’s a hellacious downpour, but what is Nick doing? He’s dancing a jig at the curb, his arms outstretched, his face tilted upward to receive the splash. Joyful.

I don’t tell Nick my call is finished. I just watch him. A while ago when I looked at Nick, I felt inspired by the line from that Smiths song playing earlier at Camera Obscura where Morrissey sings about how what she asked of me / at the end of the day / Caligula would have blushed. I don’t know that I care anymore about piecing together whether Nick’s straight or gay or somewhere in between. I’m thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he’s dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren’t about me.
I don’t know if Nick and I are going to be friends or lovers or if he’s going to be Will and I’m going to be Grace, which will be disappointing along with boring, but whatever Nick and I are going to be to each other, it can’t be—it won’t be—just a one-night-stand thing.
I know this.

NICK

Singing in the rain. I’m singing in the rain. And it’s such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek or curse? No—when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you’re doing pretty alright in life.

The make-out

He pulls me back up so our lips meet again, and I’m lost all over again, lost inside his mouth, feeling his breath, feeling his heartbeat against my hand pressed on his chest. My hands want to wander all over him, but his lips are sliding so sweetly around my own, my hands can’t focus. His hands focus just fine. He’s definitely a breast instead of thigh man. Only his hands go slow, caressing and teasing instead of Talpillaging (good job on the breast tutorial, Tris), and I can feel my chest straining to high attention, wanting, more more more. Then Nick’s hands move away and I want to murmur, No no no, come back, hands, but my mouth is too busy occupying his. As Nick’s hands fumble and smooth over my back, clearly looking for a bra strap to unclasp, my lips can’t bear to pull away from touching him to tell him, Honey, it’s a front-clasp bra.

An infinite playlist by NICK

When we get to Ludlow, I remember the song I began to write, in an hour that seems like weeks ago now. Can so much really happen in a night? The song was never really over, but now I have the ending—I don’t know how I’ll phrase it, but it will involve our returning, it will take in the strange pink light and the Sunday-morning quiet. Because the song is us, and the song is her, and this time I’m going to use her name. Norah Norah Norah—no rhymes, really. Just truth.
I shouldn’t want the song to end. I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I’m seeing we don’t live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It’s an infinite playlist.

NICK

My heartbeat accelerates. I am in the here, in the now. I am also in the future. I am holding her and wanting and knowing and hoping all at once. We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It’s the concert rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it’s racing toward.

NORAH

I hesitate even though I know my wavering could cost us the approaching train. If I make this jump, then this is real, he is real. I will have broken the law for him and that will bind us together forever, outlaws, like Bonnie and Clyde. And look how that worked out for them.

If I do this, it will be like jumping into the middle of the mosh pit. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Terrifying. It’s only a fucking turnstile, but what if I don’t make it to the other side. Some people never make it out of the mosh alive.
The deafening screech of train brakes announces the train is in the station.
Nick says, “Are we in this or not?”
To throw myself into the breach of our great divide will be a leap of faith.
I grab hold of his warm hand. Deep breath.
Ready.
Set.
Jump.

Me on NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST

So, who needs a fucking review of this book?
Read it.

Why make a list?

I need to make lists. I can't function properly without them since I am a 100% pure blooded selective amnesiac. Like, I always forget the things that I've heard and sometimes the things that I was thinking even though I heard or thought of them for like an hour ago.

So the question is: What's on my mind today? And the answer is.... (drum roll) Naomi and Ely and the fact that I really love them. So I'm creating my WHY-I-LOVE-THE-NAOMI-AND-ELY-BOOK List.

WHY-I-LOVE-THE-NAOMI-AND-ELY-BOOK List

(1) Music Mixes

So love them! I always think that making a music mix for someone you like is way better than telling them in the most boring, old and conventional way - telling it in their not-so-shocked face... But it's even more better in the book since all the songs in the mix has those cute reasons why they are in the mix. So totally brilliant.

(2) Gabriel

What can I say. I wish I could meet someone like him... (sigh) He's an original. He's cute and hot but then he doesn't use his hotness to be a jerk, he knows how to feel and he thinks too. He's perfect in a not so perfect way.
He's made the mix for Naomi... I wish I was Naomi... (sigh)

(3) Naomi

Really love this girl! Period.

(4) Ely And Bruce The Second

I hated Ely while reading this book and I pitied Bruce The Second throughout the 200 something pages but I later realized that they are real. I mean, they could exist. There could be someone in this cruel world that is about to experience or experiencing or have experienced what they have experienced. So I incinerated the hatred and pity.

(5) Starbucks

If you are in a setting like New York, there's no way Starbucks is not to be mentioned. It's one place New Yorkers has a chance of feeling like they're boring people. It's actually Naomi's favorite hang-out but the odd thing is she never drinks coffee from Starbucks.

(6) Queerdom

I love queers! I'm sorry if it's not a politically correct word to use. (peace) And being able to get a glimpse of what they are thinking (through this book) is an enlightenment.

(7) Book Cover

As what I have said, it's unpretentious. Need I say more? Well, I'm partial to yellow... (It's practically the cover's color... :D)

To get a free copy of the book, go to my e-books library and download the e-book for free.

