Kick Ass

Being a woman in a country like Egypt isn't an east task, hell, being a human being in Egypt isn't easy at all. 

In the last couple of years those who defend women's rights and feminist groups started to get noticed (some what) while the reactions varied from one person to another it's still a good step. So yeah for some reason today I decided to write about my favorite female heroines and characters  from books. Some of them are crazy and some of them are kick-ass that I think that they should be role models. So today I'm going to prove that not all females are like Anastasia Steel and Bella Swan. (There might be some spoilers here and there). 

1- Hermione Granger ----- Harry Potter series 

Smart, intelligent, nerdy and a natural born leader (in my opinion). Hermione has saved her friends asses a lot of times due to her knowledge and her ability to work under pressure. Plus, she is a very loyal and at most times she acts like the sound of reason to her friends. To me she is my favorite character from the whole series along side the awesome one Sirius Black. 

2- Tris ----- The Divergent series

Living in a mind fucked society like dystopian Chicago isn't an easy task but it took 1 girl, her boy friend and their kick ass friends to change this fucked up society. Veronica Roth did a hell of a job in writing her heroine and develop her the way she did. Tris had it all, courage, sacrifice to the greater good and a hell of a fighter. Tris doesn't give up easily and gave up her life for the greater good. The best thing is that Tris proved to everyone wrong when she showed all of them her ability to become a fighter and a true leader. Tris is the underdog that every one of us wants to be (in my opinion). 

3- katniss everdeen ----- The Hunger Games series

By god her obsession with this Peeta dude is annoying but putting this aside Katniss is a damn good character. Firstly, she took care of her family after her father's death. 2) she is a great hunter. 3)She put her life in danger for her sister when she volunteered to take her place in the hunger games. 4) Even though the idea of the games is the ability to survive, she helped others who were in need. 5) She inspired people to rise up and fight for their freedom. 6) Her ability to survive the games twice and end them. So yeah, as annoying as she is with her Peeta fetish, Katniss is a hell of a heroine. 

4- rose hathaway ----- The Vampire Academy Series 

While the movie was as bad as your you cooking abilities, the books were good and interesting. Rose isn't a perfect charterer and that's the best thing about her. Rose is a hell of a fighter and doesn't give up easily. Now even though Rose is a hell of a trouble maker and she has a somewhat rude sense of humor, she gained the love and respect of her mentor and her guardian peers (long story). Through out the story you'll find out that Rose knows how to survive, how to react in critical situations and she'll do what ever it takes to handle a situation and help her friends and peers. What I like about Rose is her fighting abilities, her intensity and the way she was written. Book by book, her character saw a lot of developments and changes that made me love her so much. Plus she is a really loyal friend and a damn good guardian (A guardian is someone assigned to protect Moroi royals and students). And even though she is tough, she has a really soft and romantic side as well, so yeah she has it all, damn I love her. 

5- Amy ----- Gone Girl

By now you might be saying ''WTF?! Seriously??''. Lets be honest by all means Amy isn't a role model, She isn't a woman who you want you future kids to be like. But by god, she is crazy and an ass kicker. She is more wicked than the devil and boy did she teach her ass hole husband a lesson. Amy in my opinion made the best revenge plan I've ever seen in my life. She punished her husband in an evil twisted way. Amy is really smart and she knows how to plan, she even created a fake diary to bury her husband and make sure that gets fucked hard by the police, how twisted is that?? As twisted and evil as you might see her, she sure made her husband realise that cheating on her is a bad idea. So yeah, if you ladies caught your husbands/ BFs cheating then you know what to do (no , don't do that, its not a good idea, don't try this at home. There are other sane and peaceful ways to solve your problems).

Till now I'm still afraid of Amy, imagine if she was real, yeah that's scary, man. So here you go, those are my 5 choices for now. In the future I might make another list, who knows?? But for now stay safe and don't piss off your love interests, you don't know, they might have an inner Amy or something,,,,

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Inspire a generation...

