Weekly Geeks: Guilty Pleasures

Uh-Oh, Weekly Geeks is asking us to reveal our deep, dark secret: What is our Guilty Pleasure? Typically I would say trashy romance novels, but Weekly Geeks wants our non-reading guilty pleasure.
Mine is a bit ironic, considering, but I think my non-reading guilty pleasure is the computer. I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting on my couch, notebook on my lap, eyes glued to the screen.
Every day I probably spent at least two to three hours online. And not necessarily early in the morning or late at night. Middle of the day, sun shining, I can be found...sitting on my couch, notebook on my lap, eyes glued to the screen. Ridiculous! There are three online activities that take up time. Here they are in order of time consumed:
#3 World of Warcraft
Yep, what can I say? My cousin bought this for me last Christmas and I was almost immediately addicted. I couldn't really explain why, but I think it has something to do with the quests. I'm not particularly goal-oriented in real life but there is a real sense of satisfaction completing those little tasks in a fake world.
#2 Facebook
I don't post on Facebook often; I'm a lurker, reading everyone else's status updates and the such not. I also recently was suckered into playing Mafia Wars which is no World of Warcraft but still oddly satisfying as I'm rather motivated by leveling.
#1 Blogs
The time I spend reading and writing blogs is...well, I shudder to think of it. As a matter of fact, I will speak of it no more.

BTT: Mental ReWrite

In the perfect follow-up to last week’s question, as suggested by C in DC:
Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?

For the most part, I enjoy the books I read on some level. Typically, I can find the good in a book, a reason to read. But over the years, there ahve been a few where I've thought 'why did I waste my time'.
Up to a few years ago, I would finish reading a book even if I didn't like it. I would force myself to continue, page by page, thinking that the book would get better, or that I had to read it for some intellectual reason, or that I would somehow be failing if I stopped. Finally I realized that there were just too many books and too little time. Unfortunately I read a few stinkers before coming to this realization.
I've done a decent job of deleting these books from my mind, so I don't necessarily need to unread them. I've soft-erased them, writing over their plot with the plots of better books, morphing their characters into the new faces of loved texts, and sometimes revising the stories into more interesting tales.
I refuse to type their names in the fear that calling them to mind will undo the mental rewiring.

Weekly Geeks: War Books

This Week's Prompt: With Memorial Day in the U.S. this coming Monday, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on the military. Either share your favorite book on war or movie on war and why. Provide a clip from the movie if you'd like or a passage from the book that shows us why you it's your favorite book or movie. Or do both. OR choose your own military theme, for example, if you have a relative or friend in the military and you would like to send them a video or a message of thanks, do that on your blog. OR do all three. The book and movie also don't have to be "patriotic" necessarily. For example, one of my favorite fictional books on war is Johnny, Get Your Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

Over the past few years, I have read and/or purchased a few books involving the Holocaust. This Weekly Geeks gives me the opportunity to sort of chronicle them here, calling attention to them and perhaps introducing some of you to a new book.

When God Looked the Other Way by Wesley Adamcyk (almost review found here)

The Reader by Bernard Schlink (almost review found here)

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman (review found here)

Night by Elie Wiesel (read, but no review)

Because of Romek by David Faber (read, but no review) ((I actually had the pleasure of meeting him and hearing him speak))

The Man who Never Was by Ewan Montagu (not read)

Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler (partially read)

The Berkut by Joseph Haywood (not read)

Strangers in the Land of Egypt by Stephen March (almost review found here)

The Nuremberg Trials by Ann Tusa (not read)

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (read a long time ago)

I believe it is truly important to keep the memories of the Holocaust and the lessons learned alive in our minds. We are getting more and more removed from this horrific event and the new generation doesn't seem to apply the same significance to World War II as past generations have. In my opinion, this loss is a tragedy. Survivors of the time, particularly Jewish survivors, are very few. As such, we are losing that first person accounting. Books, and movies, are becoming the way we know about this era. And we must know.

