Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The book was first published in 1813. At that time, women were expected to stay home without a chance to get involve in politics or careers. Jane Austen herself was never given credit for being the author of any of her works while she was alive. Through this book, she illustrated the condition of women who had to marry for economic security and social status during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries in England. Seriously, I pitied how women were treated back then.

The main character of the story is Elizabeth Bennet, an independent, hardheaded, and outspoken young girl. She believes in love and refuses to marry someone just to get a better economic and social status. Her character resembles a modern woman- I personally think that she was born in the wrong era. Other female characters of the story are pretty sure typical England women at the time.

Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lidya are five unmarried daughters of the Bennets. Their mom is desperate to see them all married. Elizabeth or Lizzie misjudges a wealthy man named Mr. Darcy upon his appearance. She considers him as an arrogant person after refusing to dance with her in a ball. On the other hand, Mr. Darcy finds himself attracted to the charm and intelligence of Elizabeth. These two later meet several times due to the relationship between Jane and Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy’s dearest friend.

Long story short, Elizabeth meets Wickham, a handsome young soldier. She finds herself attracted to Wickham who apparently is slightly related to Mr. Darcy. Wickham tells Elizabeth about Darcy’s cruelty in cheating him out of an inheritance. Keeping that story in her mind, Elizabeth refuses Darcy’s proposal of marriage when they meet again. She tells Darcy her thought about him, accuses him for steering Bingley away from Jane and blames him for disinheriting Wickham. Darcy leaves in silent. He later delivers a letter to Elizabeth, explaining that he steered Bingley away from Jane just because he thought Jane show no interest in Bingley. He also explains that Wickham is a complete liar and once attempted to elope with his sister.

The letter has a big impact on Elizabeth’s feeling towards Darcy. After returning home for a while, she travels again with her relatives where they pass the Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. She knows that Darcy is away at the moment and decides to pay a visit to his residence, hearing how wonderful and generous he is from his servants. Out of her expectation, Darcy arrives and invites Elizabeth to meet his sister. When there is a problem caused by her sister, Lidya, and Wickham, Darcy generously helps the Bennets. Long story short (again- like, seriously it is a long story!), Elizabeth and Darcy walk together where he tells her that his feelings have not altered since the spring. He proposes again and this time Elizabeth accepts his proposal.

The character that I love the most is Mr. Darcy. He expresses himself more to show his love to Elizabeth. Every now and then, he helps her in so many ways and needs no credit for it. I hate Mrs. Bennet more than anyone in this novel. She practically makes her daughters’ marriages as a business. She is cheap and inconsiderate.

Jane Austen beautifully illustrated the essence of true love through her writing. The story could not have been more engaging. Those who read classics know that the language used can be very hard to understand, but I think Austen’s writing is not a whole lot different from the way we use the language today. The dialogue in the novel is delightful through out. The plots of the story remain relevant, no matter how many years go by since Austen had written it.

Rate: 9.5/10

Review: Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

Well.. Uh.. Let me put this straight. The book that I am going to review today was originally published online as a fan fiction of Twilight, though to me this book is more like the fan fiction of Fifty Shades of Grey, which is the fan fiction (as well) of Twilight. Yap.

The term Beautiful Bastard refers to Bennett Ryan, a horrible-demanding-yet attractive boss of Chloe Mills. Chloe had worked for Ryan Media Group for six years. When the youngest son of Elliot Ryan returned to Chicago from France, he nicely asked Chloe to ‘handle’ his son. Turns out, Bennett is a perfectionist bastard that set up a high standard for all of his workers. However, Chloe managed to keep up with him for the last nine months. She needs to stay. No. She has to stay. Chloe is currently undertaking her MBA and she needs to present in-world experience to the JT Miller scholarship board. And for some magical reasons, Bennett offered her the marketing plan for the multibillionaire land developer, which is the biggest project than anything her friends are working on.

Bennett turns the table one night when he asks Chloe to work overtime to give an impromptu speech on the account she is working on. It turns to be a sexual encounter- the first of many I would say. Chloe was shocked by the fact that she couldn’t resist Bennett the way she wanted herself to. Despite vows from each of them that the affair will not continue, Bennett and Chloe keep doing whatever they are doing within the office and some other places. They both aware of the fact that their feelings to each other are more than just sex.

