Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand, a novel by Jonathan Stroud

Nathaniel is eleven years old and a magician’s apprentice, learning the traditional arts of magic. All is well until he has a life-changing encounter with Simon Lovelace, a magician of unrivaled ruthlessness and ambition. When Lovelace brutally humiliates Nathaniel in public, Nathaniel decides to speed up his education, teaching himself spells way beyond his years. With revenge on his mind, he masters one of the toughest spells of all and summons Bartimaeus, a five-thousand-year-old djinni, to assist him. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal Lovelace’s greatest treasure, the Amulet of Samarkand, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion.

This book is some kind of diary, of Bartimaeus and Nathaniel. On Bartimaeus chapters, he gave the footnote of what happened before to the same situations or anything that give extra explanations. And I thought of same thing in Nathaniel chapters. Apparently, not. Nathaniel chapters wrote his story before meeting Bartimaeus until working together with the djinn, in first person point of view. Often, when I was on the beginning of the book, I had to read it carefully to understand.

Bartimaeus is a cunning, funny and strong djinn. I like him. I think of one djinn for one magician for a life time. But I was wrong. Everyone can summon him, or other djinn. When one task is done, magician can free the djinn and the djinn can be summon by other magician. It’s weird.

The second weird thing. Apprentices of magicians won’t allow to remember his/her names. They have to forget all the past and they will be named with new one after twelve. In the mean time, their master call them with just “Boy” or “Girl”. Other magician can call them with their master’s last name.

Tarothalia, a novel by Tria Barmawi

Eventhough she has been fired for three times and hasn’t found a suit job yet, Thalia never think of using her sixth sense to get money. But Bella’s persuasion and her terrible financial condition make her thinking it more. She says OK to Bella who is going to make her an executive psychic.

Out of plans, not only successful, that job changes Thalia to a new celebrity because most of her clients are actresses. The problem is, Thalia never want to become a celebrity.

Now, Thalia stucks in the middle of a pile of problems. Too arogant clients, strict working schedules, complicated love life and her own heart rejection…

Choosing is never easy, even to someone who has sixth sense.

It feels like I read my own story. Some of Thalia’s life have similarities with mine. But not the sixth sense one (I don’t have it and I don’t wanna have it). Thalia and I had wrong major in college and it’s bad to place us in marketing division. We don’t like to beg to customer to buy our products.

This book is not too funny like the previous one, Lost in Teleporter. But it’s still good. I like how Barmawi wrote Thalia’s changing from nobody to somebody. It’s very natural. Most people ever face that. I hope that happen to me, too.

Too bad Thalia broke up with Cassio. I think Cassio is her Mr. Right, but the writer wrote it other way. The playboy met the playgirl and Thalia was the third person. Ugh, that’s bad. And the twist (sorry), finally, Thalia is married with a guy that show up in the last chapter of the book. Poor husband.

Because She Can, a novel by Bridie Clark

Life is really looking up for Claire Truman. In a New York minute, she lands a plum job at a top publishing house, catapulting her out of editorial assistant status and tripling her salary. In the same stroke of good luck, Claire goes from loser magnet to girlfriend of her decade-long crush: the fabulously successful and gorgeous Randall Cox (who's a nice guy, to boot). The perfect guy, the perfect job...it seems like Claire's dreams are all falling neatly into place.

Enter reality. It doesn't take long before Claire realizes she's working for the publishing world's worst tyrant: the outrageously abusive Vivian Grant, a woman who churns out New York Times bestsellers with the same frequency as she sends traumatized assistants flying out of her office in tears. Soon Claire is in staff meetings that feel more like war zones, at a book party thrown at a strip club, and watching Vivian run her employees into the ground and into therapy.

As Claire's job steals more and more of her time and soul, her relationship with Randall begins to feel the strain. It doesn't help that Claire's been spending overtime with Luke Mayville, a handsome, brilliant novelist whose career she's helping to launch.

With her love life at a crossroads and her work life driving her crazy, Claire can't help wondering if her future will have a happy ending. Her career may be on the fast track, but does she like where it's taking her... and who she might turn into?

I can't imagine I have boss like Vivian Grant. Genius, she is, but her tongue is poisonous. She'll make you crazy even if you do the right things. Claire is so lucky she hasn't crazy, yet. She doesn't catch a flu with working rhythm like that. If that happens to me, I must be in the hospital and ask days off for a couple of months.

It's interesting Clark wrote from the climax then back to introduction. Flashback in other way than we usually use. Clark make us hate Vivian successfully. And will stuck in our head longer than we can imagine. All of the negative personalities are given to her, include the positive ones. Completely in one figure. Maybe Vivian Grant is worse than Miranda Priesly from Devil Wears Prada (I don't read that yet).

Luke is a good name for good person. That name is used in Shopaholic series as main male character and he is very angelic (according to me. I want one if there is a Luke in real life). But Luke's portion is too small here. I want to read him growing in Claire's mind. That's too bad.

Reading this book, I know how complicated publishing houses are.