Book Review: The Three Musketeers

Title: The Three Musketeers
Author: Alexandre Dumas
First Published: 1844 Pages: 626
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/5

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis: D'Artagnan and his three friends, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, "rely on their wits and skills with the sword to preserve the honor of the king and thwart the wicked schemes of Cardinal Richelieu." (from back cover)
I first encountered this story in the film version, and after reading the text, I am confused. The movie bears almost no resemblance to the book. I'm not sure how much that colored my reading.
The largest and most intriguing inconsistency from book to film is the lack, in the book, of a truly evil figure in Cardinal Richelieu offsetting the innocence of the King. In the book, both appear equally negative, simply arrogant leaders in a large scale chess game where their pawns are shown little mercy. The only figure of absolute evil presented in the book is that of Lady de Winter, who in the movie is more of a sympathetic character. Even the very plot line is different between book and film.
Ignoring the film, a difficult task for me for some reason, the novel is fast-paced, full of intrigue, swordplay, and bravery. The characters are each interesting in their own right, and I enjoyed the way their personalities were portrayed through their words and actions. The plot and subplots are so intricately woven that the reader truly feels he/she has entered a complex world.
That being said, the book did from time to time seem tediously long, and I found myself trying to hurry through to get done. So while the story kept my interest and made me want to finish, the overabundance of sometimes unnecessary details did lend a sort of impatience to my reading.

Book Review: The Zookeeper's Wife

Title: The Zookeeper's Wife
Author: Diane Ackerman
Published: 2007 Pages: 323
Genre: Nonfiction, Holocaust
Rating: 4/5

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

In The Zookeeper's Wife, Ackerman tells the story of the Warsaw zookeeper and his wife who saved around 300 people during World War II by hiding them in the bomb-ravaged zoo, both in the house and in the animal cages. I read this book weeks ago, but I am just now getting around to reviewing it, not because I didn't like the book, far from it, but reading and commenting on books about the Holocaust are emotional for me. I have no personal connection, no family members died in the war, I'm not Jewish, but for some reason, thinking about this time makes my heart hurt in a very real, very personal way. So it took time to process the novel.

The book focuses on Antonina Zabinski. She did not lead the exciting life of intrigue her husband did. Jan was a professor in the secret Warsaw university, he served in the underground Polish Army to fight the Nazis, and he helped smuggle people out of the country to safety. Antonina, however, did just one thing, but its importance can not be underestimated. She created a home for the Jews hiding at the zoo. Her story, her life, is worthy of retelling.

Antonina's journal provides the foundation for this novel, adding a very authentic and poetic tone. Her writing is beautiful and poignant, pulling emotion out of the readers, and Ackerman does a wonderful job intermingling historical fact with these more personal snippets. By the end of the novel, the reader has a very good sense of who Antonina was as a wife, mother, and friend.

BTT: Second First Time

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

The possibilities are endless. The feeling that comes with reading a really good book for the first time is almost indescribable in its complexity as your heart soars with pleasure, your brain scrambles quickly back through the whole experience, your stomach clenches with sadness as the book is over, you smile/laugh/cry, you hurry and think of who you can talk to about the book. It is an almost euphoric state. You can read the book again and again, but 99% of the time you will never again experience quite the same rush.

I have had quite a few books over the years which have set the high mark for this feeling. Some were classic novels, works of literature which have stood the test of time; others were trashy romance novels. I'm an equal opportunity reader. What can I say? Some of these special books I remember, and I have to admit, some I don't. This makes it a bit more difficult to choose the one book I would like to start over with, but if I absolutely had to choose, I would have to say the winner would be Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White.

I can't tell you particularly why; it's not the best book I've ever read, it didn't give me that euphoric feeling more than any other. But it was a new type of reading for me. Written partially in second person, the book literally speaks to you, an interesting experience. I would enjoy opening up to that first page and beginning the journey for the first time.

Because I can - this is my blog - here are some quick runners up: Wicked, Princess, House of the Spirits, Good Omens, Hitchhikers Guide, and Middlemarch.