Chloe, naturally as a woman, overthinks her relationship with Bennett. She is afraid that their sexual relationship will jeopardize her career. People might think of her as a career-climbing whore. But as I told you, she is incapable of leaving Bennett. Their relationship grows when the two go to San Diego for business trip. Bennett keeps on saying ‘just one night’ but he ended up staying at Chloe’s room for the entire trip. He confesses that he wants more. He confesses that he fell in love. He succeeded in letting Chloe believes that their relationship will work.

But as if it’s too good to be true, Chloe overhears Bennett who is taking the credit for her successful presentation. The day after their return to Chicago, Chloe submits her resignation letter to the company. This, for sure, freaks Bennett out. He breaks for not hearing anything from Chloe two months long. On the other hand, Chloe manages to get another job- smaller but maybe good enough to finish her MBA. But of course Bennett shows up at the official presentation day, surprisingly brings a ready-to-serve presentation containing the marketing plan for the multibillionaire marketing plan she had been working on. Chloe attempted to reject the offer, but smart enough to take it. That appears to be the end of the story in which they are resuming their relationship.

I would say that the story reminds me a lot to the Fifty Shades Trilogy. Bennett is a young, incredibly attractive CEO just like Christian. The two like to play rough- while Bennett likes to rip off Chloe’s panties; Christian loves to take Anna to his playroom. Their characters are cold and dominating. Chloe, on the other hand, is a young, innocent and brave interesting woman- doesn’t it sound like Anna? She likes to bite her lips and overthinks too much- Anna again! I even noticed some similar plots such when Chloe was invited to Bennett’s parent’s place and the two make out or when they were trapped in the elevator. Oh well, what do you expect, right? It’s a fan fiction after all.

But I do admit that some parts in this book make more sense than those in Fifty Shades Trilogy. For example, Bennett is being smart enough to cover the CCTV when the two make out in the elevator because.. of course you would realize about the CCTV, right?! I would expect Christian to be smart enough to notice that. Or the fact that Bennett and Chloe have known each other for more than nine months before their relationship changed, not like Anna and Christian who seem like they are sprinting with the time. Oh and what’s more is that you won’t find unnecessary thesaurus word, such as medulla oblongata, within the Beautiful Bastard.

The book is written by Christina and Lauren in light and easy language. They use the perspectives of Chloe and Bennett, which is actually seems wrong to me. The way they tell the story in Bennett’s perspective is still too feminine. I am not sure that man would actually think that way- I mean, it sounds more like a woman. I think it would be best if they keep the story in Chloe’s perspective or even in third person’s perspective. I figured the book has two sequels; Beautiful Stranger and Beautiful Player. I don’t know whether I am going to buy it or not- well, I’ve had enough. It’s not that the book is bad- no, I kinda enjoyed reading it- but to read another fan fiction story? Uh… I am not sure.

Rate: 8/10

Review: Koala Kumal by Raditya Dika

Setiap gue nonton film yang diangkat dari buku (dan kebetulan gue belum pernah baca bukunya), gue seperti punya kewajiban tersendiri untuk ngebaca buku tersebut. Kenapa? Karena gue selalu pengen tau cerita asli dari sudut pandang pengarangnya, bukan cerita yang sudah diadaptasi dan diolah sedemikian rupa untuk memenuhi batasan durasi tertentu.

Hal yang sama terjadi setelah gue nonton film Kambing Jantan yang menurut gue lucu-lucu-bego gimana gitu. Gue merasa, gue harus beli bukunya! Dan gue nggak nyesel dengan kebiasaan gue itu karena bener aja, bukunya lebih lucu-bego-bego gimana gitu. (Iya, ternyata lebih banyak begonya.) Setelah itu gue mulai menjadi salah satu follower Raditya Dika di Twitter dan, walaupun gue bukan penggemar beratnya, gue akuin dia ‘lebih’ dari sekedar penulis komedi.

