Weather forecast here in the Cayman Islands… rainy enough to qualify as the kind of climate that makes people in most countries not want to get out of bed.
But, oddly enough, a spot of thunder and rain has the adverse effect here in the Caribbean (within reason, bien sure). You see, when you are assailed with unrelenting, bright, happy sunshine everyday of your life, it does, on occasion, make you want to throw something at the gorgeous sun and yell: “don’t you ever get depressed, you asshole? Do you not fat days? PMS? The I-can’t-possibly-go-to-work-today blues???”
It’s hard to stay in and do nothing (and feel validated about it) when it’s all lovely and sunshine-y outside and your conscious nags you about those poor, sun-starved souls in places like Britain, and northern Canada, so you begrudgingly turn off the TV and force yourself to go out and enjoy the lovely day. Again. So today, it is blissfully stormy and I shall neither play tennis, do yoga on the rooftop of the Beach Suites hotel at sunset, nor go enjoy an outdoor lunch. I will stay in and rent a movie, guilt-free.
And now, here are links to the latest reviews for Cutting Loose unleashed upon the cyber world…
“I just started this book over weekend and like it so far. It’s a quick, fun read… and it’s giving me a little background on what it’s like to be a young Palestinian, Saudi Arabian, or South American, woman. Cultures I don’t read much about.” (read the whole review here)
And over at Book, Line, and Sinker…
“Told from multiple points of view, Cutting Loose weaves the lives of three women into an entertaining novel with solid characters and plenty of conflict. Offering more than just the standard ‘chick-lit’ fare, Nadine Dajani draws on her own her own exotic life experiences to create characters who struggle to reconcile their culture with life in sultry, hedonistic Miami…”
“I found the book entertaining and would recommend including it in your summer reading. Yes, it wraps up neatly - but I wouldn’t want it any other way!”
Both Jenny and Natalie are giving away copies of Cutting Loose, so what are you waiting for?? Go enter!
And if you’re an avid reader and bargain chaser (and really, who isn’t these days?) then check out this blog which does the dirty work of tracking down book giveaways for you.
Happy Monday, and thank you to Jenny, Natalie, and Mary!
…Bookfan Mary recommends Cutting Loose as great summer reading! Read the review here!
…Cutting Loose get a full page spread courtesy of lovely friend and editor-in-chief Paris Mansouri, in GORGEOUS Isola Magazine’s premier issue (sadly not available online, but will scan soon, check back)!
…Am starring in my very first book club meeting next Tuesday – eeek, I can’t wait! Will report back with the good, the bad, and the pics. Again, watch this space!
And in non-Cutting Loose but equally fun news,
…Still in love with Cristiano Ronaldo, love possibly growing with every passing day leading up to the UEFA Champions League finals that I have been forced to watch (though not too punishing when Cristiano is on)…
…Queen Rania places 43rd on Glamour’s 50 Most Glamorous of 2009 (a bit premature as far as definitive lists go, methinks, since we haven’t even hit the mid-year mark yet)…
… Bought an Acer Apire One, am HEAD OVER HEELS in love with this teeny tiny three pound, $300 baby!
…Where has Kindle been all my life?? No, I haven’t bought the little machine – though considering how much I move around, maybe I should – I’m just flabbergasted by this post by JA Konrath today delving into the ease of posting your work for sale on Amazon, directly, without going through your publisher, both to help you gain a following and earn a little Manolo money too??? (or these days, help out with the rent…)
I’ve been toying around with the idea of writing novellas (25-50K words) going into each one of my past characters’ lives and what happened to them after the published story ended, sort of like, what if Ali were to run into Miguel again, five years after they met in Cuba? What’s he up to these days? What’s she up to? Is she in a relationship? Would it survive an encounter with Miguel?…
So why don’t we have a little poll – our first ever on nadinedajani.com! If you’re too shy to comment, maybe you won’t be too shy with clicking your mouse!
I’m still slogging through difficult rewrites with my back to an unmet deadline (how, how, how do other writers meet deadlines when they work full-time, how??).
I had run head-on into the dragon of writer self-doubt. It had been in hiding for some time - I was in love with my current novel, I thought it kicked my last novel’s ass, my characters felt deep and fully drawn, the writing light and lyrical. Then I hit a rough patch and suddenly, the same characters that felt so real to me that we could’ve sat down and had martinis together - those same characters started to feel unrealistic, unbelievable, wooden. Their troubles suddenly went from vivid to contrived. Plot fog overtook me. I was paralyzed.
