Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

I have always been a fan of Jodi Picoult. So far, this would be my third book, the first was My Sister's Keeper (excellent!) and second Nineteen Minutes. All of her books deal with complicated matters and has an interesting ending. With Plain Truth, she didn't dissappoint but I still prefer My Sister's Keeper. The reason I picked up the book was because I think the Amish people are interesting.

Anyway, this book deals with an unmarried young Amish girl, Katie Fisher, who gave birth and the baby was found dead in a family barn, apparently smothered to death. Ellie Hathaway acts as Katie's attorney. Since Kate is Amish and won't adjust well to the prison environment, Ellie has to stay with Katie and watch her at all times.

Ellie is reluctant to stay with the Amish. Well, who wouldn't? The Amish do not depend on electricity, phones, tvs, cars and they're very strong on family and religion.

The book was interesting to me because I get to see a glimpse of the Plain people and helps me understand better on the Amish way of life. Initially, I was frustrated with Katie because she keeps denying that she had a baby while all medical evidence states otherwise. I could almost feel Ellie's frustration when Katie woke up in the middle of the night complaining that her breasts hurt and milk was coming out of her breasts. Ellie says that this is proof that Katie just gave birth but Katie is adamant and says she did not have a baby and this was happening because her heart was full. I was completely at a loss for words and I felt like shaking Katie and saying, "You. Had. A. Baby. Stop lying because how is Ellie going to defend you if you're not telling her anything?"

But as the story went on, I began to understand Katie. I felt sorry for her because she obviously had no free will. Her dad is very strict and really follows the Amish way of life. Katie has an older brother, Jacob, who left the family to continue on his studies (oh yeah,the Amish people study until 8th grade and they leave school. it's their way of life and anyone who continues usually must leave the faith). They have a younger sister Hannah, but she died young in a ice-skating incident. So, you could say Katie is the only one in the family since Jacob never visits them due to Katie's dad forbidding him to come. Sarah, Katie's mother, loves her children very much and keeps in contact with Jacob by sending Katie to visit him for a few time. Whilst visiting Jacob, Katie falls in love with Adam, who's a few years older than her own brother. They bonded and Adam cared about her, and in the heat of a moment, they had sex.

But Katie misinterpret Adam's words and thinks Adam doesn't really care about her and tells him to go away. Katie goes on with her life, feeding the chickens and etc until one day, she realizes she was pregnant when she attempts to bend down. Obviously, she has to keep it a secret because her dad will surely go ballistic. But Katie intended to keep the baby but after she gave birth, she fell asleep in exhaustion but before that she prayed, to make 'this' go away. And when she woke up, the baby was gone and Katie thinks God has answered her prayers. Which sounds pretty stupid to me for someone to think this way.

Ellie is very skilled and I always liked the lawyers twisting around words in the court. That part was interesting because they really have to know what they're saying and they have to convince that what you're saying is true. Katie's lover, Adam came for the trial. It is evident that he loves her very much. I thought it was very sweet and I felt sad when Adam went to the baby's grave. I knew if he had known Katie was pregnant, he would have taken responsibility but due to their lifestyles being worlds apart, it is not possible because Katie, as much as she loves Adam, she doesn't really want to leave her family and Adam doesn't want to join the Amish faith. In the Amish world, Katie had a fiancee, Samuel, who's willing to do anything for her. But, she does not love him. Oh, the tragic love story.

In the end, we found out the the baby would have died anyway because he had acquired some sort of disease from Katie and the baby was premature too. Still, there was some fabric stuffed in his mouth, and at the very last page, we find out that Sarah, Katie's mother had killed the baby. All along, I suspected Aaron, Katie's dad because he's all about the Amish way of life. But to think of it, Sarah killing the baby, it fits because Sarah would have known that Katie was pregnant and as she told Ellie, she didn't want to lose Katie after losing Jacob, Hannah and the other babies that died during her miscarriages.

Explosive ending, no? Good book. =)

Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs

Hilarious! Very funny. I kept laughing throughout the movie. If you’re stressed or you want to have a laugh, this is the perfect movie. But I recommend eating first before seeing this movie or you’ll be drooling throughout the movie.
Flint Lockwood wants to contribute to others ever since he was a kid. He does a lot of inventions but they don’t exactly work out, like his Spray-On Shoes and rat-birds. He also has a pet monkey named Steve. Steve wears one of Flint’s invention, which allows the wearer’s thoughts to be said aloud. Steve mostly says 1 word at a time and he loves gummi bears. =P
Flint’s lab is one-of a kind with the entrance being a sheet painted with complicated buttons. At first, I thought wow, his lab is high-tech but then he flings open the sheet. Lol! And when he does his experiments, he says aloud the action that he’s doing, like mixing!, blending! It was weird but funny. Oh well, you can expect geniuses to be some sort of weird and eccentric.
His dad doesn’t really support his ideas and is not as interested in science like Flint. He loves his sardine shop and wants Flint to help him in his shop. Flint lives in a town called Swallow Falls (I think) and the town’s main attraction is sardines. But one day, the world decides not to eat sardines anymore, Flint’s town is left eating sardines everyday. (Sardine as baby milk, sardine in soup, everything sardine!) So, Flint wants to change this and creates a machine that turns water into food. He tries to do this in his lab but there’s not enough power to power up the machine.
On the day Flint is supposed to help out in his dad’s shop (his dad went to the opening of sardine land), he sneaks out and tries to power up his food machine with the town’s big wires. He succeeds but the machine ends up being fired up into the sky. The townsfolk are all angry at him for ruining their sardine land, which I don’t really get, it looks kinda boring and digusting to me. Haha.
Flint sits at the pier, sad and is joined by Sam Sparks, a weather reporter. Sam secretly is a genius but hides it from people to get them to accept her. They exchange a few words and Flint finds himself attracted to Sam but when Sam recognizes Flint as the person who ruined her career, Flint was saved by his machine. Burgers started falling out from the sky!! At this point, I felt like eating a burger myself.
Over the few days, it rained a lot of things. Eggs, bacons, hotdogs, sushi, steak and the machine snowed ice-cream! Now, that was interesting!! On the day the machine went overboard, there was a spaghetti tornado! LOL
Then, when Flint lost the pendrive to kill the machine, he asked his dad to send an email to his phone. Sounds simple? Not to Flint’s dad who never touched a computer in his life. That was entertaining to watch. When Flint was trying to teach his dad to drag the mouse, his dad dragged the mouse across the screen. I was practically rolling on the floor, laughing.
All in all, it was an enjoyable movie. I hated the mayor but loved the town cop. He was like jumping all the time and he loved his son very much. Like all the townspeople, he doesn’t really like Flint for his inventions(this was before the food machine). There was this scene:

