The Diamond Connection

The Diamond Connection by Shimrit Hilel is a strange book, indeed. A majority of the story revolves around a love affair between the main character and a married man. The last quarter of the book is about a major diamond heist and completely drops the romantic angle. 

Ella Cohen is a poor Israeli woman. Her father died suddenly, leaving her family deep in debt. When Ella nabs a fantastic job as an assistant at a company in the Diamond Exchange, she thought her entire world could change. Little did she expect how much it would change. 

Even though her good sense told her not to, Ella fell deeply in love with her boss, Danny. Despite the fact that his wife is also his business partner, he gave into the affair as well. Ella thought her life was almost perfect. Danny took her on business trips to New York and London. He even deposited $50,000 into her account to help her family crawl out from their debts. When Danny surprised her with a secret apartment just for them, Ella was sure her life couldn't get any better.

However, during their business trip to London, Ella was abducted by a trio of men. They found an envelope of diamonds hidden in a money belt she wore. Sworn to secrecy, she hoped that there wouldn't be any other attacks. Unfortunately, she was wrong. There were a number of other attacks when she got back to Israel, including her car being blown to bits. But who would want to hurt her? She didn't do anything wrong, besides the affair.

One day, Ella was arrested as a suspect in a large diamond robbery in London. The investigators believed that she supplied the diamonds that were stolen. During her house arrest, Danny stopped talking to her. Yet Ella knew that she was innocent and she was determined to prove it. 

Hm. This book. I have to admit that I actually liked the romance aspect of the story. Not that I approve of married people having affairs but it was definitely easy to get caught up in the joy of having someone lavish all of their (expensive) attention on you. When the story made the major shift to the criminal aspect though...I lost interest a little. It was like it was an entirely different book. Everything that we accepted and knew was completely thrown out the window. While I did enjoy reading The Diamond Connection, I think it would have been better as two separate books - a romance with a different ending and a crime mystery with a different beginning. The rapid movement between the two just didn't make a lot of sense. 

I received a copy of this book for free. All opinions contained within are solely my own.

Finding The Grain

Finding The Grain by Shulamit Hartal is a bit of a strange story. It is the story of Chani Tavin and how she lived her life despite the emotional abuse she received in her childhood from her mother. However, the entire story is told via journals that she kept shortly before she died. 

Chani is the middle of three daughters. Her older sister, Aliza, and herself were born during their mother's first marriage. Their youngest sister, Chava, was born during their mother's second marriage. All three of them experienced varying types of abuse from their mother. From threats of abandonment to overfeeding to controlling what they wore, the girls lived through their own nightmares. 

As an elderly woman, Chani tripped over some psychology books during a trip to the local recycyling center. She decides to take them home. Over the next few months, with the help of her psychologist friend, Iris, she digs through her past trauma to find the real Chani inside. 

In the beginning, I had a difficult time with the book. It seems like every Jewish mother and father are referred to as "Ima" and "Aba." I was easily confused about who they were talking about, especially since the story is told via journals read by Chani's granddaughter. Ima referred to Chani's own mother, as well as Chani herself when her children were talking about her in the present time. After a few chapters, I managed to get everything sorted out.

Once I figured out all of the relationships, I found myself drawn into the story. Would Chani abuse her children the way her mother abused her? Would she always suppress every emotion so she never had any feelings ever? Would her family find out about her inner turmoil? 

It is definitely a well-told story. If you can get past all of the random words in foreign languages (there's some Hebrew, some German, some Polish...), I think you will enjoy Chani's tale. 

I received a copy of this book for free. All opinions contained within are solely my own.

Terry Treetop and the Lost Egg

Terry Treetop and The Lost Egg is an environmental education book aimed at preschoolers or beginner readers. The book tells the story of Terry Treetop, a boy who loves to climb trees. One day, Terry finds an egg. However, he does not know whose egg it is. He visits a variety of animals in order to return the egg to its mother. 

It has been a rather long time since I have read a young children's book. But children don't change all that much through the ages. They want a fun book that will keep them entertained and is easy enough that they can start to read the words along with you. The Lost Egg mostly fulfills those requirements. There are a few words that are a little out of place in a beginning reader book, like "vowed" or " patiently." I'm not sure that young children will understand the meaning of these words, much less figure out how to read them. Also, the book is laid out in a weird rhyming scheme. It seems like phrases are written just to force the rhyme instead of getting an idea across to the reader. 

The Lost Egg isn't a terrible book, by far. I'm just not sure how interested children will find it. Perhaps if there were fewer animals with a  little more interaction with each or if the author dropped the rhyming scheme in order to pass on more information, the book might be a little more captivating. As it is, I don't think a child would read the book more than once or twice before putting it away for good. 

I received a copy of this book for free. All opinions contained within are solely my own.