Book Review: The Doll's House

Title: The Doll's House
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 1995 Pages: 227
Genre: Graphic Novel, Horror
Rating: 5/5

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

The Doll's House is the second in Gaiman's Sandman series, after Preludes and Nocturnes, and I must say I am now hooked. I did enjoy the first novel, but I didn't feel that burning need to read the second - the true mark that I am not totally in love with a series. The Doll's House, on the other hand, I was sad to finish, and I'm already planning on heading to Barnes and Noble to pick up the next two graphic novels in the series...probably today.
Many times when I read something I deem creepy, it's in a sporadic, silly, or disgusting way, but not this novel. Gaiman sets a creepy tone and maintains it throughout the entire story. The pictures accompanying the text - this is afterall a graphic novel - do nothing the diminish this tone. I never found myself smiling at a ridiculous image. When I did smile, for there is humor, it was not a this-is-funny type of grin; it was more an amused but horrified grimace.
The plot involves interweaving stories which simultaneously focus on Dream, one of the Endless and if I'm not mistaken, the main character in the series, and Rose Walker, the focus of this book in the series. Rose, unknowingly and mistakenly, is a dream vortex. The Doll's House is her story. And yet, it is a continuation of Dream's story begun in Preludes and Nocturnes. I find myself wanting to say so much more and yet any type of plot summary, in my mind, is a spoiler. I don't even read the backs of novels before reading the story itself. Suffice it to say, the plot is complex, surreal, and most importantly, interesting.

Book Review: Coraline

Title: Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 2003 Pages: 162
Genre: Young Adult Literature

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Coraline is the story of a young adventurer who finds her way into a sinister alternate version of her own reality. In this reality she has other parents, an other room, and other neighbors, all of which are more interesting than her real life. She is told she could have what she wanted when she wanted it and life would always be interesting. But as Coraline says, "What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted?"

I think what I enjoyed most about this story was Gaiman's minimalist style of writing. Much is left to the imagination of the reader, which if done artfully, can increase the enjoyment of a book. It was strange for the motivations of the "other" mother to never be questioned though. And what is that cat? These unanswered questions annoyed me a bit. At the same time, it was a new experience to read a protagonist who just accepted the things that were happening to her without delving into the often times inexplicable psychology and history that provide the motivation for the plot.

In the Why I Wrote Coraline section at the back of the book, it says: "children experienced it as an adventure, but [it] gave adults nightmares." I find this quote intriguing and not altogether unbelievable. Coraline was begun for Gaiman's five year old daughter and finished years later for his six year old daughter. My first instinct would be to say the book is too scary for such a young age. Thinking back on my own childhood, though, tells me I'm wrong. Afterall, "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be slain." Adults, on the other hand, when they read a story like this, are reminded that dragons might not be so imaginary. I think that's the problem. We grow up and being rational people, discount all of the old myths about dragons, fairies, witches, and the such not, and because of this, we can be more frightened by these stories.

Book Review: The Sun Also Rises

Title: The Sun Also Rises
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Published: 1926 Pages: 251
Genre: Modernist
Rating: 5/5

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

It is amazing how one such as myself, a constant reader, can still find herself reading long-known, but never-read books. I have a distant memory of The Sun Also Rises; perhaps I read it a long time ago. There are many books, particularly novels considered literary in nature, that I read at too young an age to truly remember. So for me, despite this distant memory, this was my first reading of this novel.

I picked it up for two reasons: 1) Brandon said it was his favorite book and I trust his judgment; and 2) Deb said she was going to read it, and I thought it would be nice to read a book along with her and discuss. So around nine o'clock tonight I started reading. It is now midnight and I have finished. I should have read slower, taken more in, but I was fascinated and hence absorbed the novel a paragraph at a time. Maybe tomorrow I will re-read with a more analytical perspective, but for now it was enough to experience.

