THE BOY NEXT DOOR
By Meg Cabot
(known for her extremely successful young adult fiction series the Princess Diaries)

In her debut adult novel, Cabot relies entirely on highly amusing e-mails to tell a fetching meet-cute story. New York City gossip columnist Melissa Fuller is known for being obsessive about Winona Ryder, dating the wrong men and being tardy for work. Arriving particularly late one morning, she explains to her colleagues at the New York Journal that she was detained by the attempted murder of her elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs. Friedlander, who is in a coma. Always the good girl, Mel has volunteered to take care of Mrs. Friedlander's many pets until the neighbor's nephew Max, a famous fashion photographer, can be reached. Her co-workers warn her about Max, a notorious lady's man. Contrary to the gossip, when she meets Max he is down to earth, funny and kind. Despite the strange fact that he likes to be called John and appears to be between photo shoots, she begins to date him and learns that he shares her love for Stephen King novels and natural disasters. It doesn't take long for her to fall head over heels, or for Mel's mom to write, "Get a ring on your finger before you uncross those legs, sweetie." When a mysterious e-mail arrives explaining that there is more to her beau than meets the eye, she is duly upset and uses the power of her pen to get even. But when Mrs. Friedlander's attacker returns, will Mel and Max be able to put their differences aside to catch a killer? Full of clever e-mail banter and tongue-in-cheek humor, this cheeky novel should be enjoyed in one sitting.
(From Amazon.com)


I loveeeee Meg Cabot, dia adalah salah satu chick lit writer favorit gue. Bukunya selalu ringan, seru persis kaya makan popcorn. Kaya "The Boy Next Door" ini, walaupun title nya rada rada jamdul, but buku ini dijamin asyik banget. Seluruh buku ini formatnya email, jadi story progress through thousand emails..
Ngga yakin seru??? Salah banget, email di buku ini seru seru, apalagi didukung karakter yang konyol konyol banget. Favorit gue adalah temen temen se kantornya Melissa ini, yang demen banget nge gossip lewat email :) terutama soal manager HRD kantor mereka yg nyebelin banget. Belum lagi kakak nya Max yang mau tahu banget soal hubungan adiknya ama Melissa.
Pengen banget ngelihat novel ini dijadiin filmmmm......:p



SHE WENT ALL THE WAY
By Meg Cabot


Success hasn't spoiled screenwriter Lou Calabrese -- it's just given her a taste for luxury. And it's put her in some bizarre situations -- like in a helicopter en route to the wilds of Alaska, sharing too-close quarters with the last man she wants to be with: Jack Townsend! Once a sexy nobody whom Lou helped make a somebody, Jack's just been dumped by a high-profile Hollywood airhead -- who's eloped with Lou's longtime love! So what else could go wrong?Well...Their pilot could try to shoot the most adored man in America. They could crash land in the icy, mountainous middle of nowhere. And at the worst possible moment, when survival should be their only consideration, Jack could start wondering if maybe he wasn't a wee bit too hasty for not giving this sexy screenwriter a second look -- while Lou could start noticing how superstar Jack is kind of hot after all ...
(From Amazon.Com)

Not the best from Cabot but to accompany my Mocha Frappe from Starbuck in a nice beautiful Sunday still okeh lah...

Every Boy's Got One
By Meg Cabot

A day-by-day travel journal intended as a first anniversary present for Jane Harris's best friend, Holly, turns into Jane's rollicking private diary account of the madcap events leading up to Holly and Mark's Italian countryside elopement. Cabot (Boy Meets Girl), who pens the bestselling young adult series the Princess Diaries, presents an engaging topsy-turvy tale pitting maid of honor Jane, renowned for her Garfield-like Wonder Cat cartoons, against Mark's best friend and best man, international journalist Cal Langdon (who, to Jane's astonishment, has never heard of Wonder Cat). The author garners extra points for cleverly bringing the novel to life via Jane's diary, Cal's PDA journal and the hilarious e-mails that whiz through cyberspace between the main characters, their respective family members and one diehard Wonder Cat fan. Cabot captures the rustic charm of Castelfidardo, a small Italian town in the region of Le Marche, which happens to be the accordion-making capital of the world and is replete with unpredictable electricity, dubious public restrooms and bureaucratic snafus that nearly derail the wedding plans. The jaded, bitterly divorced Cal makes a worthy opponent to Jane, whose notions of marriage are much more romantic than his. Cabot's personal epilogue about her own elopement in the Italian countryside—marked by much of the mayhem her main characters encounter—adds spice to this frothy concoction of love, friendship and true romance.
(From amazon.Com)