Out of the Shoebox

I recently got the chance to review Out of the Shoebox by Yaron Reshef. This is the story of a son tasked with finding long lost information about family members who have been long gone themselves. What will he find out about family members he barely knew?

One day, Reshef's sister receives a phone call about a mysterious parcel of land that their father may have once owned. Unfortunately, their father passed away many years earlier. As a result, she passed the call onto her brother. Shoebox tells Reshef's tale of trying to find the pertinent information required to claim the land parcel and the difficulties he comes across when so many of the people involved are deceased.

I found it very difficult to keep myself interested in the story. Reshef's story-telling style drags on with inner thoughts and too many details. Instead of getting to the point, he gives minute details that are completely unnecessary to the story. And just when you are getting into the mystery of the land parcel, he switches over to find information about family members lost in the Holocaust. I really wanted to like the book but I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I only got about halfway through before I gave up. Maybe one day I will go back to find out what happened with the long lost lot. 

I received a copy of this book for free. All opinions contained within are solely my own.

 

Foxbrim's Natural Refresh Toner

December is always a very difficult month for me. This is the busiest time of year at my "real" job and it drains all of the creativity out of me. I will continue to write blog posts and post YouTube videos but they might not be as frequent as they are the rest of the year. Please bear with me while I slog through the month.

On the plus side, I do have a review for you! I tested Foxbrim's Natural Refresh Toner. I haven't used toner in a really long time. Mostly because it seems to burn my face off every time I use it. (Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit.) A lot of toners have an alcohol base and it burns a bit when it touches my skin. Since there is no alcohol in Foxbrim's toner, there was no burning sensation. It actually felt nice and calming instead. 

As I've said before, I occasionally suffer from facial redness in the cheek area. Thanks to the witch hazel in the toner, the redness has started to fade. It's also helped with the wintry dryness in my T-Zone area. I don't know that the toner will completely solve both of these issues but it's nice to know that I can turn to it if issues arise.

This was probably one of the best toners that I have ever used. I love that it is all natural ingredients and that it helps calm all of my facial skin issues. I'm looking forward to see what will happen in the long term with this. 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

One Direction Makeup Kits - Mascara, Lip Gloss, Nail Polish

Even though my daughter is not a One Direction fan, I had to try their new makeup. I mean, when I was her age, I had the Debbie Gibson perfume (which I would still wear if they still made it!) but I don't remember if any celebrities made actual makeup products. Since there are gobs of One Direction fans out there, I needed to make sure this stuff was at least decent makeup. 

First up is the mascara. It comes in three colors - "Why Don't We Go There?" is blue, "Does He Know?" is pink, and "Story Of My Life" is yellow. Personally, I think yellow is a weird color for mascara but I'm not the one that has to wear it. Back when I was in my early 20s, I used to wear blue mascara. Never tried pink though. The cool thing about these is that they also double as a "hair mascara." If you want to add a stripe of color too your hair, you just swipe the brush through the strands. Since my hair is dyed, I'm not going to try that. I will, however, put this stuff on my eyelashes!

All three of the colors came out spectacularly bright. While the yellow is not  my favorite, it still looked nice. Both the blue and the pink looked fabulous! And it is pretty easy to put the colors together for a new look. Say, do your entire lash blue but then put some pink on the very ends. I love it!

Of course, there is also a lip gloss set. This one also has three colors - "Through The Dark" is red, "Taken" is pink, and "Kiss You" is an orange. These glosses supposedly change colors under UV light. However, I don't have a UV light to test that theory. According to the box, the red turns neon red-orange, the pink turns neon pink-orange, and the orange turns neon yellow. I'm not sure how many teenage girls have UV lights in order to take advantage of this "feature." 

All three of these lip glosses have glitter in them. Quite a bit of glitter, to be honest. Considering the target audience, I don't blame them. I think the teenage girls will love glittery lips. The orange one is probably the worst. It barely shows up on the skin. It's basically a lot of glitter with a little color. The pink one isn't too awful. It does have a nice candy pink color, again, with tons of glitter. My favorite is the red one. (OK, they call it "poppy." It's red.) It has some really nice color to it with just the right amount of glitter to make your lips sparkle without looking like you tried to eat a craft store. 

The last piece of the puzzle is a nail polish kit. This kit has three polish colors and three different colored glitter bottles. "Happily" is the blue nail polish, "Moments" is the pink, and "Diana" is a silver glitter polish. The glitter bottles consist of "Kicks" (blue), "Not Afraid" (pink),  and "Star" (purple?). Supposedly all of these also react to UV light.

These things are just weird. The best of the three is "Diana." Even though it is basically a clear nail polish with glitter, it still looks much better than the other two. "Happily" is so sheer that you can see your nail right through the blue. You would need at least three coats for this to have any real effect. "Moments" isn't terrible but it is a very neon pink. Like 80s neon pink. I'm not sure 2014 girls would even want to wear this color. 

