Saturday, May 5, 2012

How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend/A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I picked up another of Janette Rallison's fun YA books this week, and this was my favorite so far: How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend. Giuliana is standing her ground. Her twin brother Dante wants the student council to do a memorial for a student who'd died, but they're only interested in spending funds on other things, so he announces he will run for student body president against Wilson, the most popular guy in school. Guiliana will support Dante--even when her fantastic boyfriend Jesse determines to stand by his best friend Wilson. Fireworks ensue.

Rallison has created a multi-layered character in Giuliana, a likeable, flawed heroine who tries to do what's right but keeps getting in trouble. There's a lot to laugh at in How to Take The Ex--Rallison's sense of humor manifests on every page--several times. There's a point where Giuliana is on an unfortunate blind date in front of all the popular people (and Jesse.) The date dubs her "Panther," and keeps calling her that as a pet name. She wants to die--and so did I, laughing. Great stuff. I'll probably read this again, and I almost never read books twice.

I love Bing Crosby, and he's at his best in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, an adaptation of Mark Twain's novel. IMDB describes this as "A singing mechanic finds himself in Arthurian Britain." But it's so much more fun than that! It's great watching Der Bingster going toe to toe with Merlin, showing the villain magician up time and again with things like matches and a revolver he tinkers as a blacksmith. My favorite scene in the movie is when Bing saves King Arthur and their friend Sir Saggy with information from his almanac. So fun. And the music is delightful--of course! It's Bing Crosby. "If You Stub Your Toe on the Moon" and "Busy Doing Nothing" are so catchy we were singing them by the end of the song. We got this DVD from Netflix, and our kids adored it as well.

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