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That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
Alice Sebold's Almost Moon: Almost Unreadable

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Dictator for Life
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I judge anyone who lists Requiem for a Dream among their favorite movies. And I judge them harshly.
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eatsshootsleaves
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I absolutely despised this book. SPOILER ALERT:

I'm surprised that so many people here, of all places, like a book in which it's just assumed that when the dead girl possesses her old childhood classmate, she has no problem with her body being used, unwittingly, for sex.
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eatsshootsleaves
04/20/09

@eatsshootsleaves: Which wouldn't necessarily be so offensive -- you only need to look to Lolita to see a scenario where having a rapist as the main character of your book doesn't mean that the book is bad -- but it's also written atrociously. It's pretentious. And the fact that the book doesn't examine at all what happens when the girl who is raped becomes, in her own way, a rapist -- that just seems like both a failure of the imagination and the conscience.
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Shamrockette
04/20/09

@eatsshootsleaves: THANK YOU. I wanted to bring that up, but didn't. I was really angry at the fact that she took over her classmate's body just to have sex with the guy who kissed her! It was appalling! She was stooping to the level of the man who raped and murdered her, essentially doing exactly was her own demise.

Not to mention it also made me feel like crap that even someone in heaven can get laid...
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Megan Brady
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I read the book shortly after delivering my daughter, Rosalind, in my 22nd week of pregnancy. While the book contained horrid deeds, I found great comfort in thinking that perhaps, my daughter was somehow seeing my life, my grief, and my love for her.
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ItchykooParker
04/20/09

@Megan Brady: I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm not sure what beliefs you have in your spiritual life, but I really do believe that those we love continue to know it after they've passed on. I hope you have found comfort. *hugs*
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mysterygirl
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
Eh, it's no Christopher Pike's Remember Me. :)
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Looker
04/20/09

@mysterygirl: haha! Oh, God, I LOVED Christopher Pike's books when I was young.
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mysterygirl
04/20/09

@Looker: Seriously, what other book narrated by a dead girl could live up to the original? :)
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angelina jolie-laide is a gaudy tulip
04/20/09

@mysterygirl: GOD I LOVED THAT BOOK. After I read it, at whatever age (11? 12?), I felt haunted for WEEKS. Looking back, what a silly book.
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DramaClub
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I loved the beginning and thought the ending was a total cop-out. She went down this path and once the good stuff happened, there was no way to end it so she made up some ludicrous bullshit and called it a day.
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mysterygirl
04/20/09

@DramaClub: I agree completely. One thing that bothered me so much **SPOILERS about a book that came out, what, five years ago?** is that she knew that her father was desperate to find her body, and even though she was able to, she never told him, instead focusing on hooking up with some dude she used to have a crush on. I mean, I know that stuff is important to teenage girls, but come on, have a heart.
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Birthday Girl
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I actually agree with Peter Jackson's take on it. As depressing as the premise of The Lovely Bones is, I didn't find the book itself depressing. Something about the image of the victim of such a horrible crime being dry and warm and safe in a heavenly place was reassuring to me.

However, I'm skeptical about how the movie version of this will turn out. I'm also surprised/skeptical about Jackson's decision to direct it which I don't think is unfounded on my part, it clearly has little in common with his past films.
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the dodo, the cuckoo, and the nene
04/20/09

@Birthday Girl: A lot of people upthread have mentioned "Heavenly Creatures" which was also directed by Jackson. (great movie, btw!) He's not just a fantasy movie director.
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Kivrin
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I read this book a few years ago, and I wasn't particularly affected by it. I thought it was just okay. Sad story, decent writing, but overall...just okay.