Sebagai -bukan- penggemar beratnya, sudah dapat dipastikan gue nggak beli semua bukunya Raditya Dika. Kadang euphoria dari penggemar (sangat)beratnya malah bikin gue males sendiri sebelum beli. Buku Raditya Dika yang pernah gue baca adalah Kambing Jantan, Babi Ngesot, Manusia Setengah Salmon dan yang terakhir Koala Kumal ini. Dari keempat buku tersebut, gue paling suka Kambing Jantan dan Manusia Setengah Salmon. Gue suka Kambing Jantan karena menurut gue ceritanya emang lucu banget- bukan seperti orang dewasa yang berusaha menyampaikan cerita lucu. Kalau untuk Manusia Setengah Salmon, gue suka gimana Raditya Dika menggambarkan seseorang yang berpindah hati meninggalkan ‘kenangan’ masa lalunya.

Di buku Koala Kumal ini, Raditya Dika berbicara tentang patah hati. Bab yang menurut gue paling lucu didalam buku ini adalah ‘Lebih Seram dari Jurit Malam’. Diantara sekian banyak bab, cuma di bab ini gue bisa inget lagi sama kelucuan yang ada di buku Kambing Jantan. (terlihat jelas gue belum bisa move on). Sementara bab yang paling ‘dalem’ maknanya menurut gue di bab ‘Aku Ketemu Orang Lain’. Di bab ini ceritanya Dika diselingkuhin (sungguh sudut pandang yang sangat buruk dalam merangkum suatu cerita). Bagian yang paling gue suka justru bukan saat Dika diselingkuhin atau saat mantan pacarnya ternyata nikah dengan selingkuhannya itu, tapi justru sebelum Dika berangkat untuk kuliah ke Adelaide.

Sabuk pengaman yang pacar gue butuhkan adalah kepercayaan gue. Kepercayaan pada dia, pada kami berdua. Omongan sederhana; ‘Aku yakin bisa ngelewatin ini berdua sama kamu.’

Entah karena cerita-cerita dibuku ini berkisah tentang patah hati atau karena gue bukan pembaca setia buku-buku Raditya Dika, tapi menurut gue cara berceritanya sekarang cukup berubah. Pengaruh umur? Mungkin. Bukan, bukan tua, tapi dewasa. Menurut gue Raditya Dika lebih berusaha untuk menggabungkan dua sudut pandang yang berbeda dibuku ini; komedi dan nggak-serius-banget-tapi-maunya-sih-maknanya-dalem. Beda banget dengan buku Kambing Jantan yang bikin gue ketawa nggak berhenti-henti, selama baca buku ini yang ada dipikiran gue justru ‘ini seharusnya lucu atau enggak ya!?’.Mungkin memang gue yang nggak terlalu ngikutin karya-karyanya Raditya Dika, atau mungkin juga memang sudut pandangnya sudah lebih berbeda sekarang. (jeng-jeng-jeng-jeng!!!)

Satu hal yang gue sayangkan adalah kesalahan penulisan dihalaman 66 pada bab ‘Balada Lelaki Tomboi’.

’Kamu nggak usah sempet-sempetnya bercanda, deh.’ Astra menghela napas panjang. ‘Maaf, ya, kita sampai di sini saja.’ 

Dengan cara semudah itu, gue pun putus dengan Astra.

Kata-kata Astra diatas seharusnya diganti dengan Deska. Kenapa? Karena Astra itu adalah cowok yang menggantikan posisi Dika dihati Deska. Kalau Dika bilang dia putus dengan Astra, berarti… berarti… oh!

Cerita-cerita yang ditawarkan oleh Raditya Dika memang tetap ringan dan akrab dengan kehidupan sehari-hari. Menurut gue hal ini merupakan salah satu kelebihan Raditya Dika, dimana dia bisa banget milih topik yang mewakili suara hati abege-abege galau masa kini. Bab terakhir dalam buku ini, ‘Koala Kumal’, seolah-olah membenarkan pandangan gue mengenai cara penulisan Raditya Dika yang sedikit berubah. Masalah perubahan itu kearah yang lebih baik atau lebih buruk menurut gue itu kembali lagi ke persepsi pembaca, tapi perubahan yang gue rasain ternyata tepat digambarkan di akhir dari buku Koala Kumal, ‘Dewasa’.