Walaupun ngga sebagus Boys Next Door, buku ini masih asyik buat dibaca. Kali ini format nya adalah travel jurnal and juga PDA journal. Walaupun temanya klasik banget (dari benci jadi cinta..) cuman kapan sih pernah bosen ama tema kaya ginih...Buku ini asyik dibaca kalo travelling, karena ngga usah mikir bow...


SIZE 12 IS NOT FAT: A Heather Wells Mistery
By Meg Cabot

At 28, former teen-pop-star Heather Wells feels as though she has lost everything: her family and fortune (her mom fled the country with Heather's earnings), her recording contract, her slender waistline, and her fiance, Jordan, a philandering, boy-band singer. Then Jordan's brother, Cooper, a dreamy private investigator and family black sheep, offers Heather room and board in exchange for clerical work, and she finds an additional job as a residence-hall director at a nearby Greenwich Village university. After several female students turn up dead at the dorm, Heather takes on her own stealthy investigation and finds herself the target of the killer. In the first title in her Heather Wells series, Cabot combines a fairly straightforward mystery with a single-girl-in-the-city plot in which Heather triumphs over cheating guys, bad luck, and a fattist society. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, but Heather's strong, amusing voice, the plot twists, and the possibility of romance will draw mystery and chick-lit readers alike
(From Amazon.Com)

Gue agak kaget ama novel barunya Meg Cabot ini, temanya detektif amatir gini. Kayanya gue ngga sreg ajah walaupun kocak kocaknya masih kaya novel novel dia yg dulu. Tapi gue suka banget ada lirik lagunya si Heather di setiap opening chapter, pas banget nunjukin kalau dulu si heather ini adalah seorang teen pop idol ternama hehehehehe, jadi inget ama debbie Gibson tuh...:P

vanishing act

By Jodi Picoult

Each of the five narrators in this excellent book speaks intimately to the listener, capitalizing on the emotional complexity of Picoult's heart-wrenching tale. Delia Hopkins, immediately seizes the attention when she relates how, on an ordinary day in smalltown New Hampshire, her beloved father, Andrew, is arrested for having kidnapped her, 28 years earlier, from the mother she long thought was dead. Delia's fiancé, Eric, and her best friend, Fitz (both of whom are given appropriately cultured New England accents), add dimension to this multifaceted exploration of love and identity.


Buku ini bercerita dari point of view 5 orang yang terlibat di dalamnya; Delia, Andrew - sang ayah, Eric - Delia's fiance & Andrew's lawyer, Fitz - sahabat Delia & Eric serta Elise - ibu Delia.
Tema nya menarik banget, what is good and bad or right or wrong, how well you know your parent. Bahwa di dunia ini there is always both side of the story no matter what. Dan gue suka banget endingnya, ada twist di situ yang ngebuat kita menutup buku ini dengan senyum :p
Walaupun secara overall, buku ini agak ke mana mana ceritanya dan karena dilihat dari point of view yg beda beda jadi ngga dalem banget. Kaya pengalaman Andrew di penjara, menurut gue sih agak dragging banget. Terus cerita Elise juga kurang diexpose. Plus cinta segitiga nya Delia-Eric-Fitz agak ganggu dikit sih...

the third secret

By Steve Berry

Set in the near future, Secret introduces Jakob Volkner--Pope Clement XV--a German "caretaker pope" who, nearing the age of 80, was elected as John Paul II's successor. But three years into his papacy, the thoughtful Clement has begun to quietly express skepticism about papal infallibility and the Church's restrictive dogma, and to make odd requests of his longtime secretary, Monsignor Colin Michener, an Irish-born but American-reared priest whose vows of celibacy have been tested--and found wanting.