Anybody else have the same reaction? (Seems like everyone else was really moved by it, and now I'm wondering why I wasn't!)
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Tippi Hedren
04/20/09

@Kivrin: I read it a few years ago and don't even remember the premise of the book. This either means I wasn't affected or that I have extremely poor reading skills.
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Kivrin
04/20/09

@everyone: Whew. Glad I'm not the only one!
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Cookie Dough Monster
04/20/09

@Tippi Hedren: Yeah, my recollection of it was "it's about a girl who died." Apparently it didn't really stick with me... well, at all.
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mysterygirl
04/20/09

@Kivrin: You're not alone. I was enjoying reading it until I hit the end, which I thought was so ludicrous that it actually made me angry.
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Kivrin
04/20/09

@Cookie Dough Monster: Honestly, that's all I remember, too. A girl who died. And something about, like, a cave, or a hole in the ground, or something? Ha, yeah, obviously I was not strongly affected by the novel.
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Aesop's Foibles. YES.
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I liked The Lovely Bones a lot. It was sad, but not overblown sad. More of a quiet, matter-of-fact sad. I've re-read it several times, and certain parts still creep me the fuck out. Lucky, though....I don't know. Certain parts of it made me feel truckloads of pity and sympathy for her, but others made me dislike her intensely. That dislike was cemented early on, when her father asks her does she want anything to eat, and she says, Well, since the only things I've had in my mouth since yesterday was a cracker and a cock....I get that she was angry at having been attacked and made powerless, but for her to be on the offense like that with her own parent kind of surprised me. Like she wanted to shock him or something, and he was only trying to take care of her. That seemed unnecessarily cruel.
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Looker
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
If they include the scene from the book where she is finally reunited with her old dog, I will lose it and start crying immediately.
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lalaland13
04/20/09

@Looker: Me too. I bawled my eyes out at that scene. I cried hard at another scene too, but I'm not quite sure which one. The dog one I remember vividly.
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littlemissvan
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
For books written from the point of view of dead girls, I much prefer Gabrielle Zevin's Elsewhere. But that could be because I read very little outside of the YA section.
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the dodo, the cuckoo, and the nene
04/20/09

@littlemissvan: YES! I Love love love Elsewhere. (and I also enjoyed Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) I also like The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Treacly, but the kids love it. In fact, I have a special booktalk theme dealing with "death". Other selections include Afterlife by Gary Soto and Dead Girls Don't Write Letters by Gail Giles.
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katie.scarlett.o'hara
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I'm so worried about this movie. I don't think I'll ever see it. I had Diane Lane as the mother in my head the whole time, and I always pictured the younger Margot from The Royal Tenenbaums as the sister, Lindsey.

I think Stanley Tucci will be great as the murderer, though.
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lucystrawberry: Tier 2 is the new black
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I watched Requiem for a Dream ON ACID. It was intense. I was a freshman in college. Mistakes were made.
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bluebears
04/20/09

@lucystrawberry hails Blair Waldorfs return!: oh man. my apologies.
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J.D.Regent
04/20/09

@lucystrawberry hails Blair Waldorfs return!: congratulations on making it through the night.
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hydrogen_jukebox
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I can't, I can't, I can't.

Though well written, this book touched on every single thing that most disturbs me, and I can't even have it in plain view on my bookshelf. It's like literary PTSD.

I can only hope to ever write anything that gets such a strong reaction.
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HuckleberryFriend
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
Wait, Peter Jackson? Um...why?
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sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit)
04/20/09

@HuckleberryFriend: If you've seen Heavenly Creatures, you'll know he's way more than just a fantasy-adventure director.
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bluebears
04/20/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): OH MAN! I wish I could friend you all over again for the Heavenly Creatures shout out, one of my all-time favorite movies.
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HuckleberryFriend
04/20/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): Wow. The more you know...
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littlemisslondon
04/20/09

In reply to That's How They Tricked Us Into Requiem For A Dream
I loved The Lovely Bones. What I don't understand is how the author of that and Lucky managed to write and publish that awful, awful piece of dreck The Almost Moon, her sophomore novel. Did anyone else read and hate it?
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katie.scarlett.o'hara
04/20/09

@littlemisslondon: I tried and couldn't do it. About 5 pages in, I gave up. It wasn't engaging at all. It reminded me of "The Dogs of Babel," which was similarly awful.
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