"Better than a Sweater"

As Neil Patrick Harris mentions, his autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, is “better than a sweater”. His book is fun, witty, and extremely interactive, making you choose your own way through the life of this actor, comedian, magician, and award show host. This book, not only contains anecdotes, but also recipes for both cocktails and favorite foods of the writer, making it possible for you to not only read of his life, but actually taste it. If this is not enough to make you go buy and read the book, the magician side of Neil Patrick Harris appears in the book and makes you a few magic tricks starring you!

Something worth mentioning of the book is that you can read it either page by page, just like a normal book. Or choosing your own Neil Patrick Harris's adventure by jumping between pages. This autobiography is full of surprises that enchant, and touch the minds, the emotions and the lives of everyone who reads it.

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(Image taken from: https://www.penguin.com.au/jpg-large/9780670078547.jpg)

The Reality of the Fantastic

How would a “normal” person react when faced with something or someone that steps away from what they think possible? That is the question that David Levithan explores when he brings the second installment of the Every Day collection. The second book, titled Another Day, explores the life of Rhiannon, a 16-year-old girl who meets A, a soul who inhabits a new body every day. The question is: how can these two people love each other? How can they make it work? How can they make a routine out of their love when one of them keeps changing from body to body each and every single day? All of these questions are answered in this book. 

This novel explores with the idea of sexuality, physical appearance and emotions and how these topics mix in the lives of Rhiannon and everyone that surrounds her. The novel, narrated by Rhiannon herself, explores what is like for a “normal” human being to face something as fantastic and unbelievable as meeting and loving a soul that does not have a body of its own. The novel makes you wonder how it is to love someone, looking beyond the physical appearance and the situation in which the characters are. Is it possible to love someone just by their soul? Is love more than physical attraction? What is the perfect combination for a perfect love? 

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(Image taken from: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/8158m0pie0L.jpg)

Wow for Oscar Wao

This past January 4th, I finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz. I would like to say that this is the book equivalent of the movie Inception. Let me explain: instead of a dream, within a dream, within a dream, a story, inside a story, inside a story. The book is so rich in cultural elements of the Dominican Republic and the descriptions are so in detail, that you can imagine yourself as one of the characters living in the picturesque environments of this Caribbean island.

Something else that hold onto my attention from the start, was the vocabulary and the references used by the narrator Yunior. In his narration, he mixes characters, places, and stories from the geek culture (comic books, video games, anime, fantasy books) and brings them into a story about patriotism, revolution, dictatorship… making a cultural story pop-out like if it was taken out of a Marvel or DC comic book.

The story, which also may seem like a love story of sorts, brings also Dominican Republic cultural contexts, some that may be identified by their Caribbean neighbors. The author, by means of this fictionalized novel, brings into attention real-life situations from the republic and their effects on its citizens. The book not only serves to entertain its reader, but it also serves to teach Dominican history and its influence in the Americas.

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(Image taken from:  http://thomasstorey.com/images/book_covers/the_brief_wondrous_life_of_oscar_wao.jpg)