Clement has also made repeated visits to a guarded sanctum within the Vatican archives, where sacred and historic documents are stored. And he's dispatched Michener to Romania to locate an elderly cleric who, in the 1950s, translated three cryptic prophecies, purportedly offered by the Virgin Mary in 1917 to a trio of children in Fatima, Portugal. Those secrets have since been fully disclosed to the world. Or have they?

That’s the question facing Michener in the wake of Clement's shocking suicide, as he pursues a twisted trail of clues, crimes, and religious forecasts from Rome to Bosnia to Germany, accompanied by his former lover, journalist Katerina Lew. But making any additional secrets known to the world will put Michener in confrontation with doctrinal reactionaries, led by Cardinal Alberto Valendrea, the Vatican's Italian secretary of state, who's determined to follow Clement as the Vicar of Christ--even if that requires inventing a few new sins and flouting a 900-year-old prediction of doom for the next pope.
(From Amazon.com)

Seperlima bagian awal buku ini menarik, tapi habis itu ngga seru banget hehehehe walaupun akhirnya setelah dipaksa gue bisa nyelesain ceritanya. Mungkin sih menurut gue the Third Secret nya kurang bombastis dibanding let say ternyata Maria Magdalena itu ternyata pernah menikah dengan Yesus (tau dong buku apa ituh..hehehehe). Mungkin kalau fenomena penampakan dibahas lebih dalam, bakalan lebih asyik lagi, karena topik ini juga menarik banget

Tapi gue ternyata masih mau kasih satu kesempatan ama Steve Berry, gue lagi nunggu edisi paperback nya satu buku baru dia, judulnya The Templar Legacy. Kalau yang ini jelek juga, yah...lain kali daripada beli, gue minjem ajah deh buku karangan dia :p

the historian

By Elizabeth Kostova

“To you my perceptive reader, I bequeath my history”

The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor."
When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive.
The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.
As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight—one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972.
The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland--sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.
(from amazon.com)

Dracula stories are not my cup of tea. Gue ngga pernah baca Bram Stocker or Ann Rice novels. Paling gue cuman bisa related ama film Interview with Vampire, itu juga karena ada Brad Pitt :)
Gue beli buku ini juga rada ketipu sih, gue pikir jenis jenis kaya Da Vinci Code gitu. Tapi pas gue baca sih ternyata not bad juga, mungkin karena di buku ini gue bisa “kenalan” ama sosok Drakula ini, yang ternyata di luar anggapan gue selama ini adalah tokoh nyata dan punya history yg sangat panjang
Bagian awal buku ini menarik, tengah tengahnya kaya baca text book sejarah, menjelang ending naik lagi tapi endingnya mengecewakan. Bukan kenapa napa, buku ini tebelnya 704 halaman, jadi agak kecewa dong setelah berjuang habis habisan buat tamat, ternyata gitu ajah nih Count Dracula kekuatannya ???
Tapi gue suka buku ini pakai format surat menyurat buat nyeritain perjalanan tokohnya, jadi ngga terlalu ngebosenin.
Cuman buku ini asyik banget kalau dijadiin film..hmmmm, mungkin mini seri ajah tepatnya biar lebih puas. Karena tokoh di buku ini berkelana dari Inggris, Paris, Amsterdam, Istambul, Hungaria, Rumania..melewati gereja gereja tua, kubur kubur bawah tanah, situs situs kuno..... Mungkin kaya persilangan Indiana Jones and Interview with Vampire kaliiii...

he's just not that into you

By Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccilo
Writer & consultant from Sex and the City

….Greg and Liz are here to say that despite good intentions –you’re wasting your time. Men are not complicated although they like you to think they are and there are no mix messages girls…the truth maybe HE JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU…

Sering banget kita nih cewek-cewek (mungkin juga cowok) curhat bareng cuman buat nge discuss he love me ..or not..love or not…Gue yakin deh dia suka ama gue tapi blab la bla….suka ngga yah dia ama gue, soalnya gue bingung nih blab la bla…Sound familiar ???