Two words come to mind after reading this novel: broken and bittersweet. The people in this novel are broken, leading superficially frivolous lives. But the tone, to me, is not one of judgment or condemnation, but rather bittersweet in its treatment of this group who have been made empty. Even the character who could be most despised because of her treatment of men and refusal to forgo sex for love is made pitiful to the reader.

I will definitely be re-reading this novel with a clearer head soon.

Weekly Geeks: Literary Places

Do you live in a place where a famous author was born? Does your town have any cool literary museums or monuments? Does Stephen King live at the end of your street? Was Twilight set in your hometown?



I almost passed over the Weekly Geeks question this time around. I'm afraid that Momence, Illinois, population 3,180, is not a literary hotbed. But then I got to thinking. Mark Twain may not have sat at the local park to pen any adventures, but my great great grandfather did sit by the river and write poetry. I feel guilty for his books not immediately jumping to mind when I read the question. Published by Undersea Institute Press in 1951, Homespun Poems by G. Gordon Carter represents this area for me. With titles such as "To the Farmers," "Mother's Custard Pie," and "O Praise Me Not the City," this collection reveals much of what makes Momence.

The best part of the book is on the first page. The copy I have was given to my grandpa by his grandpa, the author. The inscription reads:

To My Beloved Grandson, Edgar.

Take God with you into the curtained future, then success and happiness will
be yours.

Lovingly,

Grandpa Carter

Christmas 1951

Another book I have with a Momence connection is Legends and Tales of the Homeland in the Kankakee by Burt E. Burroughs, published in 1923. On the first page of this book is written: Velma Carter, Eddie Carter, Trisha Carter, a list of owners in their own handwritten. The Preface includes the following:

A few years more and a century will have elapsed since the first white man settled in Kankakee county. Our yesterdays have trickled from the hand of
Father Time even as teh sands fall from the hour-glass and these unrecorded days
have carried with them into the realm of "time that was", memories of many an
incident, many a legend and tale of pioneer days beyond all possibility of
recall, which we cannot but deeply deplore. To preserve some small part of
this inheritance of our pioneer ancestors for future generations while yet the
opportunity remains, seems to me a worthy task, one that might well enlist the
efforts of any citizen with the inclination and the leisure to devote to it.

The text does just that - preserves a few stories. I love the connection to the past in both of these books. One personal, the other communal.

Booking Through Thursday

Book Gluttony!

Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

I have to admit that I have absolutely no control. I buy books almost as often as I buy groceries, ten times more often than I buy clothes. It's a bit pitiful. My To Be Read (TBR) pile rivals Mt. Everest. Actually saying that I have a TBR pile is insincere. I have TBR shelves...and I have unread books mixing in with read books on the other shelves. I don't think my unread outnumber my read quite yet, but it's a close call these days.
I admire the controlled buyer, the ones who go to the bookstore with a particular book in mind, buy only that book, and proceed to read it prior to buying their next book. But for me it's an impossibility. I read on a whim, rarely if ever planning on what book I'm going to read next. Even for the book challenges I have recently discovered I'm addicted to, I can't seem to plan out what books to read; I give myself a list of possibilities and allow for flexibility.
The other style of reader I admire but can not morph into is the Library Reader. God bless those who don't need to own the books they read. That is also not me. I have to own them, smell them, put them on my shelf and read them later. According to my Library Thing, I own 1462 books. I know, it's a bit weird. I have gotten much much better on getting rid of books since I've found BookMooch. Of course that works both ways because as I've been sending books off to other Moochers, I've been receiving books back.
Eh, I could have worse habits.

Addicted to Challenges

Okay, I am becoming addicted to online reading challenges. This is what I get for venturing out into the world of book blogs. Currently I'm participating in the Dream King Challenge and the Chunkster Challenge. Now for my newest challenge:

The What's in a Name Reading Challenge requires readers to choose one book from each of the following categories:


1. A book with a 'profession' in its title.
2. A book with a 'time of day' in its title.
3. A book with a 'relative' in its title.
4. A book with a 'body part' in its title.
5. A book with a 'building' in its title.
6. A book with a 'medical condition' in its title.