Cop: You see this contacts lens?
Flint: Yeah?
Cop: The contacts lens represents YOU and my eye represents MY EYE. (puts on lens) I got my ‘eye’ on you.

That was so funny! Oh, so, Flint and Sam got together in the end and Flint, who’s a total nerd doesn’t know how to kiss. So, he puffs out his cheeks and Sam, who sees this, also puffs out her cheeks and they kiss. That’s a new way to kiss! Lol!
I’m sure anyone who watched this movie will get some food cravings. For me? It was pancakes with maple syrup. Yummm. =)

Michael Jackson's This Is It

I remember when I was first introduced to Michael Jackson. I was 8 or 9, just came back from London. My dad bought a new cd player with stereo and everything. We bought lots of CDs and VCDS, and one of them was Michael Jackson’s History Volume 1. I listened and watched to all of his songs, especially Beat It. Beat It remains my number 1 favourite. I loved the guitar solo!
Watching the music videos, what I remember most is trying to imitate his dance moves with my brother. I tried moonwalking and the dance in Remember the Time. It was successful but I slipped and fell down a lot. =P
It was during my holidays, and I was on my way back from my aunt’s house, listening to the radio playing Michael Jackson’s songs. I enjoyed it until the host said MJ had died. I was shocked. The moment I got home, I turned on E! and I watched Jermaine Jackson telling the world his brother had died.
I was sad and I teared up watching his memorial service when Paris Jackson spoke. It was so heart-wrenching.
Anyway, back to the movie. It was excellent. Two thumbs way up and five stars! If I could give more stars, I would because it was that good! Michael was in his own element. He was in control, he sang brilliantly. To those people who said he couldn’t sing anymore due to his nose, well, you’re wrong. And his nose looked perfectly fine to me. There was no hole in the middle of his face.
He did all his signature moves and his footwork was flawless. At one point, I just stared at his feet when he was dancing. It was light, smooth and perfect. He was 50 something but man, he still danced like he was young!
If he didn’t die, I have no doubt in mind that this concert would have been one of his greatest concerts of all time. Watching Michael in the movie, I had a sense that he was a perfectionist. And he was hands on with EVERYTHING. He knew all of his songs and he knew what he wanted to do in his concert. He even taught his dancers and he choreographed his own moves. (His dancers were amazing. They learnt their dance moves in just about 10 seconds. AMAZING!)
Michael was funny and also humble. He was telling his guitarist that this is her moment to shine and she was sharing the stage with him. The guitarist, a 24 year old Scarlett Johanssen look-alike, was awesome.
I knew that Michael Jackson liked to do mini movies for his music videos and he did a few for this concert, like Smooth Criminal and Thriller. The mini movie for Thriller was better than the old one! It was scarier, I actually got creeps watching the ghost hanging from the chandelier. The mini movie was intended to be 3D and the ghouls and mummies were scary.
The concert was all about bigger and better. There was fireworks, dancers jumping out from under the stage, Michael standing on the cherry picker (that was funny, we got a glimpse of Michael’s personality when Kenny Ortega was telling him to hold on), and fire blazing through the stage.
While watching him perform, I noticed that he had very nice jackets. Some of them were shiny, there was a pointy leather one (my brother liked that one! But i was more into the pinstripe one) but this was Michael Jackson. All of them had an expensive look on them. I also noticed he wore a watch, and for some reason that made me happy. He is normal like the rest of us. I was particularly annoyed with some of the people in the cinema who were criticizing Michael. Hey, if you watched this movie to insult him, you just better go buy the DVD and stayed at home.
Watching this made me want to attend one of his concerts LIVE and to those people who did, you’re very lucky. But at least I get to watch his last concert and it was amazing. He was passionate and enthusiastic. I also believed that he didn’t commit suicide, he was fit and healthy.
Michael Jackson, even though you’re not here anymore, your music still lives on in thousands of people. You’re undoubtedly the King of Pop and you’re the greatest performer in my eyes.
Rest in peace, Michael. <3