The Husband, by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is one of the most successful writers of thrillers in America nowadays, and I have read a few of his books, having thoroughly enjoyed most of them. I highly recommend Odd Thomas, Life Expectancy and Velocity.

When I say I enjoyed most but not all of the books I've read of his, it's because he has a knack for solving his mysteries in a supernatural/spiritual fashion, and I'm both afraid of and uninterested in such stories. Cold Fire, for example, is a fascinating story up to the very end, where he decides it is OK to explain everything by way of extraterrestrial communication and the like.

Due to all that, I now only buy a Dean Koontz if the blurb pretty much guarantees that nothing is going to be explained with E.T.'s, spirits, possession, reincarnation or anything like that. That seems to be the case of The Husband, and I promise that, should he disappoint me again, this will be the last book of his I'll ever read.

It's a most gripping story! A 27-year-old gardener -the husband of the title- is going about his business on one of those boiling Californian summer days when his phone goes off. On the other end of the call is his wife, saying she loves him no matter what and that he should remember that forever. A man then takes over and says he has 60 hours to come up with 2 million dollars if he ever wants to see his wife again. Mitch, the gardener/husband, desperately tries to explain to the stranger that there must be a mistake, since he's merely a gardener and has, at best, 11 thousand dollars to his name in the bank, to which the man answers "I know.".

Before hanging up, the kidnapper asks Mitch to look to the other side of the street at a man who's leisurely walking his dog. The moment Mitch looks, he hears a single shot and sees the man's head exploding from it. The kidnapper finally says, "so that you don't think we're kidding", and hangs up.

I started the book yesterday morning, and read over 100 pages in a day. It's one of those page-turners you just can't put down, and so far I'd say it might be one of Koontz's best. Let's see if it'll stay that way or if he'll manage to squeeze in otherworldly elements in the story.

Comedy?Romance? Who cares..it is entertaining!

The Proposal (2009) is certainly another chick flick romance/comedy, girl hates boy, boy hates girl, they play with a very yapping dog, and then “bang” they are in love. However, the predictable plot doesn´t make it less enjoyable, as a matter of fact there are some hilarious scenes that will probably make you believe that it is not a waste of time and money.

The movie begans when a pushy boss called Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is going to be deportated to Canadá because her Visa had expired, although she is a very smart, organized and high-executive woman (just..just..in movies), anyway this is the situation. Then, she hatches an unbelievable plan to get married with her humiliated, but american, assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds, the main reason to watch the movie!!!). He agrees with that sham marriage, which sounds like an workplace bullying, in order to be promoted.

Surprisingly, (really?) all her scheme backfires when Andrews needs to go home for his grandma´s 90th birthday in the remote Alasca, where the whole magic happens in only few days, which is more than necessary to fall in love, meet your husband-to-be family and ex-girlfriend, have a boat accident, get engaged and married (with just one simple fake kiss!!!). Well, at the very least to the movie industry these days are enough, but I do believe that in real life these things need a little longer time to be done.

Anyhow, we can be very demanding when we talk about these movies, they are fiction and invented to entertain us nothing more than that even though I sometimes, just sometimes, would like to watch a chick flick with more real facts or at least probable to happen.

Daiana C. Barbosa, CPE1, Mornings