Book Review, Promise Me by Harlan Coben

I am a big big fan of Harlan Coben my earlier review on one of his book 'the woods' can attest to that. I stumbled upon on of his other books, Promise Me expecting 'fireworks'. I was however a bit disappointed, the book only captivated me towards the end. I however love how the story ends, a very unexpected twist. here is the plot as explained by Wikipedia.
"It has been six years since entertainment agent Myron Bolitar last played superhero. In six years he hasn’t thrown a punch. He hasn’t held, much less fired, a gun. He hasn’t called his friend Win, still the scariest man he knows, to back him up or get him out of trouble.

All that is about to change... because of a promise.

The school year is almost over. Anxious families await word of college acceptances. In these last pressure-cooker months of high school, some kids will make the all-too-common and all-too-dangerous mistake of drinking and driving. But Myron is determined to help keep his friends’ children safe, and so he makes two neighborhood girls promise him: If they are ever in a bind but are afraid to call their parents, they must call him.

Several nights later, the call comes at 2:00 am, and true to his word, Myron picks up one of the girls, Aimee Biel, in midtown Manhattan and drives her to a quiet cul-de-sac in New Jersey where she says her friend lives.

The next day, the girl’s parents discover that their daughter is missing. And that Myron was the last person to see her. Desperate to fulfill a well-intentioned promise turned nightmarishly wrong, Myron races to find her before she’s gone forever. But his past will not be buried so easily - for trouble has always stalked him, and those he loves are the ones who suffer. Now Myron must decide once and for all who he is and what he will stand up for if he is to have any hope of saving a young girl’s life."

The plot is sourced from Wikipedia, and I have deliberately omitted the last paragraph so as to leave you in suspense. I would give this book a 70% rating and The Woods 97%. its a good read, well worth your time though.

Njoki Chege Musings, What me thinks.

Am an avid newspaper reader ,especially the weekend editions, I spend a greater percentage of my time in the library reading the latest copy, but I digress, in the Saturday Nation, a guy seeking to divorce his wife petitioned the wife to pay him for the dowry he had paid when they were getting married. The court acted in his favor, and asked the wife to pay him half the amount, plus interest.
I'm totally not in support of this,  I mean the minute we divorce I pay you back dowry? Was I an investment plan?? Njoki of course had a lot to say about this, and for once I agreed with her, partly,
The part that really got to me was when she 'outlined' what your husband should do for you, and, wait for it, drumrolls.... pay your rent, buy you a house, a car and service it, pay your Masters degree, give you money to send to your mother (LOL!! DGD!! GOR!!), give you money to buy dresses and shoes, create an emergency fund for you, and the list goes on and on..
The main question I had was is this guy your husband or father or money machine?? that list really baffled me, and I asked myself am I the one underestimating our men or is she expecting too much??
I honestly do not expect my guy to be catering for all my expenses, whether husband or boyfriend. why then will I be working?? to spend all my money on manicures and pedicures and spa treatments?? Buy me a dress once in a while not daily, fuel my car when you use it, and don't pay for my masters, am the one studying, not you. as for sending my mum money, only I can do that, thank you.

To the guys, what will you do in terms of buying and spending for your wives and girlfriends??
To the ladies, am I expecting too little?

Musings of a Catholic girl

Dating as a Roman Catholic is one of the toughest things to do in this modern age. The church has so many teachings and doctrines. Seeing that many Christians embrace “scripture alone” concept, as a catholic it is difficult to explain the concept of tradition, history, magisterium and natural law all as part of teaching. The thing I love about being catholic though, is that it occasionally offers the perfect excuse to blow off guys, especially the ‘savedies’ who have made it their purpose to convert every Catholic they date into a ‘christian’.

The bells in your head are ringing but his handsome face,gentlemanly behavior got you sprung like a puppy; and doesn’t his knowledge of the Bible just make him so much more attractive? It is all fun and games then he declares that Catholics worship idols. 

You get into terminator mode, guns blazing programmed to kill and bury this excuse of a relationship.

“Watch your step brother! How dare you claim that the Holy Mass, which happens to be the highest form of worship on earth, is paganism; what are you implying? That my family and all the 1 billion plus Catholics are pagans? Just because you can quote a few Bible verses you think you are an expert? 

And just so you know this ‘pagan’ church through the Council of Hippo in 393 A.D. gave you that Bible. You are welcome earth! Besides I can’t marry someone who disrespects the Virgin Mary like that.” Does this conversation sound familiar anyone?

