Book review: The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konigsburg

[Spoilers throughout because this is an old story about an older event and I don't care]

E.L. Konigsburg is the author of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler (I think that's the title; I'm not bothering to look up the spelling), which I love. I've read a couple of her other books and really like her voice/writing style. I was excited about this one because it's her take on why a thieving apprentice might have been important to Leonardo da Vinci and why LdV might have painted an unknown merchant's second wife when he had all the big names in Italy begging him for a portrait.

Clearly she loves the Italian Renaissance era and finds it fascinating, as this is the second (as far as I know) of her books that deals with a secret behind a beautiful artwork by a teenage mutant ninja turtle  Master from that genre/era. However, I was disappointed in this book. The premise was interesting, and while I feel that the idea that Salai (the aforementioned apprentice) was Leonardo's foil and basically allowed him to be carefree and daring vicariously through him, as well as Salai being in love with the duchess, had a lot of promise, ELK basically did nothing with these ideas. There was a lot of description and scenebuilding, everything that ELK is good at, but there was no plot. No one really had anything to lose (although the duchess dies and it's sad because everyone liked her and she's the sole rounded female character). There were no stakes. No one really changed much at the end of the novel. It just was kind of dissatisfying.

Salai as the protagonist is almost entirely unlikeable. He has no moral scruples whatsoever and is completely baldfaced about it, with no negative repercussions to anything he does. The tone of the book didn't match with Salai's tone and vocabulary, which was weirdly slangy in a 20th century way. Despite the title, the subject of the Mona Lisa literally enters the book about three pages from the end. According to this book, Leonardo painted the portrait of this second wife of a nobody merchant because Salai saw that she was basically who the duchess would have been had she lived, and he talked Leonardo into doing it. Yep. Freaking Salai. I don't hate this book, but I feel annoyed that ELK didn't turn it into what it could have been. This could have been really something. It's like you had all the necessary ingredients to make a really good cake, but instead you have a weird flat boring doughy substance that is edible and not that bad but it makes you mad because you could've had delicious cake! 3/5 stars probably

Makeup review: Maybelline Color Whisper lipstick in "Who Wore It Red-er"

A while back I tried a couple of my best friend's lipsticks, which were the same brand and type but different shades (an explanation if you are confused by these terms). Maybelline's Color Whisper lipsticks are glossy, sheerish shades that are very light and smooth and glide on easily. I tried a nude shade and a peach shade, both of which can look harsh or weird on my skin, but because they were so light and sheer they actually looked really good. I decided to buy my own tube, and opted for "Who Wore It Red-er" (um, Maybelline? The word "redder" exists. Use that. People are going to know you're punning "who wore it better".) since I'm always on the hunt for the perfect red lipstick (the makeup-wearing human condition). This shade was just as smooth and slide-on-y as the others, but it was otherwise disappointing. Who wore it redder? Everyone. Everyone wore it redder, because this lipstick is not red. It is a sort of ambiguous magenta (feel free to use this as a band name, just give me 10% of your band's earnings).  The picture above does have an Instagram filter applied, but it was chosen for increased color accuracy since my cell phone camera is weird and makes things come out both darker and more washed-out than in real life, and it doesn't quite show the correct shade, which is quite vibrant. It's a magenta that looks kind of reddish if you look at it quickly. But it is decidedly not red. Because it is so smooth and slick, I feel like the color kind of slides around on your lips and possibly outside your mouth into Not Lip territory. It is also hard to apply it accurately from the tube; using a lip brush would probably correct that. Since it's so glossy, your lips don't really dry out the way they do with matte lipsticks, but the color kind of feels like it stains your lips, which is strange because initially it feels like you have to apply a lot in order for the color to look even. It takes a lot more wiping to get it all off than you'd think, for a lipstick that's practically a gloss in stick form. Anyway, I give this particular tube 3 out of 5 stars.