Nah, buku ini hadir buat nampar kita nih and tell the truth when a guy just doesn’t like us enough, so stop wasting our precious time :p
Gue suka banget deh ama si Greg ini, gue tuh ngebayangin dia nih pasti orangnya yang rada rada bitchy gituh deh and sebel banget ngelihat kelakuan cewek cewek yang takut banget bilang hejust not that into me …
Pas gue nonton Oprah, bener lho dia emang rada rada jutex gituh orangnya tapi sumpee pasti dia enak banget dijadiin temen gossip

Di buku ini Greg and Liz kasih contoh kapan sih or tanda tandanya he just not that into us. Oya, format nya asyik banget deh, jadi kaya kolom Tanya jawab di majalah gitu dan comment comment mereka berdua itu bener yang bikin kita malu sendiri, soalnya emang kenyataan nya kita suka ngga terima sih..

he just not that into you, if he’s not asking you out --- men are not afraid of ruining the friendship (catetttt nih), jadi ngga ada tuh alasan nanti merusak persahabatan kita (ceileeeee)

he just not that into you, if he’s not calling you..
“ oh sure, they say they are busy. They say that they didn’t have even a moment in their busy day ti pick up the phone. It was just that crazy. Bullshit. With the cell phone and speed dialing it is almost impossible not to call you. Men are just like us, we like to take a break to talk to someone we like. Which would be a day that I would never be to busy to call you

he just not that into you, if he’s married --- unless he’s all yours, he’s still hers

he just not that into you, if he’s a bully BF, selfish jerk – you already have one asshole, you don’t need another (ouchhh)

he just not that into you, if he’s breaking up with you – simple rules of break up always be classy, never be crazy

tv drama addict

Dari jaman gue kuliah, gue udah demen nonton tv drama di TV. Dari musim telenovela yang ala Little Missy sampai Rosalinda, Maria Mercedes dll hehehehehe. Terus sempet juga boom drama drama jepang kaya Tokyo Love Story (the best dorama ever...) terus dorama nya Takuya Kimura (Love Generation, Long Vocation etc) sampai Meteor Garden deh..Ngaku deh, biarpun acting para F4 itu amatir banget but serial itu menghibur banget.

Terus beberapa tahun ini gue demen banget ama serial serial Korea. Yang pertama kali gue tonton itu judulnya "Beautiful Days" di TV 7. ampe gue bela belain tuh tiap sabtu sore ngga pernah ketinggalan nonton. Sumpee, top abiss...Highly recommended lah, biarpun keluaran jamdul.
Dulu susah banget nyari serial Korea ini, gue kudu jauh jauh tuh ke Mango Two khusus buat browsing VCD nya (belum musim DVD soalnya) and jatuhnya mahal bo, soalnya paling ngga kan serial ini ada 16 seri
Tapi sekarang sih gampang banget nyari nya and cepet banget serial baru masuk. Paling dashyat, kemarin gue beli serial baru yang even di Korea nya ajah belon beres, udah ada bajakannya walau belum komplet sampai tamat. Dashyattttt

Cuman blog gue ini gue dedikasikan buat para drama addicts yang bener bener ngeluangin waktunya buat nge upload drama drama (bisa jepang, korea or taiwan) di internet lengkap beserta subtitle nya. Gue salut buangetttttttt

Jadi awalnya kan kalau nunggu drama baru kan suka lama nyampenya di Jakarta (terutama dorama Jepang yah, itu susah banget nyarinya). Terus temen gue namanya Anifah (arigato banget say...) yang ngajarin gue buat ngedownload drama drama itu lewat internet.