Sometimes though you meet that great guy who loves the fact that you go to mass and pray the rosary often. He thinks Saint Joseph is totally cool. He gets your obsession with visiting the Vatican and he respects your view on evolution, salvation and wine. You definitely hit the jackpot girl.

Notice he said wine, not vodka or brandy you idiot!

However there is that extra thing you have to discuss. Green sex. If there is one thing I have struggled with as a catholic is the issue of contraceptives. This is where dating as a catholic becomes complicated. Having to explain to your boyfriend that you have no intention of using pills, IUD, patches, condoms or any form of artificial contraception once you are married is one of the trickiest conversations you will ever have in your life. Please note that you explicitly refused to move into his house before marriage, you have refused to have a civil wedding at the AGs, now "ati no contraceptives?"

“Natural Family Planning,” you calmly reply.

“You mean hiyo story ya kucount safe and unsafe days?” he asks bewildered.

“Not exactly, but close.”

“Si we know exactly how unreliable that is, right? What if we end up with ten kids?”

”I know but science has made it possible for the accuracy levels to be much higher am talking 99% here and besides aren’t we supposed to be open to life?”

“Okay how about withdrawal?”

“No withdrawal either, because to contracept is to willfully exclude the possibility of a conception that could result from a sexual act and withdrawal does exactly that, you have already compromised the integrity of the marital act.”

“Okay so how is Natural Family Planning different?” he asks now completely amused.

“Okay NFP is different coz it allows the act to remain open to the possibility of transmitting new life, which is part of its natural purpose. Besides children are like flowers, you can never have too many of them.”

“So you mean if we don’t want too many flowers we are going to have chill in marriage?”

“Exactly,” you reply excitedly.

 “Interesting,” he replies absentmindedly.

“I know, I can’t wait for us to hustle together, taking temperatures, observing fertility symptoms, keeping a fertility calendar in our bedroom and periods of abstinence when we are dying to have each other,” the excitement all over your voice is palpable.

 You want do a ‘My-boyfriend-is-on-board-with-NFP’ dance but you control yourself instead and make a mental note of the theme of your wedding.

 “Okay,” he says in a flat tone.

“So when we do get engaged, I suggest we start those NFP classes immediately so that by the time we get married, we know we are good to go. We need at least 8 months of practice to know exactly how to go about it and during those 8 months we have to be abstinent for the sake of accuracy.”

“So you can’t compromise on this contraceptive thing?”

“No, you do know the church considers it gravely sinful and besides we have so many methods of NFP that are as good as those artificial ones, furthermore we can’t have as many kids as we want, we are not rabbits. It is prudent to plan our family based on our emotional, social and financial capabilities; if we are to be responsible parents. It’s going to be fun.”

“Okay sweetheart I hear you,” he says and kisses your forehead. You can feel the butterflies and your heart races. You hug him and your heart swells with love for him. This guy gets you. 18 months later and you still have that chemistry. On your matatu ride home, you upload a photo on Instagram of you and bae.

with a battalion of hash tags #myboyfriendisbetterthanyours #trueloveforever #cutie #funtimes #awesomestcouple #javacoffeehouse #pizzawithbae #loveninjas… …etc.

You get home and you feel like cooking something new. Looking through your recipe book and you settle for Chicken Creole; it apparently only takes 20 minutes to cook and it sure does look good.

 It’s now 8 p.m. and you are in the kitchen preparing your ingredients. You can’t wait to be done, take a picture and send to bae via Whatsapp flaunting your culinary skills. After all how many women does he know who can make chicken creole and perfect round chapatis? He’s going to be so lucky to have you as a wife. Your phone buzzes, it’s a text from him. You can’t help but think how in-sync you are because he was also thinking about you. You open the text:

“Hi after much thought I decided that your demands are too much, I want to be able to have sex in marriage, whenever I want. The idea of chilling most of our married life since the unsafe days outweigh the safe days doesn’t appeal to me very much. I am so sorry to do this. Wish you the very best.”

Yes, who said being catholic is easy? Just because we like to drink wine moderately doesn't make it easy.

Note: This article is intended for entertainment purposes only and should by no means be used as an explanation of the Roman Catholic faith and morality of the issues discussed.

Of 50 Shades of Grey and the numbers game

So Valentine’s weekend was the premier of 50 Shades of Grey, the movie. The movie set up two very opposing camps. Those who termed the movie sick and twisted; my Facebook timeline was filled with these. I saw blogs about how the movie set behind the fight for gender equality, how the movie misrepresents love, 10 reasons I will not watch 50 shades of grey among many others I will not bother to get into right now. On the opposing side are those who termed the movie as “harmless”, “flirtatious” or “fun”. There are enough blogs on that too.