Rate: 7.5/10

Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

“My name is Clay Jannon and those were the days when I rarely touched paper.” 

Meet Mr. Jannon, an ex web-designer as “a result of the great food-chain contraction that swept through America in the early twenty-first century”. Jannon lost his job at the NewBagel and now he is struggling to find a new job. His depression leads him to the 24-hour bookstore; Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Jannon describes the bookstore as “absurdly narrow and dizzyingly tall, and the shelves went all the way up- three stories of books, maybe more”.

He met Mr. Penumbra, a tall and skinny old man with blue eyes that match the blue sweater he wore that first day Jannon met him. When Penumbra asked him about a book he loves, Jannon immediately mentioned The Dragon-Song Chronicles- the book he has read three times since he was obsessed with it back in sixth grade (and the very same book that would help him throughout his adventure). So then meet Mr. Jannon, the night clerk at Penumbra’s.

He soon discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are less than few and none of them seem to buy anything- instead, every time the bell above the door tinkles, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from the Waybacklist at the strange corners of the store. And as if just to trigger his curiosity even more, there is an unusual logbook Jannon has to take care during his shift. The logbook contains the detail of the members of the store who come to visit to borrow certain books, along with the detail on their appearances. (To be honest, at this moment I was expecting something like The Night at the Museum where all the characters of the books come to live, but nah!)

Mat (his roommate) was the one who encourages Jannon to open the book from the Waybacklist for the first time. Surprisingly, the books contain solid matrix of letters- an undifferentiated jumble. The next day, Jannon’s long-term best friend who was bounded by The Dragon-Song Chronicles, Neel Shah, came to visit the store. He told Neel the whole story about the store and soon they were bounded again by the upcoming adventure that is waiting for them open-handed. Jannon real adventure was actually started after he met Kat Potente, a beautiful Googler he wanted to impress. He develops an analysis of the clientele’s behavior and, with a little help from Kat and Mat, he recognizes that the borrowing-pattern of the books in the Waybacklist form a face- the Founder’s face.

He didn’t realize what he has crossed at the time. The adventure leads Jannon, Kat and Neel to another bookstore on the Fifth Avenue, facing Central Park, just down the street from the Guggenheim. Another unusual bookstore I would say; the house of the Unbroken Spine who was founded by Aldus Manutius five hundred years ago. The fellowship members have worked for centuries to unlock his codex vitae that is believed to contain the secret to eternal life. (I was changing my expectation to more like Lara Croft- my imagination knows no bound!)

For the rest of the story, Jannon, with the help from his variously talented friends, works hard to decode Aldus Manutius’s codex vitae. Undoubtedly, it doesn’t contain the secret to eternal life (Ya, duh!). As I told you before, the book The Dragon-Song Chronicles helps him to solve everything, but don’t worry I will not spoil the entire story. Grab the book and spoil it yourself!

I would say that Robin Sloan is brilliant. The novel delivers fresh adventure and imagination. He brings both papers and computers in the story- two worlds that seem wide apart today. He uses libraries, bookstores, museums and ancient books to drag us back to the time when publishing companies were as cool as Internet provider companies in our modern society. In the same time, he uses high-tech, beyond imagination technologies that we never knew existed. He creates the world in which paper and computer walk side by side. He talks about history, present and future in a passionate way.

Though, too good to be true- he decided to make the characters and the stories of the book relate one to another. Jannon’s adventure might be long, but it is not that challenging (at least for me) since snap-there’s a clue, snap-there’s a friend to help, snap-there’s an audiobook to hear. I mean, I know that sometime the biggest mystery of life lies in the plain sight, but it shouldn’t be that plain. People have worked for centuries to break the code, at least Jannon should struggle a little bit more. I think it would be best if Sloan breaks the novel into a chronicle. Well, it’s just a plain suggestion tho.

Let me quote Sloan’s brilliant closing: 

“There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight. It takes forty-one seconds to climb a ladder three stories tall. It’s not easy to imagine the year 3012, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. We have new capabilities now- strange powers we’re still getting used to. The mountains are a message from Aldrag the Wyrm-Father. Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wonder in.”

Rate: 9/10