I will admit that I did not try to add-on glitter. One, it looks super messy. They come in these tiny little pots and, in order to use the glitter, you would need to pour it out onto a plate or buy a separate brush or something. Two, there isn't a whole lot there. Since I don't particularly want glitter nails, I decided to save it for someone who would want to use it. You might be able to get one whole hand out of each pot. I'm not sure why they made them so small. The nail polish is definitely my least favorite of the three kits.

As a whole, I am kinda impressed with these kits. I figured that, since they are celebrity endorsed products, that they would be complete crap. Just another product made to drain the teenager's money. However, they aren't half bad. The nail polish sucks a bit but it can be pretty hard to find decent nail polish that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. If I were a younger woman, I would definitely use the mascara and probably the lip gloss. They would be absolutely awesome for costumes though. Very bright colors that can be seen from far away. Good job, One Direction!

Want to win your own set of One Direction makeup? Here you go!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free. Regardless, all opinions contained within are solely my own. 

Majestic Bombay Tweezers

I have a tweezer....thing. While we have multiple sets of tweezers in the house, there is only one that I really like and my husband keeps stealing it to use on his fishtank. So, when the opportunity arose to try these tweezers by Majestic Bombay, I got rather excited. If they were awesome, I would have a new set of amazing tweezers. If they were awful, my husband could use those for his fishtank instead of my good tweezers. 

This set of tweezers arrived in a cute little plastic sleeve. I've never had a holder for my tweezers so I thought this was cool and the tweezers are pink, which is my daughter's favorite color, so that makes these cool times two. The tweezers, themselves, are lightweight and the tip has a really nice sharp edge. Impressive!

Time to try them out! I have these annoying little hairs on my jawline. There are three hairs that stick out like a sore thumb. (At least they do to me. I bet no one else even notices them.) I frequently pluck these hairs so I don't feel like some sort of warty evil witch with chin hairs. (OK, they aren't on my chin, they are on my jaw. Don't judge me!) I need my tweezers to get a firm grip on these hairs to make them easier to remove. Even with my "good" tweezers, I have to attempt the plucking a few times before the hairs actually come out. 

The Majestic Bombay tweezers were amazing. They actually grabbed onto the hair the very first try and pulled it right out. I didn't have to try two or three times! I don't think I have ever had a pair of tweezers that worked like that. The only "downside" is that these tweezers are pretty sharp. You need to be careful that you aren't scraping your skin too hard with them or you'll end up with a little cut. However, that isn't very much of a down side for me. I like that the tweezers are on the sharper side so I can get really close to the base of the hair I am plucking. 

That was probably way too much information about my face, right? Anyway, I love these tweezers. It looks like my "good" tweezers weren't all that good. These will be a great replacement. 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Dot&Dot Multi-Purpose Bag

When I received my box of Dot&Dot Packing cubes, I also received their Multi-Purpose Bag. Since I liked the packing cubes, I was hoping that this bag would be just as good. 

I received the x-small version of the bag. This one is 7.5" x 3.5" x 1". That makes it ideal for carrying smaller travel-sized products or a few bottles of nail polish, as seen in the picture above.  A rather heavy-duty zipper holds the bag closed while a clip hangs from one end in order to clip the bag to your luggage. 

While there aren't a ton of things that will fit into the x-small bag, it has been put together very well. I would probably get a lot of use out of the larger bags for carrying around my shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant when the family goes away on vacation. I would probably get more than one bag so I can keep my daughter's stuff separate from mine. If you travel a lot, these bags are definitely worth the price. 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Oleavine Konjac Charcoal Sponge

I have a bit of a fascination with charcoal beauty products. On one hand, they seem to work very well. On the other hand, they tend to be very messy. When I got the chance to review the Konjac Charcoal Sponge by Oleavine, I was super excited. 

Supposedly, you do not need to use any sorts of cleansers with this sponge. You just wet it and wash. When I wet the sponge, I was very surprised that no black charcoal bits came out. Of course, this makes me wonder if there is actually any charcoal in it. I used to use Lush's Dark Angel face cleanser, which has charcoal, and it was a big black mess all over my bathroom sink. This didn't even have any black water, like when you get a new Brita filter. That left me suspicious about their charcoal claims. 

Even if there is no charcoal in the sponge, it is pretty nice. It is rock hard, almost like a pumice stone, when you get it but it gets super soft as soon as it gets wet. Even though I didn't use any cleansers with it, it also somehow managed to make my skin feel smooth. Though I will admit that I did not feel any sort of exfoliation, which is another claim Oleavine makes about their sponge. 

In the end, I am very torn on the sponge. I am rather disappointed about the lack of charcoal in the sponge. I was hoping that this would be something like the Dark Angel cleanser but in a sponge form. In reality, what I got was a nice soft sponge that just did sponge things. Maybe I can find a way to use Dark Angel with this sponge and not make a complete mess of my bathroom. That would be pretty ideal. 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.