~Ais Quìn~ Female, 19. Italy

It took a little bit to me entering Celie's rotten and ungrammatical world, and I can't say it's been easy: I mean, I got used to her peculiar vocabulary fairly soon, but still there was something slipping, something disturbing about that, maybe because it was the only way I could penetrate the environment where she lives, or better, try to survive. Apart from that, I give Alice Walker just two stars not because she's not worth them, but because I've never been crazy about epistolary novels, although the idea of this woman whose only relief in life is writing to God is very original and somehow even tender. I would have appreciated a little bit of narration, even from other characters' point of view, such as Albert's, Harpo's, Sophia's...

PLOT: Celie lives in the Deep South of United States of America and her life is a hell on earth. Raped by the man she calls father, her mother forced to bed on account of a cruel illness, left by her sister Nettie who escaped from home, married to a man, Albert, to whom she's less than a servant, her life changes when she meets Shug Avery, a singer who used to date with her usband before he got married. Shug is very ill and nobody but Albert is willing to take care of her, so she moves to his house. At first she's very mean to Celie, but little by little the two of them instituide a special friendship who will help Celie to raise her head and get going on her way...

Sorry, but that's beyond me: I held on until page 45, then I had to surrender. Nabokov's English is not very difficult, though a little bit affected, and the book's basic theme doesn't disturb me at all (blimey, it's just a novel!), but I found it extremely boring.
Sooner or later I'm going to give it another try, but for the moment I chuck up the sponge. That's the second book by Nabokov I (try to) read, but as a writer he doesn't seem a very good match for me.

I particularly enjoyed the third chapter of this saga, which is funny, engaging and very well written, apart from one big, big thing: Tigrana! Looks like a Mary Sue to me, and in Blart's saga there's no place for flawless people. In a nutshell, for people who don't make the reader laugh at them.
P.S.: the subtitle is wrong, there insn't any Octopus. What a pity, I must add.

PLOT: Beware this time, a time of joy,
a time of nuptial bliss,
for endless torment will plague the land,
if the newly-wed bride be missed.
If she be fine when one month's passed,
this prophecy's naught but air,
but if she be gone at dead of night,
Illyria BEWARE!
If these grim tidings come to pass,
your land's forever cursed
with endless suffering and pain
and maybe even worse,
unless the husband of the bride
return her ere full moon is high,
then all Illyria will be saved,
except for her husband -he must die!
Princess Lois has been kidnapped. A terrible prophecy hangs over the merry kingdom of Illyria. Blart, the Twice (and Unwilling) Wolrd Saviour, must rescue her before a month has passed, or the disheartening words of the prophecy will come true. The quest requires his death: Blart, whose greatest ambition is living as a Pig Boy, must undertake a dangerous voyage towards Styxia, and this time he can't rely on Capablanca's advices. This time, the quest's outcome depends only on him. Together with the boy, ploughing the seas with the glorious Golden Pig there are Beo the warrior, Herglotz the scientist, a boy who's not a boy and Olaf, former suitor of Princess Lois, who's bound to offer his favours in order to protect the strangest marriage of all times...

Until now, that's definitely the best book of hers I have read: tightly plotted, breathtaking, unputdownable and extremely engaging.

PLOT: At the age of four Laurie Kenyon was kidnapped and taken in captivity by two hippies, from whom she was released two years later. When she came back home, the cheerful little girl she used to be before seemed to have gone forever. Now, while attending her third year at the college, Laura is supposed to have killed Allan Grant, a teacher of hers, of whom she was even too fond, but is she the hangman or just another victim?
A threat from the past is getting stronger and coming every day a little closer to Laura. A shadow's lurking into the wrinkles of her tortured mind.