When 50 shades of Grey was first published I was keen on getting a copy myself. Most of my girlfriends were praising this book and I was tired of being left out of the conversation. Now if you know me, you know there is nothing I love more than a good book, a hot cup of tea and my duvet on a weekend. So when I finally had the trilogy in soft copy, I was beyond delighted. I have a rule for filtering out a good book from a bad book; if it is still terrible at Chapter 8, it is a terrible book. It had terrible prose, bad dialogue and do not get me started on Ana’s inner goddess.

By the time I got to chapter 8, I knew the storyline was pathetic and not worth my time. I however attempted to read past chapter 8 till 12. By then I was so irritated that I just hit the shift and delete button on my computer and tried to wrap my head on how such a lousy book made it to be a best seller. So I searched Google for the plot. I was curious, perhaps I had bad taste or I missed something. The search results just confirmed my fears; if it wasn’t for all the explicit content this book would not have seen the light of day let alone getting published.

Our generation needs to start reading. I am talking Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Chinua Achebe and Harper Lee among other great authors. Blogs and newspapers are not literature, they are just articles. Get off the social networks and nourish your mind. Why you need to upload a #selfie and #groundie of you doing absolutely nothing, beats me. I am hundred percent sure that if it was not for the social networks, the 50 shades trilogy would not have gotten published let alone make it to best seller status. That woman had major life crisis, she spilled her crisis on the internet and became a billionaire thanks to this hash-tagging and trolling business.

I am however appalled by the need of majority of women to label 50 shades as a love story or romance. The closest label I ever seen to what exactly it is, is “mommy porn”. Why is it even called “mommy porn”? Does the label make the book less of what it is? If you ask me what the book is, I will call it a poorly written work of pornography or erotica. Now I do not know the difference between erotica and pornography but someone used a metaphor of feather versus the whole chicken and another said the difference is in the level of lighting and another said it depends with your taste. I however do not believe in the erotic-pornography continuum, it either intends to sexually stimulate or otherwise; simple.

Back to 50 shades, this is not a review of the book or the movie, I am more interested in why women want to hide behind the love story label. Why are women afraid of owning up to their sexuality? If a man watches porn, it’s normal but when a woman watches porn the whole world is horrified. Explains our hypocrisy about 50 Shades and the insistence to have a movie produced under the genre of ‘chic-flick’ or romance. It even explains why there are few to zero ministries to help women deal with pornography addiction. Women apparently do not struggle with the disorders of lust. Lust is a man’s problem. If I read another hypocritical blog about 50 Shades being sick and twisted or it being harmless fun, I will just flip. It is porn and it is exactly how porn is supposed to be. No grey areas about it, pun intended.

Women just like men are human beings and sexuality is an aspect of being human. While women are encouraged to be chaste, men are encouraged to explore their sexuality and gain as much experience as possible. Why the double standard dear society? It is a badge of honour for a man to have bedded half the town but a shame for a woman to have done the same. This is pretence of the highest level. Why society, why?
With women, your sexual experience is the definition of your character. A virgin is mostly considered a better woman than one who has slept with too many men. It doesn’t matter if the said virgin is a gossip, mean, pompous, rude among other negative things while the other woman is kind, empathetic, and humble among other positive things. Because of their sexual experience their character is decided in the eyes of majority. Even in 50 Shades Ana, the lead female was a virgin and Grey, the lead male had a vast history of sexual experience. Why couldn’t it be vice versa or just let Ana have experience too? It just goes on to perpetuate the double standard lie of virginity.

There is nothing that annoys me more than the numbers game. ‘The master key and crappy padlock’ metaphor to explain the differences in sexual values among men and women. Whoever came up with that needs to be beaten up. If you are not familiar with it, do not bother knowing what it is. I do not want your values corrupted. Women need to watch their number of sexual partners but for men who cares about numbers right. Too many partners and you will be termed “spoilt goods”, “easy” or “loose”. Why were these terms invented? Recently, I asked a girlfriend of mine why women should observe the ‘famous’ 90-day rule. She said to protect herself. Protect herself from what exactly? She calmly replied, from sleeping with the wrong guy. Who is the wrong guy? The guy who does not love her. So it’s okay to sleep with the man who loves you but there is a problem if a woman has a friend-with-benefits or a one night stand? So why isn’t there a 90-day rule for men? If you ask me, the 90-day rule is the most foolish thing I have ever heard in my lifetime. According to scientific evidence infatuation lasts for four months; so if the guy was only infatuated with you, will 90 days make him suddenly fall in love with you? I doubt it. If he was planning to “hit it and quit it”, I highly doubt 90 days will make a difference. The 90-day rule is just part of the numbers hullabaloo. What is it with men and asking about a woman's sexual history? will it make you feel better that there was only one guy before you or do you seriously expect a thrill-seeking, beautiful, extremely liberal, single woman past the age of 30 to have only slept with three guys since her first experience at 18? Take it from me: if she is past the age of 25, do not ask, you do not want to know.