The Books I plan (tentatively) on reading:

1. Profession: Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers
2. Time of Day: Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
3. Relative: Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife
4. Body Part: Paul Bahn's Written in Bones
5. Building: Neil Gaiman's The Doll's House
6. Medical Condition: Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera
It's really too bad that more of my challenges don't overlap....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Challenge Completed: August 29, 2009
Books Read: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz, The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman, and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Book Review: Pendragon Books 2-4

Title: The Lost City of Faar
Author: D.J. MacHale
Published: 2003 Pages: 384
Genre: Young Adult Literature
Rating: 3/5

The second book in the series, The Lost City of Faar takes readers to a new territory, Cloral, which I must admit is my favorite so far. Once again, Bobby Pendragon, Traveler, must save the world, specifically Cloral, from the evil machinations of Saint Dane, a Traveler intent on creating chaos in the territories.


Title: The Never War
Author: D.J. MacHale
Published: 2003 Pages: 336
Genre: Young Adult Literature
Rating: 3/5

In The Never War, Saint Dane takes the fight a bit closer to home for Bobby, when he shows up on First Earth, New York City 1937. Tommy guns, gangsters in high rises, female pilots, and Nazis each have a role in book 3 of the Pendragon series.



Title: The Reality Bug
Author: D.J. MacHale
Published: 2003 Pages: 375
Genre: Young Adult Literature
Rating: 2.5/5

Book 4 introduces readers to Veelox, a territory with advanced technology that has allowed the population to desert reality for imagination. How do you get an entire world to turn away from perfection? The book goes back and forth between the real world and the world of the mind, and because of this, is full of quite interesting scenarios.


I have now read the first four books and the series, and while I'm not as impressed as I was in the beginning, I still plan on reading the remaining six books. There are ten territories and so, ten books. The tenth hasn't come out yet, and the ninth still isn't available in paperback, but I have the first 8 on my shelf. Back to the "I'm not as impressed" problem. This could be entirely my fault; I mean, I read the first four books in two days. The problem could just be system overload.

On a side note, a few of the books reminded me of other stories and I wanted to jot a few down. Plot spoilers ahead.

1. Cloral rising out of the sea gave me a real Stargate Atlantis feel.
2. Veelox is a human created version of The Matrix...and I think was on Stargate SG-1.
3. The Never War with female pilots, Nazis, etc. reminded me of Indiana Jones.
4. I think the plot of Denduron was on Stargate Atlantis too...or maybe SG-1.

Actually I think that there are many similarities between either Stargate and Pendragon, which in a way makes sense - going to new places and helping them solve their problems, Saint Dane is the Goa'uld/Wraith, and so on. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, perhaps nowhere, but it popped into my head and so on to the blog it goes.

Ah, young adult literature of the sci-fi variety and Stargate...I'm such a 12 year old boy. :)

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Book Review: The Merchant of Death

Title: Pendragon: The Merchant of Death
Author: D.J. MacHale
Published: 2002 Pages: 374
Genre: Young Adult Literature
Rating: 3/5

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

When Bobby Pendragon grabbed his bag to head off for the county semifinal basketball game, he was a normal boy. Then two things happened: a kiss and a trip to another world, Denduron. He quickly finds out that the universe is not what he has known. There are multiple territories coexisting in separate space-time, connected by mysterious portals called flumes. And Bobby is one of the select few capable of traveling between these worlds. All Bobby really wants is to go home. But first, he has to save the world.
When I first picked up the book, almost a year ago, I only got as far as the second page. Today though I finished the book in an afternoon. And enjoyed it. Perhaps I was just in the right mood for an easy read, but I think it was more than that. The story is relatively familiar, but the details kept my interest, and I'm already planning on reading the rest of the books in the series. I might even start the second book tonight.