So last Friday I took part in my second half marathon and it was a glorious day since I succeeded in reaching my goals and well I proved to my self that my hard work wasn't paid off. Running a half marathon is a mental and a physical challenge. You have to work out hard, eat well and prepare yourself mentally in order to finish. At some point yesterday I was getting tired and my knees were killing me but what kept me going was my mind, my mind kept motivating me to keep going and finish the damn thing, my brain kept telling me to keep going and not give up and boy was I glad when I crossed the finishing line and found out that I've achieved my goals. 

So in order to achieve something you need to be inspired and some people get inspiration from books. While some people read self help books to get inspired and others read Paulo Cohelo books to seek guidance from his weird ass novels, I get inspired by reading biographies and memoirs that are either written by or about athletes. I find sports biographies and memoirs both inspiring and interesting to read because you could feel how hard did these people work in order achieve their goals and dreams, And while some of them cheated to accomplish their goals, others worked hard and faced a lot of obstacles to achieve their goals and dreams. And when it comes to hard work and facing career threatening obstacles, then Jessica Ennis is a great example. 

I first saw Ennis when I was watching the Olympics back in 2012 and for some reason she inspired me to do something about my life especially when she cried after winning her gold medal. Seeing her cry on TV after her epic win made me want to go and work the hell out and get fit. Seeing her cry made me realize how hard she worked to win this medal and the picture above is one of my favourite picture from the Olympics and played a huge role in my life. So when I found Jessica's memoir at a book store in Egypt, I didn't hesitate and I bought it though it was so fucking expensive. 

And as I was expecting, the book was really inspiring and interesting. Through her words, Jessica and her ghost writer takes us through her childhood memories, her ups and downs and her frustration when her injury prevented her to take part in 2008's Olympics in Beijing. Reading this book made me understand why did she cry when she won the medal. But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, Jessica had to sacrifice a lot in order to achieve her goals and become Britain's poster girl. Not having a normal teenagers life, dealing with a tough coach, dealing with the pressure caused by the media and working out hard in order to make progress, Jessica like any hardworking athlete went through a lot but it was worth the effort when she won the gold medal in London. And that's the thing, reaching your goals has this sweet taste that no one will understand but you. The book is amazing and inspired me in a lot of ways. At the end of the book there is this chapter that has all of Jessica's numbers and records which I found interesting and made me understand more about heptathlon. So yeah if you guys are into sports then check out this book, if you are a couch potato then read this book, it might inspire you, in other words give this book a try. I don't know what else to say so here is a picture of a potato... 

  

From books to screen (have no other title on mind so just read the damn thing)...

Last week I decided to go and see Insurgent and after finishing the movie I asked my self a really simple question ''What make a good adaptation??''. For example, what made the Harry potter movies so special?? And what made a movie like ''The mortal instruments'' so bad that I actually would rather watch paint dry than watching this piece of tard again.

For years movie makers have been using books as a way to create new movies and franchises and let's be honest here who doesn't want to his favorite characters on the big screen?? But here is the thing while some adaptions worked really well and gained critical and financial success like the harry potter experience others were total flops and were so dull and boring that they don't even belong to the glorious ''so bad, it's good'' category. 

The Divergent Series: 

For me, The divergent book series is one of my favourite YA series though the last part sucked donkey balls but overall I love this series. So after finishing the books I was really excited to see the movies. I got more excited when I saw that Shailene Woodley was in the movie, God I love her. Then when I heard that Kate Winslet was part of the cast the deal was sealed, so yeah I had high expectations towards the movie. 

But boy was I disappointed. Even thought the movie had a really strong cast, it lacked stuff like imagination, character development and a cohesive plot. So in other words the whole thing was a mess. The book was so detailed, you could actually feel how Tris was struggling to find her new self and how she tried to hide her ''Divergent'' identity. Even the characters around her  like her friends and peers, the book did a great job in developing them and giving you an idea about them. The movie failed to  give us characters who we could give a damn about. I remember there was this scene that one of Tris' friends killed himself while it affected me while reading the book, I was like''Meh, shit happens'' when I saw it in the movie, god I felt the same thing whenever someone died in the movie, at somepoint I had to make sure that I was still human because of my lack of emotion . 