As women we need to stop calling other women whores, unless it is her profession. If we women call other women whores, won’t it not give men the right to do so? Your sexual values are personal and that is between you and your creator. Do not impose them on others. You believe in waiting until marriage, good for you. Do not call other women whores because they choose otherwise. So you have had numerous FWBs, do not call other women prudes or uptight because they are not as liberal as you are. So you only have sex when you are in a relationship, do not frown upon her choice to have casual sex. A woman’s sexuality and sexual choices is her business. Women just like men are more than their sexual choices. Our sexuality as human beings is something personal and we should keep it that way. The point of this rant is, sexuality just like religion is universal, there should be no double standards about it. An atheist, muslim, christian, hindu or agnostic is such whether man or woman. If we are going to use labels let the rules apply to both men and women. So ladies can we agree that 50 Shades of Grey is not a love story?

Work versus Family.

A while back our group leader asked us to post something about work and family, it’s been a while, (sorry) so here goes my thoughts about it,

Am at a point of my life where my time is balanced between doing a very tasking management research paper, doing a couple of assignments and continuous assessment tests, and the major stressing bit, applying for jobs. This has got to be the most stressing moment in my life, sending your CV everywhere until one of my good friends joked that our job should be stated as “kazi yangu ni kutafuta kazi” loosely translated to mean “my job is looking for a job”. Really hoping that I do get that job, you know THE JOB!!

I do have other dreams though, of getting married to a blah blah blah you probably know those qualities by now, from my previous story, (remember Maxwell??) and having 3 or 4 beautiful kids. The problem is I don’t want to be that woman who is getting kids way past 40 years (no offense) just cause of a career. Sure I want a fabulous career, scale the corporate ladder and run a successful enterprise, but then again at what cost??

Let me digress just a little bit and give a story about me growing up. My dad (RIP) was a banker, later got to learn he was a credit officer at National Bank of Kenya, and he was a one busy individual. He would leave very early in the morning and would come back home late in the night. Was it work it?? On one hand, money was not a problem, anything you wanted was available, food, trips, cash anything you name it, it was available. However this came at a cost, very heavy cost, he was never ever available. I rarely saw him and I missed his fatherly in my life. I was pretty young and I often asked why I didn’t get to see him as much as I wanted and why he was never there.

A friend of mine argued that we need money, but I beg to differ money is something, that I do not dispute, but it is not everything.  Money can get you a house not a home, money can get you an education but not knowledge and wisdom. I may be the CEO or CFO or those other many titles that I may possess, but if I go home to any empty house with only a cat to keep me company, then my life will not be complete in any way. I may have all the wealth on this earth but with no heirs to my wealth? It will all be vanity.

I desire that my children will get to spend one on one time with me, that I will get to play and jump around with my children. I desire to spend a lot of time with my children especially in their young and formative years.

If it means staying at home with my kids for some time as a stay at home mum, that I will do.

For me, family and only family comes first.

A blast from the past.

MEET THE WOLVES OF KABETE STREETS….

It’s a dark Monday evening. No lights. Darkness looming over the chilly environs of Kabete. Lovers in bed trying to affirm their quail egg myth, loaners curled up in the middle of nowhere and a number of other activities going on everywhere else .I can only understand the beasts. They’ve braced the weather; the marauding nature in them can’t allow the damn weather to dampen their spirits.

With much articulation and mutual understanding, volunteers procure wood from without, put up a fire at the famous Dunga and its roll and go at the uniting grounds…

First, it is a few individuals smoking, wining, facebooking  and all the lot with some melancholic type just staring on as the sparks gather momentum. Thirty minutes and you can trace virtually all the Kapenguria Hall residents at the gathering. Evidently enjoying the warmth or just being present. Some seasoned drunk comrade complains of the awkward silence and threatens to put out the fire. The grunts and giggles, awkward as well, give the impression that no one want to get out of the mystical feeling the Bonfire is generating. A few lonely or maybe just courageous fun loving lady comrades come peeping (it may as well be In search of ‘warmth’) at safe distances. But we are all safe here anyway.

