Touché, Alchemist by Windhy Puspitadewi

Puspitadewi, Windhy, Touché, Alchemist, (Jakarta : PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2014)

This 224 pages of story is very interesting. The cover is much MUCH better than the first book that I read. However, when I saw the advertisement of the first book on the last page of this book, it has a different cover than the one that I read...Hmm...

Seeee??? Very different from the picture I posted before at Touché (here's the link), right? If this is the cover, I LOVE IT! And THIS cover perfectly describe the content of the book! LOVE IT!!!

Anyway, back to the second book. Here's the cover and the back.

The cover makes me think the main character is super cool and super genius! But while reading the book, I fell out of love... Well, it's not because of his personality, but because I have very very little description I got from the book....about his looks. The description is mostly about his super messy hair. Though the super genius part is not wrong and the super cool part might not be so far off, but still....I fell out of love. That's all there is to it.

Picture of the back of the book is still with the bookmark there just because I L.O.V.E it. Did u notice the pattern? Oh wait, you need to touch it to FEEL the pattern. Oh my, so addictive to touch (bookmark and the whole cover [both the front and the back] of the book).

Anyway, the book. Hmm...It gave me a needy feeling to finish the whole thing in a day. It has a very fast plot, which entertained me most of the time. 

The second book is much more interesting than the first one, although...the main mystery in the book is actually easily solve in the middle of it. Maybe that's the author's style...? Different from most mystery book, which authors always try to make the readers confuse, Puspitadewi is pretty much very to the point. 

The characters....are not my type... Hahaha. I usually like a cheeky genius brat, but this guy is not really one that I like.. I think it's because of the lack description of him. However! I like his cynical comments. Other characters didn't catch my interest. 

All in all, if there's the third book of this Touché series, I would love to read it. Why? Because Touché itself is a very interesting idea. The fact that the author use some real famous person here and there contribute to my reason too. The kind of book that connect itself to real world around us is the kind of book that pique my interest the most. So...yea. This book is in the list.

Jesie S.
Medan, Wed, 25 April 2015.

Touché by Windhy Puspitadewi

Puspitadewi, Windhy, Touché, (Jakarta : PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2011).

With a total of 204 pages, I finally manage to finish this novel in two days. Thank you, E, for lending me this book! Reading for free is fun. Lol

In this book, I can feel the brotherhood clearly! The brotherhood between Dani and Indra is to the point of an extreme level, but still enjoyable (I use the term brotherhood instead of friendship here because their relationship is too deep to be describe as friendship).

Move on to the next topic... I honestly dislike the cover.... I think the front page does not describe any of the book's content. The cover is like giving the readers (us) a hint that there is deep romance going on in the book. However...., the romance. OMG.....the romance......is too forceful! I cannot see the love anywhere. I mean, please.....in some measly weeks or months, you can fall that deep to someone you just met??? Deep enough to go over your brotherhood. Oh my, oh no. I can't understand it. Bzzz (or maybe it's because I don't believe in love at first sight or love at a few sights or love blooming in a few weeks). I get the author's feeling to insert a bit of romance in the book and how she wanna make it the strongest romance between the best pair or whatever, but still, I can't feel that much love you know. On a side note, of course different people will have different opinion. There are people out there who understand their romance.... Not me though.

Now, then, about the story. It's more like solving the code, rather than uncovering the mistery... Furthermore, the ending is a bit......how to say it..... A bit too happy? Hahahaha. Yea. Well, tht's all~

Jesie S.
Medan, Wed, 22 April 2015.

The Girl with Glass Feet

Have you ever read a book which made you flip open the last page not to read the ending, but just to see how many pages more you need to read before you finish the book?
This book, The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw, made me do it.

Title : The Girl with Glass Feet
Author : Ali Shaw
Year : 2011

My friend, E, lent me this book. She loves it and told me that she likes Ali Shaw's writing style. I was interested and started reading it... Before the end of chapter 1, I looked at the page I was in, flipped the last page of the book, and counted how many pages I need to read before I finish it.

Yes, I dislike the author's writing style. The story is so slow and the too-much-information-detailed description of literally everything annoy me so much! Then...something hit me! I suddenly remembered that this book is originally written in english. In case you're wondering, I read the Indonesian translation. So..well...maybe the english one is not so bad...I thought.

Then, I tried to find at least the preview of this book. I found it at amazon.com here. Oh...bubbles...I still dislike it. It's true that his choice of words are interesting and beautiful and very...fairy-tale-like, also need less page the the translated one, but the slow pace and the detailed description does not change. Though, I might enjoy reading it in english more......nawhh..I think I need at least 6 months to finish this kind of slow-pace-plus-too-detailed kind of book when it's in my second language.

The story itself is not bad, but in my opinion, the ending is too rushed. I feel like the author try to close the curtains too fast. The ending was out of place because of it. Well, the main characters, Midas and Ida, has a nicely placed ending (compared to the other characters, though I still dislike the ending, but at least these two has an ending which was built up by the stories). However, other characters, Henry, Evaline, Carl, Emiliana, Hector, Denver and Gustav (did I mention everyone? Well, at least these are the characters I notice, other than Midas and Ida, of course), has a very very rushed ending. It felt like the ending is suddenly THERE, out of nowhere.

Another character is Midas Crook, the main character's father, who has the same name as the main character, Midas. What a confusing way to name someone. Anyway, Midas (Jr.) has a father, Midas (Sr.), who he hates (and attached to) so much. At first, I didn't pay attention to him. I mean, seriously, the main character having a daddy's issue and that concerning daddy is already dead even before the story started. So yeah, I didn't pay attention to this daddy thingy. UNTIL, page 375-378. Merely FOUR PAGES, and he suddenly become so important in my life! Okay, not in my life, just in this book when I read it. He suddenly took away all of my attention. JUST FOUR PAGES.

I will conclude my post this time with my strongest impression of this book. I wonder which one impress me more, Midas Crook (Sr.) or the fact that I need to count how many pages left before I finish the whole book. COUNT THE PAGE WIN!! I was still counting the pages on the last a hundred pages, last fifty pages, and even last twenty pages! How is that not a strong impression?? Bubbles...the font size is so small, the space is not much, and the description is too much.

Jesie S.
Medan, Thu, 5 February 2015.

p.s. I thought Ali Shaw was a woman, well, apparently, after I googled this book for the sake of writing this post, I found out that Ali Shaw is a guy (from goodreads.com in this link).