My Top Five Bookmarks

Weekly Geeks prompt this week asks us to discuss one of the most useful tools for a bibliophile: Bookmarks. Do you use bookmarks or just grab whatever is handy to mark your page? Do you collect lots of different bookmarks or do you have a favorite one that you use exclusively? If you're not someone who uses bookmarks on a regular basis, have you ever used anything odd to mark your place?


I would love to come in here and say that I use these wonderfully creative, beautiful bookmarks, but unfortunately I don't. I own a few, but they are more often used as decoration on my bookshelf. No, I use what's handy, anything laying around, to mark my spot in a book. So here are my top five most often used bookmarks.



#5: An Actual Bookmark (2%)
Never the pretty kind with quotes and colors and fringes - those sit on my bookshelves - but I will every now and then use one of my plain paper bookmarks that come to me from LibraryThing or departments at my college. This is a very very rare occurrence.

#4: Memorizing the Page Number (3%)
Sometimes I just remember what page I'm on: look at the page number, close the book, and move on. I tend to do this when I know I'll be reading the book later that day or the next. No longer than that though or I'll forget the number.

#3: A Coffee Cup (5%)
Because I have reading marathons, going for hours at a time, most of the time I have to mark a page, I'll only be gone for a few minutes. For these short times away, I lay the book down on my coffee table, set a coffee cup, a glass, a can of coke, whatever, on the thicker portion of the book. This way the book doesn't close.

#2: Scraps of Paper (15%)
Very commonly I just stick in whatever thin item, typically paper, is laying around at the time. To Do lists, grocery lists, receipts, corner pieces of notebook paper, photographs, these all find their way into my books quite often. Sometimes the paper stays in after I'm done and months or years later, when I re-read the book, I'll find a note or receipt. It's geeky but fun.

#1: The Book Itself (75%)
There are two ways I use the book itself. One, I lay the open book face down on my couch or coffee table. The book never closes and I know where to start reading again. The most common way I mark a page, however, is to literally mark the page, folding over the corner, dog-earring the book. Some dislike both these methods as one puts creases in the spine and the other creases on the pages. Pppfffttt to you. I love books. I love to read them, look at them, touch them, smell them, organize them, talk about them, and loan them out. But they are meant to be used. A book with no creases, no greasy fingerprint marks, no slightly blurred words from a drop of condensation off a glass, in other words a perfectly preserved book...that's just sad, pitiful. So I'm perfectly fine with this method.

So what do you use?

Big Words, Big Ideas

Title: From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory
Author: John Ridener
Published: 2009 Pages: 161
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: Not yet reviewed

"There is an understandable scepticism in the archival profession about theory, especially when theory can sometimes take the guise of a formulaic imposition of arcane concepts betraying little cognizance of workplace realities, or worse deteriorate into a self-indulgent quagmire of jargon-laden obfuscation" (Terry Cook in the preface to John Ridener's From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory).

There is something about this sentence; the words, the structure, something about it appeals to me. It could be temporal - the weekend before finals is a difficult time for professors as we scrutinize piles of writings that in no way resemble the above sentence. Perhaps the difference in the writing style of this book compared to my students' essays is the cause of my admiration.

Or it could be the poetry like flow of the words; they seem to roll off the tongue, the brain, in a relatively simple but familiar beat. I like the way it sounds in my head.

Or it could be the specificity and complexity of the sentence which relays meaning through the use of quite descriptive words. Most sentences, that I hear, employ the everyday language of your typical middle class American. As such, these mundane words have lost some of their specificity; they are used in too many contexts and have a more fluid meaning. Words like quagmire, imposition, arcane, and obfuscation are seldom used (around me) and hence carry more meaning (for me).

I keep adding the me part because I'm sure there are people who use/hear those words in everyday life, but, uh, they certainly aren't my students, friends, or family, so I'm talking about me - and most likely a large portion of middle class America - when I say that these words are unusual.

Now back to the book itself which I'm reading for LibraryThing's Early Reviewers. I'm betting a simplistic discussion of one sentence in the text doesn't count as an acceptable review. :)