As the muffled chats and giggles die down, the expected happens. The crowd loving politicians, amazing how they come to know of gatherings, come around to air their perceived impactful ideas on the electorate. First is some block J resident. Smart and confident carrying about an aura of self importance. He utters some verbal diarrhea and leaves. All the people can get from his poorly delivered speech is that he’s a module 2. “We want a kaquater to role our way. Not  empty talk from loose mouths .We protect our own dude!”

 Second on the unprogrammed list is another aspirant. Calm by nature but I guess the little cash with him stirs some unexploited potential that he thinks if  put into good use can add to his fortunes. He ‘speaks’ well amidst a few disturbances and totally squashes the crowd with a few bottles of sober drinks to make legends out of the already drunk boys. The teetotalers also have something to smile about as they each get a ‘Madiaba’- old-fashioned for that one big bottle that fills your bowels with gas. The aspirant leaves and the name sink. Washington.  Hope its not going to be a ‘wash wash’ affair signor Washington. These guys are damn unpredictable!

9.00pm. Dying embers and so are the hopes of many to continue enjoying the free flowing warmth of comradeship. Noise: whistles, much shouting and all that is ghostly can be heard. The source, some other pocket of goons led by the most distinguished HR manager (with a beverage name) and his ‘sons’. The elder son, a noisy lot utters unprintables to the crowd for ignorantly  watching the fire die out and threatens to  kick their fucking asses off but restores hope  by volunteering to “get more wood for these motherfuckers!”. True to his word, he comes moments later loaded with pieces of Timber and a lot of plastic. We gladly take in the hydrocarbons without saying a word. This is heat man; we don’t care what’s burning.  Hats, Plastics, beds , chairs people or Pants. We don’t care.

With no provocation whatsoever, the elder son starts throwing insults at whomever he thinks deserves them. The other baby faced son keeps close to his dad stick in mouth, bottle in hand…. “I keep my cool man. Me not a fucking nigger that pours shit on people. See?”

All this time, a couple of silent sponges and rodents have kept their word by remaining faithful to their drink and grass. The noisy son stirs them up by pulling a joke on the dress code of one. The self praising US raised nigger stops chewing, looks at his Timberland shoes and shakes his head probably wondering why the world is moving at such a slow pace. He resumes the cud chewing and again stares at his maroon office trousers and the rather grey shirt and shakes his head again. Truth just dawned on him, all his pieces of clothing aren’t matching! Who cares about fashion and dress codes anyway?

"Am a nigger of my own class. I do what I want; you got shit in between your ears man. I chew this stuff coz I don’t wanna sleep (hungry maybe). Get me more drink muthaf*!” he blubbers with a rather heavy Kamba accent. The crowd goes wild with such laughter that am afraid my eardrums will need special attention. A friend to the nigger, some Afro guy can’t let the moment pass. He narrates of how the  US raised nigger (a lover of Ugali) paid a visit to the local Poshomill at Mwimuto but got drunk along the way just to end up buying a sack of Mogoka totally forgetting everything about maize and milling. Here he is, hungry as hell. All he has to do is add more drink and herb juice in his already charred belly.

The HR manager wonders aloud how a panel of professors sat down for whooping hours and settled at enrolling such heads at one of the most prestigious University in Kenya.

 All that follows is a myriad of jokes thrown haphazardly. Ranging from how to use the toilet (a guy swore that no one sits on the damn things! We all step on them precariously. You hit the target and run to avoid the splash.) to how best to get good grades. Amazing how they can’t dare digress much from the mainstream-Academics. Academicians indeed!

As the uproar intensifies, some timid first years can be spotted in the midst. Probably trying to understand a Kabete gone mad. The actors run low on jokes and sarcasms. Am still to know where the idea came from but ‘Event organizers’ thought it a perfect opportunity to endorse one of their own. Talk of weight and weighty matters. Mzito for President. ‘Mzito apewe pahalI pazito’ is all that can be heard. The Njenga Karumes, Waititus, Wakolis and Atwolis of our time take it upon themselves to welcome the president address his people. The ones wild crowd now exhibits the quietness of angels. Am amazed so we all are sober? The President indeed speaks, just for formality, for his endorsement goes unopposed.

Truth be said, He’s a good guy-the kind of leader so rare to come by. Not in for power but comes to articulate issues. Focused and real, with no known personal interests. Who can say no to such a pearl? Mzito for campus REP. It is done.

Lots of love Bcom class of 2015, an amazing lot. I finally got what love UNITY means. God bless...