Awalnya rada ribet, soalnya ada beberapa software yang harus kita download dulu (ini gue juga tinggal copy paste ajah dari punya Anifah :), kalau mau email ajah ke gue...:p)
Lalu tinggal masuk deh ke beberapa site yang ada, gue sih cuman ngandalin satu site namanya
http://d-addicts.com/, terus tinggal pilih deh drama apa yang kita mau di section TORRENTS

Kalau drama yang kita mau belum ada subtitle nya, tinggal masuk ke bagian subtitle dan ngecek sudah ada belon..Paling enak sih nge DL dorama karena biasanya cuman sekitar 300-400 MB, kalau drama Korea biasanya sekitar 700 MB.
Perlu berapa hari untuk nge DL? Kalau drama baru, untuk700 MB bisa 2/3 hari tergantung dari internet connection nya lah, kalau udah agak lamaan bisa lebih lama lagi

Kalau sudah beres nge DL, format yang biasa gue pakai itu .AVI, jadi hanya bisa diputer di DVD player yang support DIVX, kalau ngga kudu di burn dulu jadi DVD or VCD

Yang gue amazed banget dari d-addict ini, kan ini free situs jadi ngga ada deh yang dibayar udah nerjemahin drama yg seri nya bisa puluhan, tapi banyak banget yang mau jadi contributornya. Terus anggotanya pada rajin banget nge upload drama2 baik yg baru or yang lama, even saling membalas request orang orang yang meng access. Gue tuh suka banget speechless sama passion para anggota di sana, gila banget dari seluruh dunia ngumpul dan susah payah cuman buat sebuah tv drama. INtinya, pantengin aja rules of the game nya ajah, soalnya pada galak galak juga kalu kita nyalahin aturan main nya bow..

Belum lagi kalau buka forum nya, rapi banget berdasarkan subyek bisa ngomongin macem macem, ngga cuman film sih. Cuman buat gue maanfaat banget, paling ngga tahu drama mana yang okeh apa ngga..Saluuutttttttttt

Di Indonesia, ada juga satu situs www.doramalover.com, ini buat para pencinta dorama Jepang. Bisa beli VCD dorama and juga mereka buka patungan subtitle kalau ada serial baru. Gue juga salut nih ama mereka yang mengorganisir, karena info dorama nya lengkap lho. Gue juga pernah coba beli, okeh banget dan on time dianternya, CD nya juga dalam kondisi bagus.
Arigato, sudah bantuin gue nge lengkapin koleksi dorama gue :)


Now watching: Sweet Spy (Korea) -- Goong (Korea)

hollaback girl

Let me hear you say
this shit is bananasB-A-N-A-N-A-S
(This shit is bananas)(B-A-N-A-N-A-S)

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna to happen like that
Because I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
Ooooh oohthis my shitthis my shit
(Gwen Stephanie)

Dari pertama kali denger lagu ini sampai sekarang, gue ngga pernah tahu nih the meaning of the maksud dari hollaback girl nya Gwen Stepahnie ini...tanya tanya sekitar juga ngga ada yang tahu. Eh, pas banget di Yahoo ask today ada pencerahan nih..oooh, ternyata ini slang nya para cheerleader di Amrik...Buat yang juga penasaran, ini nih maksudnya lho..

Doesn't that song drive you bananas? The incessant beat, the stomping, the shushed-out swear words, and just what the heck is Gwen Stefani talking about? We don't want to get everybody fired up, so we put our pom-poms down and tackled this most important inquiry.
After a few times around that track, we discovered what a Hollaback Girl is and why Gwen ain't one.

The OC Weekly's insightful analysis points to cheerleading as the source of the slang. The cheerleading captain 'hollas' a chant to the squad, and the girls 'holla' it back. So the hollaback girl is a follower, and by extension, she is treated like a doormat, especially by boys. Writers on the Urban Dictionary add that a hollaback girl is all talk, no action, and won't fight back.

Obviously, Gwen is gonna fight and give it her all. She even socks it to us by proudly confirming her cheerleader roots. And while similarly a cheerleader at heart, Toni Basil doesn't appear to be a hollaback girl either.

Btw, Yahoo ask ini lucu juga lho, jadi kita bisa nanya nanya ngga penting tapi kita juga penasaran (kaya hollaback girl ini lah) .... :p