Then, like a sign straight out of a Charlton Heston movie, I got a Google alert for this:
“All I can say is ‘WOW, what a book!!!‘
When I received this book in mail, my only intention was to scan the book, read a couple of pages and then keep it aside for future reading. I mean I do have a TBR pile and I would feel kind of guilty reading this book immediately. But honestly, once I read the first couple of pages I couldn’t stop. It was just that good.”
How’s that for a kick in the behind? I thanked Violet for her lovely review (Violet’s blog by the way, is a great read in its own right with a well-attended community of readers. The Internet is fabulous for this - I never realized how FEW people I know actually read novels until I started writing myself. It’s lonely being a bookworm these days, so thanks to bloggers like Swapna and Violet for creating these communities)
Then, just days after that, fan mail started trickling in. It had been a while since I’d gotten any of that, and to be honest, Fashionably Late was so long ago for me that I feel completely removed from it. Until I got a a couple of lovely, heartfelt e-mails - one from a reader for whom a trip to the Dominican Republic had changed her life. For another reader, the magic had happened in Mexico.
In “On Writing” Stephen King says that writing is telepathy. It an intimate conversation that crosses the boundaries of time and space and convention. Let’s face it, if you happened to be introduced to a woman at a lounge one Saturday night and struck up a polite conversation, you might walk away from it twenty minutes later knowing a few basic facts about her: claims administrator at a medium-sized insurance firm, just got out of a committed relationship, last vacation was to Barcelona, likes dancing, loved Slumdog Millionaire.
You wouldn’t know that that trip to Barcelona changed her entire outlook on life, that things were never quite the same afterwards, or that while she complained about how boring her job was - like everyone does - that she wonders why she feels like she’s living life in the tedium of black and white instead of in vivd color. You won’t walk away from that conversation knowing that the two of you are profoundly connected - that you share the same struggle of trying to figure out your place in the world without the benefit of a guidebook to help you out. Without novels, chances are you would have never met that woman in the first place.
That’s what’s so wonderful about novels - they might not have the answer the you’re looking for, but they do show you that we’re all in it together.
If you think Googling yourself is pathetic, then sorry,but you’re not a writer. Neurotic is my middle name daahlink, no matter how good I am at hiding it (wink).
By now I pretty much know Google first five pages of results by heart, but today guess what popped up on librarything.com - a review! A long, meaty one too.
“I really enjoyed this lovely novel about working women who are making changes and trying to either hold on to the place that they’ve created for themselves in the world, but at the same time working toward expansion and growth. The women aren’t necessarily friends with each other; in fact both George and Joe are both taken with Ranya, much to the dismay of Zahra and Rio, who are at odds with each other with other over the magazine that Rio edits. That was a wonderful change from the regular script of friends working together to overcome the odds - o matter what their differences, and competing interests, they have to work together either to solve a problem or to maintain the status quo with the men in their lives.The characters were well-developed and the novel, which is told through their alternating perspectives, is consistent in their characterization, and it was easy to follow their stories. I like that I got a different view of the lives of Middle Eastern women. It was really refreshing to see a different type of Middle Eastern woman’s life, ones that I wasn’t sure existed. While Ranya’s family definitely has cut her off and wants her to come back home, she has been educated and is adored by her family, and her mother is genuinely concerned about her and the problems that she is having in her marriage. Ranya is just like any other spoiled child who defies her parents and finds that she has to make her way on her own for awhile. In contrast, Zahra is from a poorer Palestinian family who is relying on her to make their fortune.
Rio is constantly trying to keep her place in a male-dominated world after struggling to overcome her poor Honduran upbringing, and struggles with her identity as a darker-skinned, curvaceous woman in a place like Miami, which is dominated by a beach ideal that she does not fit. Rio is such a rich character and her point of view was deeply nuanced, but I was still disturbed to see that she had the most explicit and the highest number of sexual encounters in the novel. But I cared about her, as I cared about all of them. I was particularly interested in the way that Zahra would deal with her family concerns as they competed with her interests and I wanted to know how she would work that out.
Cutting Loose was a great read with a lot more depth than you would expect from the girls-gone-wild cover. I was wary of the book when seeing the cover, but glad that I continued to read because it was a lovely surprise.”