Where can I find a gay bestfriend?

First thought. So liked the cover of the book. It's so unpretentious that you could guess that there's really something deep within those covers.

First reaction. Okay. The book contains such pretty and radical slang that only true blooded New Yorkers could actually comprehend. I really had a hard time understanding it and yet I can't stop reading it. Its not-within-this-world plot and the never-thought-of turn of events made this book soooo good that you have to forgive the ones who have invented those NY street words. This book is definitely profound and not to be taken without a whooping amount of seriousness.

I know. I've been raving about it but you don't actually know what I'm talking about. It's this book titled Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. So the story goes like this. Naomi is a straight girl who's forever in love with his bestfriend named Ely who is unfortunately gay. They've shared their lives together that they are not regarded as individuals but as an institution. If there's Ely then Naomi is probably around within the 5-meter radius. Really. That close. To avoid jealousy that could threaten their friendship, they created a NO KISS LIST. It is a list of all the boys that they could not kiss in any way possible. But then, Ely kissed Bruce The Second, Naomi's boyfriend and it was okay for her (she doesn't like Bruce The Second as much as he likes Ely) until Ely falls in love with Bruce The Second and that was the time the institution of Naomi + Ely starts crumbling. And that's the start of discovering their individuality and starting out a new kind of friendship, a better one.

Last thought. I'll never change anything that has happened in this book. It's perfect as it is. An enlightening read for girls who have male bestfriends (gay and straight) and an interesting read for boys who also have female bestfriends (straight and gay). And a must read for all who doesn't have both!

Would I survive living in a graveyard?

One cold foggy night, a silent murder happened in 33 Dunstan Road somewhere in the Old Town. Three people were killed. A man, a woman and a girl. At the time of the murder, in the attic of the house in 33 Dunstan Road, a little boy was unknowingly making the greatest escape of his life. Armed with just a rubber pacifier, the bored toodler who just learned how to walk, went out of the house and up the hill. Being silently chased by the watchful and talented murderer, that boy fund refuge in the most unusual and safe place in town - the graveyard.
And the adventure in the graveyard begins...

-My own introduction to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

(Just trying to be like Gaiman... hehe...)

I'm really amazed by Neil Gaiman's imagination. Who? Yeah, who could think of writing a book about a boy living in a graveyard? I can't think of single sane person who could.

The story evolves around the orphaned boy appropriately name Nobody Owens (made me think that maybe Gaiman used the phrase "nobody owns" as basis for this...), Bod for short. Being given the Freedom of the Graveyard, Bod can talk and see the ghosts living in the graveyard. With ghost parents and a not-dead-and-not-alive person as a guardian, Bod's adventures in the graveyard is unexpected and at the same time sad. If your expecting to be scared while reading this then forget about it.

Being my first Gaiman book, I really don't know what to think of it aside from the fact that many people love it. Reading the first few pages of made it me realize that this is not your normal children's book with the almost perfect hero or heroine. Bod has issues he needs to deal with and lessons learned through hard experiences. It is a serious book with a wee bit of humor (really love the inscriptions on the gravestones!). This book is a fast and entertaining read. It made me think that living in the graveyard is really like living in the normal world.

I just thought that it should be a longer book, maybe a series. It is not detailed enough. I was actually curious on what the Honour Guard and the Jack of All Trades is all about. I think Gaiman should have delved deeper with the war of the Guards and the Jacks.

All in all, really enjoyed the book. I'll be buying more Gaiman books.

I'll leave the phrases or sentences that I love in the book....

"The treasures of ten thousand years ago were not the treasures of today" -Nobody Owens

"You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over." -Silas

"Of all the organs, the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste the sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue." -Nehemiah Trot (the poet)

"Dish best served cold. Do not take revenge in the heat of the moment. Instead, wait until the hour is propitious" -Nehemiah Trot (the poet) on REVENGE

"It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you." -Silas

Would I read the third installation of the Inheritance Cycle?

After reading the first 20 pages of Eldest by Christopher Paolini, it made me realize that this would be a very looooong read. And I'm so right. It took me 3 weeks to read it and in my standard, that is long enough for a 704-page book. And to think that I've read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (652 pages) for 2 days. But then, the only thing that links them is the word "magic".

When I was reading it, I decided that I wouldn't buy the third installation - Brisingr. But, when I was finished reading the book, I could not wait to read the third installation. Crazy. Odd. Queer. You call it what you want but that is exactly what I felt. Maybe Paolini jinxed the Inheritance Cycle so that all people who gets bored reading it will not learn their lesson and buy the next book.

Another odd thing, that unexplainable feeling that I have for Eldest is also the feeling I have when I read Eragon (Book 1) and that is the reason why I bought Eldest (I actually have to choose between Eldest and a Murakami book and I chose Eldest... so sad... really...).

Since I've started this Eragon thing, so I might as well finish the whole cycle and that includes four books. Three are published and I have a copy of books 1 and 2. I'm actually waiting for the paperback edition of Brisingr since hardbound books are too expensive.

Can't wait to read the third installment!

Ohh.. I can't believe I just said that....