Now lets compare this to Harry Potter, through out the 8 parts the movie makers gave us characters who we could relate to at some point, we sure did give a damn about them and yes they were developed in a good way that when Snape died we were all affected by it, that is how damn good the movies were. Lets take another example, the almighty Fault in our stars, this movie made m,e so emotional, why?? Because the way the plot and characters were written were so good that a lot of people fell in love with them and some how felt that they could relate to them but in a movie like Divergent?? Nothing made sense even the characters. Which takes me to another point, the way the events were translated to the big screen. It's not easy to turn a 500 pages book into a movie, you'll have to add and take out things to make the book adoptable. What makes a smart movie is what do you add and you take out and how to tie the whole thing together to make it look cohesive and make sense to whoever is watching the movie. The hunger games series managed to do so in a smart way, the chain of events made sense, the way the characters reacted made sense and understandable and for a casual movie goer the events were laid smoothly and made sense. On the other hand in movies like Divergent and The mortal instruments: City of bones, the screenplays were so confusing and unbalanced that you could feel that you are watching a series of disjointed sketches stitched together by a clumsy panda. Seriously, while I was watching The mortal instruments movie, I was thinking that even the Porn industries have better screenplays than this, I remember when a porn company's executive said that you remove all the porn from his movies and you'll still end up with an interesting film so I wasn't surprised that Batman's porn parody has a higher rating on IMDB (6.7) than the city of bones movie. 

So the real question is:

What makes movies like the Divergent series, the mortal instruments and the Vampire academy suck and flop while films like Harry Potter, the never ending story, the maze runner and others clicked with people??  

What makes a book a delightful experience is the fact that you use your imagination to imagine the characters you are reading about, the places that are being described in the book and the situations that our heroes face throughout the novel, the power of imagination in other words. So when you think about it the idea of powerful imagination and passion is what makes a book something magical. So when a book is being adopted into a movie, being creative and passionate is what will make the movie work and click with the people. For example, when they were choosing the directors of the Harry Potter franchise, as the series went on it got more dark and edgy than the first few part so they brought a director who could translate this darkness into the big screen with the help of great screen writers and the result?? An epic finale to an epic franchise.    

I remember watching The never ending story when I was young and boy was I hooked because of the creativity and passion that was used throughout the film plus the movie's and the book's message were really good and made me love the whole thing.  Sometimes production companies just want a quick way to make profit so they make shitty choices that leads to boring and forgettable movies. Making money isn't the problem, who doesn't want to make profits?? But this doesn't mean destroying a great source material aka the book it self for nothing. And after seeing The divergent's series latest misfire Insurgent god only know how painful the third part will be, especially that Allegiant is a god awful book by it self. 

But hey, for every Divergent we have the hunger games, For every giver we have the maze runner and for every Twilight (lol) there is the Fault in our stars. So you see the idea isn't about the adaptation itself but the way the adaptation is being handled. 

....God, I love this movie (and yes I also adore the book)....

   

  

Fifty shades of grey

So a friend of mine decided to challenge me to read the Fifty shades trilogy and since I'm a really competitive person, I don't really say no to challenges so I was like ''Hell yeah, bring it onnnnnnnnnnnnnn''

So with part 1 out of the way, how was the experience?? I actually knew what was I getting my self into, but by god I didn't expect this book to be so hilarious and fun in such an unintentional way. What was supposed to be a romantic/ erotica book turned to be one of the funniest and corniest books I've ever read in my life. Before we dig deeper into this anus of a book, yes there will be spoilers. 

So what made this book entertaining?? Let's take a look.

The plot here is simple, Ana is an English student and her best friend Kate wants to interview this rich dude ''Christian Grey'' but she is so sick so she asks Ana to go and interview the guy. Okay, fair enough so Ana goes there and finds out that almost all of Grey's employees are blondes, at this point I was like seriously?? And no one sued the guy?? Moving on, so Ana meets this Grey dude and just like that Ana's inner goddess is awake and she has a crush for the young billionaire and suprisngly so does the young Billionaire. So yeah we have a young ''naive'' and boring girl who has a crush towards a fucked up and rich guy with a dark history, well sounds familiar but I wonder why??

The plot is so unoriginal and boring in a way that EL James had to find out a way to make it sound interesting so firstly, she decided to make Grey a normal human being who doesn't sparkle in the sun and secondly she introduced us to the world of BDSM and hardcore sex.

I really don't know what to write and that's the thing the book is so mind numbing and ridiculous so lets start with Ana herself. Ana was supposed to be this shy 21 years old virgin who didn't have a boy friend before but after one like she turned into this sex addicted whore who just wants to get banged as soon as possible. Like seriously after just one time she discovered her inner goddess and by god this inner goddess thing is the most entertaining part of the book. Through out the book you will find out that Ana's inner goddess can:

1- Give you the middle finger. 

2- ''"My inner goddess jumps up and down with cheer-leading pom-poms''

3- "My inner goddess is doing backflips in a routine worthy of a Russian Olympic gymnast."

4- "My inner goddess roars …"

5- "My inner goddess is standing on the podium awaiting her gold medal."

In my opinion Ana's inner goddess is the true hero of the whole book  and at some point I was like who comes up with such lines?? I don't really know but a big thank you to Ana's inner goddess for cracking me up. 

As for Christian, the guy doesn't ''make love'' but he fucks hard. At some point I was like '' This guys is some sort of a sexual cyborg, he can't be human''. I mean the guy bangs Ana in almost every chapter, every time and everywhere, the guy has like a never ending erection. I was expecting him to reveal himself as some sort of a robot or a mythical  creature . 

Another thing that popped into my mind is the fact that Grey has condoms like every where, May be he owns a condom factory or something, the guy  is full of surprises. 

One of the the things that caught my attention that Ana didn't have an E- mail. So in 2011, 21 years old Ana didn't have a fucking E-mail, WHATTTTTTT?! Back in 2001 my dad was like 50 and he had an E-mail!!! and boy the why she and Grey communicate with each other, they send E-mails to each other, no seriously. So both of them have Blackberries but instead they E-mail each other, no messenger, no BBMs and no E-buddy, the E-mail. This is stupid by all means, I means who doesn't have an E-mail!! The novel was written in 2011 not in 1980. 

But what about the relation?? Here is the thing, there is no relation. Christian is this creepy bastard who controls Ana in the worst ways possible and Ana is stupid, really stupid and she doesn't have any self esteem. Christian has issues, really fucked up issues and is a real control freak while Ana is like ''Hmmm, Am I good enough for him?? Does he love me?? Will he make love to me??'' Screw the guy and just RUN!! Don't look back, just run from this maniac. So at some point you'll have to say that the book is demeaning to women and while I might agree with you but who would take suck a book seriously?? This book is like watching porn, porn doesn't make sense, porn is demeaning, but its porn, who takes porn seriously?? This is a porn book, a guilty pleasure, a piece of cheap fantasy that shouldn't be taken seriously. This book shouldn't be even discussed with a straight face and even though it's funny but towards the end I was like ''this is too much for me to handle''. I started to get bored and the sex scenes were so much, it's like adding too much salt on your food. Imagine getting bored from sex, that's an accomplishment by it self. The ending in my opinion did make sense, at last Ana decided to spit it out and told Grey that she loved him and he freaked out and that's the thing, the guy doesn't want to have a romantic relation with her, all he wants is to fuck her hard, control her and satisfy his needs, the relation should have ended before it even started.

 The only thing that might make me complete the series is to know more about Christian, as fucked up as he is I want to know what made him this way. So sum things up, we have two fucked up characters, a doomed relation, a lots of condoms, stalking, dancing inner goddess, never ending orgasms and laughable sex scenes. So how to rate this book?? Lets ask Ana's inner goddess:

Yup, she had fun and so did I, literally wise its crappy but it's in this area of so bad it's good and boy I'm a fan of such thing...